Cathy Zielske's Blog

Color and patterned paper and gratitude and adhesive

I recently wrapped up teaching my Design Your Life workshop over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I ran the workshop twice during the past two years and have decided to retire the class and begin working on a new design course which will debut in 2011. 

After going through it the second time, I realized this: I really like a lot of the pages I did for the class. I like the sketches. I like the finished pages.

I'm going to be releasing several of my favorites from the class over at Designer Digitals in the coming weeks for anyone who wanted to take the class but couldn't. 

One of my favorite layouts from class was from our week studying color, and it looked like this:

 

(The papers are older on this page, forgive me for not providing links.) The challenge was to take some of the fear out of combining patterned papers. The solution? Find a few papers that pick up color from your photos, and combine them with neutrals (white and kraft). And don't lose to much sleep in the process.

This Gratitude Template is available as a layered PSD file, but also in PNG and PDF for you non-Photoshop users. You can print out the PDF onto your choice of neutral cardstock, trim along the crop marks, and create one or several pages to document things you are thankful for.

My students became very familiar with printable PDFs and crop marks. For those of you who are unfamiliar, you can use crop marks to show you where to trim your photo/element etc.

I created a lot of the original artwork for the class using Adobe InDesign, which allowed me (via a plug-in) to put custom crop marks on all of the elements for my class.

Crop marks can be tricky to use at first, but here's a quick photo montage showing how to use them with a paper trimmer:

 

For this example, I simply printed out the PDF file onto my favorite Bazzill white cardstock, and trimmed.

You can use crop marks in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements when you print something out. Let's say you want to make a 4 x 6 journaling block with crop marks. You simply create a new document that size, add your journaling, and when you send the file to print, you select the crop marks option (in CS it's under the Output drop down menu; in PSE 8 it's "More Options" and "Trim Guidelines.")

I decided to make a new layout in my gratitude series, this one focusing on being grateful that I have such amazing access to good food, and that I can afford to go out and get it. My page ended up looking like this:

 

I took some of my papers from the Studio Calico Joyland kit and paired them with some simple neutrals. My photo had color all over the place, so I just took a deep breath and thought, "Just grab two papers that go together (they both shared my favorite shade of green) and two neutrals and make the page."

I will tell you this: I stress far less over choosing the best colors ever as far as my patterned papers go these days. Sometimes, you've just got to let go a bit, and say, "This'll do donkey. This'll do."

SUPPLIES: Little Man Zig Zag Quite Contrary 2-sided paper (My Mind's Eye) • Avignon paper (7gypsies) • Gratitude Template (Cathy Zielske for Designer Digitals) • scallop blade (Fiskars) • chipboard heart (Heidi Swapp) • ZIG Writer

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3-PARAGRAPH PRODUCT REVIEW

 

Another thing I used on the layout above was the new This to That line of adhesives from American Crafts. You all know how much I adore my Kokuyo dot runner adhesive, but being a long-time fan of American Crafts, I was happy to test drive the products.

Of the three, my favorite by far was the Dot Runner. It went onto my paper like butter. I also really liked the strip glue runner. My least favorite was the solid glue runner, but I'm just not a fan of solid glue runners in general.

While I still have a mad stash of Kokuyo left, I'm happy to know that I could easily switch to this product with zero reservations.

If you have any questions today about the layouts, feel free to post in the comments.

13

Some pictures really need no further explanation.

14

It's my girlie's birthday today. She's 14.

At 1:40 p.m. on this day in 1996, I became a mama.

Now there's a little slice of awesomeness for you.

Happy birthday, sweet girl. I love you.

p.s. I'm sorry I said that one skirt and that shirt weren't your best look the other day. Fourteen years and you'd think I wouldn't put my foot so squarely into my mouth, but guess what? I still occasionally do.

I love seeing you become.

