DSP January 2007 Newsletter

A Letter from Team Digital
When I was a child I remember my father saying to me, "There just aren't enough hours in the day". I remember thinking what a ridiculous statement that was. A day was a day long and at that time in my life, being a teenager I just looked so forward to the next day and the next day, until I could be called an adult and do all those things I was not able to yet.

I suppose that's one of the major differences between children and adults. As children we look forward to the future and as adults practicality and daily life means we need to live in the present, while also bringing along with us memories of the past, both fond and regretful.

Scrapbooking is just one of those ways that we can combine the present and past with the future by recording those parts of our lives that can so easily be forgotten in the rush daily life.

Now of course as an adult and mother of 3 children I think fondly of my father when I say to them, "Oh there just aren't enough hours in the day", and they look at me with the same quizzical expression that I did 30 years ago.

I'm sure they are equally quizzical when I say - "Where did 2006 go?" It seems only a week or so ago we were ringing in the new year and here we are doing it all over again.

2006 was a wonderful year for me as I continued to work at a job that is my passion. Being a Designer at DSP and making so many wonderful friends through the gallery and chat room, being let into their lives through their layouts- sharing in their joys and their pains is truly the most incredible honour and to be paid to do it means that this is a dream come true for me.

2007, it appears will even surpass those dreams, as I look forward to flying to the US to meet the DSP team and members not once but twice within the first quarter. I do hope I will get the chance to meet in person as many of you as possible in Anaheim at the end of January, and for those who are unable to attend I wish you all the best wishes for a prosperous and successful New Year, and that I can continue to share a little bit of your lives through your layouts.

DSP in Anaheim!
DSP is holding a crop in Anaheim, CA on Saturday, January 27! Many members from Team Digital (including Lauren from New Zealand and Meryl from South Africa!) will be there. We would love to meet our wonderful members from DSP and spend the day scrapping together! So if you would like to join us, please sign up HERE.

The crop will cost a minimal fee (still to be determined) and there are a limited number of spots. So please sign up only if you are definitely coming! We can't wait to meet you!!!!!

Club Digital
Are you a member of the club?
If you haven't joined the hippest club in town, you are missing out! Club Digital is full of great digi-scrapping goodies for a great price! For just $2 more than a page kit (when you buy a three-month subscription) you get two Page Kits, a Plopper or Overlay, an Alpha, four Word Art files, a Quick Click, a Font and a Stamp set every month! There's also an exclusive store saving coupon just for Club Digital members. You don't want to be left out! Just look what the DSP Designers did with this month's club goodies.

See more samples and sign up for the club here.

This month's Club Digital has: two Page Kits (Gonna Be a Great New Year and In the Red), a Plopper, an Alpha, a Stamp Set, Word Art, a Font, and a Quick Click! Don't miss out!

Heritage Chat
This is the second in an on-going series highlighting the different chat communities at DSP. This month the focus is on Meryl's Heritage Chat. This chat is celebrating its second anniversary this month, and I asked Meryl and a few of her regular chatters to talk about what they enjoy about creating heritage albums and what they've learned from participating. You can find their gallery here.

Meryl: I started this chat really to get me going on my heritage photos, and because I have such a deep feeling for our history. This past can so easy be neglected - it's so easy to snap away with a camera and scrap a pretty page. Doing a heritage page is more commitment - starting with sorting the photos, scanning them, then doing any repairs and corrections necessary.

The group? I LOVE those heritage girls! I’m so often, so happily surprised by their loyalty – even over Christmas, there they are, fewer, but a good group never the less. It is a very “calm” chat, they come because they want to chat, want to work on their Heritage albums. Interestingly, every week follows exactly the same format – arrive, have a few minutes chat, then we all look at the new entries to the gallery, then everyone votes for their favourite (they vote in the “private” screen), I announce the winner of the week, then we decide on a topic for the following week. The odd times when I have not been able to make it, they very responsibly carry on, someone filling in for me as need be.

