Three new themes were added to the builder last week just for you! Below is a little bit about each one - It’s time to Get Crafty!
First of all, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to a brilliant digital scrapbook designer, Amy Hutchinson, her username on Scrapblog is AmyH. Amy created one of the St. Patrick’s Day themes and I’m happy to unveil her “Courtroom Papers” theme. It’s one of my favorites! I know you will enjoy using it with your photos.
I asked Amy to share a photo and a little bit about herself:
First and foremost, I am a full-time mom to my 3 beautiful girls, ages
8, 10, and 14, and my 3-year old son. We live and love in the music-
filled city of Memphis, TN, USA. In addition to my wonderful family, I
love rock music, the beach, and a good cocktail! I accidentally
discovered digiscrapping in September of 2006 when searching for a way
to share family photos online. I was instantly hooked! I am a scrapper
above all else. It is my creative outlet, and a way for me to share my
life, my memories, and my legacy. I began designing only a year later,
and I soon opened my own shoppe. I consider myself truly blessed to be
able to stay home with my family and earn a living doing what I love!
Spring Fever! I know some of you are still dealing with snow, but it is technically Springtime! Here’s a springy theme from Stacy Hedemark full of bright colors to complement your photos.
If you are like me, you have to take tons of photos when you are on vacation. Stacy has created the perfect elements for you to tell your vacation story. The theme is called Europe Travel, but this theme is the perfect backdrop for any of your vacation photos. Be sure to check out the cute little stickers she created. My favorite is the little Sydney Operahouse - TOO CUTE!
As an avid user of ‘SCRAPBLOG’ since it first began (user name ‘cazjane’), I was delighted to be asked to choose this week’s ‘Friday Five’. I always browse through the ‘recently updated’ thumbnails to see what new albums have been created (and there seem to be new ones every few minutes) so I thought that it would be a fairly straightforward task! How wrong I was- as the pile of shortlists and ammended shortlists on my desk demonstrates!
At first, I thought I would be clever and find a theme into which all my choices would neatly fit- ‘Family and Friends’ or ‘A Man’s Perspective’, for example. In the end, I just chose five varied scrapblogs which caught my eye but which fulfilled three guidelines:
1) The scrapblog would contain at least four pages (This was made easier by being able to float the mouse over the thumbnail to bring up the number of its pages).
2) It would be created by someone other than the ‘usual candidates’ -There are some brilliant scrapbloggers who produce beautiful and unusual albums every few days-but you will have seen their work featured before so I was trying to find scrapbloggers who have only just started publishing and have just one or two scrapblogs…..at the moment!
3) It would look interesting from the very first page.
So-at last-to my ‘Friday Five’
JoeCashin‘Flowers’
This scrapblog is five stunning pages of photography enhanced by some bright backgrounds and subtle effects. The pictures were all taken in the garden or in a local park at JoeCashin’s Kilkenny, Ireland home.
FrannyBaggins‘The Wizard of Oz’
FrannyBaggins, an artist from Southampton,U.K. has taken this unusual topic and portrayed the characters in pages full of colour and detail with a clever use of stickers.
SusieK‘Easter 2008′
There were many beautiful Easter albums produced over the last two weeks. I chose this one because it is a real ’scrapbooker’s’ scrapblog- gorgeous photos, pretty backgrounds enhanced by the frames and stickers and with a perfect choice of music. SusieK has joined ‘Scrapblog’ fairly recently (and, if you read her profile you will see which of her relatives may have encouraged her to do so!). I have watched her progress from a one-paged scrapblog to this-my ‘Friday Five’ choice.
Joey8a‘2008 Italy Trip’
I love ‘travelogue’ scrapblogs and this is one of the best. There must be something about Italy which inspires scrapbloggers because I realize that another fantastic album on Italy was featured not long ago but I had to include this one in my ‘Friday Five’. ‘2008 Italy Trip’ records what Joey8a says was the ‘best trip ever’ in 41 pages of artistically presented photos and text and three videos!
ytus‘robot programming’
I’ve noticed over the months how ‘Scrapblog’ can be used for educational purposes-for literary projects, to display classroom artwork, for students’ portfolios etc. In this ’scrapblog’ a ‘robot programming’ task is clearly set out on the first page and then we can see the resulting models on the next few pages. There is a video, too, but you will have to look to ytus’ comments underneath the scrapblog to find the link! I might add, at this stage, that comments under scrapblogs can sometimes be as interesting as the scrapblog itself and reveal much about the content of the album.
