This lovely floral inspired kit is a perfect complement to any layout that celebrates a special woman in your life. Whether it is a tribute to a mom, a grandma, an aunt or sister or just a sweet note of encouragement to a special little girl the pretty flowers, leaves, dragon flies, floral sprigs, ribbons, bows and other garden motifs are sure to lend delicate, feminine touch to your layouts.
The kit includes 10 12×12 .jpeg backgrounds with soft, floral patterned, text and scroll patterns. The element set includes over 50 elements including frames, clusters, flowers, ribbons, bows and more. The kit also includes a set of four stacked-paper backgrounds and a coordinating upper and lower case alpha.

This Guild kit is part of the March Monthly Club Package. Details may be found HERE.

Here is a peek at a few layouts created with this month’s kit:

This month we are going to focus on scrapping the special women in our lives-our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, aunts, nieces, grandmothers. We want to celebrate the women we love, those we have lost, the ones we laughed and cried with, the ones who have nurtured us and created some of our most special memories.

Features include a Guild kit inspiration article, an Inspiration Station article, a journaling feature, a challenging scraplift article, a template challenge with Amy Martin, a photography feature from Sheryl Cody, “Better Photos for Better Layouts,” and our Lifeline heritage feature by Susan Reynolds. Also included is a FREE paper pack and cluster set from Dee Bee Designs. Don’t delay in picking up this month’s package, the issue will ONLY be available in the month of May as part of the May Guild Club Package. Purchase information may be found HERE.

Here is a peek at the free gift that comes with this issue:

The May Guild Club package is now available. This subscription is sold on a month to month basis and is JUST $5.70 each month. The May subscription includes ALL of the following products:

Purchase Information HERE.

Dee Bee Designs has created this darling new collection as part of the May Pickle Barrel promo at Pickleberry Pop. Each set is just $1.00 through Monday, May 20.

This darling collection is filled with lots of fun flowers and delicate feminine touches that is perfect of all your that express love for the special women in your life.

Dee Bee Designs has created this darling new collection as part of the April Pickle Barrel promo at Pickleberry Pop. Each set is just $1.00 through Monday, April 22.

Surf, sea and sky these are the wonderful elements of summer that this fun collection celebrates. This collection is sure to complement all your spring, summer and out-door themed elements.

Purchase all six sets and receive this set of four Ready-made ™ layouts as a FREE Gift!

This collection was originally designed as part of the January 2013 Guild Club package for the Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild.

The colors of this collection are those of the soft, downy under-feathers of a gentle dove. There are nine 12×12 .jpeg backgrounds that are softly patterned and textured. The neutral grey, green and lavender colors will work with a variety of photos. The element set has more than 40 different elements. There is also a coordinating alpha set and four ready-made layouts.

Individual sets are 20% off for a limited time. The bundled collection is 30%.

Here are a few layouts using this kit:

Dee Bee Designs has created this darling new collection as part of the March Pickle Barrel promo at Pickleberry Pop. Each set is just $1.00 through Monday, March 18.

This darling kit celebrates is a light-hearted take on the idea of a spring trip to the zoo. It will work well for all of your fun-loving, adventuresome layouts.

In your scrapbook layouts gray can be used in place of white when you want just a touch more depth than white would bring. Dark gray can be used in place of black when you want more depth but don’t want to worry about the light being swallowed up. Black and white photos paired with gray backgrounds and elements can create a dramatic monochromatic mood that can be read as either sophisticated, elegant, or emotionally remote or removed. It can sometimes have a timeless feel depending on the photo or even an ethereal, can’t-be-touched kind of feel. If you have a photo with a wild amount of color a gray background might be just the thing to temper things and keep them under control.

Some interesting facts about the color gray include the idea that gray is the color used during lent in Christian observances and represents repentance.  Gray was the color of the Confederate army. The New York Times, long considered the American, “newspaper of record” is called the “Gray Lady.” The color gray is often considered to represent intellect and the brain is often called “gray matter.” Gray can also be thought of to connote pessimism; Eeyore, the sad little donkey of Winnie the Pooh fame is always portrayed as a blue/gray little guy. Gray can also be thought of as being indeterminate; being between two opposing views can be said to be a “gray area.” The human eye can perceive about 500 different shades of gray.

So, why is “gray” sometimes spelled “grey” and which is correct? Both spellings are considered correct. “Gray” is usually how it is spelled in America. “Grey” is how it is spelled in the United Kingdom. However, if used in a proper name as in “Earl Grey” or “Zane Grey” it would not be proper to alternate the spelling. Additionally the dog breed “greyhound” is always spelled with an “e.”

