Anatomy of a Blog Banner

As you know, I recently totally revamped my blog.  As part of the revamp I created a new blog banner for the top of my blog.  I knew which photos I wanted to include, but making them have the look and feel that I was looking for was pretty trial and error.

First I used the photos as is.  This was too bright and jarring.

Then I lowered the opacity of the photos to make them less jarring.  It still didn’t look right.

Then I made the photos black & white.  But I didn’t like how some of the photos looked a little dingy and not bright.

So I tried brightening up the photo on the left a bit.  I thought this banner looked pretty good, but I was not wow’ed.

Then I opened up Rad Lab and used the Pool Party filter layered with the Flirt filter.  This was the exact feel & look that I was looking for!

So that’s the story of the different iterations of the new blog banner.  :)

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Roundup | My Holiday Crafts

Every year when the year-end holidays approach, I have grand plans for holiday crafting or making handmade gifts.  Every year I feel like a failure because I don’t get all the holiday crafting I want to get done.  That is, until I went back and searched my blog and found a BUNCH of holiday crafting projects over the years!  It was so fun to look back on them.  I thought I would share a roundup of my holiday crafting projects and link back to their original posts in case you get inspired to create some holiday crafts of your own.  Enjoy!

The start of my 2012 December album posted here. 

And no, I didn’t finish the album.  In fact, I only got the cover and this one page done.

And that’s the reason I’m not doing a December album this year.  I will just incorporate a spread into Project Life.

This one isn’t necessarily crafting related, but I posted my process of how I organize the holiday cards we receive.

My process of creating our holiday cards for 2012.

I made this button tree.  It was easy but took longer than I thought.  But it’s oh-so-cute!
 

I made these fun t-shirts for our 3rd Annual Elf Party.

I think everyone loved them!

I also stamped these Moleskine notebooks to give away as party favors. 

And I filled these cute felt bags with favors & candies.

I created these cute printable gift tags to give away on the One Little Bird blog.

And these printable washi tape (printed on Avery labels) are free to download as well.
 

I created these paper ornaments for our small tabletop tree.

For our 2nd Annual Elf Party, I created these Elf treat bags using the print & cut function on my Silhouette.

And I made some homemade hot cocoa mix and put them into decorated mason jars to give away as gifts.  (Recipe here.)

I made four holiday crafting kits and gave them away to scrappy friends as Christmas gifts.
 

The kits included handmade embellishments.  You can see the kit details in this post.

In 2011 I made 40 handmade holiday cards. 

You can see the detailed posts here and here.

When you open the tri-fold card up, this was the inside.

I designed and cut this cute ornament with my Silhouette to go inside the card.

I designed these printable gift tags.  They are available to download in this post.

I made these DIY paper garlands for the tree.

I made these cute Santa treat bags for my coworkers, using my Silhouette.

In the same post, I also used my Silhouette to make these gift tags.

More paper ornaments using a scalloped circle punch.

I hope you enjoyed this holiday crafting post, and that you are inspired to create some of your own this holiday season!  :)

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Freebie | Stacked Paper Hearts Template

Once upon a time, I was a digital scrapbook template and kit designer. I sold my designs at my own little store, and at Little Dreamer Designs. I am currently on a hiatus from selling digital scrapbooking products. With Valentine’s Day coming up, I thought I would give one of my templates away. It would make an awesome last minute gift for someone!

Stacked Paper Hearts digital layout template for Photoshop & PSE


Download: Stacked Paper Hearts digital template

Here’s a layout I made using the template.

Credits: Stacked Paper Hearts template by Listgirl Designs (me); Sweet & Tart digital kit by Paislee Press; Holiday Jingle page kit by Michelle Coleman (retired)

I had it printed 12x12 and framed it.

See what a nice gift it could make? :)

Hope you enjoy the template! If you make something using it, please let me know by leaving a comment on the blog or emailing me. (Email link in the Connect section on the left side of my blog.) I would love to see it! Oh and please don’t make stuff and sell it. Personal-use only.

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Write.Click.Scrapbook. | 2013 Calendars

It’s December, which means it’s daily blogging from various team members at Write.Click.Scrapbook.! I designed some 2013 calendars a couple of weeks ago, and Celeste wrote the blog post featuring some ways that each of us used the calendars! You can see the whole blog post here.

I designed some printable 3x4 calendar cards that you can use in your Project Life, or any other scrapbooking or crafting endeavors.



They are on two pages of PDF, ready to print! So head on over to Write.Click.Scrapbook., where you can download these, plus a couple of other fun calendar templates and downloads! :)

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Digital Designing Update

It might seem like I have not done any designing for a few months… that is true from the standpoint of any of my own products.  However, I have been contributing to the Mscraps monthly store collaborations every month.  I just finished my contribution to the November Mscraps collab kit, Family Get Together.


I will link you up with the store collaboration when it goes live on November 1st.  :)

Then here was my contribution to the October Mscraps Collab:  When We Were Young.  (Follow the link to purchase the entire collab kit.)


Here was my contribution to the September Mscraps Collab:  Falling In Love.  (Follow the link to purchase the entire collab kit.)


Here was my contribution to the August Mscraps Collab:  Love In The City.  (Follow the link to purchase the entire collab kit.)  I especially love this whole collaboration, I think it turned out so cute!


Here was my contribution to the July Mscraps Collab:  Our Journey.  (Follow the link to purchase the entire collab kit.)


My contribution to the June Mscraps Collab:  The Things You Do.  (Follow the link to purchase the entire collab kit.)  Love this collab kit, it’s very masculine and perfect for scrapping the men/boys in your life!


So that’s an update on my digital designing endeavors.  I have been accumulating ideas for my own digi-scrapbooking products, but I have been so incredibly busy with living my life and my full-time job that I have not found any spare time to design.  I hope to do so soon, with some holiday products!  Sometimes when I work all day on the computer, I just don’t feel like spending all night on the computer designing.  That’s one of the reasons why I like to spend time in my craft room instead.  Mix that with the desire to fit some exercise in on most days, I just don’t have time for everything I want to do.  I guess I shouldn’t feel guilty, because it is all part of my enjoyment of my craft and my hobby and I should just go with what I feel like doing, and where my creativity takes me.  :)

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