As I finish my ‘Friday Five’ report and send it in before the deadline, new and fabulous scrapblogs will be arriving in the ‘newly updated’ section. Some will be using all those interesting new ‘cropping’ and ‘editing’ features which have just been released. I know that I will have overlooked some scrapblogs which should have been chosen but they can be for another week and for another person to choose in their ‘Friday Five’ selection!
Our daily routine here at the scrapblog offices begins by heading over to the “explore” page to see what YOU have been creating. When we see your extraordinary scrapblog creations, we know that all the late nights and weekends are worth it. Your scrapblogs inspire us and YOU make us laugh and it’s the best part of our day. As we thought about redesigning the homepage, we knew that more than anything, the biggest feature should be YOU! (Are you seeing a theme here? LOL)
With YOU in mind, we have completely redesigned the homepage. We are now featuring the wonderful scrapblog layouts YOU are creating. If you are new to scrapblog, we have included 3 simple steps to getting started.
We will be showcasing what’s been happening on the site so you will want to come back everyday and take a look at the Cool New Scrapblogs. You can still get a tour of scrapblog as well as explore our community.
Take a moment to bask in the glory of your superstardom. Have fun exploring, love a new scrapblog you come across and don’t forget to thank Omar, Mike, Saul, Tim & Caleb for putting your name in lights!
This is our BIGGEST release since the launch of Scrapblog almost 1 year ago. These new features will make your scrapblogs come alive!
We are proud to unveil to you our most exciting and most requested features yet – the photo editing and photo cropping tools! In addition to these new tools, we have improved many other features inside the builder such as Get Stickers, Get Backgrounds, and Get Photos. Here are some examples of how to use the new cropping and editing tools:
Photo Cropping
The cropping tool has been completely redesigned and expanded to give you more creative freedom and flexibility. No longer are you limited to simple shapes, now you can crop your photos any way you want. All of the fun of photo cropping, without the anxiety of cutting your printed photos - it’s digital! The new cropping tool has three distinct ways to crop:
Shapes- Choose from customizable shapes like circles, rectangles, and stars to instantly crop your photo
Freehand- Designed to be used like a pair of scissors, you will be able to crop and transform photos into any shape or design
Eraser- Wipe out any part of the image or remove unnecessary portions of your photo.
For a video tutorial on using the new cropping tools, check out our new show Get Crafty!
Photo Editing
Ever wished your photo was black & white or wanted that “vintage” look? We now offer 1-click photo editing. With our new photo editing tool, you will not need to use desktop photo editing software to enhance your photos before bringing them into Scrapblog. We want to make it as easy as possible to make your photos look their best.
Some of the new effects include: black and white, sepia, antique, matte, vignette, a cool comic book effect, and even the ability to flip your photo to show off your good side.
Black & White
Sepia
Comic Book Effect
We have also redesigned Get Photos, Get Stickers, & Get Backgrounds in the builder. With one click of your mouse, your new photo, sticker or background flies into your tray! How fun is that?
Selecting elements inside your scrapblog has ever been easier. When you roll your mouse over an element, an orange glow tells you which elements of the theme you can move around and which are part of the background page. This new effect will be very helpful when you are working on a collage or intricate scrapblog layout.
So what are you waiting for??? Stop reading this blog and start making your beautiful and amazing scrapblog layouts! We want to see what you’ve been up to so when you use the cropping tool tag your scrapblog “cropped” and when you use the photo editing tag your scrapblog “edit”.
Hi - I’m Ashley, known as AshleySaysHihere on Scrapblog. I started using scrapblog the beginning of last year, after searching high and low for a place to make my photos look cute! From there, my love for creating fun designs using photos and designs just blossomed. Now I’ve created a little business for myself creating blog and card designs. It just happens to be what I love doing, so what more could I ask for! I LOVE my husband and my little boy, and they’re what motivate me to be, well, me! Oh yeah, I am also a scrapbooker as you might be able to guess from my choices this week.
My first choice is “just arrived” created by hubbard. This scrapblog features georgous layouts and has a fun story too!
Here we have “First Easter” from ~*elisabeth*~. Isn’t the layout beautiful? I love the story about the sheep!
My third choice is from mlg, it’s called “6 month easter”. She’s pulled in some fun colors to match her little girl’s easter dress, and the thought bubbles are very well done.
I didn’t realize it when I chose this scrapblog; it was created by Scrapblog’s Community Manager RebeccaJ. Although it’s one’s only one page, I love how she blended the photo in with the background. Very cool. Rebecca is actually going to show us next week how to create this layout.
My last choice is this fun travelog created by CharlieCello. Tasmania chronicles her trip to the beautiful country of Tasmania! She did a great job journaling this scrapblog.
So that’s it. I hope you enjoyed my picks this week. Thanks to scrapblog for giving me this opportunity to share with you my choices.
