Balzer Designs

Project Fifty-Two: Half Way Through the Year

So, I've just finished Week 26 (June 25-July 1) of Project Fifty-Two.  Here's my project for the week:

 

It's digi.  I just started drawing with my pen tablet.  I was so pleased with how everything turned out, I decided to put together a little digital kit of hand drawn elements.  Here's the kit:

 

 

And, since we're half way through the year, I thought I'd share a mosaic style image with what I've created for Project Fifty-Two thus far (click it for a bigger image):

It's fun to look back and see how quickly the year has gone!  In fact, here is Week 27's contribution (thus officially beginning the second half of the year):

As you can see, also made with my "Summer Joy" digi kit.

Finally, today is the last day (until noon MST) to vote for round one of Gallery Idol.  I've been feeling very insecure about my card...I suppose that's totally natural.  And I'm anxious to know the results and have the painful suspension come to an end!  Thank you so, so, so much to any of you who voted!  I really appreciate it more than I can possibly express!

Have a great day! 

One Little Word: Reflect

It has been a looooooooong time since I've played along with the "One Little Word" challenges, but I finally just *had* to give it a go!  This week's word is "reflect" and this is the layout I made inspired by that word:

The tape and the thread are Miss Crow's but everything else is Weeds & Wildflowers. 

Lately, I've been trying to get my digi layouts to "feel" the same as my paper layouts and I think this one comes close.  I use so many art mediums when I paper scrap, and digi paints and pens don't always seem the same as real ones.  Plus the layering and opacity and splattering is so much more calculated in digital work.  Paper work has more spontaneity for me.  But, digi has so many other advantages, I can't stand to give it up either.  So, I will continue to be bi-scraptual and figure it out as I go!

Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome to Cleveland!

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Cleveland.  I was going to post some photos from my arrival at the airport and decided to make a quick digital layout instead.  Back on the Project Fifty-Two wagon, here is the layout:

Credits: Julia Makotinsky from Little Dreamer Designs (white journaling shapes), CD Muckosky from Little Dreamer Designs (heart), Ligia Orsati (brown paper background), Miss Crow (notebook strip), Balzer Designs (stars).

Here are the paper airplane photos a bit larger:

These are *huge* sculptures hanging in the Cleveland airport.  They're made to look like paper airplanes and they are sooooooooooo cool!  I'm telling you, art is everywhere!  It makes me happy.

I drove from the airport (man, I love driving - miss it, living in NYC and all) straight to Beachwood Studios.  I was relieved to discover that the box from Sakura of America had arrived.  Whew.  While I was setting up my projects (I tape TWELVE segments tomorrow), I chatted with two very nice women from ProvoCraft.  They were there demonstrating the Cricut and the Yudu.  I want a Yudu!  I was so jealous when they gave one to each of the hosts. 

I managed to set up for my seven Sakura segments.  And I finished a last minute photo frame project as well.  But, I've been so busy and sleep deprived that I...*blush*...forgot to pack a few important supplies!  Eek!  Luckily, there is a Michael's right across the street from the studio.  I meant to go in a grab the four things I had forgotten, but I kind of got lost amongst the scrapbooking supplies.  I showed great restraint (I mean, I don't have that much room in my suitcase after all) but couldn't help buying a TON of Prima stuff.  I had never seen the Prima stuff in Michael's before.  It's so cute and the prices were so reasonable, so now I have to tote home a whole bunch of flowers and ribbon and felt.  Ah, well.  It's a hard life....  Here's a quick pic:

Then, I headed back to my hotel room to work on the remaining five segments.  And now, it's almost time for bed!  I'm sure there will be lots more to share tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by!

Miss Crow in March...

It's all about babies this month at Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium! 

Here's what I did with the kits...

I'm in love with the clear overlays from this kit!  They're amazing!  I can't stop using them...

Thanks for stopping by!

More Sugarplum Paperie...

Three more hybrid layouts today!  And they're three very different layouts...but all using digital elements from Sugarplum Paperie.

City Love: I wanted to create something that captured the messy chaos and claustrophobic feeling of NYC.  I also mixed grungy elements with glitter, which feels so NYC to me!

Here's the layout:

Here's the digital portion:

 

Every Day Me: This one is pretty straightforward.  Though, I have noticed that I've been using my sewing machine a lot more ever since I put it on top of my desk (rather than stored under it).  I threw the circles onto the layout and then (without any adhesive) carefully fed the layout through the sewing machine to adhere all the circles.  I love the way it looks!

