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In this Issue
 Letter
from Team Digital – Lynnie
When Chris was asking
for someone to take the November slot for the Team Letter, she was
saying that it didn't have to be War & Peace and it got me to
thinking about our scrapbooks. In my strange little brain, it isn't
much of a leap from a literary masterpiece to my scrapping gallery! Let
me take you along the pathway of my thoughts and ask you how many times
you have looked through a gallery and judged the layouts on the
artistic merit, how they jump out at you from the gallery, whether
everything is in perfect harmony, if it is original, if everything is
spelled correctly, or whether the pictures were good pictures. I know I
judge my own gallery that way. I judge my layouts on how they appear to
other people, not what they mean to me, or how they embody the memories
in the pictures.
I was thinking today that it is time I stopped trying to create a
digital masterpiece that will be read by strangers and began creating
memories for my family, instead. I don't mean that I'm not planning on
doing great layouts every time, or that I won't try to create a
masterpiece every once in a while, but more than anything, I want to
create memories. When my children open up the albums that I do, I want
them to smile, laugh and say "oh, I remember that!" I don't want them
to look at pages where the memories got lost in the effort.
 
And
let's not forget the journaling! From time to time, the words don't
fit on the layout quite right, so I save the stories for the
description instead of on the pages where they belong. A hundred years
from now, people won't be looking at my gallery, reading the
descriptions, to find out what is going on in the layout. The
background story has to become a permanent part of the memory.
So, back to my roots it is. I'm traveling back in time to the days when
I couldn't scrap very well and I scrapped memories. Hopefully, they
will still be decent layouts, but the important thing is, I know
they'll be great memories.
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Site
News and Features
New
to DSP?
Posting
Your First Layout:
Are
you thinking
about
posting your first layout? There's a special first layout
challenge each month for you. Post your first layout to DSP this month
and you
may be a random winner for a free page kit!!
You'll find all the information here.
What’s
Going On
If you need to
know what is going on, you need the What's Happening at DSP
thread or the Calendar. You
can also find out what contests and challenges are due in the What's Due
thread.
What's
DUE
If
you are
looking to find out what challenges are due when then the What’s Due
thread is the thread you need to check out. In this thread,
you can find out what contests and challenges are coming
up. So
- get going on a few challenges, Ladies, there are tons of great ones :)
Challenge
Winners
In the Odds and Ends
challenges, parky won a DSP gift certificate for participating in the
Word of the Week challenge and addielee was the winner of the inaugural
ScavENger Hunt. Evergreen100 won a free DSP kit for her
submission to the October Sketch challenge and doda won for
participating in one of the Item of the Week challenges.
The
Buzz for Newbees and Oldbees
Chat for new members (and old members too!)
Every Wednesday at
10 pm EST
Everyone Welcome!
If you are new to digital scrapbooking or new to DSP, or if you've been
around DSP for a while but love to meet and help new members, join us
in
chat!
DSP is a big busy site! Are you beewildered? Do you have questions? How
to get around the site? How to enter challenges? Where to start? Join
us in chat to find out more about the site and digi-scrapping! We'll
orient you to some of the features of DSP and answer questions to help
you feel more comfortable getting around and finding what you need.
Welcome
to DSP! We know you will love it!
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Member
Spotlight – kristievcat
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We
are truly blessed
with talented members here at DSP, and this month’s amazing
DSP Member Spotlight is no exception, Kristie a.k.a. kristievcat is a
former New Kids On The Block winner with a gallery packed with
inspirational layouts.
Kristie says she is a paper-style scrapper who prefers two page spreads
with lots of clustering and journaling.
She says she is “first and foremost” a mom, but she
adds that as her son ages she finds herself struggling to
“define myself outside of motherhood. I am creating a new
me!”
“I used to always begin my layout with photos that "spoke" to
me at the time. Then I found DSP and began doing contests and
challenges. I had to begin with the kit and then work in the photos.
I've found that since changing my focus from photos to kit, I am
getting a backlog of photos that need scrapped, but never seem to find
the right challenge. Recently, I've been trying to force myself to do a
little of both, so I can get those photos scrapped,” says
Kristie.
She says that she finds a lot of her inspiration from blogs.
“I enjoy seeing what others have done and take bits and
pieces to create my own LOs. I've tried scraplifting occasionally, but
it really doesn't feel natural for me.”
Thank you for sharing your talent with us Kristie. Now that you find
out more about November’s talented DSP Member Spotlight,
visit Kristie’s
Gallery. Then join the Scraplift the Spotlight Challenge
for your
chance to win a lucky draw DSP Store Voucher. Kristie, you may not have
taken to scraplifting, but I just know that scraplifting will take to
you as DSP Members find inspiration in your gallery!
