Archives for November 2009

Friday Tip: Give Yourself a Lift!

Nov

Sometimes I get into a designing rut. When things are at their worst, I know just where to turn for inspiration – the pages of my albums! Sometimes I just browse through my books and think about how I can update older layouts to my current style. Other times I just lift them as is, but with different colors and maybe a twist. It’s an easy way to find inspiration and who better to know what you like than you?

I decided to lift my layout from earlier in the week. You might remember this celebrate layout that kicked off the Round Robin challenge. I had this duck photo to scrap from our Florida vacation and decided to convert it to black and white so if would fit with the colors in the Lil’ Buddy line. As you can see I pretty much lifted the design as is. The layouts will sit in my son’s 2009 album but will be a few months apart. No one will be any the wiser that I used an older design!

…………………….Original………………………….

……………………………..Lift………………………

My fellow design team members played along and created these wonderful pages based on pages they created earlier in the year for Pebbles!

Lynn Ghahary took an older layout and refreshed it. I love how she turned it into a multi-photo layout and tilted the photos for a different look!

…………………….Original……………..

…………………………..Lift………………………

Pam Callaghan converted a four photo 12×12 into a 2 photo one. She added more embellishing to the second design which gives it a totally different feel.

…………………….Original……………………..

………………………..Lift………………………

Liz Qualman lifted this gorgeous layout. The design is spectacular and so versatile. I love how it went from masculine to feminine.

…………………….Original………………….

………………………Lift………………………

Mireille Divjak was inspired by this older Pebbles layout. Isn’t her stitching incredible?

……………………Original………………….

………………………Lift………………………

Deanna Kroll took the challenge on and took part of her original design and carried it forward. Love how she used similar colors!

…………………….Original………………….

………………………Lift………………………

Now go back through your albums and pick a favorite design. It’s a great way to get inspired!

I’ve had such a great time hosting the blog this week! Thanks to my fellow DT members for playing along – you all rock! And thanks to you for checking in. xo Celeste

It Ain’t Heavy…Lift It

Nov

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Since this week I’m really focusing on lifting ideas, both in my Round Robin challenge and my Friday post (aren’t you eager to see what that is all about?,) I decided I’d give you some insight into places I go for inspiration for designing my layouts.

Source: Pencil Lines

Sketch sites are a great place to start. Some of my favorites are
Page Maps by Becky Fleck
Scrap-Maps
Scrapbooks Etc. Sketches
Pencil Lines
Scrapbook Bytes

Source: Studio Hillary

I don’t scrap a lot digitally, but I’ve found that digital templates are just like sketches! Check out Designer Digitals, Hillary Heidelberg, and the Daily Digi for inspiration.

Online galleries are a great source of inspiration to me. I love to see the variety of ways different scrappers use product. Some of my favorite places are the write.click.scrapbook gallery, Scrapdeco, and Two Peas Peanut Gallery.

Source: Amazon

Scrapbooking publications are another source of inspiration. Currently, I don’t subscribe to any of the scrapbooking magazines, however I visit different scrapbooking magazine websites regularly. Some of the scrapbooking books I own are well worn – both of Cathy Zielske’s books, Becky Higgins Sketches books, my Simple Scrapbooks special issues, and others.

Source: One Pretty Thing

In the course of gathering entries for my blog, I run across all kinds of inspiring ways to use paper and other embellishments. Some of my favorite sites for paper crafting inspiration are Craftzine, Folding Trees, and One Pretty Thing.

Ads and magazines provide all sorts of graphic inspiration. I spend time at the library or Borders sketching while looking at magazines like Cookie, Oprah, Real Simple, and a variety of design publications like HOW Magazine, print, and Communication Arts. You can also find ads online at Ads of the World, All Graphic Design, Carbon Made and Creative Hotlist.

Check back on Friday for a easy design tip for when you are in a rut!

Round and Round Robin

Nov

7 Comments

Hi there! My name is Celeste Smith, and I’ll be blogging this week here on the Pebbles blog. Woohoo! I can’t tell you how much fun it has been to be a part of this team; not only are the papers gorgeous, but the team is a group of really fabulous, talented women. I feel lucky!

This week, I challenged my fellow design team members to join me in a Round Robin. A Round Robin is a fun way to get inspired and it’s always exciting to see how a layout morphs and changes through the iterations. The design team members were only allowed to see the layout just previous to their layout.

I kicked off the challenge with this layout.

Note that the design is quite centered, multi-photo, 8.5×11 and uses yellow paper from the Linnie Bell line. The design uses large horizontal blocks and some rounded corners for interest. I handed my layout to fabulous design team member, Maureen Blanc. Maureen went early in the challenge, because she just had a baby boy! Congrats Maureen!

Maureen’s design is centered like mine and incorporates the horizontal feel of my layout. Maureen also designed the layout with more than one photo and used some yellow from the Downtown line. She also pulled forward those three little brads from the bottom of my design. Yet Maureen stretched my design to convert it to a 12×12 format. Maureen handed the layout off to the inspiring Deanna Kroll.

Deanna kept the hortizonal swaths of paper and elements, but mixed up the feel of the photo block and journaling. Her layout incorporates three overlapping circles, perhaps to mimic those three small brads in Maureen’s design? Deanna pulled some yellow into her design as well. Isn’t her puppy the cutest? Deanna passed her layout on to the wonderful Samantha Sibbet.

Samantha kept the background details from Deanna’s design and used the same color scheme. She made a circle border and stitched through the circles – isn’t that an incredible detail? I’m totally stealing that idea soon! Samantha changed the design back to 8.5×11 and now the layout has a single photo. Samantha then sent her layout on to the marvelous Christa Paustenbaugh for inspiration.

Christa converted the design right back to a multi-photo design and moved the title to the side of her photos. Her star border mimics the circle border on Samantha’s design. I love how the colors in Christa’s design look so fresh – it may just be because she didn’t pull the yellow in like everyone else did! Christa then emailed her layout along to the charming Lynn Ghahary.

Lynn really made this layout her own. First she converted the layout to 12×12. Then she incorporated the stars and the photo block from Christa’s design and unknowingly used the same title as my layout (the first one) and switched us back to that yellow color scheme! Her blue block mimics Christa’s red one. The pinked edge border brings to mind Christa’s torn notebook border. Lynn’s layout was sent along to Marielle LeBlanc for inspiration.

Marielle kept that color scheme going and her blocking and title location are similar to Lynn’s. I love how she made her sun and incorporated the whale sticker and cloud into her design. Like Lynn, Marielle created a custom spot to handwrite her journaling. I especially like the little cloud. After Marielle came our last designer, the brilliant Lisa Warren

Whenever I see really girly layouts like this one, I just have to sigh. As a mother to two boys, it’s definitely something that is missing in my albums. Did you see that cake? Our cakes lean towards superheroes and Spongebob! Love how Lisa took the blocking from Marielle’s layout and changed it up a bit. Her layout looks absolutely nothing like mine – which means the ladies of the Round Robin each took a little from the layout before them and made it their own! Just the results I was hoping for.

Coordinating a Round Robin online with deadlines can be tricky. These ladies were a pleasure to work with – not one of them missed a deadline and they were all so enthusiastic about the challenge! Thanks ladies you made this challenge so easy and so much fun!

Now I challenge you to either pick up where we left off and base your layout on Lisa’s design or put together a Round Robin with online friends or even try it at a crop. It’s sure to be inspiring and fun!