Free Scrap Girls Eternal Love Collection Available Now At CK

Creating Keepsakes is featuring some Scrap Girls products in an article by
Jessica Sprague in February's magazine. You can go here to get this awesome Scrap Girls Eternal Love Collection for free.

Don't Miss the Biggest Digital Scrapbooking Sale of the Year at Scrap Girls

Christmas Gifts #3

You'll want to check out the holiday collection Scrap Girls is giving away this week. All you have to do is make a $10 or more purchase and you'll get this collection included in your downloads for FREE.

I made this Countdown to Christmas box using this collection and the Stamped Dates Brush Set.

To do this, I used a box from the Michael's $1 bin. I sanded it and painted it white and then I printed out patterned paper to cover the sides of the box. I used Gel Medium as my glue and painted it on with a paint brush. The top of the box was created in Photoshop and then printed out as one piece.

I added some glitter paint to the star for some extra sparkle, and then roughed up the edges a bit with sand paper. I love how real the digital ribbon looks on the top of this box.


Here are all three boxes that I made with the collections that have been available at Scrap Girls this Holiday Season. You can see how well they coordinate. If you missed one of the collections, you can still purchase them in the Scrap Girls Boutique for only $3.99. And, all the proceeds go to Food For the Poor!

Christmas Gifts #2

Scrap Girls has another free Holiday Collection for you this week if you place an order of $10 or more.

With this FREE Collection I made a box using a tutorial I found here on Etsy. For this tutorial you really only need a paper that is patterned on one-side, but I chose to tweak the tutorial by printing out two-sided paper and folding up the inside edges of the box to show the green on the inside. I used a full 12x12 sheet of light-weight cardstock and printed out the paper on my borderless, large format printer.

The box can be used to wrap Christmas gifts.

Or as a candy dish in your home over the holidays.


Or to display home decor.

If you get this holiday collection and make something with it, post a comment here with a link so we can see what you've created.

ScrapSimple Holiday Cards

I've created a video for today's ScrapSimple tip. The PC shortcut for masking which I refer to in the video is Ctrl + G. If you are interested in checking out more ScrapSimple Card Templates click here.

Here is my finished Holiday Photo Card.

And here are the ScrapGirls supplies I used:

ScrapSimple Card Templates: 4x6 Photo Cards 2

December Scrap Girls Club

A Collaged Holiday Embellishment Biggie

Paint Stroke Brush Set

Christmas Gifts

Scrap Girls has some great gifts for you this Christmas season. Look at this free Holiday Collection you get this week if you place an order of $10 or more.

With this FREE collection I created a Countdown to Christmas box. I can put candy in it so that my kids pull out one piece a day up until the day of Christmas.

I used a box that I found in the $1 bin at Michaels.

I sanded it and painted it white.

I covered the 4 sides of the box with 4 squares of the Christmas tree paper. (I used Gel Medium as my glue).

For the top of the box I created it all digitally in Photoshop using the FREE collection and the Stamped Dates Brush Set. Then I printed out the square and trimmed it and glued it to the lid of my box (again using gel medium).

I added a piece of Merry Christmas ribbon from Making Memories and secured it with a glue dot.

Oh yeah AND I put candy in it. Of course.

What will you make with your FREE Holiday Collection available this week at Scrap Girls?

How do I resize my digital scrapbooking layouts for web-galleries and print purposes?

As a standard to go by, I always set-up my digital scrapbooking layout canvases at 12x12 inches size and 300 dpi. Though I rarely print them out at this 12x12 size, it's best to have my layouts the biggest size I think I'll ever need them. The reason being, I can always scale down, but I can't scale up without losing quality.


So when I'm starting a digital scrapbooking layout I set up my canvas like this.

When I complete my digital scrapbooking layout, I always save a few versions. First, I save a PSD version of the file. The PSD version, which is the native Photoshop file, keeps all of the layers intact. It is important to save a version like this in case you ever need to go back and edit your digital scrapbooking layout.

Next, let's say I want a version of my digital scrapbooking layout to share with other Scrap Girls Members in the gallery. In order to upload my layout to web-based galleries, I need to make it a smaller file size. First I will compress all of my layers into one flattened image.

To do this I go to the drop-down menu on my Layers Palette and choose Flatten Image.

This is what my Layers Palette looks like after flattening my layout.

Then I want to make the file size significantly smaller for uploading to the web.

I go to Image>Image Size...

First, I change the resolution to 72. Then I change the width and height to 600 pixels. And then I click OK and save it as a jpg. I personally like to add "600" to my file name, so I know that this is the smaller, web version of my layout.

Now, let's say I want to print my layout, but I either don't want the 12x12 size or I don't have a printer that prints that big. Easy. I just scale my layout down to 8x8 size and print it. Here's how I scale it down, working from my original PSD file.

I'll follow the above steps to flatten the layers of the image via the Layers Palette.


Then I'll choose Image>Image Size...

I'll leave the resolution at 300, which is perfect for printing, but I'll change the Document Size to 8 inches square.

Now I can either save it as a jpg first (if I think I'll need it this size in the future), or just print it out. An 8x8 is perfect for framing or sticking in an 8x8 scrapbook album.

Here are the Scrap Girls supplies I used in this layout:

A Collaged Holiday Collection Biggie

Military Wife Finds Digital Scrapbooking Peaceful While Her Husband Is At War

One military wife has found that digital scrapbooking helps her deal with the stresses of separation while her husband is serving his country.

Marnie Adams’ husband, Michael, is stationed in Iraq, outside of Baghdad. He left for training in the mainland on December 31, 2006. His family has only seen him once since he was deployed.

The time Marnie spends digitally scrapbooking has increased since her husband’s departure. “It’s a lovely way to keep my mind and hands busy,” Marnie reports. She finds herself occasionally scrapbooking layouts about being a military wife, processing the hard but fulfilling life her family lives. “I made one [layout] that deals with all of the places we have lived and the concept of blooming where you are planted.”

The Adams Family is fortunate that Michael does, in fact, have Internet access. Their family stays in contact via email, instant messages and phone calls. And, every week, Marnie sends her husband digital scrapbooking layouts to remind him of his family life.

“Michael is very supportive and does love seeing the layouts. After I sent him several layouts with him as the main subject, he told me that I needed to quit creating layouts that make him cry. I know he enjoys seeing what I’m doing, but more importantly, he enjoys seeing layouts about some of the things we’ve done together. He said he has shown them to some of his friends over there. It’s a way to show his buddies what it’s like for him at home – like showing off snapshots.”

In the digital scrapbooking world, Marnie has made Scrap Girls her home and she finds support and encouragement through the message board community. She says, “While I haven’t made best friends with any other military members or wives on the Scrap Girls message board, occasionally there will be a thread where we share about military life. I get asked quite often about Michael and told that he is in their thoughts and prayers, as well as getting supportive comments for me.”

Michael joined the Navy in 1990. He served as an enlisted member until he was commissioned (made an officer) on his 14th anniversay. The Adams have been stationed all across the United States, in Puerto Rico, Europe, and now Hawaii. This fall, Michael will celebrate his 17th year in the Navy.

Marnie writes educational and inspirational digital scrapbooking eBooks for Scrap Girls. ScrapGirls.com specializes in digital scrapbooking supplies, educational movie tutorials and eBooks, and commercially licensed graphic design products.