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Artistic
Inspiration by Meg Beverly
Setting
a Beautiful Table
Holiday season is usually filled with friends, family, and food. My
favorite three F's! I don't usually decorate my whole house, never seem
to find the time; but setting a beautiful table is an easy and quick
way to add a touch of the holidays in the middle of the action.
This season, here's a simple trick to being a decorating quick change
artist!
Digital Scrapbook Place's
ClearView Page Frames are
perfect for
displaying seasonal artwork, photos, and even messages of gratitude and
cheer. Slide your art into the open sides of the frame, prop it amongst
your decorations, and you're done! Your guests will be able to enjoy
your creativity as they sit at your table, celebrating the season
together.
Have a wonderful holiday season!
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Featured
Designers
Christine
Gundersen
Layering
Stamps or Fonts
with Realism
For this month's
newsletter we are going to learn a cool way to make your stamps more
realistic. Look at this layout of mine. Bloom:
Pay attention to the bloom
stamp, I used on
it. One thing that is
really easy to do, when you are scrapping digitally, is to write or
stamp over multiple layers, something that you wouldn't be able to do
in real life, at least not without it looking a little different. If
you want to see what I mean, take two pieces of cardstock, put one on
top of the other but offset so you can see parts of both. Now take a
pen or a rubber stamp and write or stamp over the point where they
overlap. Do you see how there is a tiny gap? So when doing a paper
style page digitally, it is a great idea to add a little gap, for
better realism and today I am going to show you how! Typically this
looks the best with a stamped type font or element. In my example, I
used the bloom element and placed it over the pictures.
In this case, I have 2
pictures underneath the stamp, so I could either
do them both at the same time, or individually. I will do them together
but feel free to do them one at a time if it is easier for you.
Holding down the ctrl key, click on the thumbnail of the first mat to
get marching ants. Next hold the shift AND the ctrl key and click on
the thumbnail of the 2nd mat. (The shift key makes it so the next
selection is added to the first one, and you will see a small + sign
when you are ready to click on the 2nd thumbnail.) Notice how the ants
go around both mats.
Next expand the
selection, select>modify>expand. The
number of pixels will vary a little depending on how thick your mat or
object is, that you are stamping over. For just a paper mat, I expand
by 3-5 pixels. Hit OK.
Now we have a problem
because we want to delete JUST the area between
the marching ants and the edges of the mat, not the whole area inside
of the ants. We can do it! Click again on your two mats, BUT this time
hold down the ctrl AND the alt key. This subtracts the mat portion from
the selection. See the small [–] sign? Now you should have a
double row of ants around your mat.
Switch to your stamped
element and hit delete on your key board. If it
is not working correctly, make sure you have the move tool selected in
your tool bar. Notice in Figure 5, how much more depth the area has
now! Along these same lines, make sure to watch your journaling. In
real life, you cannot write over top of a ribbon that is lifted off the
page or a fabric flower or other bulky items. It is a small thing, but
it adds realism to your page and the best compliment in digital
scrapbooking, is when someone has to touch your page, to see if it is
“real.” *Ü*
Christine's
Links:
Team
Digital Bio
Personal Gallery
Forum
DSP Products
Carole
Harden
Paint
Canvas Effect Using Photoshop Filters and Blending Modes
Here
is a ho-hum photo
of a lighthouse that needs a little pizazz.:
The
first thing I'm
going to do is crop my photo so that the lighthouse
becomes the focal point. I've renamed my file "Fort Gratiot Lighthouse
- Painted Effect." Renaming my file allows me to make changes to my
photo while preserving the original. I've noticed the lighthouse is
slightly crooked, so in order to make changes to the locked background
layer, I right click on it in the layers palette, and select "Layer
From Background." I've renamed it "Layer One." Here is my cropped and
centered photo.
Now
the fun begins. I've
gone to the Filter menu and selected "Artistic
> Watercolor" from the drop down menu. I take my time playing
around with the slider bars to get the painted effect I'm looking for.
Once I'm done I select "OK" which takes me back to my photo.
Next,
I duplicate my
adjusted photo twice.
I've renamed the middle layer "Colorize" and the top layer
"Saturation." I've turned off the visibility to the top layer. Working
on the middle layer, from the Image drop-down menu I've selected
"Adjustment>Hue/Saturation" (or Ctrl+U). I've checked the
"Colorize" box and set the Hue to 40. Finally, I set the blending mode
to "Overlay" and the opacity to 72%.
Now
for the top
layer. To give my image a
little richer color, I turn the opacity to the top layer back on and
set the blending mode to "Saturation."
Whew,
almost done! While
the top layer is
selected, I go to the bottom of the layers palette and click on the
"Create a new fill or adjustment layer" icon, and select "Pattern."
From the "Artists Surfaces" patterns, I've selected "Dark Coarse Weave"
and set the scale at 146%. Finally I set the blending mode to "Soft
Light." A bit of tweaking here and there and I'm finished!
