D's BD

Okay, I am trying something new here. These are low resolution, reduced copies of the real thing, but I am learning how to do digital scrapbooking. (You should be able to click to get a larger image) More on that at the end. First this is the left hand side of this "spread". This is D's birthday morning (Friday). We allowed him to open a present in the morning because Grandma and Grandpa got him an Indiana Jones hat and messenger bag. It was a HIT! We knew he would want to wear it all day and he did! Stay tuned for more adventures! :o) And the picture on the left here is D being kissed by both his sisters - how CUTE is that!?

This is the right hand side of this layout. We had a short trip to Apple Hill on his birthday before we went out to lunch. His birthday trip was actually on Saturday. It'll be awhile before I get that sorted out.

Now for the specs, in case anyone is curious. I'm using Photoshop Elements 6 along with a learning CD from Linda Sattgast, a lovely Christian woman who has a business called Scrapper's Guide. Her learning CD is well worth the money because everything is broken down into professional quality, screen shot videos of the program you are using. They are in small segments so you can easily go back and re-watch without a huge time commitment. Likewise, you can watch them and learn because you can do it in small snippets. I also belong to her Premium membership which cost around $35 for a year. Each month I receive a professional quality kit from various designers along with additional teaching videos to download. The kits are really nice and useful. If you are interested in learning, Linda's CD is coming packaged with PS Elements 7 for Costco members only (it either just came out or is very soon). I highly recommend her. There are other free videos at various sights, which are helpful, but then you have to track them down when you need them. Linda's are all in one spot.

As for the kit, I used Julie Billingsley's Apple of My Eye kit from Sweet Shop Designs. The 9 picture frame came from Shabby Princess's GORGEOUS Autumn Medley> kit. The number "7" came from another Sweet Shoppe kit called Apple Snapple from designer Kay Miller.

My most recent favorite place to "window shop", since I could spend at least a hundred easily (but didn't!!!) is Designer Digitals. Take a look at the designs of Katie Pertiet. (Blogger won't let me past another link!) Once you get past the first page of her designs, she has a botanical collection that is scrumptious and I will probably end up collecting many of them to use with my heritage albums. Dana Zarling, Kellie Mize Lynn Grieveson, Mary Ann Wise and Mindy Terasawa are some of my other favorite designers there.

I was also delighted to find Faith Sisters, which features kits from Christian designers, many of which are geared towards sharing your faith and Christian life/church activities.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and I'm sure I'll be sharing more sites in the future. I will also talk about some of the free or "cheap" sites I frequent. If you are a digital scrapbooker, I would LOVE to hear about your favorites, your tips to a newbie and see some of your work!

More birthday posts coming. :o)