Adoption Update!

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to share an adoption update with you all....110 days to be exact!  We received a referral for a little girl back in February, but I didn't share anything with you all because we had to wait for our all-important letter of approval from China. Well, on Monday we got it! It was a happy day and I'm still just so excited and can't believe we'll be traveling in less than 3 months (hopefully) to bring her home!

Now that we have our LOA I can tell you all about her and show you some pictures, but I'm not just going to show you pictures, I'm going to show you some digital scrapbook pages I made about her. :) I made these pages back in February right after we got our referral. So you can imagine how badly I've been wanting to share these with you!

Are you ready?
Here she is Lydia Jie! She'll be two in August.
We love her with all our heart!

Using Secreat Stash's Extraordinary Bundle
and Everyday Moments.
Template soon to be released in my store.

Title: Our First Glimpse of You
Journaling: Mommy, Daddy, and your sisters all stood around the computer as I opened the email with your pictures. Mommy and Daddy hugged and cried, and your sisters instantly called you their little sister.

Using Secreat Stash's Extraordinary Bundle
and Everyday Moments and Days Like This Journal Cards.
Template soon to be released in my store.

Journaling is about the different things our girls said about their little sister.

Card 1:
When Ashlyn saw your pictures for the first time she asked, "Can we buy her some girl clothes?"

Card 2:
When Emmie saw you she instantly said, "I love her so much!"

Card 3:
When Kyla saw your picture she said, "Awwww, she is sooooo cute!"

If you knew our girls you could picture each one of them saying these very things! So typical of who they are and the way they express themselves.

I'll keep you updated on what's going on. I even have a few more pages to show you but not yet. I have to wait for a release of a certain special project. ;)

Thank you all so much for your support. Just reading the comments from my original adoption blog post really lifted my spirits and made me realize what great customers and supporters I have!

-Liz

How to Make a Blended Mask

I've had a few of you ask me how I make the blended masks that I've been known to put on my digital scrapbook templates. It's actually quite simple, no big secrets here! This tutorial is for a very basic mask but even the very basic mask can look pretty cool!

I used Photoshop CS3 but from what I hear it's all the same steps for elements users.
So without further ado...

Here's what the finished mask looks like since you can't see it all that great in the video.

Using a paper from Captivated Visions Pretty Little Poppy Kit.

I hope this will help you make your own blended masks to customize your digital scrapbook pages even more! If you have any question just post them here and I'll try to help!

-Liz

My Very First "Scrapbook"

My mom was going through some old pictures and such and she came across a little "scrapbook" that I made of a vacation that we took when I was twelve years old. I made it in the form of a story with pictures and words. I had a blast looking through it. It was funny to look through it and see and read what I thought about our vacation. The best part though, was when my 9 year old daughter picked it up and looked through it. She read every word I wrote and looked at all the pictures more than once. She even picked up on a few of my grammar and spelling errors!

I even typed it out (on a typewriter!)...does that qualify as digital scrapbooking?

Isn't this what scrapbooking is about? Preserving our memories, not only for ourselves, but for the next generation.

-Liz