The Blog

Hello Fellow Scrapbloggers!

So guess what? Today is November 4th and we just finished Halloween, so now we can focus on getting ready for the holiday season! As creative people we know the importance of getting a head start on holidays. To feed your competitive spirits and get you in a creative frame of mind, we are announcing today our 2nd Annual Best Scrapblog Holiday Card Contest.

If you participated last year, you remember all the totally AMAZING scrapblog holiday cards that were created. Check out all the entries from last year here. With so many great stickers, backgrounds, themes and kits - we simply cannot wait to see what you come up with!

So here’s how you participate:
1. Create your Scrapblog Holiday Card. - The holiday you choose is totally up to you! Maybe your holiday is Halloween, Christmas, Hanukkah or Thanksgiving?
2. Your card must be 3 Scrapblog pages - 1 for the front of the card, 1 for the inside top and 1 for the inside bottom.
3. Save and publish your scrapblog publicly. We need to see your creation!
4. Tag your entry HOLIDAYS09

Your entry must be created before midnight on November 13, 2009. The Scrapblog staff will vote on all the entries and choose the best THREE entries as winners. The winners will receive 25 copies of their Scrapblog Holiday Card!

Have Fun!!

Cheers!
Rebecca

I’m very excited to tell you about a new class you can take over at Big Picture Scrapbooking!

I find genealogy can be both exciting and overwhelming at the same time. There are so many times that I say something that reminds me of my late grandma or my mom will tell me a story from my childhood and I wish that I wrote all of those things down. Join Georgana Hall of Adornit as she walks you through a simple family history project using Scrapblog.

If you are not familiar with the Big Picture Scrapbooking format, Georgana will walk you through every step. This is a self paced class that won’t break the bank (it’s only $10!!) Plus you will get a free gift from Scrapblog too. I know you will love learning from Georgana; she has a sweet, patient nature and will encourage you along the way.

Everyday you create more memories, so now is your chance to learn something new, capture and share your heritage and learn more about Georgana and Adornit.

Have fun!

Rebecca

Hello Fellow Scrapbloggers!

Thanks to all of you that are trying out QuickMix! I have seen some really great Scrapblogs created with the new kits! We have also really enjoyed getting all your feedback, so keep it coming!

Today I want to show off one of my favorite of the new features: shapes and backgrounds. If you are a legacy user of Scrapblog, you are already aware of how to use shapes. When dragged onto the canvas, shapes can add visual interest to your scrapblog pages. They can be filled with color, gradients and prior to releasing the QuickMix, you could fill shapes with backgrounds that were “patterns.” I’m so excited about shapes today because, first of all, we’ve added 12 new ones. All the older shapes are still in the tray and they act just like the new ones - yay!

The best thing (in my opinion) about the shapes is that they can now accept ANY background. Your eyes are not deceiving you, I did say they can hold ANY background! No more searching for the square backgrounds in the builder. Simply see one you like, add it to your tray and drag it into the shape you want. As you can see in picture below, you can have as many shapes as you want on a page and they can each hold a different background. Think of it as a digital way to die cut the background papers.

Shapes have always been a very unique asset in Scrapblog. They can do so many things and change the look of your pages in pretty creative ways. We understand that sometimes you want to layer backgrounds and it’s not enough to have basic shapes like squares, circles and rectangles. So the new shapes are designed for you to really spice things up on your pages. I haven’t yet decided which one is my favorite. The rounded corner rectangle is very versatile, but I’m also extremely found of the heart, scallop edges and the tag shape. Be still my heart, I’m definitely in love with all the new shapes!

So what else is cool about them? If a background is not what you want, you can still fill them with color and add a gradient. You can add or remove a border and make it any color your heart desires. Add a shadow, change the angle and change the opacity are also creative things you can do to make the shapes perfect. If you decide you don’t like the background you added to the shape, just click the “remove pattern” button and the shape goes back to white.

You may have noticed in the photo above, a “hand” in the middle of the shape. This is a helping hand! When you click on the hand, it changes to fist show you know you’ve grabbed the background, now you can move the background around until you find the perfect selection for your page.

The last shape feature I want to show you is all about size. Shapes can be as big or as small as you want. To change the size of the shape, click on it, grab the blue square in the corner and drag it bigger or smaller. To retain the proportions of the shape hold down the SHIFT key when you are dragging.

Enjoy playing with the shapes, backgrounds and colors. We are so happy to continue to help you get your creative juices flowing!

Hello Fellow Scrapbloggers!

