Hungry Little Caterpillar

Mel from paintedlittlepiggies.com has released a new kit today!!! This kit is SO adorable! It is based off of "The Hungry Little Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. The kit is jam-packed with all kinds of activities, all having to do with some aspect of the story. Included is a caterpillar life cycle, math ideas, days of the week, and two printable projects. Also included is a mini digi-scrap kit for those scrappers out there (.png files only) and a bonus game! Plus, there is an Activity Guide that will explain each activity. All this in .png and .pdf formats (except mini scrap kit). No special software needed...open, print what you need, and go! You can get this over at The Digi Chick! It's 20% off for today only so you better hurry!

The Soldier and The Soldier's Wife

Today Ginger has another great kit, or should I say KITS available!!! The Soldier is full of rough and rugged, manly man stuff while The Soldier's Wife is geared more towards, well, his wife! It doesn't have to be for a wife either! It can be for a Mother, Grandmother, girlfriend, or finace! It will work for just about any lady out there who has a loved one who is a soldier. I love both of these kits and they work SO well for all of my hubby's photos. I've only included 2 LO's but I have so many more pictures to scrap! Anyway, hurry up and go check out GingerScraps store!!! *Special Thanks to Ginger of GingerScraps for making this kit with me in mind. Thank you for letting me be a part of the making of them, and for being such a wonderful friend!

Spring is in the Air!!

Here is the newest collab kit by the GingerScraps Designers! This month if you complete 4 challenges, you will get this kit for FREE! So what are you waiting for? Hop on over to GingerScraps to enter in on the fun!!!!

Here's my portion of the kit!

Here is the LO I made!

and of course, my blog background!

Blog background tutorial!

It's finally here! I know a lot of my friends are wondering how in the heck I make my own blog backgrounds. Well, I'm here to finally show you how I do it! For this tutorial I will be using Photoshop Elements 6.0. I really hope it's simple enough for you to understand. If you have any questions at all, please leave them in the comments section. I will get back to you! Now, let's get this started shall we? First, open up PSE (photoshop elements). Go up to File--> New-->Blank File. This little box will pop up. Enter in Width: 18 inches Height: 11 inches Resolution: 100 This is what your screen should look like. Don't worry if it is white. It won't matter. I'm using transparent.Now we add the papers. Go up to File-->Place. Then browse for the background paper of your choosing. Once selected, click "commit". Now, drag the paper around so that it's at the edge of the background. Once in place, go over to the layers palette. Right click-->Duplicate Layer. Once you have it duplicated, drag and place it on the right hand side. It should look like the picture below. *Note: If you are using a patterned paper, and they don't fit right when next to each other, don't worry. We will be putting another paper on top of it so it will hide any imperfection. Now, go to the layers palette again, Right Click-->Merge Visible. This will merge the two papers together. Now we are going to add the middle paper where your blog posts will go. Try to choose a solid paper or one with very little pattern. Go to File-->Open and browse for the paper you want. Once you find it, select it, and it will show up in a new file within photoshop. Here is the new file. Your paper should look similar to this. So, now we need to double click at the bottom where you see your other background file. So in the picture below, you will see what I mean. Make sure you bring that file back up. Once it's brough back into view, we will need to place the other file on top. We can do this by dragging and dropping it onto the file in view. Once you have drag/dropped, it should look similar to this. You can see in the picture I have highlighted the corners you can use to make it larger so you can place it inbetween 5 and 13. This is what it should look like when it's done. Now, we can add elements to the sides if you like. I'm going to be using simple flowers. Go to File-->Place. Browse for whatever element you want. Once you have selected your element, resize it just like you did with the "green paper" and place it next to the 6 marker on the ruler to the side. This will be the middle of your paper to enusre it's seen. To make things pop a little bit more, you can add a drop shadow. Once you have completed your blog background, you must save it as a JPEG! So go to File--> Save as-->JPEG. Click Save. You are done with the blog background!!! Give yourself a pat on the back! Now all we have to do is put it on your blog. To do this, we need to upload our image to Photobucket. So, log in to photobucket. Before you browse to choose your file, make sure you change the size to 1MB Now here comes the somewhat tricky part! Don't worry, I'll try to make it simple. Log into Blogger. We need to change your blog template to Minima if it is not already set to that. SO, go to Layout-->Pick New Template. Select the "Minima" template.