Carole
Harden's
Links:
Team
Digital Bio
Personal Gallery
Forum
DSP Products
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Some
Useful Links:
 blogger  facebook  flickr
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New Products
•
Club Digital • Freebies
•
Mentoring
•
Contact Us
Forum
Search
• FAQ
• Site Map
• Team Digital
• DSP Blog
• Tutorials
• DSP Calendar
• DSP Terms of Use
• The
Shop
Product Information
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• Store Search
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• Challenges and Contests
• Questions
Scrap
the Map •
DSP Scrap the Map Forum
WHAT’S
DUE
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Store
News
Follow
us on Twitter!
****************
Sales
*****************
16-17
– November Product Showcase
10-13
– Carole and Christine are Featured Designers.
Enjoy 30% off Select Products
25-28
– Black Friday and Cyber Monday
30
– Worth a Look Wednesday
****************
November Novelties *****************
Family Stories Month
I Am So Thankful Month
11 – Veterans Day
12 – Moms and Dads Day
13 – World Kindness Day
24 – Thanksgiving Day
25 – Black Friday
28 – Cyber Monday
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Club
Digital
Are
you a member of the club?
It's the
season of thanks with this months Club Digital collection. Enjoy the 2
page kits, in tones of brown green
and grey and coordinate these with the stylish backpack to make a great
collection. Use the funky pumpkin alphabet and the Fall themed overlay
for really seasonal layouts. The elegant From the Heart Word Art and
you will have product enough to scrap all your Thanksgiving photos.
The Gently Plopper will allow you to create an elegant page
featuring panorama photo in seconds, and the strip style funky quick
click template will allow you to create a trendy and funky layout fast.
Club
Digital
now comes in a choice of resolutions - Choose 200ppi
or 300ppi version when you download.
This
month's content includes
- Thoroughly
Thankful Page
Kit
- Fallin Blues Page
Kit
- Gently Plopper
- Pumpkin Patch
Alphabet
- Faded Fall Leaves
Overlay
- From the Heart Word
Art
- Staying Cozy Backpack
- Blessed Are We Quick
Click
Club
Digital is the hottest club in town!
Get
your monthly fix of the best digital scrapbook products for an
incredible price! Something to suit every style and level of digital
scrapper!
Every
issue of Club
Digital includes two page kits, one plopper or overlay, a quick click
template, an alphabet, some wordart, a font, and png stamps! As a Club
member, you also receive an exclusive
coupon for the DSP Shop and can
enter an exclusive contest
just for members (with great prizes)!
Over
$27 in value for the incredible price of only $5.99/month! (Or
as low as $4.99 with longer subscriptions!)
Club Digital
is
just $17.97 for three months ($5.99/month), $33.00 for six months
($5.50/month), or $59.88 for a full year ($4.99/month)!
Plus,
Club members can WIN!
Purchase a
three month subscription and you're entered to win a free
upgrade to a six month subscription!
Purchase a six month subscription and you're entered to win a free
upgrade to a twelve month subscription!
Purchase a twelve month subscription and you're entered to win a $30
coupon for the DSP store!
Here
is a selection of layouts created by the DSP Team Digital using this
month's Club Digital Selection.
Click here
to
find out more about Club Digital
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It's
Shop Time!
Featured
Product – Being Grateful Mega Kit
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There are so many
reasons to be thankful,
and so many pictures of
things for which we are grateful. Express those heartfelt feelings in
the soft muted blues, moss greens and gentle browns of the "Being
Grateful" mega kit. This kit contains over 30 backgrounds, 80 elements
and an alpha that contains upper, lower, numeric and special
characters. The designers have put their hearts into creating one of
the most versatile mega kits you will ever own. The colors and elements
are classic and suitable for a wide range of layout styles such as
heritage, nature, children, special occasions, as well as crafts and
cards. The mega kit contains loads of florals, nature elements and
incredibly lovely word art. Every scrapper deserves this kit,
especially you!
This
set includes:
- 30
Backgrounds
- Over
80 Elements and
Word Art
- 1 Alphabet
See everything included in this collection.
Available in 200ppi
and 300ppi.
Store Coupon Just For
You!
20%
off Home Decor
and Beyond the Layout
Coupon Code: P0020BTLNLkc2e
Expires: November 11, 2011
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Shop
Time Inspiration
It’s
time to SHOP… let’s get those baskets at the
ready.
You
know you
can
do a search for anything using the advanced search feature
located at the top right of your store page, right above the search
box. For example ‘green Lauren’ will just
return Lauren’s kits that have green in them,
‘hearts tina’ will return Tina’s kits
with hearts in them. Try it, you’ll like
it!! You can also check out the Site Map
for some fabulous links.
Gift Certificates.
Send anyone the perfect gift!! Gift Certificates are a
wonderful way to
say - Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, I Love You, or even
Just Because!
