Here is an example of a simple Photoshop alteration, now I did this long before I thought of writing everything down to share with you. I will have to try and duplicate in the next few weeks so I can walk you through the steps to achieve it yourself.

I really like the overall effect, it almost feels spooky and ghostish. Like Hendrix will walk out of the wall at any moment and pick one of the guitars up, gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I know for a fact that I mainly used the filters that came standard in my CS3 trial version, so most will have the same filters.

This is the original photograph, this is every guitar we had in our home this past summer (my Bass is the purple one, ha-ha). Since then we have added a few to the family but have no photos of them yet.

Kiss those babies.

Can I scream now? Now my computer has decided that it hates me and I can not do screen shots, AAAAHHHH! Sorry did not mean to hurt your eyes but darn it it kinda ticked. Here I am finally getting things together, learning all this technical whatnot so I can bring you some super dupper tutorials and my computer is being a punk.

I have actually raised my fist to the darn thing. Can you just picture that, me screaming at my screen waving a closed fist at it like it can see and hear me. I even scared the baby, poor boy lost it. Big ol crocodile tears and hiccups, I still think he’s upset with me on that one.

Well, I’m going to keep trucking and hopefully the PC will right itself before I bring you the next tutorial. I swear sometimes I think my hubby tinkers with it so I will be forced to step away for awhile. Kiss those baies all.

Thank you to everyone who has brought this to my attention, as soon as I get home to my computer I will fix this. For those who missed it my Blog is titled ScrapWhat and my widget proudly displays ScapWhat, very funny actually.

At least I know now that there are those out there (and more than I thought) who do read and pay attention when they are dropping. One misspelled word and you find a lot of information about your sites content and appeal.

The widget should be fixed by the end of tomorrow afternoon, and once again thank you for bringing this to my attention. I would have noticed eventually but you never know how long eventually will be.

My very first contest for free Entrecard credits is coming to a close at midnight on December 31st, at which time I will be awarding three droppers the credits they win.

I have come up with a new contest for January that is a bit more involved, this is more like a search and find mission for everyone. If you want to participate to win 1000 EC credits (that’s right I said 1000 credits) then you will have to do a little site hopping to win.

What you will be looking for is information about who I am, what I do and where I do it. Now, this is not my only Blog, in fact I have five Blogs and one website. I also belong to a few online communities, forums and groups.

The points will be given like this:

10 points for personal stats about me (name, age, kids, spouse, other employment etc)

5 points for my online stats (usernames, Blog titles, website name, kit names etc.)

1 point for miscellaneous stats (general stuff that I post everywhere)

If you find all my Blogs and website and state them you will receive an additional 25 points.

If you post this info on your Blog as a Post titled “EC Search and Find Contest for 1000 credits” with a link back here you will recieve 50 points.

A couple times a week I will post clues on where to find certain information, do NOT post a comment that will give away the destination to the readers who follow you. This contest ends on January 30th, so have your list together and send it to me through email (I will post that link on January 30th so I do not receive a bunch of spam in the meantime). The points will be tallied up and the winner will be posted here on January 31st.

Now don’t be discouraged that you will not be the winner; I will have a second runner up prize, third place and two fourth place prizes. They will not be EC credits, I will give you a FREE digital scrapbook kit from my designs. The second and third place runner up will be able to choose their kits.

So Christmas is over and now we fly right on into the New Years Eve chaos. I have it a little bit harder myself, my son’s birthday is New Years Day so I have two parties to plan. However, his birthday falling on New Years does make for quite an attendance of party goers, no one wants to miss a chance to have fun at that time. Even if its a childs birthday party.

In his almost eight years of life I don’t think a single birthday has passed where the entire family did not get together to celebrate his day. We always have a camera on hand and I always get awesome photos that I get to scrap. You see, there’s always a scrapbook alterior motive with me, hee-hee.

I was hoping to get a New Years themed kit out for everyone but it does not look like it is going to happen. With taking my online tax course (mandatory for my seasonal employment), my current job, and family life I just have not had the time I need to dedicate to making a kit. In fact, starting January 2nd (my first day of the tax season) I will probably slack a bit until Tax deadline April 15th.

I am putting together tutorials and future posts now and saving them to my computer so I have something in case I just run out of daylight in the coming months. So don’t think that I will abandon everyone, I will still be here sharing my digital scrapbooking passion. Well, kiss those babies.

