Inspiration from everywhere

I've been visiting a lot of blogs lately, and feel I want to pretty mine up a bit. I'm just not sure whether to use one of the sites that provides backgrounds, or whether to have a go at making my own. Any suggestions?

As for inspiration, I've realised it's everywhere - in adverts, on the web, magazines, and of course on the forums when I click through all the fabby LOs everyone else does. This week there was a web inspiration challenge on Designer Digitals. I chose to take inspiration from the IKEA website, and created this page.

Not many supplies to list, papers by Mindy Terasawa.

Apart from that, I've been trying to get up to date with my 365 LOs. It speeds things up so much to use a template. Here's the pages I've completed for March so far.

Our team on UKScrappers, Charli's Angels, set the weekly challenge this week. We decided to use the initials of 'angels' as the challenge. For 5 points each the LO was to contain Any new stash, Notes or journalling, Glitter/Glitz, Embellishments, Lace and Sewing/Stitching. Here's my LO. 

Finally I got a new printer, yay! Now I might actually do some more paper scrapping again. I've just joined a new eco-themed cj, so will start planning that, along with working on the arty farty jigsaw swap, it's always good to be busy!

Sorry, been busy

'Ello, realised it had been a while since I last blogged. Nothing sinister, I've just been having so much fun playing with photoshop that I kept forgetting to upload anything here:D.

Anyway, it's now the last week of the Digi: In Deep course, we've learnt so much. We learned how to make a template last week, which is the digi equivalent of the sketch, and we shared our creations among the class. Also learned how to recolour elements which is fantastic, though I'm still practising it.

I've been doing some of the challenges on Designer Digitals, as well as joining Oscraps. I'm not sure of the etiquette of chatting on more than one digi forum, but hey ho. It was the birthday week on Oscraps.com this week so there was a ton of freebies and fun. 

Here's a few of my recent LOs.

This LO shows my DD and her friend playing in the garden of our local coffee shop. I did this for a brush challenge on Designer Digitals. All supplies from there.

This LO was done for a birthday challenge on Oscraps. We were given a mini kit, which included the wordart and the yellow paper. All supplies from Oscraps.com.

This LO was for the 3kits3ways challenge on Designer Digitals. Each week three products are chosen, and we are set the challenge of using them on a LO. This week one of the products was already in my shopping basket (the Katie Pertiet fabric swatches brushes), and the other 2 lookde so good too that I thought I'd have a go. Especially as another (Anna Victoria Wish Flower kit) was on special offer. The 3rd product was Dots and Flowers brushes by Mary Ann Wise. The background paper is one of the K Pertiet Naturally Krafty papers with one of the Wish Flowers papers blended over the top.

Lastly is a fun LO. I fancied doing a LO with lots of green for St Patricks Day, and remembered this photo from my 365.

All supplies are from Designer Digitals again. Guess where I spend most of my time lol.

Our week 2 LO on the Digi: In Deep course taught us how to blend two photos, such a cool effect!

Now, my paper-scrapping friends, I was hoping to do some IRL scrapping, our team is setting the weekly challenge next week and I was all set on Friday night to sit down with all my ribbons and papers around me. BUT my poor printer is giving up the ghost, even with a new ink cartridge in it's been leaving huge stripes on the photos. I've tried looking for a new one, but all the ones in the shops just now are ugly lol. I'll keep looking!

Whoa

Digi: In Deep is intense!! I know it's the advanced course, but I'm impressed at how much we're learning with every task. The LO is much more complicated this time, and I've learnt a few more new tricks. I've not quite finished the lesson LO, just got the journalling to do, but I have used the techniques in a couple more LOs.

This LO was done for a challenge on Designer Digitals, the crochet flowers are by Pattie Knox for this week's Everyday Inspiration challenge. Most of the materials used in the LO are from DD.

Yesterday the lesson in Digi: In Deep was to practise taking photos. We were told to choose something that means a lot to us and take a good still life shot, thinking about the light and putting a white sheet down for the background. I chose this sheep as an ornament I'm very attached to, I got it nearly 25 years ago at a jumble sale, and I just like it.