Did
You
Know...
...you can get to the store by typing shop.dsp.me in your browser URL
bar? Get to the store even faster!
Do
you love
the
product you just purchased and want to tell others? Please consider
doing a review...
pass the good word along! We love to hear from you.
Here's
some store
inspiration for this month.
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Artful
Activities – Creating Memories from Moments
When
you first join DSP you want to devour every little bit of information
there is and it seems a bit overwhelming at first but the absolutely
best place to visit first off is the 'What's Happening'
page, it's packed with useful information to help you choose to
participate in a designer run challenge or contest or make a date to be
at one of our awesome chat sessions. To find out the daily and weekly
fun at DSP check out the calendar
of activities, there's never a dull moment at DSP and you're sure to
find something to your taste to challenge
you artistically.
Contests,
Challenges and Chats
Stay
current on challenges with the What’s Due thread,
which will keep you up to date on all the challenges on the site and
when they are due.
- Designer Exclusives
–
Our Designers are the best there are and they are really generous, if
you enter one of their challenges you’re more than likely to
receive a chat and/or posting bonus just by using their nominated kit
for the challenge. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain
– like more stash for less bucks with these great challenges.
- Inspiration Station (IS News)
This is a call to all dedicated DSP scrappers to ‘strut your
stuff’ and inspire us with your creations. Just choose any or
all of the calls for layouts the current month and you could be
showcased in our Newsletter or Blog. We have a few rules so check them
out and then join in the fun. Check out the current edition of Inspiration Station News or
here for Previous Issues
- Project 365
– a project for how YOU scrap. Check out our Project 365
chats
and the Project 365 store category.
- Scrap with the DET
– Digital Elite Team and DET Alumni
Our past and current Elite group of scrappers have some great
challenges going at the moment and you’re sure to get well
chosen CC should you need it – learn from the best
- Elite Challenges –
be sure to check out the challenges run by our DET Alumni and DET.
- The Grannies If
you’re a Granny or a Granny In Training (GIT) or just a
Wannabe, you might like to see what other Grannies are up to, what
challenges they have going. There is never a dull moment when you join
this happy band of digi-scrappers.
- IOTW – Item of the week
– Abby
The Item Of The Week is priced to sell, so create a LO using the IOTW
and be in a draw to win a free kit.
- SNL –
Saturday Night Live –
Renee S
This is where anyone can create their own digital scrapbook kits to
share with other SNLers, from elements and papers to word
art.
This
is just a
small selection of popular challenges that DSP currently has running
but be sure to check all of them out here.
And we have a special blinkie to place in your signature to always
remind you where to find the best scrapbooking challenges on the web.
Check the end of the first post in the What's Happening thread
for the blinkie code.
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DSU
Information
Start
here! This free class is an online article that walks you through
digital scrapbooking step-by-step and explains all the basics from
software and graphics to printing and sharing. It is always available
from this page and www.digitalscrapbooking101.com!
CURRENT
CLASS SCHEDULE (Click here
to see all DSU class descriptions)
December
Classes
 DSU195
–
Wacom & Creative Fun
Be
sure to
visit DSU
for information
regarding these and our other great classes!
We
would love to
hear your suggestions on future classes too.
Send your ideas to dsu@digitalscrapbookplace.com.
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Desktop
Calendar Plopper
November
2011
Specially
designed
ploppers
for your
computer
desktop. These calendars were made by Senior Designer Carole Harden.
Download the
ploppers
by clicking on the image above (Sizes: 1024x768,
1280x768, 1366x768, 1440x900,
and 1650x1080 are included.)
Add
your
picture, angle and
size as you please, add journaling, and save
it as a jpg. Then update your desktop wallpaper background by browsing
to your new image! Voilà! Favorite photos matched
with this month's calendar to help keep you up-to-date all month! Look
for a new one each month in our newsletter!
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Newsletter
Challenge
We
are always
striving to make our newsletter more interesting and useful. If you
have an idea, let us know about it! If it's an article idea, a feature,
even something you'd like to write, shout it out to us. So, put your
thinking caps on and come up with some new features, article ideas, or
something fun you'd like to see in our monthly newsletter. Then email
it to comments@dsplace.com.
(Please type "Newsletter IDEA" in the subject line of your email.) We
can't wait to see your ideas!
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Newsletter
Freebie
For
our newsletter readers, the Christine has created
this charming lovely Autumn plopper. Choose
200ppi
or
300ppi!
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Many
thanks to the newsletter Team:
Carole, Christine, Kim, Lauren, Lynnette, Mandy, Margie,
Mars, Meg and
Chris.
If
you're not a registered member of our site why not Join Now!
All new members receive a FREE GIFT. Feel free to pass this on to your
friends!
You
are
receiving this email
because you signed up to receive it at www.digitalscrapbookplace.com.
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