It’s Thrifty Thursday at DesignerDigitals where we have a brand new item priced at just $ 99 cents and 393 items marked down 30%. These specials only last until 6am EST on Friday morning so don’t miss out.
Happy birthday to the iTunes Challenge, one of the most popular challenges on the DD blog 
This week its a CD cover my teen daughter found on my itunes. Its something she’s good at doing, looking for possible iTunes challenges Teen daughter has discovered several I owned all the time and never noticed… !
Seeing how she found the inspiration, I thought it only appropriate to use it on a page of her
This is my page, celebrating her brilliant exam results this week. I’d never have thought of this design without the coverwork for inspiration, and I’m delighted with how its turned out. The right mix of teen/modern (to suit her) with a papery scrapbook edge (to suit me 
)
I hope you feel inspired this week and will join in. As always, please post your iTunes challenge pages in our own itunes gallery. Looking forward to seeing them
Hello! It’s time for another interview with one of our active Designer Digitals members. You all know her as Carollee (aka Carol Gilmour). Yes, she is one of our fine Aussie friends and you probably are familiar with the extraordinary book she is creating for her husband of his life which you can see by visiting Carol’s Gallery at Designer Digitals.
To get to know Carol better, I invite you to listen in on our recent conversation.
First of all, Carol, let’s imagine we are sitting down at your kitchen table one morning for this interview. I’m exhausted from the long flight from Minneapolis all the way to Australia, so, would you be serving me coffee or tea? And, is there a favorite snack we might have, too?
Definitely a pot of Lady Grey tea (my favourite) and I’ll make you a batch
of my yummy Anzac cookies. Lucky will be underfoot, patiently hoping for a
crumb we may drop! We’ll have a fine chat!
That sounds refreshing and good, Carol. I may be asking you for the cookie recipe soon. Very cozy to have Lucky with us, too. So, tell us about yourself. You know, where you live, your family, your work,
your hobbies, how you got started doing digital scrapping.
I live in a little country town in south-west Victoria, Australia. I was
born and bred in Geelong, so when I married in 2004 moving from a city of
around 200,000 to a little town of 1,000 was a huge adjustment. All of a
sudden I had four step-children who I adore with all my heart. And although
I already knew the wives/girlfriends of my husband’s mates, I had to reach
out to make my own friends too, so I signed up for anything and everything -
quilting classes at the next town, water aerobics, dinner dances at the
local hall, fun raising events, I attended anything that the town put on in
an effort to make friends. I transferred with my work - I work in HR with
the police department in the next biggest town. Plus I had a group of
online friends who kept my sanity in these early days (we all got married
around the same time) and have remained constant to this day. So life in a
small country town soon settled down and I can’t imagine living anywhere
else today.
I started digi early in 2007 and found my niche. I’m a crafty person by
nature, quilting, knitting and the like, but those things take time, plus I
had never paper scrapped. I’m a starter with a lot of UFO’s. So the fact
that digi scrapbooking was so instant, I could finish a page and call it
done and be proud of it, really appealed to me.
The thing I love most about it is being able to document our lives, our
history, who we are, what a gift to hand down to future generations. Having
three big family deaths in a 12 month period cemented this need to put our
stamp on the world. All of a sudden my grandmother’s, my father’s and my
mother-in-law’s stories would be lost, and I needed to tell them, so that
all who came after us would know and love them as I did.
Carol, we’ve all been admiring the pages you are creating for your husband’s secret gift album and I think we’d all like to know more about the behind the scenes process of putting the book together. You’ve maintained continuity of style throughout all the pages. How did you decide on a style for the whole book?
Well I fell in love with the beautiful monotone pages that cderousseau was
producing and she very VERY kindly sent her process for creating these pages to me.
I’ve since gone off on a bit of a tangent, particularly as I’m now
moving onto the colour photos, but I’m still destaurating everything just
slightly to produce hopefully a dreamy memory like quality. It’s been really hard to keep this a secret from Mike, but we have separate computers
and I have everything placed in a folder marked ‘GROCERIES’ so I know even if he is backing up my computer one day or defragging it or one of those techno things he does, he won’t look in there, no fear!
