My Studio

The image for this blog heading is my old studio in Virginia. My studio space in Florida doesn't photograph as well. I took over the living and dining room of this house and laid out my studio to have space for paper, computer, sewing, and embroidery. I ended up putting in a space for my grandson to work on his projects. Paper is the northeast corner, embroidery is the southeast corner, sewing is southwest, and reading/grandson space is the northwest corner. He gets the square coffee table and can sit on the floor.

There are five bookcases. There are crates, boxes, and tubs. There is storage under the paper crafting tables and under the cutting table. I have my grandmother's sewing cabinet, my mother's sewing cabinet, and my grandfather's curio cabinet. Storage, as they say, is non-trivial. There are also six tables for workspace, not counting the ironing board.

While ten people could not all work in here at once, there are ten separate work zones. Cutting, sewing, ironing, reading, kid, computer, embroidery, diecuts, paper and stamping/beading. I use lots of local lamps as the living room has no ceiling light. The dining room has the chandelier, that I got Bud to loop up high enough to walk under. Neither window gets a lot of direct sunlight. That's a Good Thing down here. Direct sunlight = hot. 

I put up a folding screen to block access from the butler's pantry and a dog gate to block access from the front hall. There are toxic things in my studio that would kill Jack if she were to get her teeth into them. Jack would not still live Some of them are stored well within her reach. Even my grandson is not allowed in if I am not in here with him.

Even with this incredible workspace, before I quit working, I didn't feel like making stuff very often. Now, I'm getting back to work in a big way. Each day I either make significant progress on a project or I finish something off. With all that, I have only  started my attack on three years of round tuits.

Digital Journaling

I don't do much. I want to do more, but I don't like the fonts that I've got. I knew I didn't do a lot of digital journaling, but it was brought home to me when I looked at sample pages for a weight loss kit. I didn't buy the kit, but it struck me clearly that I wasn't writing anything much on my digital pages.

I have been working in paper a bit recently and I realized that I journal a lot more on paper than I do in pixels. I need to find a 'favorite font' for digiscrapping and then I'll probably do more.

A Case of Aha!

One of the reasons I'm not doing a lot of digital scrapping is that I'm not very happy with what my finished layouts look like. They don't feel interesting, they just feel 'slapped together' and I think they all look alike. I was looking through older layouts and I realized that I'm falling into a rut. If the embellishments that I choose are made by the same person and I'm not thinking creatively, I'm not going to get anything that I like out of the time I put in.

I'm going to stop using that designer's kits and go back to using the designer that got me really interested in digital scrapping. Sorry Flergs, I'm heading back to Ztampf! Instead of providing me with complete kits, down to elements with shadows already applied, Fhung gave me a starting point and I created from there.

Digital Kit Shopping

These days, I'm not finding digital kits that interest me enough to buy them. It isn't that the kits are poor quality. I simply have most of the things that I need or want. And if I don't have them, I can create them.

I read about women who will buy a kit and then only use it to make a couple of pages. They are constantly shopping for something new. Once they find it, they play with it briefly, and then they are off shopping again. I like to think that I use a kit for more than a couple of pages. If I look objectively at my stash, there are kits I use again and again and there are kits that I don't use at all.

My frugal soul has taken note of this and until I have used more of my stash for creating pages, I won't feel comfortable buying more. I can't help but think that the more I use my stash, the more content I will be with what I already own. The majority of my stash could be used to scrap anything at all. I've got a limited number of holiday kits, but mostly, I get digital items that could be used for any event. I've also got a lot of templates and actions to create effects and textures with things that I already own.

My challenge to myself is this: I will continue to create layouts and I will not purchase anything additional for my stash until I am absolutely, completely bored with the items that I own. And not just irritated that I don't already own the perfect item, but can't work through this problem any other way but to get something new, no ideas left and no inspiration can be dragged out of my brain bored.

With the inspirational references that I have and the stash that I've got, I expect not to be bored for several years.

I Can See!!!

I have finally gotten my dual monitor set-up back in place and I'm using the flat panel for my browser. The resolution is great. I can see! I'm looking forward to doing some digital scrapping again.

But right now, I need to be thinking about what I'm going to do for dinner for my Wonderful Husband. He had to work late and got all grubby. He just called and said that he was getting hungry. Hmmm... Dinner. Dinner?

Very Different

For a change, I've got photos of an evening out where I didn't spend all of my time behind the camera. There are lots of photos of me. We went out to a type of karaoke bar, and I like to sing, so I sang. And played and danced and my husband took pictures of me.

It is an odd feeling to be scrapping myself.

I'm also realizing that the way I'm currently scrapping, I couldn't give credit should I post a layout. I'm jumping through my kits and picking out the ones that I want for each photo or element. I'm not saving information about the kit or the designer.