We have to edit our HTML. To do this go to Layout-->Edit HTML. Once there, you will see a box with a whole bunch of codes that will probably scare you. But, don't be afraid! LOL It's easy! In that box, scroll down to where you see this code:

body {

background:$bgcolor;

margin:0; color:$textcolor; font:x-small Georgia Serif; font-size/* */:/**/small; font-size: /**/small; text-

align: center;

Delete that part and replace it with this:

body {

background:$bgcolor;background-image:url(direct link);background-position: center; background-repeat:no-

repeat; background-attachment: fixed;

margin:0; color:$textcolor; font:x-small Georgia Serif; font-size/* */:/**/small; font-size: /**/small; text-

align: center;

Now, take the direct link from Photobucket, and enter it in the parentheses in the above code where it says direct link. Once you have entered the code into the parentheses, you should be finished!!

To make sure things look right, you can click the preview button and it will show you what your blog will look like. If the preview looks good, go ahead and save it! You now have your very own custom made blog background!

I hope this was easy enough for you to understand. Like I said at the beginning, if you have any questions, please leave them here for me. I will try to get back to you ASAP!

Love,

Laura

Diptychs- Two is better than one!

What in the heck is a Diptych?!?! The diptych - two photos that fit better together than they did apart. A mini story in two frames, an association, siblings, parent & child, different perspectives on the same theme, anything that works well as a team of two.

I have been wanting to try this for some time now. I have recently been trying new angles with my camera. I wanted a more funky look to my photos. Flickr is a great resource for learning new things in photography and that's where I first came across the diptych. Here is my first attempt at making one!

An award for me!!

I got an award! And to think I thought no one actually looked at this blog! LOL A very sweet lady by the name of Ann has awarded this to me and I'm so excited! Thanks Ann!! The Premio Dardos award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in their effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day.The rules are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I tag:

Ginger of GingerScraps

Mel of The Hybrid Kid

Jodi of Statements by Jodi

Amber of Stolen Moments

Stephanie of Scrappy Cocoa

A HUGE Thank You!

I wanted to send out a huge thank you to a special someone who was so generous to me and she deserves recognition not only for her fantastic work, but her big heart as well! Her name is Amber Labau of Stolen Moments. I have a friend who recently went from trying to conceive a child, to trying to adopt... while still TTC. She came to me asking for my help with giving her a blog makeover. I was one of the few people she told and I felt so honored to be a part of this whole process I immediately went looking for the perfect kit. Well, I found it. It's called "Someone to Love" and it is the sweetest kit I've ever seen! Amber was so kind as to let me have the kit for free so that I could in turn, make a blog LO for my friend. I wanted to publicly thank Amber for her beautiful work and for being so kind! Here is a preview of her kit....

and here is the blog LO I made using it!

Tagged!

Ok..so I have been tagged, how fun, another one of my fellow 365 girls tagged me so... I had to go to my photos folder, pick the sixth subfolder post the sixth picture on my blog and tag some more people! This is my pic! It's a 4 leaf clover from BlueDream Designs called "Irish Charm". And, it's FREE too! I'm working on making a blog LO for my family blog!

I tag Ann and Ginger. I'm not sure who else reads my blog?! I'm not sure anyone reads it! LOL

February Color Challenge!!!

We had a great month over at the GingerScraps Forum! We started a new thing last month too. If you completed 4 challenges you got a FREE collab kit made by GS designers!

I host the Color Challenge every month. I put up a new color palette and then all you have to do is make a LO using those colors. It's really simple and a ton of fun!! These ladies are doing a fabulous job too! If you are curious head on over to GingerScraps and start entering challenges! Here are the layouts from last months color challenge...

Tamig

Sladd 79054

ChristieDawn

Laura (Me)

P365 Week 9

OK, some of you might know what the last picture is but I'm not ready to reveal it yet! Hang tight.... soon :)