Fall is my absolute favourite time of year, the crisp mornings, the changing leaves, the squash and pumpkins, pulling out the wool sweaters again.  I love it all.  The funny thing is, I rarely scrap fall pages!  Sure, I love to look at them and the colour combinations are my absolute favourites, but I just rarely scrap FALL.  So, I’m challenging myself, and you, to scrap fall. 
So first, we need photos and fall has a never-ending list of photo opportunities…
Colourful trees
Children playing in the fallen leaves
Raking leaves
Pumpkins and squash
Fall foods, like pumpkin pies and hearty soups
Your favourite hot drink
Your favourite wool sweater
Your favourite fall rituals

 

Next, we need some fabulous products in rich fall colours… Our October kit is a good, one stop place to get some warm, cuddly, autumn goodness.  See Zarah’s post from yesterday for a peek!  You can take colour combination ideas from your surroundings.  Jot down ideas and colours that you see that you would like to use.

 

Then, let the fun begin!!  Don’t forget to upload in the gallery!  Can’t wait to see what you come up with.

 

Cara

So it’s a good thing that’s exactly what I’m gonna show you!

The October kit is here! Warm and woodsy, pairing vintage nostalgia with rum-rich tones of late autumn, October is sure to please both the eye and the heart. Cozy and snug, the October kit will bring the peace and comfort of home into your scrapbooking with:

Description of these goodies? Sure - but I’m telling you - it won’t help against the urge to shop. More like the opposite!

• 12 gorgeous, double sided Cosmo Cricket "Gretel" papers
• 18 vintage inspired daisy brads in antiqued copper, pewter and gold
• 1 die cut sheet coordinating with the Gretel line
• 2 yards of texture-riffic Maya Road runched rick rack in coordinating tones of blue and orange
• Maya Road chipboard birds and branches
• SEI crocheted doily flowers, just like Grandma used to make
• 1 sheet of Gretel journaling cards
• 4 sheets of Bazzill cardstock
• 7 gypsies chipboard words- two sheets of each style for that perfect title or accent piece
• Ranger Ink paint dauber in yummy Hazelnut to distress without the mess

All of this comes to you for only $28 with a kit membership- that’s a savings of over $6!
Remember, our kits sell out very fast, so make sure you’ll get your share of these amazing goodies by ordering your kit today, at http://www.myscrapbooknook.com/club.shtml

See you at the forum, I hope!
/Zarah

One thing that I absolutley loved about the September kit is that even now, a month after recieving it and using it, I am STILL able to glean inspiration off of it and use it!  It really is a kit that keeps on giving!

With this kit I have been able to create 3+ layouts, an altered canvas, an altered frame, a mini album and you will still see bits and peices from the kit show up on projects that I am working on now.

Please share with us what you are creating with your September kit in the Gallery at the Scrapbook Nook! 

It’s sometimes true that a picture says 1000 words. But sometimes 1000 words can do an infinitely better job of communicating a memory than a picture that isn’t working, or doesn’t fit the occasion, or for an occasion for which there are no pictures.

Many people are beginning to realize that a photo isn’t <gasp> essential for a good layout! Case in point–Dan and I went to a concert last year. We didn’t take any pictures (it wasn’t allowed), but I still wanted to capture the memory. In my case, I did have the ticket stubs, but I wanted my layout designed around the story. I chose papers that matched the mood of the event, added a title, painted a space for journaling in the center, machine stitched lines for my journaling….and now I have a page that tells the story of a time that I went along with my husband to something because it was important to him and ended up having a wonderful time in the process!

I don’t know about you guys, but I LOVE playing with my photo’s in Photoshop…My favorite settings to use are under the layout tab…For those of you that have never used your hard light/soft light option, today is your lucky day!! Here’s how:

1- Open your picture and crop it to your liking.

2- Create a duplicate layer.

3- While on layer 2, hit the layout tab and click on hard light (you can use soft light if you don’t want such a dramatic effect).

 

4- Now click on images and go to adjust and click on curves. (This adjusts the brightness and contrast of the photo in a better way.)

5- Adjusting this really depends on the photo…In my experience it only take a couple of dots on the curve map to get it looking really good….For this particular one I needed to pull the curve up a little and then take it back down a little bit on one side.

 

6- Now save it as a copy and print it off!!

You can turn a photo from this:

 

To this:

 

I love it!! Best part is you can change your photos into black and white and then do the same thing and it really makes them pop!!

For example:

 

To this:

 

**Disclaimer** I know Wendy posted something similar to this earlier but I thought it would be fun to see how to alter some photos using Photoshop if you don’t have Picasa!! Anyway, Show me what you ladies come up with and as always please feel free to email me with questions!!

