Digital Scrapbooking

Okay, so I'm not exactly much of a scrapbooker.  I've got lots of scrapbook papers and other goodies, I used to scrapbook a bunch with my sister, but I haven't done it in awhile.  I'm interested in a lot of different scrapbooking techniques for other applications like cards, journal type books, shadowbox art...  I got a Bamboo Wacom Tablet awhile ago because I wanted to use it for digital photograph editing.  I used one years and years ago in high school and enjoyed it more than using a mouse.  The tablet came with some different software and a book for digital scrapbook.

 

After checking out the information and looking up different digital scrapbooking goodies online I became semi-obsessed with the idea.  Not obsessed with the idea of digital scrapbooking in and of itself, but with the idea of using all these great snazzy bobbles for websites, and website badges and buttons, adding some textures and antiquing to photographs and things like that.  Some of these designers make some really amazing goodies which are surprisingly realistic - some are insanely adorable - others are just plain neat.  To make it more fun, some of these designers give away freebie downloads of some of their goods.

If you're interested in checking any of these things out, here are some websites that I think are fun...

Tempus fugit - the fantastic freebie blog

Scrapbook - Bytes - filled with tutorials and downloads


Digital Scrap Cafe - an online store with a blog and lots of different artists offering goodies to download


All of these websites have inspired a bunch of ideas for new blog designs and badge/button goodness. 

Hugs,

Cait

Wacom Tablet

So, I've been playing with my tablet... I've been using it instead of a mouse to navigate normal stuff like checking e-mail and browsing websites so I could get used to it... I've edited a few pictures and designed a logo using it. Then I tried actually writing with it. What fun that is! I've always wanted to be able to write on my photographs, but a mouse and the touch pad on my laptop didn't really cut it. Writing with the pen tablet is insanely fun. It truly is just like writing with a pen.

I ended up getting the Craft Version of the Bamboo Fun tablet. The Bamboo Craft came with the software that comes with the Bamboo Fun (Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 Win/6.0 Mac, Corel Painter Essentials 4.0, and Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 WE) but it also included some other things for digital scrapbooking (a DVD with how-to videos, Scrappin with a Tablet book, embellishment CD, and a few other goodies). When I found out about digital scrapbooking on the Wacom website, I thought it was pretty cool. Plus it would make for some neat banners and headers for websites.

I haven't gotten around to checking out the how-to videos or the embellishments yet, but the previews for them seem like they'll be fun to work with. The writer of the book is a digital scrapbooking artist named Amanda Dykan. The how-to videos are done by another artist named Jessica Sprague. I love the header on Jessica's page. Their designs are pretty inspiring and can be translated into inspiration for actual artwork, design, and web design besides just inspiring digital scrapbooking.

xoxo
- Cait

Windows 7 F.A.Q. Logo

The other day I got a Wacom Tablet... It was part of my birthday present from my Mom. I picked the craft version because of the "extras" you got in the bundle. I'd have more to play with then, plus digital scrapbooking looks like fun! I've been messing around with it a bit tonight. It's actually pretty fun. The tablet is kind of strange to use vs. a touch pad (what I've always used on my laptop) or a mouse. I'm starting to get used to it and it's a lot of fun thus far. I can't wait to get more use out of it!

So, my manfriend started Windows 7 F.A.Q.com and kept asking if I'd make him a logo of sorts for it. After asking me a bunch of times over the last few days I actually got to work. It's been awhile since I really got into Photoshop - as in using gradients and such. For years I've mainly been using it to edit photographs and maybe adding a bit of text to things. It was a bit of a pain in the butt figuring out where everything is. Plus, I'm using Photoshop CS4 now vs. Photoshop 7.


This is the first thing I came up with... It ended up really growing on me. Too bad he didn't really like it!

xoxo
- Cait

Photoshop CS4

I've been meaning to make a header for this blog for awhile now... I just never got around to it, and with good reason! I just spent several hours - at least 4 - finding and editing photographs to use and then building a header that I actually liked. Now, my brain is tired. I decided that I really need to get a Wacom tablet for long sessions of photo editing and Photoshop work. I usually just use the touch pad on my laptop, but that's getting insanely ridiculous to do - especially when you have over 1,500 new photographs to go through!

Speaking of those 1,500 photographs - that's only a small collection of all the photographs I have in folders waiting to be looked at. I need to spend a few days checking them all out... Delete some that I don't like, edit some that I love, save some for later editing. The task of doing that seems so daunting that I keep putting it off. I have photographs from different places around Bucks County, Pennsylvania, food photographs, photographs of myself, and photographs of someone I happen to love.

I need to get to the photo editing pronto, because I have a billion more photographs to take! I really need to stop filling compact flash cards instead of actually working with the pictures. It just happens to be quicker to save the photograph loading till later. It would also be fun to find out how many photographs I've actually taken since getting my digital SLR - It's a Canon 40D and I love it.

Would someone please dig me out of this avalanche of digital photographs?

xoxo
- Cait