Fun with hybrid scrapbooking

Last week I received a lovely sneak peek of Studio Calico's April kit, Joyland, in the mail. Happy to have some new product to play with, I spread it all out on my dining room table and fixated immediately on the lovely analogous colors of some of the patterned papers, a package of rub-ons and some very cool photo negative frames. I knew I wanted to do something with the those products, and combine them with a bit of digital play to create the following layout:

 

I'm sorry, but this is one damned fine scrapbook page.  I Tweeted about this earlier in the week. 

 

The point of this post is two-fold. Here's the first part, the why I love this layout part. Let's break it down into a schematic, shall we? (click on the image below to see it larger in a new window)

It's one of those scrapbook instances—scrapstances, if you will—where everything is working and the overall awesomeness of the scrapbooker (i.e. yours truly) cannot and will not be denied.

(Wait…was that out loud?)

The only thing wrong with this, if I'm being honest, is the lack of journaling, and the tiny bit of trapped white space in the center. Believe me. I lost a little sleep over it, until I said, "The awesomeness shall remain as is!"

The other part of this post is that this page exemplifies my favorite kind of layout: the hybrid page. A bit of paper. A bit of digital. A lot of end result goodness. Here is a little tutorial showing you how I figured it all out.

Hybrid Digital Scrapbooking Tutorial from Cathy Zielske on Vimeo.

Some might say, well why go to all that trouble? Why not just go full-on digital? My answer? I still love the smell of Kokuyo Adhesive in the morning.

Leave any comments or questions today. I'll be reading all weekend!

Supplies: photo frame, patterned papers, rub-on: from the Joyland kit (Studio Calico) • Dotted&Dashed Brushes & Stamps • title stamp: Sentiments No. 1 (Cathy Zielske for Designer Digitals) •  District Thin (free font) and Adobe Woodtype 2 fonts

Blog about me

Me: What should I blog about?

Aidan: Blog about ME!

Me: Okay, hold still and I'll take some pictures.

This is Aidan. She is my teen-aged child.

She likes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ben Folds, salt & vinegar potato chips, watching episodes of House and Bones online, sitting in her room in the dark, and texting with her boyfriend.

She is a vegetarian who doesn't exactly eat much in the way of vegetables.

She is wicked smart and funny.

She sings. She plays the guitar. She writes short stories.

I have a hard time remembering what she was like, even just five years ago.

 

She will not always live in the same house as I do.

Sometimes, that makes me very, very sad. Sometimes, not as sad.

I have a hard time believing I'm part of the two-person team that made her.

 

I sure do like her though.

Into

While I never purport to be a harbinger of all things Cool and Desired, every now and then, I love to share some things that I'm really into right now. Shall we begin?

Eco Bags Lunch & Snack Bags

My sweet daughter is very talented and has many gifts. One of them, however, is not the ability to keep a lunch box for more than a few days at a time. I found these canvas lunch bags from Eco Bags and ordered three. That way, she can workshop a few before she figures out the key to long-term lunch bag care. You can draw on them with Sharpies, too. I suggested she write: DO NOT FORGET ME in large balloon letters. I'll let you know if she takes me up on that.

Chico Bags

While I was browsing the Eco Bags site, I decided to order a few more bags to take with me to the grocery store. Now that I'm a guilt-free member of the co-op, I don't want them to kick me out on account of not having the right type of cool, earth mother tote bag in which to transport my pricey organic produce homeward. I ordered two of the basic Chico Bags, and one of the Sling bags, which is made from 99 percent recycled material, primarily plastic bottles. They're a good size, and I love that the Sling bag will criss cross my slowly shrinking body.

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Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

I've known about Jamie Oliver for a while, but never looked any further into his whole gig. That was until last Sunday night, when Cole and I decided to watch the sneak peek of his new series airing on ABC. 

Did you see this show? And if the answer is "No," I strongly urge you to watch the series premier this coming Friday night. Cole and I were really drawn in to what Jamie is trying to do (make people healthier, make people cook their own food, make people spend time together during the process) and I personally decided I adore this man instantly.

A little spoiler here: Jamie starts his efforts at an elementary school in West Virginia, and Cole was shocked to see kids eating pizza as part of their school's breakfast program. If Cole, a kid who eats virtually NOTHING was shocked, that's saying something.