-Amanda

For all of you out there needing to get your rear in gear, this challenge is for you!! Check it out HERE!! We would love for anyone to come play along…the winner gets to post another challenge for all of us to do AND if you do a layout for this challenge you can enter it for the Featured Designer for September competition!! YAY!! So come play along and get your rear in gear!!

 

-Amanda 

That sounds weird, doesn’t it? "Turn it scrappable"?
Haven’t we all heard that everything IS scrappable? There’s nothing you can’t scrap!

True - but how about bulky items and pretty fabric you don’t want to cut to pieces? How about the adorable picture your DS or DD drew, but that’s definitely not acid or lignin free? And what about the receipt from the restaurant where you and DH had your first romantic dinner? Sure, it’s acid free - but those receipts tend to bleach and turn into… nothing but a blank piece of paper with a shadow of the text, if you’re lucky…

I say: scan it!
Don’t cut that pretty skirt to pieces! Don’t pull your hair because there’s just not ONE single piece of PP that matches the photo of your first grandkid, smiling for the first time - wearing that very uniquely patterned dress… Just put it in the scanner and print it on regular paper. Blank Bazzill works great, regular printer paper is usually acid and lignin free - and with a textured paper you might get some interesting effects.
If you can’t scan, what do you do?

It’s too big, or maybe - it’s not there anymore?
In the first case - take a photo. Instead of trying to glue your grandma’s watch into the album - just use the photo. (Remember to take pictures from ALL angles! Believe me - you’ll be happy you did!)
If it’s the dress, we were talking about, cut as much as you want from it digitally - and print it.
Voila! Your very own, perfect paper!

See the possibilities?

Remember that we’re always interested in seing what you’ve done with what you read in our blog! You might just get published right here!

…and - most importantly:

Have fun!
/Zarah
(a.k.a "she who reminds you of the good ideas you might have forgotten")

Since i started scrapbooking i have have fallen in love with photography. I love my camera and i love printing my pictures off and i often spend hours looking though them  and deciding what to do.

But the one thing that has always stumped me is photo manipulations. I have spent hours trying to figure out how these progammes work but for some reason they have gone way over my head.

 But thanks to one of the Nook girls on a thread about converting pictures i have found the best thing ever!!!!

It is called Picasa and it is free to download from Google. After you download it, it imports all of your pictures from your computer, so they are ready for you to manipulate.

 The thing i like about this programme and the thing that is different from others is, everything is done with a click of a button.

THe first thing i do is use the tunning buttons. There is a button that fills your photo with light, you can alter the hadows and the colours.

This photograph is the first one, the one i got off my camera.

 

The tuning photo came out like this

You can change it to black and white again with a click of a button.

 

And then change it to sepia

 

You can fix red eye, rotate re size and lits of others. But the thing i like about it is it is easy and when i say easy i mean easy. Trust me if i can do it you can.

Go and download it now trust me on this!!!!

Wendy xxx 

 

I just wanted to give a shout out to a AWESOME line of paper that I had the opportunity to play with! Reminisces’ “The Wrath of Grapes” line fit perfectly with these photos from my sisters wedding, she was married at a local Washington winery. This line really complimented the photo’s and although the colors weren’t the colors from her wedding the grape accents were perfect! Check out all the Reminisce lines at the Nook Store here https://secure.mycart.net/catalogs/index.asp?category=307855 Here are some LO’s that I created . . . (I also threw in some Deja View for some added color)

 

 

 

 Thanks for Peeking!  Gina

Well the first feature designer contest is over and we had some gorgeous pages posted. But after much deliberation i decided to pick Scrappy Doos page.

Not only was it a gorgeous page but her use of stamps was very out of the ordinary. To do it justice i ask her to explain how she did it.

2.After the chipboard is thoroughly dry take your stamp and press it into the glue pad. 3.I only do a couple stamps at a time a press firmly onto the chipboard, and only do one color at a time. 4.Sprinkle the embossing powder generously over the chipboard. Make sure to have a paper or something underneath to collect excess embossing powder. Continue with this step until you are finished covering your chipboard. 5.Shake off excess embossing powder and pour back into the container. (Make sure there is not powder left on your chipboard where you don’t want it! (I’ve done that and accidently embossed where I didn’t want it to be. There is an easy cure for this, just touch up with paint!) 6.Turn on your embosser and move back and forth over the designs until the embossing powder changes slightly in color. Don’t overheat it, or you could sear your chipboard. (done that too! LOL) You will learn after practice when it is finished. 7. Let cool completely before applying it to your layout. I’ve only done this a few times but I am hooked! Love the look it gives chipboard! Thanks for sharing your page and thanks for teaching us!!!!!  Keep your eyes peeled for our next feature designer competiton!!! Wendy xxx