Summer Love Mini Course | Printing Your Summer Love Mini Album

POSTED ON July 30, 2013 IN Guest Posts, Summer Love 2013 Mini Course, Tips from Team Awesome Leave a Comment

We’re nearing the end of our Summer Love Mini Course which means it’s time to start thinking about finishing touches, like printing. Today Team Awesome member Amy is sharing her tips for printing your Summer Love Mini Album. Take it away, Amy!

By now our Summer Love Mini Album is getting close to being finished which means it’s time to start thinking about on important aspect of any album: printing!

There are so many different album printing options to choose from, but the main two are printing as a bound photo book, or printing on photo paper and putting in an album. Both are great options, but it’s up to you to decide how you want to gaze upon these lovely summer memories you’ve compiled in the coming seasons and years.

Photo Book Printing

First we’ll look at some photo book options available. The Summer Love Mini templates are designed to print at 6×6 inches so it would be important to make sure the company you choose has that size available. Both AdoramaPix and Artscow offer 6×6 photobooks.

If your photobook printer of choice doesn’t offer 6×6 photobooks, 7×7 or 8×8 would also be acceptable as long as you save your layouts at the highest quality possible. You could also add a simple border to your 6×6 pages to make them 7×7 or 8×8 as well.

This site has a breakdown of the top ten photo book printing services: 2013 Best Photo Book Services. That website provides you with the links to those 10 service websites, so take a look at the comparison charts and see if there is an option or two for you there.

Two services not on that list that are still worth looking into are Blurb and Mpix. Lynnette has previously published articles sharing her experiences with both companies so be sure to check out the following helpful links:

The Daily Digi also has a great review of 12 photobook printers here.

The only service I’ve personally tried is Blurb, and I am a happy customer so I have not seen the need to try anything else 🙂

What to Look for in a Photo Book Service

The things you want to keep an eye out for when you’re choosing a photo book service are:

Good quality printing and paper options. Upgrading your paper option will cost more, but it’s usually worth it. Your pictures really pop when they are printed properly and on great paper.
The ability to create a custom cover. I love my Blurb books all the more since I was in charge of the design process from start to finish, including the cover created by me in Photoshop!
The ability to customize the pages yourself. Some photo books will force you to use their pre-made templates, but for printing our Summer Love Mini Album, we need to be able to upload our layouts and have them print full bleed on every page.
Fair pricing. Upgrades will cost you more money, so you need to figure out what’s important to you. Also, most printing companies are based in the USA so if you live in a different country, take shipping and customs costs into effect. Sometimes this can double the cost of your photo book! Before you order, check online for coupon or promo codes that can save you some pennies, or sign up for e-mail newsletter lists and order during the next sale.

Individual Page Printing

Your other option is to print your layouts on photo paper and insert into a scrapbook. This site has a breakdown of 10 printing services: 2013 Best Scrapbook Printing Services so that is worth checking out. Lynnette uses Persnickety Prints for all her prints (her review can be found here) but I personally print all my digital layouts at my local Costco. I find that printing on glossy photo paper really bring out the detail in my photos, elements and shadows.

There are many printers to choose from, but I will show you a quick way to prepare your 6×6 Summer Love Mini Album pages on 12×12 prints ready to go for Costco (in Photoshop).

How to Print Four 6×6 Pages on One 12×12 Page at Costco

Step 1: Create a new document at 300dpi and 3600×3600 pixels or 12×12 inches.

Step 2: Create guides at the 6 inch (or halfway) mark vertically and horizontally. You can do this by selecting the move tool, turning your rulers on if they aren’t already (shortcut is ALT+R on PC or Command+R on a Mac) and dragging out from the rulers to reveal a blue guide line.

Step 3: Save your layouts at .jpgs and then drag them onto your 12×12 canvas, lined up with the guides you created.

Step 4: Once you have four of your layouts on the canvas, save it as a .jpg. I save at the highest quality possible, which was 11 for this print since Costco will not allow uploads to their photo site over 8mb.

