justified text in PSE!! whoo hoo!!

Ok, so it is the little things in life that really make me happy :) I love justified text, and it has always irked me that you couldn't do it in PSE, as it isn't one of the options given with the text tool- only left, right and centered. I did notice on certain LO templates that had justified text boxes that it still worked just fine so I knew the capability was there I just didn't know how to get it.

So, I'm getting the dreaded 'you are running out of space on your HD' message while trying to save a two page LO I've been working on all day, and I decided to clean out my inbox a little. I came across a tips email that a friend sent about a month ago and I never really looked at. One part had a few keyboard shortcuts, and low and behold there was a keystroke for getting justified text. I gave it a try and it works in PSE6! and I would hazzard a guess that it probably works in PSE4 and 5 as well, since I could get justified text on those LO templates when I was scrapping with PSE4.

Here's what you do:

have your text layer selected, and grab the text tool. Highlight the text you want justified and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+J

simple and easy and you have beautiful justified text! yeah!

(many belated thanks for that little email, Raji!)

Prima LO and project

digital credits: Diner Car by Meredith Fenwick, Treat Bag Template by Vera Lim, Tag You're ItFlossy Stitches by Kim Christensen, all at PrimaHybrid.com
paper credits: by Prima Marketing: Elysee ribbons, Essentials 3 Rue 88 flowers, Forever Flowers #4, Say It in Crystals centers; eyelets by Creative Impressions, ricrac by American Crafts, Sheer Creations ribbon by Michaels, popdots by unknown

details:

credits: Vibrant Blossom papers and elements by Carrie Stephens, Kraft Stash-Alphaz 2 by Trish Jones at PrimaHybrid.com; fonts: TXT Fat Hatch and TXT Tough Love

Circle Journal Pages

One thing I particularly noted during the last layout printing session I did at the beginning of December, was how much more I have scrapped pages about myself since I started digiscrapping. I'm not totally sure why, there is probably lots of reasons actually: challenges that encourage you to scrap about yourself, finally having scans of some of my childhood pictures, being able to scrap faster so that I don't feel totally overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the kids' photos, and I'm sure there are other reasons too. It feels good to have an album dedicated to me sitting on the shelf with the ones about the kids. They enjoy looking at the things I did as a youngster and seeing that they enjoy some of the same things now.

The BBB ladies decided to do a circle journal this year. It is always interesting to scrap the topics that the other ladies choose for their 'chapter'- it sure does make you think sometimes! We're doing this over a whole year, so no rush... but I've been working on the pages that I had ideas for. I figure that I might as well get them done so I can ponder what to do for some of the other topics where things didn't pop into my head immediately. When we get them all done we will have a huge book full of beautiful LOs from our best scrappin' buds. Here are my title page and the first two topic pages I've gotten done.

the topic I asked people to scrap was their schedule- the things they do on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Here's the title page for my chapter that I came up with:
I tucked all sorts of things onto this page, and even managed to work in at least one thing from everyone in the BBB that I had designs from- that was a neat little challenge I set myself about half way through the page ;) The list of credits for this one is incredibly long, so I don't think I'm going to post it here.

Kim asked us to scrap about something unexpected, and explain how where we are now differs from where we thought we would be.

credits:
Whatever, Mama! by Tania Cordova and Jessica Bolton- background paper, ribbon wrap, quote strips, small stitched heart, Mama title
by Jessica Bolton: Heart felt circle from Love This Guy, Teeny Tags, Delight in Photographs 2- red arrow, paint stroke, journaling prompter, blue flower petals, orange button; Outnumbered Girl- flowers and blue button; painted hearts; X-stitch; Sweetcakes- love always charm; Make Me Eclectic- Safetypin with tag
Frame cluster by Nancy Comelab
Huge Frames by Simonetta Rossi at sophiasarducci.com
cow, horse, and sheep photos by my friend Jim Meyer
Pig photo from Stock Xchange
Mother and baby statue is located in Columbus, Ohio on the bridge near the Santa Maria ship replica, photo taken by me.
Font: Bradley Hand

