Welcome to the Just Finish It Challenge!

This week’s challenge is to get ready for the December holiday season. Yep, you heard me right. We’re getting ready for the holidays in August. But why?

The answer is simple. By the time you start thinking about the holidays, it’s mid-November, school vacation is upon you before you know it, the shopping season is in full swing, family is traveling for Thanksgiving for those of you in the states, and you’re overwhelmed.

So, we’re going to plan it now. Or at least start planning it now. Designer Digitals recently finished a Christmas in July sale event so you probably even have some new holiday supplies to play with.

Here’s a couple of things you can do now:

1. Choose a template set.
2. Choose background papers.
3. Choose an alphabet or a font.
4. Decide on the layout design - daily December, a photo a day, weekly pages, one-page spread or two-page spread, etc…
5. Start a file for your album with empty pages for each layout, labeled with the date and page number.
6. You can even load each background paper into your album for each day of your album.

Even if you took 30 minutes, you could start your album today. Add in 30 more minutes next week and you might have the beginnings of an album before September even gets here! And what a relief that will be when November and December roll around.

To get you motivated and inspired, here are some amazing holiday albums from our Creative Team.

Angie’s 2009 album is simply beautiful. Here’s her book cover.

Angie’s advice is to keep “[I]t really simple using the same background and colors for each page. I also tried to complete a page a day in order to keep up.”

Katrina’s 2008 Christmas album inspired a whole lot of kraft-loving holiday albums! It’s beautiful. Here’s a sample page.

Katrina has this advice for planning your album:

1. Keep it simple
2. Select a template set and papers and stick with it. Change up your embellishments as you work through the month if you need it for interest.
3. Journal as you go, daily if possible
4. Keep your camera with you all of the time and snap snap snap
5. Don’t try to scrap every photo, just the most important
6. Enjoy the process (and the holidays)

I hope these books and tips have inspired you to take just a little bit of time to organize your holiday album!

~Steph

Welcome to the Just Finish It Challenge!

This week, I have a quick organizational tip. I scrap with Photoshop Elements and I use the PSE Organizer to tag all of my supplies by designer. I know each Designer Digital’s designer’s style well enough that I can easily remember where things are when I do this. When I’m designing an album, I add an extra tag to those supplies that I’m using for the album since I usually reuse the same supplies to ensure a cohesive look throughout the album. For example, I’ll use one paper pack, three different sets of embellishments and brushes, and one alphabet for a vacation album. I’ll add a “vacation” tag to all the supplies I’m using, in addition to the designer tags. So, when I open up the Organizer, I can simply click on the “vacation” tag and all of my supplies are right there.

Here’s a few examples from my laptop.

Below, you will see some of the supplies from my Project 365 album.

Here’s the tag in my Organizer. All I have to do is click on “Project 365” and my supplies are right there.

I do the same thing for my Daily December album with a “Christmas” tag.

I also tag some of my favorite supplies that I use daily with a “Faves” tag.

Hope these tips help you to Just Finish It!
~Steph

Welcome to the Just Finish It Challenge!

This week, I’d like to show you a quick and easy way to do an entire album in a very short amount of time. We all love to shop for digi supplies and to add to our collections, but there are times when simple is best. And one of those times is when you have to get an entire album done in a jiffy.

Next time you’re putting together an album, try using a template book or a template set as your basis. Template books come with enough templates to give you a variety of designs for your pages, yet also make it quick and easy.

Some great examples of template sets are:

Stamped and Framed Layered Template Set No. 1 by Katie Pertiet
MultiFoto Layered Template Album 12 x 12 No. 2 by Anna Aspnes
The Monthly 12 x 12 Album Set by Cathy Zielske
Week in the Life Layered Template Album by Ali Edwards
Torn It Template Set by Lynn Grieveson

Once you’ve chose a template book or a template set, choose a kit with a nice variety of papers and embellishments that coordinate with your photos and then choose an alphabet and you’ve got the makings for an entire album in front of you with just three products.

Lynnie put together a beautiful album for a friend with just a template set, one paper/embellishment kit and an alphabet. She says, “I promised a friend to do an album of her Going Away party. I put off doing the album for quite a while. Shutterfly was having a sale so I knew I’d better get busy and get the book done. So I chose a template book, a kit and an alpha and got started. I also used the same font, CK Ali’s Writing, throughout the journaling. With these supplies chosen, the book went together remarkably easy! I felt silly for having waited so long to get started!”

Here are two of the pages of the album. Each page used a background paper from the kit. Each page also used the white frames with flourishes from Katie’s templates. There was also a white chipboard title on each page, some directly from the template book and some I put together using the same chipboard alpha used on the templates.”