Step 5: Once you have your album set up into these 12×12 .jpgs, upload them to the Costco website software and order them as 12×12 prints. Like I said, I prefer glossy, and make sure you have the border option unchecked and don’t allow them to color correct your prints. Once you pick them up (or have them shipped to you), use a paper cutter to chop them up into individual layouts and insert into the 6×6 album of your choice!

As you can see here, there are a lot of different printing options out there. I hope this helps you narrow it down a little bit. Happy Scrapping!

Thanks so much Amy! If you have any printing questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section below. And if you’re looking for ideas for binding your non-photobook printed pages, I’ll be sharing some ideas for that next Tuesday.

Coming up next…On Thursday, August 1st, Team Awesome and I will be sharing our Summer Loves No. 7 & 8 and our summer currentlys. See you then!

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Previous Summer Love Mini Course posts:

View all Summer Love Mini Course posts here.

Tips From Team Awesome: Surviving Digital Scrapbooking Day

POSTED ON November 2, 2012 IN Announcements, Events, Tips from Team Awesome 11 Comments

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day weekend everyone! Anyone who’s been around digi land for awhile knows that as much fun as these big scrapbooking holidays can be, they can also be a bit crazy and overwhelming!

I shared my my guide for surviving scrapbooking events in this National Scrapbooking Day post of yore so I thought it’d be fun to ask Team Awesome to share their top tips with you as well. Here’s what they had to say…

From Jen: PATIENCE is the key to surviving DSD. There are awesome sales and events going on, and you cannot do everything. At the beginning of the weekend, make a list of sales you want to check out and events you want to participate in, and work from there. Don’t buy anything immediately- make a list and come back after you look at all the sales to make sure you truly want everything and not just because it’s on sale. Most of all- HAVE FUN!

From Natalie: Play the games you really want to win. There are so many games all around the sites that you will become totally overwhelmed and frustrated if you try to play them all.

From Heather: It’s very easy to get overwhelmed. Lots of kits that you like but have not decided to purchase throughout the year all become possibilities to take home with you during a storewide sale. Try to purchase kits that you have already on your wishlist, kits that you can still remember off the top of your head even if it debuted months ago, kits that you have a solid idea or two on how you could use them with photos that you have, and of course any new items that your favorite designers have created for the occasion that jump out at you. This is also a great time to be a little adventurous and try out a kit from a new to you designer. Who knows? A kit purchase during this weekend could lead you to a new favorite place to shop. Breathe and pace yourself. Start with your absolute must have purchases first and work your way along. Your budget may tell you that you can’t have everything this November and the items on the bottom of your list may need to wait for later. And make some time to scrap! No point in getting all of the fun new items for our stashes if we don’t use them!

From Sherly: Try to download goodies you buy AFTER the DSD weekend to avoid slow traffic!

Awesome tips guys!

A little reminder, the Sweet Shoppe Designs DSD 30% off sale continues thru Sunday so there’s still plenty of time to pick up your favorite Nettio Designs products and save a little cash.

And if you’d like a chance to pick up your favorite Nettio Designs products for FREE, Team Awesome is hosting a “Scrap Your Faves & Win!” game over at Sweet Shoppe Designs where you can win $10 to my shoppe! Based on the number of entries we’ve received so far I’d say your chances are pretty good at winning, haha, so if you’ve got an urge to scrap and are a fan of the Faves, go check it out!

Also be sure to stop by tomorrow when I’ll be offering a little goodie as part of our Sweet Shoppe Designs DSD exclusive collab!

Share Your DSD Survival Tips & Win!

Ok, here we go, we’ve shared our favorite tips for surviving Digital Scrapbooking Day so now it’s your turn to share yours!

Just leave a comment below with your top tip for surviving Digital Scrapbooking Day along with a link to your favorite Nettio Designs product from my Sweet Shoppe store and tomorrow I’ll choose a lucky winner or two to win their fave product! Super easy, right?

Only one entry per person please and entries must be posted by 8am ET Saturday Nov 3rd to be eligible to win.

I can’t wait to see your tips and happy DSD everyone!

Taking a Layout From Inspiration to Reality

POSTED ON June 5, 2012 IN Tips from Team Awesome Leave a Comment

Welcome to another installment of Tips from Team Awesome where the lovely ladies of my Creative Team share their fave scrapbooking tips & tricks. Today Heather is sharing who she takes a layout from inspiration to reality. Take it away Heather!

