Adoramapix 12x18 Top Hanging Calendar Review


As you all know, I finished the 2016 Calendar I was making for my mom. I ordered a 12x18 Calendar from Adoramapix and I promised you all a review.

This was the photo you may have seen on my Instagram or SwL Facebook group the day I got it (taken with my phone). I was in the middle of cooking dinner when it arrived. I forced myself to wait until dinner was done before I opened it. I wanted to take my time looking at it. It was totally worth the wait.


Before I really start the print review I wanted to share how easy the upload and purchase was from Adoramapix. All you have to do is go to the website, scroll down where it says Customized Photo Calendars, and click on Create a Calendar. For the 12x18 size, you click on top hanging. Then click on Blank - Build Your Own and then click on Make Your Calendar. From there you just upload your pages and order. The top hanging fully customizable calendar comes with 12 pages plus a cover for $29.95. Shipping was $5.95. The total cost was $35.90. I'm sure I could have waited for a coupon, but I was on a time crunch. I ordered it on December 9th and received it on December 22nd as promised.

Here's the cover. I love it. I could just print it and frame it. On the front page, there is a white border all around the edge. There is no border on the inside pages.


One of the inside pages.


Here's the digi-page so you can compare colors. It prints true to color. You'll notice at the top you do have to watch for bleed. My heart is quite close to the top of the calendar and almost got chopped off. With my Calendar Templates you do not need to worry about bleed. They were all created with print cut-off in mind, just be careful how big your elements are at the top of the page. (BTW - my 2016 calendar set is retiring, but I have a brand new set planned for 2017!)



A close-up. I love how real digi can look.


My favorite page.


Another close-up.


The hanging part. It's spiral bound and hangs just like a typical calendar.


The pages were a little flimsy, and I think that was only because it was a full 12x18 page. It's quite big! It's not something you would want your small children flipping through, but it's perfect for hanging on the wall.


13 pages with a pretty heavy black back page.


And here it is hanging on my mom's wall.


A few other notes.

*My mom has not written on it yet. I think a fine tip black sharpie will work well, I'll keep you posted.
*Include QR codes. They are so fun. I put them on a few of my pages, and we had so much fun scanning them to find out what they were.
*On one of my pages I did a black calendar grid. It's going to be hard to write on that. Maybe a silver sharpie will work. I might avoid black next time.
*Oh and you have two paper choices (Canon HD Luster or Canon HD Glossy). I chose Luster because I wanted it to be not so glossy. I think it was perfect, with a little bit of shine, but I think you'll still be able to write on it.

I hope that helps anyone who is thinking of making a 12x18 calendar. What's great about these is you don't have to start it at the beginning of the year. Make one that starts in July if you want to. Make one for a gift for someone in the middle of the year!

Let me know if you have any other questions about this particular calendar and print and I'll try to answer them.

-Liz

Pages Scrapped in 2015: A Review

For the last couple of years (2013, 2014) I've gone back and looked at the total amount of pages I've scrapped. It's always fun to see what I've accomplished. This year was a little less than last year, but I did complete 2 albums, and I scrapped a full 12-page calendar (and front cover) for my mom. I'm pretty satisfied with that.  I'll have print reviews for each of those albums and a calendar coming up on the blog soon!

It looks like I'm slowly declining in my pages made. I don't know if it's because I'm busier these days with kids, homeschooling, making templates....or if it's just that I'm content with scrapping my weekly pages. I think it really has to do with the latter. As long as I scrap those two pages each week I am happy. I know they are a good review of what our life looks like. One day I'll go back and scrap all those in-between photos.
What did you scrap this year?

-Liz

Week 51: Basically Christmas

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Christmas Time by Juno Designs
Last week was Christmas, in case you forgot! And you'll definitely know it if you look at my Week 51 page. It's all Christmas. I do have one picture of us walking up to the mailbox and petting the horses and then a video of my son listening to the sound of his stick. He's still amazed by the little sounds he can hear with his CI....I'm still amazed! But everything else is all Christmas.

Take a closer look if you wish.

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Christmas Time by Juno Designs

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Christmas Time by Juno Designs
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
-Liz

And My New Store Is......




It's been a whirlwind of a few weeks for Scrapping with Liz (not to mention Christmas and family visiting), but I'm soooo happy to announce that I will be joining The Lilypad on January 1st.

While you wait for my store to open make sure you check out all that I have retiring over at Scrap Orchard. All of my retiring products are 50% OFF. The sale ends on December 31st at 11pm EST.

I really hope you join me over at The Lilypad (TLP). It's going to be a lot of fun!

-Liz

Persnickety Prints: Card Print Review


I don't usually print Christmas cards anymore. I do  digi-scrap a card and post it on social media for my friends and family to see. But I was curious, if I did print cards what kind of paper/print would I want? Plus, I wanted to know for some future projects/cards I have planned what I might like for different cards. So, I took my Christmas card, uploaded to my favorite individual print site, Persnickety Prints, and ordered some different prints. I thought I would share my findings....


All of the prints were spot on with the color quality.


With the press prints, you have to be careful about bleed. You can get templates here to make sure nothing important will be cut off. Thankfully, my cards were okay. You can tell on the press prints that a smidge more got cut off the edge.


Here's the lineup of what I ordered:

5x7 Press Print (No Cut, Linen Card Stock) - $3.09
5x7 Press Print (No Cut, Pearl Card Stock) - $3.29
5x7 Press Print (No Cut, Soft Texture Art, Card Stock) - $3.09
5x7 Photographic Print (No Border, Matte Photographic) - $.89
5x7 Photographic Print (Metallic, No Border) -$1.19

There are a lot more options, that's just what I chose to print.


