Welcome Barb - Our Sept / Oct 2011 Digi Guest Creative Team Member!

Read all about Barb (aka: pawprints) -

Donna is a graphic designer & has been digi scrapping since 2008

My name is Barb and I live on Long Island. I am married 36 years to my wonderful dh who is not only my husband but also my best friend. He is a sweetie who is very used to seeing me in a pile of papers, stickers, glue, bling, and punch confetti, and also in front of my Mac. 

We have two children, a son 29 and a daughter 27, and we have a beautiful granddaughter named Maddie that is about to turn 3. We also have a sweet, beautiful black lab named Boomer. I am a paper scrapper and a digi scrapper, and immensely enjoy both worlds. Besides loving my family, being creative, and a being a big dog lover, I am also a huge Mac fan!

I am a graphic designer and was doing page layout and ad design long before it was done on computer. When our industry went digital I got my first Mac and I taught myself how to do page layout and typography on the computer. Then I taught myself how to use Photoshop. I've done flyers, brochures, business cards, advertisements, newsletters and a quarterly business newspaper. I don't work anymore except for one client I still do jobs for. This leaves me more time to design for myself and my family now.

I have always been into all things creative. As a kid I would be so happy with just a pair of scissors and a pack of colored paper. I have been scrapbooking for as long as I can remember, always saving and documenting all of the special memories and moments that come along in life. I am known as the paparazzi of the family... everyone knows that at every event, big or small, that I will be snapping photos all over the place. I am one to be behind the camera most of the time, but not in front of it too often.

I got into digi scrapping just about 3 years ago right after my granddaughter was born. I was so intrigued by the wonderful work I saw in the gallery that I just had to see for myself how this was done. Being proficient in Photoshop made it easy for me to give it a try and I immediately fell in love! But I will never give up my paper scrapping. 

To me they both serve as different outlets for my creativity. I still have the need to cut and punch paper and glue on bling and flowers and just play with all my paper scrappy goodies. When I paper scrap I do it chronologically for albums, and I always do two pagers except for opening and closing pages. Digi scrapping on the other hand allows me to just scrap a picture that I took today, last month, or a few years ago. It is a one page layout that I can just do "out of order." I can digi scrap anytime and not have to take out my stash and make a mess. It is somewhat an extension of my graphic design world, but for me now instead of for clients.

I found ACOT sometime after we lost our beautiful yellow lab 8 years ago. When I could finally bring myself to look at his pictures again, I decided I wanted to redo his photo album into a scrapbook and that is when I discovered all the wonderful dog embellishments and papers that were suddenly available. I shopped here for a long time before I checked out the boards, and I have to say that joining this wonderful community has been such a great experience for me. 

I am really a very shy person and what I call socially challenged lol! But everyone here on this site is so warm, so friendly, and so helpful that I immediately felt comfortable here. And one of the big things that impressed me was the way everyone phrased each other's work in the gallery. Everyone was so supportive of each other. 

That was three years ago and here I am now with over 10,000 posts to my name! For anyone that knows me that is amazing, and it also says a lot about the wonderful people we have here on the boards. This is the only board I have ever joined and I look forward every day to coming on here and chatting and seeing all of your wonderful work in the gallery. And the support and the praise for each other is still the same as it was 3 years ago. 

You are all so talented and I have grown as a scrapper because of all of you. Thanks Cherries!

Scrapbooking With Friends Furever By We R Memory Keepers

Posted by bluejeans7(Angela):

On May 27, 2010 we adopted this cute little dog, we named her Gracie.  When the We R Memory Keepers Friends Furever line hit the ACOT shop I knew it was the perfect line to scrap our pictures of Gracie.  This line has awesome pattern papers.  


They are all double sided except the Collars paper and Nine Lives paper, which are both glitter accented.  Besides having awesome papers this line has die cut tags, chipboard tags, clear stamps, cardstock stickers, fabric brads, chipboard words, metal charms, a 4x6 pad, a 6x6 pad, glitter brads, twill ribbon, textured cardstock, and even a Page Kit.  This line has it all!!  A must have for all of you pet lovers out there.
 
I really love the mix of pattern papers in the Friends Furever line and it's always a bonus when the papers are double sided.  My favorite pattern paper is the Treat Jar paper, which I used on this layout.  I also used Dog's Life, both sides of the Lazy Time and a little of the Making Tracks for my heart.  The Friends Furever 4x6 pad is awesome!  I love that you get 18 different designs in the pad.  The design I used here was perfect for my journaling.  A Petaloo Poppy flower, title letters and machine stitched border finish off my first layout.



 
 
Another favorite paper (okay, so I have more then one favorite paper.  LOL!) is the My Yard die cut edge paper.  I love everything about this paper- from the colors, to the design, to the cute paw prints in each corner.  I took the My Yard paper and glued it to the Bazzill Red cardstock.  


Then I took my white Sharpie pen and added dots around the border.  This time I used one of the patterned papers out of the Friends Furever 4x6 pad, the spotted paper under the brown paper.  I used the Bad To the Bone die cut tag for my title, but I did cut off the top piece before I inked it.  Like on my first layout I added a Petaloo Poppy flower to accent this layout.



 
 
I love to scrap with the color orange and the Bazzill Yam cardstock is one of my favorites.  I started with the Yam cardstock and then added a mix of different pattern papers.  The colors of the Friends Furever line work great with both color and black & white photos.  


For my accents I cut off one of the "flash cards" from the Furry Friends Flash Card Paper, a couple of cardstock stickers that I inked and popped up with Pop Dots, and Cozy Posies flowers from Basic Grey.



 
 

These photos were taken within the first month of adopting Gracie.  It was fun to go back and scrap them.  I started with the Bazzill Parakeet cardstock this time, it is one of my favorite Bazzill greens.  Added my pattern papers and then I machine stitched my border.  

Again I used another flash card from the Furry Friends Flash Card Paper, this time for my title.  All of the cardstock stickers are inked and put on with Pop Dots.  The last touches are the red and green Basic Grey Cozy Posies flowers and the date stickers.

 

 

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