While Lynnette is on vacation and enjoying her outdoors adventure, I (Heather K or interstitchal in the digi world) have a post today about one of the tactics I use to scrap even when inspiration is low.

This is a typical scenario for me: I have lots of ideas for layouts and layout designs that pop into my head at the most random times, often when I am unable to write them down. Then when I have some time to scrap, the blank Photoshop screen stares back at me. I’ve been working a lot recently in creating more inspiration folders for myself inspired by Stacy Julian’s Twelve and Pinterest. My Pinterest account is quite barren because I often look without repinning myself (I hope to get better with this- I’m planning on getting more involved with following and maybe more followers?? will help me), but Nettio has a most awesome pin board and is great to follow!

How do I create a layout when I just don’t know what to do? Where to start? Sometimes I start with a kit I want to scrap with. Sometimes I have a story or thought to build from. I rarely just start straight from photos. But what I find works well is along the lines of free association. Pick something I am dwelling on and then run with it.

Today, change has been on my mind. I am in the middle of a long move and I need a little inspiration and pick me up. I love reading and one of the themes that continues to run through my head is starting a new chapter in my life.

So I went to pinterest for inspiration and here’s what I found:

Source: imgfave.com via Heather on Pinterest

Source: poppiesandsunshine.blogspot.com via Heather on Pinterest

Source: mymdsdesigns.blogspot.com via Heather on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Heather on Pinterest

I’m really indecisive. So I use the pins to help guide my choices. What jumps out at my from these four images is the the freedom of Pin #1 (the open book on grass), the loose script of Pin #2 (grid pictures of cities with their names underneath), the colors of Pin #3 (the super cool art journal style painting), and the just get going quote of Pin #4 (ie stop agonizing and start scrapping).

Pin #1 made me think of the kit A Walk in the Park by Elise Hansen and Sugarplum Paperie

and Pin #3 made me think of Me Time: Chick Lit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow and Jenn Barrette.

And when I don’t know where to start with page design, there little more satisfying than grabbing a Nettio Designs template. I picked the upper right template from Geometric Vol. 1 because I am planning on a photoless or max 1 photo layout. And for some reason, I feel like chevron goes really well with books.

Then I open my kits, play, and plan my journaling. I was planning on making this a photoless layout until I realized that the picture from Pin#1 reminded me of a book photo I took in 2011.

I was going to pick just one kit to use for the layout since I tend to be a kit scrapper, but I found that the kit colors of both of the above kits worked really well together. The more the merrier! I used DJB Jennifer Script 1 as my loose script journaling font and DJB Tweenybopper for the Chapter title.

And my layout evolved into this:

Since I was using bits and pieces of different ideas, my layout came together smoothly and still feels like my own. And whenever I ran into a decision roadblock, I jumped back to my inspiration to help me decide.

Thanks for joining me (Heather K) today, I’d love to hear about your process for using inspiration in your layouts too!

How To Adapt a Detailed Template For Your Clean & Simple Style

POSTED ON May 30, 2012 IN Tips from Team Awesome 1 Comment

Hello hello and welcome to another installment of Tips from Team Awesome where the lovely ladies of my Creative Team share their favorite scrapbooking tips & tricks. This week Kim is going to share how she adapts my templates for her clean and simple style. Take it away, Kim!

I’m a pretty clean and simple scrapper most of the time, so I always enjoy the challenge of taking a Nettio Design’s template and making it my own. Lynnette is known for her use of embellishments and patterns, and I’m none of those things. I tend to let the photos and words tell the story. That doesn’t mean that I can’t take one of Lynette’s templates and still make the layout feel like my own. I just have to think about what speaks to me in a template and go from there.

Let’s walk through my scrapping process…

I decided to start with one of Lynnette’s Fave-O-Rites Vol. 5 Templates.

To my simple and clean lines eye, there is a lot going on here. My scrapping process usually starts with choosing the template (if that’s what I choose to use), then choosing the photos, and then choosing a kit. I open everything up in my photo bin.