Matchboxes and optimism

Having a great time at the moment, there's so much fun stuff to play with and I seem to be enjoying it all.

Firstly, here's my decorated matchbox for the swap on UKS. I've filled it with brads, chipboard, bits and bobs, and will be posting it tomorrow. Can't wait to receive one too.

Next, I've been playing around with Arnold the garden gnome for the Arnold ATC swap. We're to put him beside a local landmark, then print the photo out as an ATC. I first of all put him on a carousel at the Edinburgh Xmas festival. 

The one I'll be sending for the swap is him in front of Paisley Abbey. Unfortunately my printer is playing up just now, hope it sorts itself out soon.

I did a digi LO the other day, after playing around with making my own digi epoxy stickers. They're not perfect, but it was fun. 

Last but not least, this week's challenge on JessicaSprague.com was a typography challenge. We could choose from 4 images to be inspired by.

 I took this photo a few days ago as my photo-of-the-day, and love it. The butterflies were a challenge freebie by Andrea Victoria on Designer Digitals, which I recoloured. It's totally different to what I usually do, but it was fun for exploring a bit of the graphic side of digi.

Phew, so many LOs, so little time to blog them

I meant to come back and upload my other cybercrop LOs, but forgot, oops. Instead I'll just add a selection of recent LOs. My gallery on UKS is almost full which is a pain as I've deleted some already.

This LO was done for a challenge on Designer Digitals. It's inspired by a web advert which had a similar layout.

This LO was done also for a challenge on Designer Digitals, where we were given the papers as a freebie. I love the little butterflies.

I've now finished Now we're rocking with Photoshop, so here's the remaining 2 LOs from the course. Digi: In Deep starts in a couple of weeks, and I'm a bit nervous about it, but the course materials are available for ever, so it doesn't really matter if I don't take it in first time.

You'll notice that some of the photos in this LO are the same as Photo Session above, but hey, I like them:D.

In other news, I'm liking the interesting swaps on UKS just now. I've just made 30 inchies, they're so dinky and cute I could get addicted to them too, there's a piccie of mine on my 365 blog. I'm also in the Arnold swap, where we each put a photo of Arnold the garden gnome in front of a local landmark and turn it into an ATC. Then there's the 'It fits in a matchbox-the big one' swap, where we fill a large matchbox with stash. I'm also tempted by the Arty Farty Jigsaw swap, but I probably have too much else to do, so might give that one a miss.

All in all, there's plenty out there to interest me at the mo, as it should be:D.

Cybercrop over already

Well, that's the Whodunnit cybercrop over. I really enjoyed myself once the weekend had started. I even did a couple of the classes, though I do tend to prefer the challenges. Think it'll take a couple of posts to upload everything I did, so I'll start with the mystery kit as it's a few photos by itself.

I loved the kit, the last one I got was a bit disappointing, and I ended up not using it. This one had October afternoon papers, core'dinations cardstock, 7gypsies journalling cards, a few flowers, brads and 2 metal photo turns.

The first thing I thought of to make was a play set for Amy. There are strict rules about what you can use for the mystery kit, but we were allowed to use the packaging. I painted the bubble wrap as a carpet. I printed out a couple of photos and used the frames with them. Also cut some flowers using the Bigshot and made a garland for the top. I reckon Amy will like using the set as a ballroom for her Little People, she loves dancing and Cinderella.

The next thing I thought of was using all the little cards to make a notebook. Took a while to work out how to combine the pages as I couldn't use a book ring, but the ribbon and brad work.

Then I thought I should make a LO. I love this photo of Amy, and liked using several of the patterned papers and stitching. Used one of the 7gypsies cards for hidden journalling.

I didn't win, but didn't expect to, just glad we got such a lush kit!

Week 3 lesson

This week's lesson was pretty intense in Now we're Rockin'. I managed it all, though I'm not entirely sure I get it all, or could do it off my own bat.

Here's the LO, used the course materials, and snowflake spirograph brushes by Rob and Bob studios. I LOVE the blended-in photo on the bottom corner. Think I'll be using that technique again.

As for cc challenges, today's was to make a journalling block, I made 2 as I couldn't decide which background brush I preferred.