New Release | Still Life

Hoping that everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day yesterday. My mom and I picked up some Chinese/Vietnamese take-out yesterday to have a mother-daughter lunch at my house, and when we returned home with our food treasures I caught sight of a little something bright and cheerful sitting on my desk in my office.

I’ve been ooooohing and ahhhhhing over the brightly colored pots of Gerbera Daisies we’ve been seeing at the store this Spring, and someone was paying attention. I had a sneaking suspicion that a cheerful little plant on my desk would make my typical workday more enjoyable, and it’s turning out to be true.

Love it when I’m right like that. (But I’m always right. Right?)

Still Life | New and On Sale

I’d love to say that things have been so still and serene around here that it inspired me to create this kit. The reality is that this last month before school ends has been so busy and it’s so mentally taxing (for me) to keep track of it all that I have a greater appreciation for the still, simple moments when they do arrive.

Where’s the pause button, indeed.

Still Life is 20% off through Sunday, May 20, 2012.

Free With Purchase Offer | Still Life Page Clusters

I love creating these. There’s something very freeing about creating little page clusters with no particular photo or story to guide you. I highly recommend it, just for anyone.

These ones are already done for you, though.

These coordinating page clusters are FREE with the purchase of the Still Life Digital Kit through 5/20/2012. No coupon necessary, but you do have to add both products to your cart in order to have the element pack zero out. I can’t stress that part enough.

If you get too excited and click too fast, though, just drop me an email.

Inspiration From The Flock

[Show as slideshow]

by Nicole

by Dana

by Julie

by Kelly S

by LaRissa

by Leontien

by Margelz

by Crystal

by Rachel

by Renee

by Steffi

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Kids Nowadays

On Monday Nicholas and I had a conversation in the car about how it’s hard to find things to do outside at his dad’s house when it’s only you and one other kid, and then today I was sharing the conversation with Tom and gained some more valuable insight into what Tom: The Early Years looked like.

me: He said all they really do is play basketball, because it’s not like you can play tag with just two kids.

Tom: You know what they could play? Dig a hole in the dirt. Or they could play crawl into the bushes and find cool stuff. That’s the kind of stuff my brother and I played. Or they can play throw dirt at each other or try to tip things over in the garage.

me: Try to tip things over in the garage?

Tom: Yea, I’m sure they have things in the garage over there. GET IN THERE AND TRY TO TIP THAT STUFF OVER!

me: That sounds like a good way to ensure that no one tells you to go play outside anymore unsupervised.

Tom: No, they’ll just shut the garage door and lock it. Then you get to play try to kick the garage door open.

me: Continue…

Tom: You just keep kicking the garage door, trying to break that thing in. Then you go inside and complain about how your leg hurts, and they’re like why does your leg hurt? and you say from kicking that garage door open.

me: Then you run like hell when your dad stands up. And the best part? Now you have that third person for a game of tag.

Tom: Exactly.

me: Except Dad is “it.” And there’s going to be hell to pay if he catches you. It’s a high stakes game of tag.

Tom: See? We just came up with about 20 things that two kids can do outside together right here. They’re just not trying hard enough.

me: Kids nowadays. No imagination.

New Releases | National Scrapbooking Day Sale

A couple of new products to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day. Keep reading for details on my storewide sale!

NEW | Duality Journaling Cards

Duality contains sets of 3×4 Journaling Cards for documenting the two-sided, give and take situations that crop up in everyday life. They’re great for digital or hybrid projects, and within the download you have your choice of individual card files, printable and layered PSD files (to customize the colors to suit your project) as well as printable PDF sheets that don’t require Photoshop at all.

NEW | Flight Plans Layered Templates

They just might help you get some actual scrapbooking done this weekend in-between all of the shopping, right?

Inspiration

[Show as slideshow]

by Peppermint

by Rachel

by Kelly S

by Leontien

by Peppermint

by Rachel

by Lex

by Peppermint

by Steffi

by Peppermint

by Rachel

National Scrapbooking Day Sale

Storewide sale runs now through Sunday, May 6th! Note that discount may vary on collaborative products.

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Say You, Say Me | I’m Your Private Dancer

Q | I just started blogging my scrapbooking. (Just got accepted to a creative team, yay!) I’m struggling a bit with balancing privacy and visibility. Up to now my scrapbook layouts pretty much just went up on Facebook for my friends & family to see. But now that I have a blog and a brand new Twitter account I’m a little freaked out. Real name here, pics of family there, and potentially crazy people around every turn! How do you manage it?

A | My personal information was a very closely guarded secret for me for a lot of years, having been “heavily embedded” in the Internet since back in the pay-by-the-hour for AOL days. At this point I share quite a bit of personal information in a lot of different areas online, where people can see it, and the biggest reason for that shift was my involvement in the scrapbooking community. I had to ask myself what I really wanted out of this experience and it really boiled down to this:

I saw great potential, through memory keeping, for both personal and creative growth.
I have always believed that the best way to grow is through our connections with other people, whether they’re like-minded or polar opposites.
There are no large groups of digital scrapbookers in my area (that I know of).

