Digital Scrapbook Crop

I'm digi scrapbooking these days and even getting LO's done at an on-line crop. It's an event at Debbie Hodge's site at least every other month, sometimes more often. Cool to interact with folk around the globe in a hobby we all love, some paper (or "lumpy" as a medical colleague, George, would say), some digi and some hybrid scrappers. It got pretty quiet late in the day we were all either tired or busy trying to get something done to show for all the time we spent. It's a nice community.

When I went to Victoria, BC I was able to take some great night photos and that inspired this LO.

TDF65: QWS Alchemy, J Labre Somethingness, T Martin Missing You; Karla Dudley Kit for Scrapaneers; Pixels and Co. Dream Kit, Fonts: Zapfino, Avenir

My grandson is always an inspiration and this cute kit made documenting this very easy.

Kit from TDF63 Juno We are family Brush Karla Dudley for Scrapaneers Fonts: Times New Roman, CK Disco, Template Donna Jannuzzi BPC Sketch Solutions

I was willing to share my screen during the Get It Scrapped Get It Scrapped/Masterful Scrapbook Design crop and I'm sure I made it clear that building a page does not happen neatly and cleanly for me. I always envy how easy Debbie Hodge makes it seem.

Still, I have a plan for what I put on a page. Almost always photo, journaling and a bold or multi-font title. I love patterned paper and usually want to use several patterns. In digi, vellum overlays are nice. I like fiber either in string, ribbon or stitching. Texture and dimension are important and I try to make sure there is often some shine as Lisa Dickinson advises in her essential steps for a page. (I like how she revisits old pages and gives them a redesign. It's very inspiring.)

Even when using a template, like I did in Seeing the world through the eyes of Donovan layout, there are a lot of choices to make. Once, I would have just clipped all the photos and papers into the assigned spots and looked for templates with embellishment clusters to help me organize my embellishments. I'm getting pretty confident about editing photos these days, adding strokes and shadows and placing my elements. Odd, how with paper it all seems easier. Of course, I cannot change the size of physical products vs digital's versatility so options are clearer. The character panel is another part of Photoshop that I've been using often, too. Maybe a font class is in my future? 

I'm comfortable with opacity changes but am just getting starting to get familiar with brushes, blend modes and masks. I am a fan of a clean or slightly grungy look but it's always fun to experiment. So, maybe I'll be trying a few of those artsy brushwork pages soon? Then, again,  there is all that paper product to dive into...