My next step is to look at the template and try to find what is visually pleasing to my eye. I usually look for a visual triangle. A visual triangle helps lead the eye through the page and just plan makes me happy when I see it. To help you see what I see in this layout, I actually drew the triangle on this screen shot.

Then I got “hide this layer” happy. Any embellishment that didn’t fall on the points of the triangle were hidden. I just clicked on that little eyeball over there in the layers palette and it disappeared from view. I did some messing with deleting then adding back in before I was happy with the layers I chose to use.

The next step is one of those “your mileage may vary” steps. I personally go in and delete all my hidden layers, then highlight all the layers and remove the layer styles. Lynnette adds drop shadows to all her template layers, and that’s a great thing… I just like to use my own shadows and they distract me when I’m actually working on the layout.

My next step is to edit the photos and add them to the layout.

I’ve already added the background paper in that screen shot, so I need to decide on which patterns I want to use on the squares that are the focal point of the layout. I know it would look great with a mish mash of patterns all mixed together… but I just can’t handle that. So how about choosing just two classic patterns for those squares? I go with a blue dot and a multicolor plaid, then get on a roll adding elements, listing my faves, and finishing the raw layout.

As you can see, I ended up deleting a few more layouts and using a few less elements than I intended. I also didn’t like the look of the patterns just sitting there, so I added a black border around the paper block. Lynnette originally had stitching around the papers to anchor them, but that was a little more than I wanted. I think the crisp black line kept it clean and simple. Finally, I add all my drop shadows, resize for web and sharpen. And within a half hour, I’m done with a layout that makes me smile, fits into my own personal style, and using a template that makes completing that layout much easier.

The finished product:

Awesome tips, Kim! I so love seeing people how adapt my templates for their personal style. If you any comments or questions for Kim, feel free to leave them in the comments section of this post.

How to Easily Choose a Kit to Go With Your Template and Photos

POSTED ON May 9, 2012 IN Tips from Team Awesome 25 Comments

Hello, hello and welcome to another installment of Tips from Team Awesome where the lovely ladies from my Creative Team share their most awesome scrapbooking tips and tricks. In today’s post, Inga is sharing a rather ingenious tip for how she chooses a kit to match her chosen template and photos. Take it away, Inga!

Hey fellow scrappers,

Today I’m going to share my little trick, how I check which kits go well with my images. I am a big template scrapper. So I usually pick my photos and a matching template first. In this case I had a relatively new portrait of my beautiful sister Maria. I also knew, I wanted to use a template from Lynnette’s newest re-release, Paper-tastic Vol. 2 (check it out here). I opened them both in Photoshop.

Then I put my photo in there and clipped it to the photo layer. I re-arranged the title elements and some embellishments to fit my needs better and show more of the image. But now came the difficult part: Which kit should I use?

I have a pretty stash to choose from. The portrait was one I took over the Easter weekend. Using the first mild days with beautiful weather and golden light. A spring kit from the wonderful Kristin Cronin-Barrow came to mind. On the other hand her darker hat and the colours also reminded me of an autumn picture. I LOVE autumn kits and wouldn’t mind scrapping it with them. Those were practice portrait shots and not meant to capture a certain day. I narrowed it down to three additional kits, I could see me using here.

What to do? Whenever I am in a situation like that, my method is to do a quick check of all options. Here’s how. I simply drag all previews onto my template canvas. Yep, those tiny 600×600 pixels images. As you can see, they are pretty small.

So, I blew them them up by using transformation. When you do that, they will look incredible pixelated. Don’t worry, as soon as you confirm the transformation PS will adapt them. Mind you, they would look horrible now, if you zoomed in to 100%. But luckily you don’t need to do that. You just need a quick glance.

As you can see, I didn’t put them in right under the photo layer. I left the journal mat visible over them, so my photo doesn’t get lost completely in the preview. I usually look for a few layers between the previews and the photos. Sometimes it’s already enough to leave the photo frames visible.

Also, in this case I used the older completely grey version of this template. With coloured elements, I either turn them invisible, into grey shades or I just ignore the fact that their colours might throw me off a little bit.