That night, as I tucked him in, Cole said, "Mom, I'm inspired." This has translated to my boy eating eggs and toast for breakfast the past few days instead of sugary cereal, and having carrots with his dinner. Score one for Mom! (Thanks, Jamie.)

Needless to say, until his show airs on Friday, I went out to buy his most recent cook book. He has a pledge he wants you to take that encourages you to learn at least one recipe from each chapter, then share it with other people, as in, teach them how to cook it.

So far, I've only read in 15 pages, and I've flagged almost all of them. Are they healthy? Sure. They may not fit into the Weight Watchers low points category, but they will fit into trying something new and trying to encourage the kids to eat more variety and even get involved in the process.

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Cook's Illustrate Light&Healthy Special Issue

I've long been a fan of Cook's Illustrated. Their well-researched, no-nonsense approach to teaching people how to cook is both amazing and efficient. This is a magazine sampler of their newest book of the same name, which I'm going to strongly consider buying if the recipes in this special issue are a hit.

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Bath&Body Works Energy Scent Aromatherapy Products

I smell really good right now. I do. I'm sorry. I just do.

My sister in law bought a mini sampler of lotions for Aidan for either Christmas or her birthday last year, and one day I asked her, "What is that smell? It smells so good!" and Aidan said, "It's the lotions Debbie gave me," and I knew, I must smell like this. And frequently.

I bought the lotion and the body mist. It's supposed to smell like orange and ginger, but I just think it's very earthy and a little masculine, and woody and yet fresh at the same time. The nice thing? It's not super expensive and you can get it at any mall. 

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And that concludes what I'm into. For today.

Had a moment this weekend

Saturday morning, 8-ish, I'm laying in bed, knowing it's time to get up, head towards the bathroom, and my new digital scale—you remember, the one that put a whole new batch of weight on me in an instant last week? Yeah, that one.

I shuffle down the hall, remembering to clip on my pedometer as soon as my day begins (every little step counts) and as I step into the bathroom, I think, I'm not stripping down to nothing. They're just pajamas. How much could they really weigh?, when it hits me:

It doesn't matter what the scale says this morning.

I feel good. I look good. I AM good. I'm eating well and moving my body. I'm giving back to this physical structure that houses me. I'm holding up my fair end of this symbiotic bargain.

How you like them apples?

Any time I've tackled the whole health and fitness mountain, I've only ever really looked to those numbers below my feet to tell me if I'm a Good Cathy, or a Better Luck Next Week Cathy.

And this weekend, before I ever saw the glowing blue numbers magically appear, I felt peaceful and proud.

I'm just taking care of me.

The fact that the number tossed me up a 1.4 pound loss? Icing.

Winners of the Dive Into Digi Mini Giveaway

 Without further adieu, here are the four winners (courtesy of the Random Integer Generator) of their choice of two template packs.

 

Ladies, email me at czdesign@comcast.net to tell me which two sets you'd like!

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I can't wait to read through all of the comments. So much to consider and think about!

In the mean time, I cannot stress enough for those of  you wanting to learn more about digital scrapbooking to consider taking some of the online classes out there currently. For you beginners, here are two best bets:

Up and Running with Photoshop by Jessica Sprague (self-paced class)

Scrapbook Alchemy Series by Jessica Sprague (self-paced class for learning more about hybrid scrapbooking)

Just the Basics M'aam by Renee Pearson

I appreciate the comments, and plan to keep them in mind when planning my own blog posts in the coming weeks as well as for creating my next design workshop, which I'm planning to run in 2011.

Thanks everyone, and have a great weekend.

The Dive-Into Digital Mini Giveaway

Some of you are dabbling in digital, right? Some of you are full on digital, yes? Some of you think, "Pigs shall thusly fly before I go digital," am I correct?

Starting this weekend, I'm offering four new template packs, featuring the best of my designs from Designer Digitals. They are grouped by size (8.5 x 11 packs and 12 x 12 packs) and you get 10 templates in each pack, for the price of $17.99. A good price to get a goodly bunch of templates to play with.