I loved the statue of the mom and baby that we came across on vacation in 2006, and I finally got to use it!

and Amy wanted to know what some of our favorite things are:

credits:
Annie Manning/Paint the Moon Designs: Boxed In Set 1 and Funky Flowers- Romantics
Stroke of Midnight by Annie Manning/Paint the Moon Designs and Jofia Devoe
Weeds & Wildflowers: Brilliantly Blue, Morning Glory, Drinking Tea papers, Paper Flowers
Christina Renee: Miniatures, Sassy Lace, A Stitched Mess
Crystal Cranberry by Amy Hutchinson
Winter Wonderland by Shabby Princess
Howdy by Maya
File It Under Collection by Michelle Godin
Date Stamps by Amber Clegg
fonts: DB Cowlendar, CK Becky

Jen and Jeanine got some photos of their CHA booth up on the KV blog a couple of days ago. check it out here.

I'm in charge of the nursery at church tomorrow, so I'd better get myself to bed.

been sick

I caught the nasty cold bug that is going around everywhere over a week ago, and it sure slowed me down a lot this last week. It's one of those bugs that doesn't make you feel bad enough that you have to stay in bed all of the time, but it doesn't leave you a lot of energy to do much either. So, I've been reading, napping, and just trying to keep my head above the water in the inbox of my email program. I was supposed to be in charge of the nursery at church this morning, but had to bow out of that since no one wanted to catch what I have.
In the little bit of time I did actually feel like working on something I did a couple of projects- one of the Pink Paislee make and take paper projects I ordered a couple of weeks ago:

and this adorable bracket album by one of my fellow designers at Scrapdish, Jill D-Zines. I'm very pleased with how it came out, but as usual the pictures just don't do all of the details on it justice. It is kind of nice to have something you can actually hold in your hands and look at when you are finished, but I wish there was an easy way to clone it since I'm only doing one of these- I see that as one of the major disadvantages to paper scrapping ;)

digital credits: Loving You, and heart gem from Cherish Every Moment by Weeds and Wildflowers at PrimaHybrid.com; Bracket-Album Templates by Jill D-Zines at scrapdish.com; Merry Memories alpha by Bren Taylor Boone; fonts: CK Becky, BlackJack
paper credits:
Prima: Sprites 2 (#517250), blue floral embellishment (#508821), yellow floral embellishment (#130244), Rue 88 flowers (#517267), Forever Flowers No. 4 (#505882), Burgundy Hydrangea Petals (#170554)
other: Glue Dots, Mootsie Bookbinding glue, Glitter glue by Sulyn, Poinsettia Vendetta by Imaginisce, brads by Making Memories, colored staple by Target, Loose Leaf Ring by Acco, ribbons by Offray and Robert Stanley for HobbyLobby, misc: rhinestone gems, string, chipboard, artificial flowers and leaves

and in an attempt to occupy the kiddos yesterday afternoon while we stayed home yet again, we got out the watercolor paints. Here's Sarah making her version of a masterpiece:

credits: smootzy frames by Nancy Rowe Janitz and paint strokes by Michelle Coleman

She is a believer in Brenna's painting philosophy that more colors are definitely better, and the end result of a brown muddy mess is beautiful ;)

Yesterday evening we ventured out of the house to meet my mom at the City Auditorium to hear the Southern Colorado Hand Bell festival concert. It was something to hear 300+ handbell ringers all playing together. They had a nice variety of music styles and because we had plenty of Color Wonder markers and coloring pages we actually got to stay and hear the whole thing.

We watched several movies this weekend too- Game Plan, No Reservations, and Becoming Jane. All good flicks, I'd recommend them if you are looking for something to watch.

Scrapdish Valentine Sale Feb 11-15

We're having a store-wide sale at Scrapdish just in time for Valentine's day!