Supplies: Together Layered Template Book, Pure Kit, Chunky Chipboard Alphabet: White

Terri chose just two products for her design: a template album and a simple set of word transfers for this beautiful 2-page spread for her 2009 album. She says, “[I used] Anna’s template. (It couldn’t have been easier; the title fit perfectly.) I could see myself reusing this template often for other themes as well, especially for holidays and other times where the photos are plentiful.”

Supplies: Summer Layered Template Album No. 01, Summer WordTransfers No. 01

Completing an entire album can be very intimidating but if you make it simple and use a template book, you can do it very quickly. I hope this has given you some ideas that will help you to Just Finish It!

I can’t wait to see your layouts!

~Steph

Welcome to the Just Finish It Challenge! This week’s challenge includes some great tips from our Creative Team members. Let’s get right to the layouts.

Kathleen’s beautiful layout captures a very difficult good-bye for her family but it is something that they will treasure forever. She created this layout for a 2009 album that she is working on.

Supplies: Sweet Layered Template No. 2, In The Post Kit, Stitching Holes Brushes and Stamps, Watery Hearts Brushes and Stamps, Stamped Stitches No. 09 Brushes and Stamps, Time Clusters No. 02, Pinned Notes, Little Bits Alphabet: Red No. 02

And Kathleen has a great tip for helping her to stay organized and motivated when she’s working on long-term projects. Here is a screenshot of one of the folders on her computer.

Here’s how Kathleen describes her system: “I have one folder for each book. The images are the flattened jpgs that I upload here to DD but I also use the folder to organize my album/book by page # so they’re in order. As you can see, I have a special image that I use for the pages that still need to be created. The name of that image (for example “Phideaux” the name of my cat, or “closing” the closing page of the book) lets me know what that page will be about. Having a visual of how much I’ve completed for a book and what exactly I still need to do helps me focus on Just Finishing It!”

I love her system and will definitely start using it.

Myra is working on Project 365 for 2009. I am in awe of anyone who takes on this task and she is creating a stunning album. By using a template and one other kit, her pages come together pretty quickly. Here is her latest page:

Supplies: Multifoto Single Layered Template 27I, Barcelona March Kit

Elena is working on an album for 2008. She relies heavily on scraplifting and templates to help her get older layouts done.

Supplies: ArtPlay Palette Mermaids MiniKit, ArtPlay Palette Winter No. 02 ValueSet, FotoBlendz Layered Template No. 05, Mask The Mask LabelSet No. 01, SnowSpray No. 01 BrushSet, SprayPaint No. 01 BrushSet, Classic Cardstock: Dragon Trainer, Classic Cardstock: Little Layette, Registered Brushes and Stamps, Stamped Stitches No. 09 Brushes and Stamps, White and Grey Tab Alphabet, Winter Park Epoxies, Wooden Flakes, Powder Paper Pack

I can’t wait to see your layouts!
~Steph

Welcome to a new challenge at Designer Digitals! This challenge is called Just Finish It - a play on the famous Nike slogan of Just Do It.

This challenge will focus on finishing long-term projects such as Project 365, December Daily albums, travel albums, baby albums, etc. I’ll give tips for making long-term projects simpler and CT members will give advice on finishing albums. Specifically, I’m hoping that we can simply all motivate each other to Just Finish It!

There will not be a specific gallery for us to post our pages in for this challenge because the layouts will probably be better posted in the specific galleries that already exist. For example, I did a layout for my December Daily album (yes, it’s June and I’m still not done) and I’m going to post it in the December Daily gallery.

For this first challenge, I want to challenge you to find a long-term project that you are behind on and do one page for the album. Just one page to get yourself back into it. Katrina and I both did a page for this challenge this week and it feels so good to get it done.

Katrina’s page is a page for her 40th Birthday Trip Book that she has been working on for months. What a great idea for an album! And I bet she feels better have one more page done for it.

Supplies: FotoDaze Layered TemplateSet No. 01, HeartStitched by Anna White No. 01, Naturally Krafty No. 05 Paper Pack, Staple Its

When I sat down to do a page for my December Daily album, I gave myself only 45 minutes to do the page. When the timer went off, I was done. No more embellishments, no more tweaking - I just finished it. And not only is it a relief to get it done but I’m excited to get back into the entire album. My challenge to you is to set yourself a time limit and when the time is up, just be done with the page.

Supplies: Cathy Zielske’s Layered Template No. 21, From My Bookshelf Solids Paper Pack Add-on, Grungy Ledger Grids Brushes and Stamps No. 2, Stems of Three: Holiday Monograms No. 1 Brushes and Stamps, Holiday Word Strips, Jingle Felt, HTDT No. 13: Bending Shadows, Cut Ups: Christmas, Holiday Snowflakes

Can’t wait to see your layouts!

~Steph