Hello everybody, I know I did not post yesterday, kept telling myself I would make time but the Holidays can be too time consuming when you have so many little ones. I cooked everything but the turkey on Christmas Eve just to give me a little bit of room to dabble online, the only thing I forgot was my Vegetarian hubby.

Now is that not too much to handle? I had to run around the kitchen looking for things to cook that he would eat and the stuffing had to be cooked seperately from the turkey. All was not lost though, he had a feast just as well as the rest of us.

My scrapbook will be thicker soon, I took so many pictures of the nieces and nephews that I filled an entire gigabyte of memory. Now all I have to do is weed out the horrible blurry ones and I can get scrapping.

I still have not had time to take a look at the new Photoshop programs my family got me for Christmas. I feel like a kid at the candy store, all drooly and google eyed waiting for the clerk to hand me my chocolate. Well, kiss those babies everyone.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Yule Tidings and Brightest Blessings to all.

Sorry about the length of time that has passed since I left you hanging on my last post. It never fails to surprise me that children can get sick in the blink of an eye. My seven month old son, whom I abandoned you for last night, spent the night in the hospital emergency room. He has pneumonia and is just miserable right now, I may be lacking in posts until he gets better.

On to the topic of last night we were at file zipping software. I highly recommend WinZip, I use it and have not run into any snagfu’s as of yet. Try it on a trial basis for thirty days as well.

External hard drives are what I am working toward myself, a digital scrapbook designer will find that over time they will need a lot of space for programing as well as their kits and resources. Try Best Buy, Circuit City or one of your local Staples for the perfect one for your designer.

In graphic tablets I am only familiar with the Wacom Graphic Tablet, but I am looking into other brands at the moment. This gift is wonderful for the artist in your life as well as the graphic artist.

Domain Names, what better way for your digital scrapbook designer to gain credibility in the digi-scrapping community than to brand their design name. This one is easy, just type domain name registration into your search engine of choice and surf away.

This takes me directly into my next suggestion, web hosting. Once you have that custom domain name they are going to need somewhere to park it and web hosting ensures that they have all the possibilities to advance their designs with complete control. Many of the web hosts out there will give you free domain name purchase when you sign-up for one of their paid hosting plans.

Do you have a digital scrapbook designer on your Christmas list this year? Well I have a few suggestions that may just help you find them the perfect gift. I will give you the cheap, the expensive and the “I never would have thought of that” ideas that will put a smile on any designers face.

• Photo-editing Software
• Graphic Arts Software
• File Zipping Software
• External Hard Drive
• Graphic Tablets
• Domain Name
• Web-Hosting
• Advertising

Photo-editing software is essential in the Digital Scrapbook world, for the hobby scrapper as well as the designer. ArcSoft has a nice package called PhotoImpression where you can edit and manage your digital photos. Lumapix has PhotoFusion and PhotoLightening offers photo-editing and photo backup.

Now if you want to eliminate the need for a seperate photo-editing software then you are in luck with the Graphic Arts programs.

There are numerous Graphic Arts software out there, so the key to finding one for youe designer is to find out which Brand they prefer or already use. If they have an earlier version of a software then purchase them an upgrade, if they are looking to find something new then I have a few places for you to check out.

The Adobe Photoshop series of software have many programs that offer you  almost endless list of possibilites and functions. Don’t forget the Paint Shop Pro series is another well known program among the Digital Scrapbook world.

Well the babies have begun their nightly “Need Mommy now” craziness so I have to leave you but will be back in a few hours with the rest of the links for this list!

I went on a hunt today and there were digital scrapbook sales for as far as the eye could see I was blown away at some of the prices and a little disappointed by others, guess you can not get everything you want for Christmas.

I jotted a few places down because they had exception sales prices and the items were just wonderful, many were by Desuigners that I just admire for a distance. Now that their prices are down a little I have been able to stock-up on a few of their kits. I love the Christmas shopping season, well as long as I do not have to go out into the cold and drive, of course.

Scrapbooks Gone Digital have over 100 products that are under two dollars, a handfull of their designers are having storewide discounts as well.

Digital Scrapbook Place has nine products that are only 99 cents, they call them their stocking stuffers (how cute!).

Digital Scrapbook Page has 6 full pages of products on clearance, many of which are only one dollar. I have found alot of wonderful designer resource items here at great prices.

Have a great time shopping, kiss your babies.