I worked most of yesterday afternoon and all evening to get some new templates up in my store for the sale- my gift bag templates are done. YEAH!
There are 4 different sizes:
Mini- 3.75x4.5x 2 inches,
Small- 5x7x3 inches,
Medium- 6x10x4 inches
Large- 9x10.5x6 inches
The templates are designed so that you can print them on a standard letter-size printer, even the largest bag size. I used the mini, medium and large templates to make the bags for the KristyValshan booth at CHA. I designed the small size to round out the set.
They are available individually, or you can buy the whole collection and save.

and Kim has a new element set up in the store in time for the sale too! check it out here

Ok, I have to get a template done for my RAKscraps challenge tomorrow. Chat with you later!

a couple of new LOs

got these done and uploaded tonight:

credits: everything at PrimaHybrid.com: Hearts-n-Crafts by Dianne Rigdon, Date Stamps by Trish Jones, All About Tags: Love and red ribbon from One Sweet Day by Corina Nielsen, Itty Bitty Alpha and Stitching ABC's collection by Weeds and Wildflowers;
fonts: CK Tea Party

The COSI Science museum logo off of the side of the building and a few misc pictures I took that don't fit with any of the other 'themes' I have from the museum. I'll use this as a section divider in the vacation album.

credits: Smokestack papers and elements by Kim Christensen at PrimaHybrid.com; fonts: CK Extra

We spent most of today cleaning up the house- it was a disaster zone! My ankle did not appreciate all of the effort it took though. I've had to ice it this evening as it just aches, definitely not fun. I think I'm going to have to take some Tylenol before I get in bed too. Hopefully I can sit and work on the new templates I need to get ready tomorrow after church- lots of things I need to get done still this weekend!

Kristy Valshan CHA projects

Jen and Jeanine are headed off to CA today for the CHA trade show, and since they posted pictures of some of the projects I made for their booth on their blog yesterday I figure it is safe to put them up on my own blog now ;)

I started out with projects for their holiday collection- Yuletide. I had fun shopping all of the Christmas clearance sales at the beginning of January and finding great deals on Christmas crafty things to dressup for them.

a wooden letter word banner.
a paper mache ornamentthe other side of the ornament.This set looks gorgeous with silver glitter, so I used lots! :)

a couple of petal boxes with Fancy Free
and a composition journal with Autumn Beauty
the back:
Since they are wanting to license their designs to paper companies that manufacture actual paper scrapbooking products, I spent extra time turning the digital elements into chipboard shapes and such. That always reminds me why I love to digiscrap now, nothing is quite as boring as hand-cutting title letters, especially when it is difficult because they are glued to chipboard :P

After I got all of those done and shipped off, Jen requested some gift bags of varying sizes. I designed some templates so that I could print the pieces for them I needed on my little printer.
Bags with Fancy Free
a couple with a new collection called Renewal:
and more Yuletide:
and since I just couldn't resist, I hand glittered all of the black swirls on both bags and their tags. I used a whole bottle of glitter glue on the all of the things I made with Yuletide, with over half of it going on the gift bags. It was worth the time as they are gorgeous, these pics just don't do the bags justice.
The medium size Yuletide bag with the KV logo on the tag is going to be in some central display for the design and licensing exhibitors.

All in all, I think everything turned out nicely. I can't wait to see pictures of the booth when it is done this evening and see how everything looks all together. I hope the show is successful for you, Jen and Jeanine!

I need to get a bunch of templates finished up this weekend- digicraft for February at RAKscraps is next Tuesday and I'd like to get the gift bag templates up in my store early next week.
OK, I'm off to get showered and then put the garbage out before truck goes by for the week- oh the glamorous life of a SAHM! Have a great weekend everyone!

Wednesday stuff

ha! so not an original title LOL I got one of the boxes I was waiting for a couple of days ago. My birthday present from my sister arrived. She got me the Puffer Flash by Gary Fong. Thanks, Megan!

