A huge thank you to those who participated in the Kid-Lit Challenge. We are glad that you were inspired by “The Snow Speaks”

The two winners will each receive a $5 gift certificate to Dani’s store. And those winners are….

Jinggai

and

Adriana

Thank you for your fun interpretations of the challenge!

Please email me your email addresses and Dani will hook you up.

See you back here Monday, March 5th, when I unveil the new book and challenge.

Well, gang, this has been our first full month of posts as new Dani’s Girls… and we wanna know what you think! What parts of this blog do you LOVE? What would you like to see more of? Do you have suggestions for us? We want to hear from you!

Keep in mind, you still have the opportunity to earn a GIFT CERTIFICATE to Dani’s store just for commenting on the blog this month… so take a second, and tell us what ya think!

 Thanks!

 

I’m a huge magazine junkie, particularly scrap magazines. I don’t even want to think how much I spend each year on just mags! So I decided to take this love and spread it to the Girl Talk Blog. Robin inspired this month’s entry with a special feature that Simple Scrapbooks uses. The idea is to “step up” your page where you take a simple layout and just build on it. All of the pages work in their own style…I’m rather fond of the first one, but it just shows how you can build upon your layouts.

Simple and Sleek
I’m an eclectic scrapper. I really don’t have a specific style that I stick to because I get bored easily with my pages, but I always love a classic layout that all of your attention is on the picture(s). So that was my inspiration for this layout of Dani’s daughter Lexi. Special thank you to Dani for always providing me with girly pictures (2 boys for me!) All of the layouts are going to use Dani and Dawn’s Spring Chick as the foundation. For this layout, I blocked the pictures across the page, slightly enlarging and outlining the middle one for focus. The title is spread across the page in the form of journaling with just the price tag and ribbon tie for embellishment.

Bright and Linear
Keeping with the linear tradition, the two supporting pictures were enlarged and spread across the page, but curves were added with the bold background paper and circle photo mat. The closeup became the focal picture at the bottom of the page. Additional ribbon and trim were used on the top and I pulled the heart and alpha from Dani’s “Crazy Little Thing” from the SSD Quarterly Vol. 1 collection.

Fun and Funky
Definitely the most time-consuming (especially when I accidentally shut it down without saving LOL), but by far my favorite. Instead of focusing on Lex’s sweet smile, I wanted to use the one where she’s hamming it up and having a good time. The two supporting pictures were placed in a film strip from SSD’s “Be Inspired” kit. I also used a grid paper from Meredith Fenwick to provide a neutral background for all of the color with everything else! In addition to Spring Chick and Crazy Little Thing, I also used Dani’s Hand Stitched Alpha from Sweet Shoppe Designs, Itty Bitty Flowers from Design by Dani, Get the Point from Design by Dani, Round n’ Round Stitching from Design by Dani. I also combined alpha and font work for the title and incorporated song lyrics from a Phil Vassar song for the journaling.

 

 

 

It’s no secret, Dani makes the best ribbons and bows! I even asked her recently if they were completely digital or if there was scanning going on. Completely digital!

I love her ribbons and bows so much that I used them as my main focus of embellishment in my latest layout, That Smile. I just started grabbing them from lots of various kits until I had a colorful assortment. Mix it up!

And a quick tip about ribbons to make them look more realistic. Be sure to put a thicker drop shadow on a bow because they would be further off the page on a paper layout which creates a thicker shadow. And the ribbon would be thicker than paper so give the ribbon a little less shadow than your bow but not as small as paper shadows. The trick to creating realistic shadows is all in realizing the thickness of an actual “real life” object.

Forgive me for being late on my post today.  I almost forgot altogether.  The inspiration for my blog entry today came from one picture I took this past weekend.  First, I’ll show you it and then I’ll talk about why I like it so much.

 

We were at an ice fishing derby on a lake just west of our little town.  We set Lauren up with her own hole and I was surprised that she was sitting there so contently.  I snapped a few different shots but somehow this shot from behind captures the moment best.  I feel like it shows how she doesn’t have a care in the world she is just peacefully enjoying the moment.  There is a relfective nature to photographs that are taken from this perspective.

I also took this shot:

But to me this feels more like a snapshot and less like a storytelling photograph.  I’ll leave you with a few other examples of photos I have taken from different perspectives:

 Upside down:

 Overhead:

And from Below:

 

Playing with different perspecitves can help you achieve different moods in the same situation.  So I encourage you to take pictures from all different angles…you might just be surprised at the results!

Today some inspiration from Lindsay….

Link to Lindsay’s Gallery

So first up Robin decided to lift this cute layout….

 

And her lift…. Bathtub Portraits uses Dani’s Spring Chick kit, creative crops and some goodies from Katie Pertiet and Amy Martin.

 

Erica was inspired by this layout….  

And came up with this little cutie… using Stolen Kisses from the This Love Collection…

I love this layout of Lindsay’s…. love the paper layered under the photo and the side profile photo, I always tend to scrap front on shots… 

 

It was my inspiration for this layout using Dani’s Love Me Tender kit.

And Melinda took some inspiration from both  Erica and Lindsay’s …. and came up with Beary Sweet… using Dani’s Crazy Love kit.