I can document our lives and my innermost thoughts without sharing a single morsel of it with anyone outside my close circle of friends and family, if having shelves of finished albums were my only goal. However, I reached a point in my life where I felt as though I wanted more, and where felt as though there was great potential for something more deeply-rewarding within this community.

It has not let me down.

The rewards have far exceeded any concessions I have made on the personal side, but you have to answer that question for yourself. Sharing so much of my personal life on the Internet has required that I put a lot of trust in people who are, effectively, strangers. In an ideal world we would all be able to convert all of our closest girlfriends and family members to digital scrapbookers and we could grow as artists with one another. I’ve been largely unsuccessful at accomplishing this, so far. Even if I did manage to get them all on board with the idea I have found deeper pools of trust, support and self-awareness in some of my online relationships than I have in many of my “real-life” relationships. I don’t think I could walk away from that.

That being said, I do have a few lines in the sand as far as what I will and won’t share publicly in the name of scrapbooking. One example is that I remove (via cropping or creative Photoshop retouching) any instances of my son’s last name on any pages I post online. He and I have different last names and in the rare instances where his appears in a photo (school projects) or in my journaling (references to his dad’s side of the family, for instance) I remove them. I do the same for any references to his school, including his teachers’ names, which I abbreviate in my journaling.

On purely a respect level, I don’t post anything about him that he wouldn’t freely admit to another person or any photos that I know he would be uncomfortable with other people seeing. This means I have some pages in our printed albums that have never been seen online. For example any pages that have photos or journaling that deal with something he has struggled with emotionally, medically or academically – those are just for us. He’s also a very modest kid so he has always had full creative control over any summer photos I use of him without a shirt on (swimming photos). If you go through my online galleries you’ll notice that the majority of those pages feature closely-framed head shots or photos where he was in deeper water, but he has approved a few wider shots on an individual, purely arbitrary “I look awesome in that one” basis.

Like this photo will forever be one of my favorite summer photographs of him:

You also will never find a photo of him in the bathtub, at any age, anywhere in my galleries – that’s just a no fly zone for him whether he was 6 months old or 6 years old.

I follow the same rules for pages about myself or my husband, but … for different reasons. I don’t know if you could see photos of me in the bathtub and still want to hang out. I don’t think we have that kind of relationship.

And it goes without saying that I don’t post on my blog or any social media site about a vacation we’re on or about anything else that would create any sort of security-related fiasco for ourselves. Like you’ll never see me posting photos of my diamond tiara room or my Scrooge McDuck-style vault filled with gold coins and priceless artifacts.

That would just be irresponsible of me.

What Say You? Everybody In!

If you have any advice, tips, tricks or encouragement to offer on this topic please weigh-in in the comments below. I know everyone has different perspectives on online privacy and where they draw the line when it comes to scrapbooking, specifically. I’d love to hear yours!

Or if you have any other questions about … anything .. that you’d like me to ramble on about? You can post those here or shoot me an email if you’re bashful.

I sent a quick email off to The Flock and received these answers:

CHRISTINE | Probably not an answer she wants to hear, but if she’s concerned about privacy, then she may need to reconsider being on a creative team. The whole purpose of the creative team is to showcase and market the designer’s products. The photos/layouts would be posted everywhere. She doesn’t need to use her real name though. And nobody needs to know where she lives. I have seen people post layouts with their kids’ faces blurred out. Really NOT a big fan of that. To me it totally distracts from the layout and you might as well not post it publicly. The blurred faces actually sort of freaks me right out. I’m staring at THAT instead of looking at how pretty the layout is.

ALEXIS | I used to blog my scrapbook layouts (and I still would, but am lazy, too!) but honestly I don’t think that many friends and family see my blog. Unfortunately that is the nature of the beast (the Internet). I AM careful about NOT posting my location (which is why I cannot understand the appeal of Foursquare), but for the most part I am an open book. But then again, I also don’t have my own kids to think about. :/

New Release | Metro

OH how I love this little city in a kit. I’ll tell you the same thing I told The Flock: I just couldn’t stop making things. I was starting to wonder if I’d ever finish this kit. I think I spent an afternoon just drawing squiggly roads then building little cities on them.

Metro began as a little, doodled car in my notebook with a swirly cloud of “dust” behind it – and grew into so much more. I started off with a few items for pages about boys and their toys, then added items for documenting the places we go and things we do out-and-about in our everyday lives or on vacation.

Or you could just sit at your computer making little cityscapes of your own all afternoon. I won’t judge.

I’m thrilled to announce that (after some frustrating Internet failures tonight) Metro is now available for purchase in my store, and it’s 20% off through Wednesday, 5/2/12.

Exclusive Savings on Metro

Cage Liner subscribers receive extra savings on Metro. Just check your latest newsletter for your savings code and enter it during checkout to receive your discount. Not yet a subscriber? You can subscribe now and get a code of your very own.