I like it- very easy to use, it doesn't interfere with the camera function, and it makes my pictures look better. Here's some examples:
It is gorgeous with portraits- the lighting is much more even and skin tones are not washed out. Brenna has horrible red eye on the top photo, but her beautiful eyes need no correcting when I used the Puffer. As for 'still-life' pictures, it does seem to depend on the background and what sort of look you want. I actually like the brighter photo I got of the snowmen without the puffer better as they really are white and not tan ;) the background on the valentine projects is closer to white without the puffer, but the projects themselves are washed out- using the puffer helped in this case. This is definitely something I will be using a lot since I would rather not have the bulk of a bigger flash attached to the top of my camera 95% of the time.

ankle update: it is doing OK. I can walk without hardly a limp. It is still beautiful shades of purple, blue, and yellow - I'll spare you a visual LOL- and I can tell it is still 'injured.' It doesn't bother me much, but there is a slight ache most of the time at the edge of my subconscious. If I am up on it a while it will start to hurt more, and there is certainly no twisting of it allowed. I will be wearing the brace for quite a while yet, I'm sure. All in all it is much better than I thought it would be a week later.

Here are a couple of pages I finished up yesterday:

journaling: Sarah often comes to me and says that she likes something- that means that she would like to eat it, please. Today after requesting macaroni & cheese, she stated several times “I eat cheese” as she proceeded to do just that. February 4, 2008
credits: by Weeds and Wildflowers at PrimaHybrid.com- Cherishing Every Moment papers, elements, alpha and addon, Stitching ABCs Collection, Itty Bitty Alpha; LO template by Mish Gasser from the January08 PlainDigitalWrapper Designer Collab; fonts: CK Becky

and a hybrid LO I did with Jess Gordon's Flower Girl blog party template, and for the challenge to lift her gorgeous LO at PH- yes, I'm late with it but at least I got it done ;)
digital credits: Citrus Punk and The Sweet Life papers by Gina Miller, template by Jessica Gordon, Cherishing Every Moment Alpha by Weeds and Wildflowers, by Kim Christensen: staple, Ole Style Glitter alpha, teeny alpha stickers, tiny tags, stars from Starry Eyed kit in the RAD collection; font: CK Becky

paper credits: wire by Crafts, Etc., pink Got Flowers? by Prima (#901059), Glitter glue by Sulyn, pop dots by All Night Media, colored staples from Target

and some detail pics:

Ok, off to see if I can get another project started before it is time to make lunch. Brenna and Sarah are actually sitting and being quiet instead of running around the house making a mess. I'm glad they play well with each other most of the time, but as you can see in the LO above Sarah's specialty these days is pulling everything out and dumping it on the floor. Don't you just love two-year olds?

weekend layouts

I enjoyed spending some time scrapping this weekend now that my big push to get CHA samples for the KristyValshan booth done is over. I'm just waiting to hear that the second box got to them safely and then I can really relax. After the show next week I can show you what all I made for them. I am excited to see how everything looks together in the booth. I wish it could be in person this time, but I will have to be satisfied with the pictures I've been promised. Hopefully it will work out for me to go to the summer show in July this year.

Here's a photo I got of Danny and family after dinner with them Saturday night. I used some more Jessica goodies, Brighten Up Winter, for this one.

credits can be seen HERE

and a layout I did for the GirlTalk blog template challenge last night. I squeezed it in at the last minute and won a GC for more Dani goods- yeah! especially since her new products keep hopping into my shopping cart over at SSD now that I'm not on her team any more. LOL Love 'ya Dani!

journaling: Brenna brought Carissa’s Neopet Uni upstairs the other day, and Sarah thought it was the neatest thing- it lit up, it flapped it’s wings, it talked to her when she talked to it. She was fascinated for almost an hour and would bring it to me just to show me what it could do.
credits can be seen HERE

Bryce and Beth both went to school this morning. Other than slight cough that I'm pretty sure is due to nasal congestion Bryce seemed fine- he wasn't acting sick in any other way, so off to school he went after a dose of cough and nasal spray, hopefully that will get him through the school day.

Well, got to get to work. I have some instructions for new templates I need to write up, a layout to finish that I put aside Friday night, and some other things to get done.

This is the last day of the PrimaHybrid Grand Opening sale. If you've been waiting to get something from the store there, don't put it off much longer ;) My blog party template will be available until this evening and then the link will be removed.

