Journal Helpers - this way and that

Textured patterns at The Creative Pixel

Back To School Style at the Creative Pixel

Carola with CT Designs here to talk about your Back To School Style. Again, this is one of those areas where I wish I was one way, but reality is altogether different.

My boys start school on Monday and last night I was out getting school supplies. Except stuff I could get over the internet - that's easy so I got those items right off. Binder bag for one, messenger bag for the other.

Procrastination might be a way of life for me in most areas, but when it comes to photographs and scrapping, not really. I usually get those first day pictures on the computer and scrapped before the first week is up. This year I think I'll take it easy with the photos - Ian and Alex are both at the age where mommy taking pictures will send them diving for cover! But, for those of you with younger kids, first day photos are a must and the Creative Pixel has the graphic packs and extra elements that you'll need. These notes should help and there are several kits in store that are 50% off -                      

Layouts for back to school don't have to have photos from that first day - often times kids are nervous, especially if they have never been and all they want is a hug, not an impromptu photo session. So use a photo of your child from earlier in the week and build your back-to-school layout around that - the kids'll love you for it!

Don't forget to post your layouts at tCP so we can see & comment on them, too :)

Wedding Style Word Art at The Creative Pixel

Pictures of the kids aren't everything!

Your wedding story here

Your favorite playground shots here!

Available at Impromptu Memories on Etsy

Color Style at the Creative Pixel

Hi there:) Carola here from CT designs to talk about Color Style. This topic came up quite by accident this afternoon -  I was buying some scrapbook paper to put on letters for my sons room. Usually I would just print this out, we have so many to choose from, but my color toner cartridge is empty and I am waiting for toner refills to arrive. Anyway, I was trying to decide on a pattern that wasn't too girly (I am doing this for an 11 yr old boy) so paisley is out. Any type of swirls are a no-go. So I was thinking, he really doesn't like patterns . . .or contrasting colors . . .  and so on for about 1 hr until I finally got out of the craft store.
Do we do this on our scrapbook pages? I do, to some extent, because I use more than one kit while scrapping. In this situation, I go to www.pictaculous.com for help and match the colors from the photo that I use. Still needing to choose a palette from the several supplied, my Color Style always creeps in to my layouts. Not Color Theory, but Color Style. I am a nut for neutrals. I try really hard to use extra color at times, but I always find myself gravitating back to the neutrals. Ok, enough about my color style, let me help you figure out yours!
This is a fun exercise, give it a try :)
Look back at the layouts that you have done over the last few years. Are they a colorful bunch, or do they lean toward the muddy side? It is no secret that your personal color preference gives clues to your personality. Here are the definitions of a few basic color groups:
Neutrals: They unify colors that wouldn't usually go together and tone down some of the brighter hues. These colors, while looking good are great for backgrounds, because they allow the focus to be elsewhere on the page.
Warm: Colors symbolizing nature and the changing of the seasons are the ones that grab attention. They also appear larger on the page and create excitement. A necessity in scrapbooking, because we don't want our pages to be dull and boring, right?
Cool: While cool colors are calming, the blue/green combination is a powerful one when used on a scrapbook page. Besides that, they are pretty!
Colors are non-verbal communication. They have a meaning that goes beyond ink and we want the colors that we use to say "look at this page, it is fantastic!"
Try to remember that the end goal of this exercise is to find out which colors you lean toward by creating a mosaic of your most recent layouts. The results may surprise you. I used a screenshot of my blog, which is set up in a mosaic style. No text, just the pictures. These are a sampling of my layouts from Jan 2009 thru June 2013 (minus a few months here and there when I didn't feel like posting;) )







Under the mosaic are the results I came up with when I ran it through pictaculous (my new favorite online tool) Not sure where the orange came from, but as I said before, the results may surprise you. There are a few greens in there, which is awesome for me because green is my favorite color. I also like the fact that it shows you palettes from Kuler and COLOURlovers, that way when you are choosing a palette from an image, you get a few complimentary colors thrown in, not just samples from your image. That would be a must for me since several of my images are sepia, black and white, or desaturated in some way.
So, my result here is that I use primarily neutrals with a splash of contrasting color thrown in. Nothing new there, but I didn't expect my most-used contrasting color to be orange!
Why don't you find your most-used colors and share them with us? I'm off to do a scrapbook page with mine!

Showcase for your dress up photos

or summer shots, or kids playtime outside, or anything!

Available at
Impromptu Memories
 on Etsy

Tech kids

 

The preference of tech over play just boggles my mind to this day. I am quite a bit more used to it now that my boys are 11 and 9, but at 3 &1 - really?!?

 

Available with your photo at Impromptu Memories

Fries - first food?!?

Well, Alex started with fries, not so good, but they were the only thing available (we were at the Smithsonian and the only food there was McDonalds) By the time Ian came around, I had learned to carry extra foods in the diaper bag, so his favorite was broccoli.

Send me your pics of your baby and his first foods, a few words describing the incident and I'll get them into this layout - providing you with a digital file suitable for printing when I am done.

Available at Impromptu Memories on Etsy