The top three cards were with Press Print Papers and then the last two were with Photographic paper and that last, really shiny one, is with the Metallic Paper.

Here's my conclusion:

Press Print (No Cut, Linen Card Stock) - It has that really nice, canvas look. I would probably use this for individual, very special prints, prints that I didn't really want to have a photographic look to them.

Press Print (No Cut, Pearl Card Stock) - This one has a pearl sheen to it on both sides of the print. Even the plain backside of this print is beautiful.

Press Print (No Cut, Soft Texture Art, Card Stock) - The Linen Card Stock and Pearl Card stock papers have a definitive feel to them, but I couldn't really see anything in this one that stood out. I think it might have been because what I was printing was so dark. Maybe I'll try something lighter next time.

Photographic Print (No Border, Matte Photographic) - Very nice, and probably the best deal for the $$$. It still has a little sheen and doesn't lay as flat as the Press Print papers.

Photographic Print (Metallic, No Border) - This one has a metallic look to it and it's much shinier than the regular photographic print. I'm not sure that I would use this for printing cards, just because it's more expensive and the regular photographic print will do. Oh, and it also doesn't lay flat like the Press Prints.

That being said, thy are all beautiful. If I didn't have a budget I would probably choose the Pearl Card Stock for most of my invitations and cards. It's just beautiful and has that luxurious feel on the front and backside of the card.

Now I have a few Christmas cards I can actually mail out....even if they are a little late. Maybe next year I'll actually mail out cards. I'll let you know!

-Liz

Merry Christmas from My Family to Yours!

Christmas Templates
Christmas Time by Juno Designs

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Sincerely, Liz

Week 50: Skits, Field Trips and Running

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Everyday Life December by Juno Designs


Well, there was more to it than skits, field trips, and running, but that's what stuck out when I looked at these pages after they were all done.

I loved the way my page from last week had a whiter/lighter feel, so I tried it again this week. I stuck to more neutral papers and then a few pops of red. I like it.

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Everyday Life December by Juno Designs

I can't believe I only have two more of these double pagers to make!

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Everyday Life December by Juno Designs

How about you? Have you stuck to any challenges this year or finished any albums?

-Liz

Week 49: Music, Basketball & the Kitchen

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Everyday Life December by Juno Designs


This week was a little less Christmas-y than last week (and I have no idea where that post went, I think I might have accidentally deleted it!). We did do a couple Christmas-y things, sing at the senior center and go to the Festival of Lights, but other than that, it was pretty much a normal week filled with school work, cooking, basketball, and the kitty. She loves that cat.

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Everyday Life December by Juno Designs

I'm loving how this week's page has a whiter/lighter feel. And I had to use those gold glitter stars again.

Daily Life Templates 13 by Scrapping with Liz
Everyday Life December by Juno Designs

-Liz

Joy to the World: Print & Free Template

I needed (I guess it was more of a want!) a Christmas print for a frame in my hallway. Since I'm handy with photoshop, and I have all of these beautiful kits to use, why not make my own? So, I did. Here's how it turned out:

Everyday December by Juno Designs
World Paper from Leavin' on a Jet Plane by Laura Banasiak and Jenn Barrette

Look at those shadows. It looks like I made it with real scrapbook supplies.

What do you think? I no longer have a color printer, so I had to order a print. I chose Walmart since I wanted it in a hurry. I think it turned out pretty good. This is what it looked like in photoshop:



And since I went through all that trouble to make it (really it wasn't that much trouble), I thought I would share the template I made to create the print. Just click the image to download. There is a .psd, tiff, .page, and pngs included in the download.

http://store.scrappingwithliz.com/download/SwL_JoytotheWorldPrintTemplate.zip
-Liz

2016 Calendar & Cover Freebie!


I finally finished the 2016 Calendar I've been working on as part of my Mom's Christmas gift. I scrapped a calendar page each month this past year. It made this project really doable for me since my scrapping time is limited. I went to upload my 12x18 Calendar to Adoramapix and realized I needed a cover for my calendar. I put this cover page together really quickly. I just love how it turned out. I almost want to print one just to hang it on my wall!

Using Everyday Life '15 by Juno Designs

Anyway, I thought maybe some of you who also made 12x18 calendars might like a cover page. So I converted my page into a template. You could easily re-size this to fit other sizes. Just click the image to download.


Here's the set I used to create my calendar. You can grab the whole set right now for $20.
*no longer available*




I'll write another blog post when I get my calendar and let you know how it looks printed. I can't wait!

-Liz

P.S. Adoramapix was super easy to upload, and my 12x18 top hanging calendar cost about $35.00.

Week 47: Thanksgiving & Florida

Autumn Memories Bundle by Juno Designs
My Life Templates 12
 by Scrapping with Liz

This past week we celebrated Thanksgiving with a short trip to Florida to visit family. It was good to have a break from the normal routine, and we had a lot of fun with the family.

Autumn Memories Bundle by Juno Designs
My Life Templates 12
 by Scrapping with Liz

I don't know what happened. I only picked up my camera once while we were there. I need to get back into the habit.

Autumn Memories Bundle by Juno Designs
My Life Templates 12
 by Scrapping with Liz

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving last week!
-Liz

P.S. Make sure to take pictures of all family members. I missed some and it sort of bums me out.
© Scrapping with Liz
Maira Gall