Eclectic Team and Prima hyrbid projects

I'm thrilled to be a part of Jessica Bolton's Eclectic Team now! Jess always has great kits with original, funky elements. Here are my first two layouts with her new goodies:
Mark and his friend Danny. This pictures was from in January of last year, and I finally found a perfect kit to scrap it with in Jess' DST gold member kit, Love This Guy.

credits can be seen HERE

We actually spent some time this afternoon and evening with Danny and his family again. I'll have to show some pics from that outing another time since they are still on my camera. Yes, I will send a copy of this picture to you, Danny!

and some cute pics of Sarah playing Peek-a-Boo with me earlier this month using the new Impressions of Romance collab kit at scrapbookgraphics.
credits can be seen HERE

and with the next newsletter coming out for PrimaHybrid tonight or tomorrow morning, I can show off a couple of projects I've had stashed away for several weeks.
I made this pretty candy box with the template that is included in this week's newsletter. You can grab the template here. The template was made by Cindy Gilchrist this month, though I did have a small hand in getting it put together ;)
credits for my candy box can be seen HERE
and if you are interested in making your own candy box and playing along with the newsletter challenge, you can grab it right HERE

and the weekly forum challenge is to alter a tin of some sort. You can find a tutorial for this here, if you need some instruction.
I altered an Altoids tin I had saved and made an accordian album to go inside it too with 10 reasons for my hubby that I love him.
I used all of Corina's new goodies for this project. You can see the full credits for my album HERE.

If you like these projects, go here to sign up for the PrimaHybrid newsletter so that you don't miss any.

That's all for tonight I think. Sarah has actually fallen asleep early- probably due to the fact that she ran around constantly for about an hour at the mall play area this afternoon. So, I'm going to get her in bed and watch the Stargate Atlantis and Flash Gordon shows that I recorded last night. Bryce is coming down with something- I'm thinking it might be strep as I hear that is going around right now and his throat is pretty sore. Of course with it being the weekend we will have to wait until Monday to find out and that probably means he will miss a couple of days of school if it is. Church is probably out of the question for him tomorrow. My ankle is doing better. I can walk without a noticeable limp now, but it has horrible bruising and is still pretty weak. Any twisting of it and I know that it still isn't healed. I think my ankle brace is going to get used for quite a while yet. I'm glad my original assessment of how bad it was hurt seems to be incorrect.

Tagged

Fellow Flower Girl Cathy tagged everyone, so here goes:

1. Name your two favorite scrapbooking topics:
Sarah and Brenna, and photos of my family and my childhood now that I have scans of a lot of them

2. Where are the two best places you've been to? Italy- Venice and Rome- and London

3. Name two things you do every day: Browse the web and wash a load of dishes- with 5 kids there are always dirty dishes in the sink!

4. Tell us two things that pretty much everyone knows about you: I'm obsessed with scrapbooking and I love to read- I've just about always got a book or magazine with me wherever I am.

5. Tell us two things that everyone DOESN'T know about you: I was the drum major my senior year in high school. I have bachelor's degree in Animal Sciences from Washington State University and a master's degree in Nutrition (physiology side of nutritrion, not dietetics) from Penn State University.

6. Tell us two things that got you into the hobby of scrapping: It only took one- seeing a Creative Memories booth at a craft fair when my son was about 6 months old. I started scrapping a couple of weeks later after taking a class from the consultant at the booth and haven't quit since.

7. Tell us two things that you want to accomplish in the next six months: get the piles of outgrown kids clothing and unfinished scrapping projects out of my living room, or at least make them look neater. Attend the summer CHA show so that I can meet some of my on-line friends and co-workers in person.

8. Name your two favorite scrapping tools: Photoshop Elements 6 and my Crop-O-Dile

9. Name your two favorite sources of scrapping inspiration: my scrapping buddies' (both online and real-life) and scrapbooking magazines

10. How has your scrapping changed since you started? I began as a simple paper scrapper, but since going digi my style has been moving towards the 'clustered' look with lots of elements. I feel much more 'free' in my scrapping style now and I try and mix up my style every once in a while.

11. What scrapbooking project have you yet to try but would love to? I haven't made a CD album yet.

And now I tag all my BBB buds!