I’ve had a lot of help from his father who has given me the background to a lot of the photos, who, where, when type of thing. Plus a lot of the stories I’ve gathered over time from Mike himself just in general discussion. Who knew they’d end up in a book!
Oh, I hope you can keep this secret until you finish. What a wonderful surprise it is going to be for Mike. What are some of the DD products you are using consistently on all the pages
for this book?
Anna’s loops, oh especially that fourth set, it’s magic! Fills in a nice
spot, leads the eye. Pattie’s brads, there’s one particular metal like
brad I’m using which appears on every page. And Katie’s vintage journal
spots, they are great for if I just want to highlight a few words or a
title.
LoopDaLoop Art Strokes No. 04 Brush Set
Brad Bonanza No. 01: Digital Fasteners
Vintage Journal Spots No. 02
And of course those fabulous fonts are a constant - Dominican Small Caps and Dominican Italic. They just have a really nice aged feel about them and are easy to read.
I appreciate you mentioning the fonts you are using. That is another reason your pages are so well coordinated in style. It’s very cozy here in your kitchen, but, when and where do you do most of your scrapping on the computer and what
software do you use?
My stand alone computer is in a room up the cold end of the house, so in
winter like it is now, the heater is on, I’m rugged up in my warmest gear,
and oh dear, at times have a granny rug over my knees - there, my secret is
out! Molly (our big old lab) is usually laying at my feet, which she is
right now, sprawled out. Whilst I’m ancient using CS2, I do have a huge flat widescreen monitor. Some husbands bring flowers, some bring chocolates, mine surprised me with a wide screen monitor and 1 terrabyte of space. Gotta love that!
No wonder you are committed to long hours creating your husband’s gift! I prefer that kind of gift myself! I noticed you recently went on a Scott Kelby Photo Walk. What tips did you pick up
about cameras and photo shoots from this experience?
That was a lot of fun, I went back to my home town to join that group. I
was very brave, I did it on my own and knew no one in the group, but
everyone was very welcoming. It was interesting watching people take
photographs of seemingly the most inane thing, trying to work out what they
were looking at and then seeing a photograph of a cobweb, or a piece of
cracked glass, and it was so darn artistic. So what I learnt is to look
beyond what I initially see. Oh and that lens envy really is a bright
shade of green! Ha.
You are truly an inspiration to all of us who want to preserve family memories. What words of advice do you have for new digital scrappers?
There’s no right and there’s no wrong. If you are pleased with what you are
doing, then that’s all that matters. Tell your story. Make sure that YOU
are in the story too, not just behind the words and behind the lens. And
scrap real life. That’s the stuff I’d love to know more about from my
ancestors, so I can only imagine that future generations will want to know
that about us too.
And get involved in an online community. DD is wonderful for the camaraderie, the techno advice, the quality products, the continuity of friendship, the testing your own boundaries with challenges and the giving nature of everyone involved. I enjoy it so much here, the community atmosphere is alive and well and something that is an important part of my days, along with the scrapping.
Carol, I could sit here for hours talking with you and sipping tea, but, I’d best get back to my own computer. After listening to you, I’ve got ideas swirling around in my head. I certainly agree with you about how gratifying it is to be part of an online community of scrappers such as we have at Designer Digitals. You are very much one of the reasons it is a friendly, inspiring place.
I’m a fan of every page Carol posts at Designer Digitals, but, I did ask her to choose just one to highlight here. Carol chose this layout from her gallery called, Sydney, as one of her favorites. It happens to be one from the gift album she is creating for her husband. Carol suggests when you want to point to something particular in a layout for special emphasis, you don’t always have to use an arrow. In this instance, Carol cleverly used a yarn element to illustrate the family move from Whyalla to Sidney.
Many, many thanks, Carol. It was wonderful of you to take time out to share an inside look into your life. I eagerly look forward to the continuing progress on your gift album and then I will be interested to see your next projects.
This week’s Adobe Photoshop or Elements tip of the week is now available on video. This weeks tip is on Using Type to Change Shapes in Photoshop and PSE.
Congratulations to CCofOhio. Her layout 2 wheels has been selected as the featured layout of the week where she won a $ 5 DesignerDigitals Gift Certificate for product of her choice!