So I hope we have provided some inspiration for you… or at least some pretty eye candy.   I’ll be back next month with another two team members we have lifted…. and don’t forget if you decide to lift someone, leave a link so we can give you some love

Welcome to the monthly scraplift.

I love to scraplift. I love to be inspired by others and give it my own twist… especially when I have the dreaded “scrappers block”. There are so many beautiful layouts that I see and use for inspiration. Sometimes my layout ends up looking quite similiar to the original… sometimes it looks nothing like it, even though the original was my starting point. Either way is okay.

So each month us Dani Girl’s are scraplifting two members of the team… and for this month the lucky two are… drum roll please…. LINDSAY and ERICA !!!

First up Erica… I love her style, lots of gorgeous inspiration in her gallery…

Link to Erica’s gallery

I chose to scraplift her gorgeous layout I fall in love again. I love the arrangement of photos with the layering underneath them and the cool way the title is arranged.

Here is my take on the layout… all items are from Dani’s Sassy Pants kit

Robin was inspired by this next layout of Erica’s using Dani’s Crazy Love kit and Floral Felties Template by Gina Miller…

Robin’s layout uses Dani’s Hand stitched alpha, goodies from the Year of Memories Collection (March, November and July) and ribbons from Hopscotch. How cute are all those horse photos

Angie chose to life Erica’s Trying to Smile Layout…

And came up with this little beauty using Dani and Dawn’s Spring Chick Kit

So to anyone who is stuck for inspiration I would suggest a stroll through Erica’s gallery… and if you do decide to play along make sure to leave us a link here so we can all go and have a peek and leave you some love.

Remember one lucky blog commenter this month will win a $20 gc to Dani’s store.

I’ll see you tomorrow for a stroll through Lindsay’s gallery…

Happy Friday everyone!! im not sure about you, but i love fridays!!! Today i have a fun idea to share to everyone… Altered Layouts… now im sure alot of you have done this but i thought i would share my favorite.

Print out your favorite digi papers and paper scrap with them… now im sure some of you are sitting there thinking… im glue challened, or im strictly digi… but this is a fun and simple challenge to give yourself!

Here is my example:

This is all you gotta do… Open up your program you use to scrapbook. Then pick out your favorite papers, or the papers that match a photo (exactly as you would do for digi scrapbooking) and pick elements as well… then resize them to fit a 6×6 album or an 8×8 album… most printers are not 12×12. Then once everything is printed… go to town and be creative. Have fun!

I use Dani’s Old School kit here. I printed off everything, and then use a normal peice of graph paper as my background. I crumpled paper to add texture and found some duct tape lying around the house that i place as a photo corner. I took my lovely sharpies and doodles all around and then journled. this is something that is super fun to create, everyone will love it, and its great to challenge yourself!!

hey everyone hope you had a great Valentines Day! im excited to share my project that i did a couple days ago.. its super quick and easy with amazing results!

Do you have a journal you use all the time, but the cover is not that appealing? here is a great way to fix it up to your liking

I got to playing with the Valentine’s Day brag book by the creative team, and playing some more with the Crazy Love kit and came up with a fun Valentine’s decoration. My other altered idea can just wait for a different post.

I began by putting pictures into the adorable brag book pages and then resized each to 3×3. I wanted the flowers to not be too big, and by resizing the layouts I was able to fit six on a 8.5×11 slice of paper:

I then printed the page and cut the layouts into hearts, tulip shapes and one sunflower. I covered the flowers in Contact paper (laminating or using a different sealer would work as well) and then taped them to the stems of silk flowers. I just popped the tops off those and will use the flowers in a different project someday. Here is a front and back view:

I decided the bouquet needed something extra, so I made some embellishments. I printed off little squares of paper from the Crazy Love papers, and some embellishments at various sizes. I then cut out flower-like shapes and put embellishments on the top with pop-dots. I have quickly fallen in love with pop-dots, thanks to Melinda. One bitty tip – don’t be afraid to cut those little stickies. Some areas were really small that I wanted dimension on and I didn’t want the pop-dot sticking out. I just cut them in half or quarters – worked great. After that I taped floral wire (found in most craft stores – and craft sections of department stores) to the back of the embellishments and then wound the wire around popsicle sticks. That way I could still twist and position the embellishments where I wanted them, and also have a sturdy way to stick them into the flower pot. Brilliant, I know. (Thank goodness for kids that leave everything lying around – including popsicle sticks. ) Here’s a photo of the pile I made, and a close-up of a few to get a better idea.

Oh, and here’s a quick look at some of the extras I used – in case you have any questions about what they look like in the pre-altered form.

After that came some fun “floral” arranging. I used a galvanized bucket I had as well as some small rocks. That way I could stick the flowers and embellishments in and have them stay put. You could use marbles, stryofoam, diamonds – whatever you have on hand. A vase would also work and your arrangement could be sized to fit a variety of vases.

I will leave with a close-up of this love bouquet.

If you haven’t downloaded the brag book yet, go get it. Whether you make an adorable accordian album like Melinda, a couple of flowers, or a creation all your own – enjoy. Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at the Girl Talk blog!!