But before they go on sale tomorrow, I'd like to give some away to you!

Four winners can pick the two sets of their choice, 8.5 x 11 or 12 x 12. Sound good? All you have to do is answer the following question:

What would you most like to learn how to do in terms of using your computer to help you scrapbook?

I'm going to be developing ideas for new online classes and would love reader feedback. Maybe it's how to use type more efficiently. Maybe it's how to employ hybrid methods with more success. I want to hear what you have to say.

I will close comments tomorrow by noon and randomly choose the winners.

Sound good? Here's to playing with a mess of templates! Good luck.

[comments are now closed.  check back to see if you've won!]

A School Album Solution, 2010-style

How many of you remember my kids' school albums? A show of hands? Anyone?

The albums were outlined in Clean&Simple: Part Deux, and looked like this:

 

Last weekend, I decided to pull out Aidan's album and put the finishing touches on it. Afterall, she's halfway through 8th grade. No time better than the present!

The process was like buttah. I simply pulled out my materials file that held the papers and embellishments I've been using over the years, and printed out my page titles (saved on my computer in a digital document), and got to work.

 

 

The best part was updating the title page.

 

How fun to see at a glance the progression of Pre-K through 6th Grade, all in one spot. (Or heartbreaking. My baby will be off to college soon. HELP MEEEEE!)

Both Cole and Aidan's albums are hybrid in nature; they use bits of computer help to complete the process. I've had numerous requests since I started designing digital templates to create a digital set based on this album design, and that's exactly what I've done. 

For 8.5 x 11 scrapbookers:

And for 12 x 12 scrapbookers:

And now I've got a dilemma. While Aidan's album is essentially done, Cole's album has only been worked on through the 1st grade. The thought of going back, and digging out photos to fill in the photo pages, when I have these brand spankin' new templates right in front of me…well, you see where this is going.

Long story short: I'm switching Cole's over to digital as of Second Grade. Here's what I've got so far:

 

Ahhhh. So simple. So clean. So dang adorable. I picked out a handful of papers to work with, and set out to quickly capture the year.

Because I organize my photos in month and date categories using iPhoto, finding shots to use on the photos pages was a snap.

 

 

The idea behind this whole concept is that you only need 4 pages to document a year but you can add more if you need to. This album idea came from Simple Scrapbooks, the book, and the School of Life concept from Stacy Julian. Those of you who follow Stacy know she's a genius when it comes to a process that is both simple and do-able. Here's the way it lays out in the album:

There is a main title page:

 

And then the grades follow in spreads:

 

 

That's the general idea, but you may be thinking: "Cathy, a pocket page shouldn't be digital, should it be?" And my reply is, "Mine is SORT of digital." Let me show you.

In the digital package, you get a pocket page that looks just like that last image above. You simply print it out onto photo paper, and then build a pocket. Because I am using a digital kraft background, I simply used a real sheet of kraft paper upon which to build the pocket.

 

 

The orange looks off in my photos, but rest assured, it really is orange and not rust!

By adding a few brads and putting a line of adhesive on the bottom of the page, I created a pocket page to store just a few things such as report cards, and drawings from the year.

You could also print out your digital background paper separately onto a sheet of photo paper and use it as the base for building your pocket page for a perfect match.

I'm really looking forward to working on Cole's earlier years in this new format. I don't normally go back and re-do my scrapbook pages, but hey, if a scrapbooker can't change her mind once in a while, tell me, then where has the fun gone? Onward!

If you have any questions about this project, please post in the comments and I'll do my best to answer!

SUPPLIES:  School Album Set (Cathy Zielske) • Just Linens No. 4 (Michelle Martin) • Krafty No. 7 Paper Pack, Notebook Paper Pack (Katie Pertiet) • Avenir font • brads (American Crafts)

EDITED TO ADD: I will be creating a Word Art/PNG Pack featuring both higher grade levels to add to the template set, including those of you overseas who go by "Year 1, Year 2" etc. Look for that set this weekend at Designer Digitals.