Now I turned the different preview layers visible/invisible as I went along and checked the overall look with each of them. Hey, my initial idea with the spring kit looked great!

This would have worked perfectly as well.

This one? Not so much. An easy elimination.

I usually click through them back and forth, comparing how I feel about each kit. Very often I find a photo/kit combination that just clicks for me! That will give me exactly the look or atmosphere I envisioned. I also use this method, to check if bolder kit choices will work or not. So there you go, a quick and easy way to test your kits with your photos! I hope, you’ll find it useful.

Awesome tip, Inga! So smart! If you have a comment or question for Inga about this tip or anything else, feel free to leave a comment in the comments section of this post.

Kits included in this post are: In Bloom by Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Oak Tree by Sara Gleason and Mint Julep and Amaranthine, both by K Studio.

Want to pick up the Paper-tastic Vol. 2 template featured in this post? You can find it here at Sweet Shoppe Designs.

How to Design a Wedding Album with the Photo Book Frenzy Templates

POSTED ON April 18, 2012 IN Tips from Team Awesome Leave a Comment

Hello, hello and welcome to another installment of Tips from Team Awesome where the lovely ladies from my awesome Creative Team share their favorite scrapbooking tips and tricks. In today’s post, Jen shares how she used the Photo Book Frenzy templates to design her wedding album. Enjoy!

Hey Everyone, I’m back again to share some thoughts with you on how to use Lynnette’s awesome A Week In The Life and Photo Book Frenzy templates for a completely different project.

When Lynnette first released these templates, I was in love, but I had no idea what I wanted to use them for. I’ve never done A Week In The Life, and these templates were just begging for an awesome project.

Then inspiration struck: my wedding album.

When I first started scrapping 4.5 years ago, the first real project I did was scrap my wedding album. It had been a great learning experience, but I almost immediately regretted how I had scrapped it, but I had no idea how I wanted to change it.

Originally, the focus had ended up being on the kits and templates I used, rather than on the photos and story. This was my chance to redo my wedding album in a cohesive design that focused on the photos and story- and I was crazy enough to see just how fast I could do it.

I decided to start at the beginning of our wedding story- our engagement- and to work through the templates in order, roughly.

The first thing I did was pick photos. Because I’ve been married 5 years now, and digital cameras back then were nowhere near as nice as they are now, I couldn’t blow my photos up to 12×12 without losing a lot of focus. I also wanted to designate a place on each page for the title, rather than write on my photos.

So I decided to just split the large 12×12 photo, depending on how the main photo(s) for the page fell, and use the remainder of the box for the title. After some very scientific testing, I can tell you that the space between photo boxes can be matched with a square eraser set at 44 px. I divided the box as needed, then filled it with a color pulled from my main photo.

After that, it was simply a matter of titling the layout, and adding my journaling. I made sure to stay away from the center to allow for a binding when I print. I’ll double check all my bleed settings before I print, so make sure to take that into effect when you plan your layouts as well. I edited the templates as needed for each story, and it was so quick to do.

The only part of my album that ended up being completely created by me was the title page and last page in the album. I matched the style of the rest of the album in order to tell our story completely.

In just over 36 hrs, I was able to scrap our entire wedding, and have that story finally told the way I wanted it. It has been nearly two months since I finished scrapping this, and I love the album just as much as the day I did it. I can’t wait to print it later this year, and to be able to see our story in print format on our anniversary this year. This is such a versatile album and I’m planning on using it for many projects to come.

I hope that you can see just how versatile this album is. Even if you don’t do A Week In The Life, it’s so easy to use these templates for any project. Family vacations, December Daily, Pregnancy Albums, Baby’s First Year, Our House, Our Town- any project you can think of, this set of templates can work for it. Don’t be afraid to let your imagination take on these templates. Have fun with them, and enjoy telling your story with this template set.

If you would like to see my entire album, the web size version can be seen on my Flickr, here http://flic.kr/s/aHsjyK64qe

Thanks so much Jen! If you have any questions or comments for Jen, be sure to leave them in the comments section.

Psst…Want to make your own awesome photo frenzy album? Pick up the Photo Book Frenzy templates here at Sweet Shoppe Designs.