Here's the layout...

Here's the digital portion...

 

You can see that I added a lot of pen work after I printed it.

Eileen: I love the look of journaling lines.  I don't know why, but it makes a layout feel so much more ordered and neat to me.  And even though I've been playing around with hybrid for more than a year, I'm still discovering new ways to mix pixels and paper.  My impulse is always to print a mostly finished layout and then add some embellishments, but I really love how this last layout turned out.  As you can see, I printed a sheet of leaves and flowers on a transparency and then randomly adhered them to my layout.  And recognize that green strip?  It's the leftover scrap from layout #1's torn edge! 

Here's the layout...

Here's the digital portion...

I wanted to share a quick tutorial on how to create the cool multi-colored leaves you see here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sugarplum Paperie...Pixels+Paint+Paper

I've got some hybrid layouts for you today!  Using two fabulous digital kits from Sugarplum Paperie.  Now, as I've probably mentioned before, I don't have a large format printer.  I just have my regular 8.5x11" ink jet printer.  So, I always have to get a little creative turning the 8.5x11" digital print out into a 12x12 paper layout.

Evolution

Here is the digital part (I wrote the title using a Wacom Tablet, but everything else is from SP):

And here's the layout when it's all together:

Family

Here's the digi portion:

And now the completed layout:

And finally:

I Can See Spring

Here's the digi part (I painted the bird - recognize it from this post?  Everything else is SP):

And the layout:

Pixels+Paint+Paper.  It's easy and fun and goes together quickly!

Thanks for stopping by!

Miss Crow for February!

Miss Crow released some awesome kits this month!  Here's what I did with them...

Thanks for stopping by!

Valentine's Day Tutorial: Wednesday

I thought I'd do a little tutorial on making a digital Valentine's Day card.  Here is the finished valentine:

You can print the valentine out (I recommend matte photo paper), e-mail it, post it on your blog...whatever you'd like.  Here's the video tutorial (and for those of you who pay attention to these kinds of details, this tutorial was too long for YouTube, so I tried out Google Video for the first time and I like it a lot)...

Of Note:

• In the video, I'm using Photoshop Elements 4.0 on a Mac.  
• You can get a free 30-day trial of Photoshop Elements from Adobe.com.
• All of the digital elements are from the Altered Valentine kit at Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium.
• In the tutorial, I have all of my digital elements open and ready in my photo bin.  To do this, all I did was go to File>Open and choose the elements I wanted to work with.
• One of the shortcuts that I use in the video is apple+0 (that's a zero), which is the shortcut for the command "fit in window."  It's very useful when you're trying to resize elements.
• I mention this several times in the video: Hold down the shift key while resizing to maintain the correct ratio.  This means a square will remain a square and not turn into a rectangle.

Thanks for stopping by!

Miss Crow: Altered Yultide

Miss Crow has a bunch of new kits for 2009!  Check out her "Altered Yuletide" kit:

Chock full of rich, Christmas good-ness.  Here are two layouts I made with the kit...

I just love the thick, deep hues in this kit (and all the glitter), don't you?  As a sort of bonus, I made this sketch (which the layout above is based on).  It's for the Manhattan Scrapbooker's January Sketch Challenge.  Anyone is welcome to play along!

And if you have time, please read this post.  It really struck me.

Thanks for stopping by!

It's A Random Friday

Label Tulip is having a pretty amazing sale right now!  I am definitely going to have to pick up a little something for myself.  How about you?

And here are two new layouts using Miss Crow's fabulous new kit, "Midnight Clear."

It's so funny.  I didn't realize that I had used Joy in the title of both layouts until just now!  I guess I'm in a joyful frame of mind, eh?

I went to Manhattan's brand new scrapbook store, Portrait Bug, on Wednesday to drop off some of my class samples.  I snapped a few iphone photos:

The store is arranged by color, which I kind of, sort of, love.  While I was there, a number of people came in and they all had the same question, "What is this?"  Most didn't even get it once we said, "scrapbooking."  It's kind of the Wild Wild West you know?  Nobody gets it and they look at Stickles or acrylic stamps and can't figure out what in the world they're used for!  I'll try to take some real photos this weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!