A Layout Finished and Jaguarwoman

If I don't ever sit down at the computer to scrap, I'll never get digital scrapping done.

I finished a layout this morning and I'm pretty happy with it. Mostly because it is finished, but also because it has those silly birds in it. Whenever we play golf at Mill Cove in Jax, we see these birds wandering about. So I took pictures of them. The paper and embellies are all from Flergs latest kit, Tinker Toy.



I took a look at Jaguarwoman's store. She's got some different graphics, for sure, but the site is a tangled navigation mess. She needs consistent headers on her pages. I'm going to try to download her freebie to see what kind of quality she has going on. So far, what I like is her innovation. What I don't like is how STRONG her colors and designs are. I don't want to create something that's going to overpower my photo. I don't like her need to manually manage her clients. Isn't that what computers are for? To manage routine tasks? And last but not least, she needs to realize that even in fantasy worlds, people come in different races and colors. There are way too many pale people in her collection, and not enough of other skin tones.

No Mojo?

I just haven't had much mojo lately. My life is in turmoil, in transit, in flux. I've been spending my energy hiding from this and not looking at my life to scrap it. But as I was going through my finished layouts, I realized that I also simply haven't been sitting down to get any scrapping done. Oh well.

Slideshows

I'm thinking about creating a slide show of a selection of the digital layouts that I've done. I was looking through my directories of finished layouts and I realized that I've been a busy woman. In 2009, I completed about 150 layouts. I don't even look through my own layouts that often. All that work, safely backed up, but more or less ignored.

Another option would be to print out the layouts and display them with my paper scrapping work. Yes, everyone in the family owns a computer. Everyone. But would they care about looking at a slideshow? Would they sit through it? I think it would get looked at once and then put somewhere 'safe' and never looked at again.

I know I look through my own computer every so often, but more often, I show people the paper scrapbooks. Would I be happier getting books printed, or would I prefer to print my layouts at 12" x 12" and put them into the stash of paper scrapping albums that I already own? I could then tell myself that I'm being frugal.

I also don't want to have to decide on some kind of order for a book. If I put pages into albums, I can adjust the order.

Well, no matter what, nothing will get printed unless I convert the files to .jpgs, instead of layered .psds. That's going to be the thing that keeps me busy for a while.

Print vs. E-zine?

I'm not a fan of e-zines. I've never liked them. I like e-books. I like magazines. But an e-zine? Not so much. The digital scrapping world has both print and e-zines. The print ones come out on time. The e-zines? When you see them, you see them.

Why is it that a group of friends with limited experience think they can create a successful magazine when large publishing houses approach the task with caution, and frequently fail anyway? Many magazines have a limited lifespan to begin with, as they are riding the crest of a popularity wave that soon ebbs away.

Crumple the Photos?

OK, I'm playing with Flergs 'SamandDean' kit and I've gotten this far. I used MGLScraps CU 'Wrinkled Textures' and 'Playing With Paper' by Natali Design. IIRC these are all from ScrapbookGraphics.

I was trying to decide if I wanted to 'float' elements above the crumpled layer using drop shadows, or if I would crumple elements to match the background. Crumpling along with the background won't be easy, but it could be done. And I think it would look pretty darned neat.

Creating Layouts

I used "Chocolate Berry Reloaded", by Flergs for all of the paper and elements. I used "Playing With Paper" by Natali Design for the paper template to create the crumpled layer.

I think I've found my mojo again. I have been creating layouts with no photos, using kits that I got recently. I've been having a lot of fun with them, starting with one kit and then looking through my collection and pulling things from different kits if I need to use more stuff.

Staying with a single designer, but using more than one of her kits works well for me. Since designers often slightly modify and re-use their elements, I get a layout that doesn't look like it was thrown together like a Frankenstein monster.

I've also discovered that I don't mind using gel, plastic and even the occasional glitter style, in moderation. There's a great tutorial on MGLScraps CT Blog that helped me discover what 'moderation' actually was.

FWIW, I still don't use the Magic Wand tool to select areas that I want to put a style on. I prefer to use the Quick Selection tool, because it is easy to add to or remove from the selection.

That's Not Gonna' Work....

I believe that the digital scrapping world does two things wrong. First, designers as a group give too much stuff away for free. Second, there are too many free tutorials that are excellent and cover the basics and beyond.

Remember what your mother used to say about buying cows when milk is free? When there are lots of freebies out there, it makes it hard for someone who is trying to sell a product to convince a potential customer that their product is worth paying money for. Especially when it isn't any better than the free stuff. Sometimes it's last month's free stuff.