Last year the Guild had two different kits that featured the color gray. Both of those kits are now available as Guild Encore kits:

January 2010 Guild Encore Kit, "Time in a Bottle"

May 2010 Guild Encore Kit "Pocketful of Sunshine"

This weekend ONLY both of these kits are on sale for 40% off the regular price. Regular price: $5.50, Sale Price: $3.30

The kits can be purchased at E-Scape and Scrap, NDISB and Pickleberry Pop

Here are just a few layouts working with these kits and a gray color scheme:

Created by Debb Cozzi

Created by Debb Cozzi

Created by Amy Eileen Head

Created by Cheryl Ashcraft aka Gonewiththewind

Created by Bunnynose

We hope you enjoyed these fun facts and design ideas and that these layout will inspire you to create your own gray-themed layouts. For an even more in-depth article on using the color gray be sure and pick up the March issue of the Artisan Notebook ™ and read Debb Cozzi’s article, “Tempered Steel.” Also included in this issue is a 50% off coupon on the two Guild Encore kits featured above.

Each month in the Artisan Notebook ™ editor Sheryl Cody shares her inspiration for those that are participating in a Project 366 or Project 52. In the March 2012 issue this photo in particular caught our attention. We asked Sheryl to share with us how she captured this photo. This is what she writes, “When I took this photo my house was full of teenagers. I had limited space so I set up the game board on my kitchen table. This image took 2 photos and 2 cameras – both Canon 50D to achieve. I used a 28mm-135mm lens for both shots. For the first photo I placed a strand of lit white Christmas lights in the far background, the Scrabble board and the word capture on the tray in the foreground. Since I was in a limited space, I didn’t set up any lights. I didn’t want a flash either or the blurred white lights in the depth of field in the background wouldn’t come out. I set my first camera to the no flash setting and shot in RAW format. Shooting in RAW allows white balance adjustments in editing and with lighting far from ideal and a time crunch, I decided to worry about the white balance in the editing process. I played with f stops and ISO speed a bit and ended up with f/5, ISO 1600 ,and a lens distance of 65mm for the first photo. For the second photo I took the first camera with the first photo visible in the LCD screen and placed in in front of but off to the side slightly of the game board, set the camera to a RAW format and a program setting this time (I knew with the light from the first camera with everything else I didn’t have to worry about the pop up flash automatically going off). Again I played with f stops and ISO speed. The second photo was shot at f/4, ISO 1600, and a lens distance of 44mm. In the RAW editing, I adjusted the white balance but little else.

Thank you for sharing Sheryl. We invite you to join Sheryl in her monthly “It’s Your Shot” project!

I’ve always been an admirer of Artisan Notebook ™ contributor Sheryl Cody’s photographs. I love the “still-life” photos that she takes and want to learn to take similar photos. This morning as I was reading my Bible during my quiet time I was thinking about how we send Valentine’s Day cards to those we love and how the Bible is in a sense God’s Valentine to us. I began thinking about creating a layout on this subject and realized that here was my chance to experiment with taking some still-life photos. I propped open my Bible, got out my camera, and started experimenting with some aperture priority settings.  I knew that stopping-down the aperture would affect the depth of field focus so I started playing around with various settings and compositions. I used an Olympus E-500 with a 50mm prime lens. This is what I came up with:

In this photo I made sure that the focus metering was set on the single, center point. I lightly pressed the shutter to focus on the pink rose, held it down, re-oriented the composition to include more of the Bible and then pressed the shutter completely to take the photo. (1/125s at f/2.0, ISO 100)

This second photo was similar to the one above but I moved in closer for a tighter crop. (1/125s at f/2.0, ISO 100)

I decided to turn the page of my Bible because I thought the yellow post-it notes might be drawing too much attention to themselves and perhaps the blue post-it notes on these pages would create a more pleasing color harmony. I used a higher f-stop with this shot so more of the entire photo is in focus. (1/20s at f/6.7, ISO 400)

This is the same shot as above but I changed the crop from a horizontal shot to a vertical shot. I also moved in a little closer which blurred out the foreground a bit, lending a more romantic, artistic look to the photo. (1/60s at f/6.7, ISO 400) This last photo is the one I ended up using for my layout:

This layout uses my most recent kit, “Love Bugs” which is available as a FREE gift with the purchase of the February 2012 issue of the Artisan Notebook. It may also be purchased seperately and is currently on sale for 40% off at these fine stores:

E-scape and Scrap
Natural Designs in Scrapbooking
Pickleberry Pop

During this season of romance I encourage you to look around your home and find some pretty still-life scenes with which you can experiment. And don’t forget to think about scrapping, “things you love” to celebrate this Valentine’s Day!