Halloween is THIS Saturday people and if you haven’t prepared the perfect spooky event, here are a couple of ideas to add a little something extra to your party using Scrapblog.

Every great party starts with great invitations. I used stickers and backgrounds from Pebbles, Inc. Those of you that know my style, know that simple is not usually a way to describe it. However, I love the clean, classic design from Pebbles and I think it works really well for these projects. If these aren’t your style, we have hundreds and hundreds of stickers to choose from.

Don’t forget to add all the details about your party so your guests know the details. When you are finished with your invite, you can print it from home, order postcards from scrapblog, post it to your Facebook event wall, or email it to all your ghosts (I mean guests!).

Now that everyone is invited, I want to show you a quick and easy party game that you can create in Scrapblog and print right from your home printer. I LOVE playing pin the tail on the donkey, but that doesn’t really work too well for Halloween, so I decided on pin the tail on the black cat. This cat is one of the most popular stickers in our library and he really looks upset that his tail is missing! To hide his tail, I used an oval shape in same color as the background and placed it over his tail until it disappeared. Ledya was happy to play my game with me after I printed it.

Once the party is over, you can send out great thank you cards. Just design 3 scrapblog pages (1 for the front, 1 for the inside top and 1 for the inside bottom). Order your cards and call your party a success!

I hope this has sparked some ideas for you to create the spookiest, best Halloween ever!!!

Rebecca

Hello Scrapbloggers! My name is Beth and I have a blog about everything from crafting and home decorating to chocolate and being a mom. I recently wrote an article about a calendar I created using Scrapblog and Rebecca invited me to be a guest blogger. I hope you enjoy this project and send us a link if you try it for yourself!

Are you one of the many that think Scrapblog is only useful for creating digital scrapbooks? If you answered yes, then think again my friend! Today, I am going to take you through a step-by-step tutorial and show you how to use scrapblog to create your very own personalized erasable calendar. All you will need for this project is a computer, printer, two sheets of legal- sized paper, an 11×14 frame, a dry-erase marker, and some imagination. Let’s get this project started!

1. Log onto scrapblog.com and set up your account. After you are all set with your username and password, click on “Create New Scrapblog”. (You can see this in the picture below underneath my Halloween collage. It is a cream colored box with a plus sign next to it.)

2. You can either start with a theme or a blank page. For beginners, I recommend playing around with a theme in order to get a feel for the program. If you are adventurous and are saying “theme-schmeme”, then plunge on ahead and click on “Start with a Blank Page”.

3. This is what your blank page will look like, very…uh…blank. On the left hand side, you will see lots of fun buttons to click on. My favorite button is the “sticker” button. Go ahead and click on the stickers to see your options.

4. In the search bar, you can type in any word or theme you are searching for. Want something in a certain color scheme? On the left side you will see it says Category, Color, Style. Click on the color tab and choose your Roy G. Biv. I want to make a fall themed header for my calendar, so below I typed “autumn” in the search box. Once you see something you like, simply double click on the sticker and it will be added to your page selection. Many of the stickers are free, but many come at a minimal cost in the currency of credits. You will need to purchase credits in order to access these stickers. I’m using some of the new stickers from Pink Paislee.

5.

Once you are finished searching for stickers, click done and it will take you back to your page. Now the fun really begins! Here I have started a new page for my background. You can also find backgrounds in scrapblog, but I often like to create my own with the stickers. Each little box that you see below is an individual sticker that has been resized to fit on one page. You can see I am resizing the red “Thanksgiving Joy” sticker to fit in my empty space.

6. Once you are finished with your project, you will click save, publish, and then “export as jpeg” to save it to your computer. In the picture below, you can see where I’ve highlighted “export as jpeg” under “File”.

7. When you export, you will need to download your picture and then Save (not open) it to your computer.

8. I am now ready to make the header for my calendar. In Microsoft Word, I click on “Page Setup” to change it to legal size and then I mess with my margins to make them as large as possible.

9. I have inserted my Autumn collage into Microsoft Word, but it is not the size I want.

10. I resize it to around 3.5 inches, copy it, and paste it to cover the entire length of the page.

11. Looking good!

12. Next, I insert another Scrapblog picture. Don’t panic if you see a bunch of white surrounding your image. Just crop it down and get rid of all that white.

13. Here I have placed my images where I want them, added my family name, and I am ready to print the header for my calendar!

14. To make the calendar, I simply open a new Word document. Again, I change the layout size to “legal” and make a 7×4 table. I type the names of the week across the top, print it out on a legal sized piece of paper, and call it complete!

15. Now I just pop open my 11×14 frame and stick in my calendar and November header.