The designers I buy from have very few freebies available and there are no good, free Photoshop reference books. They don't give away the milk, I'm willing to buy a cow. I'll buy on sale, I'll use coupons, but I'll buy. I'll buy because it is more convenient than waiting to find a freebie. I'll buy because I know it will never be a freebie. I'll buy because I saw it in a gallery and fell in love with it. But I don't ever buy because I got a freebie from them.

Vaporkits?

Vaporware is software that hasn't been written yet. Or it is software that is supposed to have certain abilities and doesn't deliver them. Most commonly, it is software that is released later than the announced date and/or is missing functions that were promised. Vaporware is a bad word in the geek world.

I live on the east coast of the US so when it is early in the morning for me, it's still the middle of the night for a person living on the west coast. A kit that is to be released on Wednesday and actually is released on Wednesday morning on the west coast, shows up at lunchtime for me. If it's something I'm looking forward to, I'm a bit annoyed. Wednesday is half gone. I wanted that kit first thing in the morning! If I was awake at midnight, I probably checked the site, hoping it would be there.

In many web store applications, it is possible to upload an item for sale and set a date and time for when it will become available to the public. At the correct time, poof! the item is available for sale and the seller could be sound asleep. Or still having that first cup of coffee. Or halfway around the world in a completely different time zone entirely.

Digital vs. Paper

There have been a couple of discussions on a forum I read regularly about how paper scrappers don't like digital scrappers. Or so it is perceived by digital scrappers.

The few reactions I've gotten about digital scrapping that some folks might hear as negative, I hear as fearful. People fear and think they dislike things they don't understand. People used to fear the telephone, electricity, automobiles, and the Internet in general. I remember trying to show folks on-line forums back in the 80's and they were negative and derisive. Now, they are regulars.

I say, just give it time. The paper scrappers that feared digital will end up using and understanding digital scrapping and won't think twice about it.

Not the Tricky Extraction

I was goofing around in Photoshop and the next thing I knew, I had done this. All the paper and embellishments are from Lorie Davison, of Scrapbook Graphics. Is it Fine Art? No, but it makes me giggle. You'll recognize hubby, and that's me up on the wall.

Sucking Down Tutorials...

I have discovered another source of tutorials for digital scrapping. The forums on some of the websites that sell digital scrapping kits. I kid you not, these ladies are giving away instruction for free that I'd pay good money to get. I just grabbed one from the Studio Girls website that is teaching me hot to get a layer to mold to the layer underneath it. Like when I've got crumpled paper and I want to put text onto it. Yeah. We've all fought with that one. You put the text down and adjust the opacity, but then the text goes all pale and faint.

Here's a link to the tutorial. It might turn you off, because there are no nifty pictures to go along with it, but I was just fine. The lady writing the tutorial also listed the reference she used. Hmmm.... Another book I might like to look at. I'll bet it's expensive. Perhaps I could find it through interlibrary loan?

I Need A Pin

I need it to pop the overinflated balloon that is my head. I did a second fantasy layout of a friend of the family sitting on a mushroom. In the photo I took, he had been sitting on a park bench. I sent a copy to Wonderful Hubby who gushed over it and sent it to the friend. More gushing ensued.

Honestly? I didn't think I'd done enough work to have the layout qualify for that amount of praise. While everyone else sees an incredible layout, I see the things that I still need to learn. I wasn't pleased with the shadows that weren't there. I wasn't pleased with the different qualities of light. I've got a long mental list of the things that I'd like to get better at and do differently. I am a beginner in this style and my layouts show it.

But one thing hubby said made me crack up. "Jean can put you in a fantasy world sitting on a mushroom, and they can't come up with Air Force One in a picture of New York City without actually flying through the city and scaring everyone half to death."

NSD Loot

Everything is downloaded, everything is unzipped. I'm still tagging things, but I had time to create a layout.



The paper and embellies are from Lorie Davison. After I did a little poking around on DigiShopTalk, I found that her style is called fantasy. While a lot of her kits contain faeries and similar fantastical creatures, there's enough other, non fantastical items that I'll be able to use them. I really like the different ways that I can put a photo into a layout. She provides windows with transparent backgrounds, and doorways and other idea stimulating objects.

NSD Shopping Success!

OK, over at Studio Girls there is a designer named Lorie Davison. Go. Shop your little heart out.

Lorie's why I posted about extractions earlier. I wasn't sure, then I opened up her kits and started looking at the bits and pieces. I went back and bought more of her stuff. Yeah. She's that different and that good. I'm not sure if other designers are copying her, or if she's copying someone and just doing it really, really well. Methinks she's the leader of this fad and if she wasn't the one who started it, she's the be-all and end all of it.

I got so many kits that I ended up also getting (for free, from a different site) a Firefox plug-in called "Down it All" to manage the files. I set up that long list of files to download and went off to watch the NASCAR race. In Richmond. When I got back to my computer, all the files were downloaded.