Shutterfly Digi Scrap Blog

A Big Welcome to: Ali Edwards

We are thrilled to have the extremely talented Ali Edwards here with us as a featured artist and guest Blogger. We are excited to share a wonderful insight to her life, her business, and of course her art. We are going to start by having Ali share a bit about herself.

"I am a wife of 11 years, a mother to two who are seven years apart, and someone who gets to do what they love for a living. For the last six years I have maintained a blog at www.aliedwards.com that is all about documenting and celebrating daily life with photos and words.

I design digital/hybrid scrapbooking products for Designer Digitals  and traditional stamps for Technique Tuesday.  I have also written four books about scrapbooking including A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking, A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking With Patterned Paper, Life Artist, and Sharing Your Story: Recording Life’s Details With Mini Books.

I work from my home in Eugene, Oregon where we take lots and lots of photos.

I started scrapbooking in 2002 when my son was 11 months old. I began because I couldn’t find a baby book that fit my particular style (more modern/linear and less cute). I was surfing around online and came across a link to the scrapbooking site www.twopeasinabucket.com and that was the beginning of this crazy journey I have been traveling for the last 8 years.

I really, really love scrapbooking and can’t imagine my life without it."

Below Ali has shared some inspirational layouts with us. We hope you enjoy them. They are very thought provoking!

Thank you: Kirsty Wiseman!

We send out a big thank you to Kirsty Wiseman for sharing such wonderful inspiration with us over the last few weeks.

As a special gift to all of you, Kirsty has created a mini-kit free for you to download. You can create your own digital scrapbook pages with the freebie graphics in a program like Adobe Photoshop Elements. Please remember that all graphics are for personal use only.

Below are a few samples from the kit! Enjoy!

Download Merry Kissmas Mini Kit by Kirsty Wiseman

Tech Talk : By Kirsty Wiseman

Kirsty Wiseman shares some info about technology with us below.

What is your favorite piece of technology?

"Talking from a photographers point of view, that would be my Canon 5D and the 24-70mm 2.8 L USM lens. Its perfect."

Share a favorite digital technique with us.

"My favourite digital technique is using texturiser - it makes blank digital cardstock look like Bazzill paper"

Do you hybrid Scrapbook?

"I love to hybrid scrapbook - especially if it's on a 8.5x11 sized layout. It means I can print text/graphics straight from my printer onto the layout."

Check it out! Here is a link of a great tutorial that Kirsty has created on how to make a blog header. Enjoy and please share with us any blog headers you create from the tutorial. We enjoy the inspiration!

"Merry Kissmas" Plopper: By Kirsty Wiseman

Christmas has come and gone so we need to do something with all those wonderful photos we took. Kirsty Wisemanhas created a cute square plopper page called "Merry Kissmas" for you to drop your favorite holiday memories into. All you need to do is download the file below and use a program like Photoshop Elements to add your own photos and journaling to the page. You can print the page at home or have the square page printed at Shutterfly. The page can be added to a scrapbook album, displayed on the wall, or could even be added to a Shutterfly photobook. There are a ton of options out there for utilizing your creations!

Please remember that all freebies are for personal use only. Enjoy!

Download Plopper_merry_kissmas_kirsty_wiseman

Ready, Set, Scrap! : The New Year Challenge.

It is the New Year---Welcome 2010! There is really no better way to ring in 2010 then making a "Scrapolution!"  (Ok, that is my crazy, made-up word meaning "How many layouts / photobooks am I going to create in the year?"

Setting a goal always helps me focus on what I've done in the past and what I can look forward to accomplishing in the future. If you haven't ever created a Shutterfly photobook before than perhaps your goal is to organize and create your first book in 2010. The goal doesn't have to be huge but just a step in keeping your photos organized and your artistic juices flowing.

I have set a personal "Scrapolution" of creating 12 photobooks this year. Some I will use scrapbook pages to create and others I will use the templates provided at Shutterfly. That is 1 a month, a bit lofty for my but I feel inspired. (after all, it's only January 1st!)

Please feel free to share your "Scrapolution" in the comment area. It is always inspiring to hear what others have planned for the year when it comes to creating layouts and photobooks.

Happy New Year to Everyone! Alicia