We meet each Wednesday at 10.00pm EST, which in our winter is 4.00 a.m. for me, something I didn’t think through when we started, but I would not give up for the world now.

lauraloub: When we sorted out my parents’ house years ago I innocently put a small box in the middle of the floor and asked for any photos anyone should find. Several TOTE boxes later I was on my way.

As the older sibling I am also the keeper of family stories. My mother and grandmother told me a lot of them and I have remembered most. None of the younger generation were the least bit inclined to listen, let alone remember and pass on those stories so documenting them is necessary before they are lost.

This led to a pursuit of genealogy. Stories, facts and photos work into my layouts and I am sure our heritage will now live. Thanks to the attraction of scrapbook pages, the children seem much more interested in family heritage, now. One daughter logs into DSP from far away just to check out the newest of my heritage layouts.

sandygb: Although I am not specifically working on a Heritage album, I love participating in Meryl's Heritage Chat because it gives me the push I need to restore many of my heritage photos. As I get older, it seems that more and more of my photos have fallen into the "Heritage" category! Scanning them and restoring them will hopefully preserve them for future generations along with some of the stories and family history which add such interest to the pages. I only wish I had started these heritage pages when my grandmother was still alive so that I could have learned more of the history behind some of the photos! I have been surprised by the wonderful quality of the photographs from the early 1900s and find that many of these older photos are easier to restore than the color snapshots from the 1960s and later. Here is one of my favorite Heritage pages of my Grandmother and Mother from the 1920s:

Victoria: I started Heritage scrapping (paper style) about 5 years ago. After surviving cancer surgery, I decided that I wanted to leave a legacy of our rich heritage back ground for our children and grandchildren. My thoughts were "If I didn't do this now, the stories would be lost forever". I started with my husband's family, as I had the most information and photos of them. This past year, I really got into digital scrapping in a "big way", and it was a great way to share the family history at an extended family reunion in July 2006 (Mother's side) and in Nov. 2006 (my Dad's side) with a digital scrapbook (each family received a gift copy on a CD). My sister has been truly wonderful in providing scanned copies of our family photos, and we have worked together in creating the family heritage for my side of the family.

Meryl's heritage chats and challenges inspire us to look for photos to do LO's on various topics, and to combine "now and then topics" in the same LO. To see how fellow DSP scrappers cover and interpret the same topic is great inspiration for all of us. The comeraderie that develops in the chat sessions is also a real bonus to us.

I also participated in the Heritage Theme Week Challenge in September which was truly inspirational as well. Seeing so many heritage LO's created by my fellow scrappers was truly a blessing! Thanks you for this opportunity to share my love of heritage digi scrapping.
The LO link I provided is from the challenge of "school photos". I have too many wonderful LO's to choose one favorite, so I linked one from Meryl's Heritage album challenge.

ellen: What I like most about heritage digiscrapping is the art of scanning the photos at a high resolution and zooming in closely to find facial expressions and ancestral elements to bring life to the people in my past. Spending time with the photos and laying them out on beautiful papers gives me a connection with my loved ones who are now gone. Meryl's Heritage Chat has given me ideas that keep me creating more albums - my childhood, family recipes, Christmas ornaments, etc., all giving me opportunities to preserve these memories for future generations.

JaeDee: Meryl's Heritage Album Scrap & Chat does three things for me. First of all, it connects me to people I either didn’t know or only knew from the vantage point of being a child. These people have become wonderfully real to me as I look up information about them. They reach across the abyss of the unshared years and become my friends. Second, I have found a passion that makes my life happier and more fulfilled. As I complete each page, pulling all the elements together into something only I could have created, I find the joy of time well spent and part of my life well lived. And third, I have discovered friends I never dreamed I would have. Friends from the past, who talk to me about their struggles and joys via the photographs and journals they left behind. Also, I have discovered friends who live in distant lands at the far corners of the world, whom I would never have met but for the heritage chats and electronic journaling that we have shared.

I have uncovered books and photographs (some faded and damaged, but still precious) and memoirs that I never knew existed. I have solved family mysteries and created albums that touch the hearts and minds of other family members and friends deeply—albums that I would have never dreamed of creating until I discovered DSP and Meryl’s Heritage Chat. I have uncovered lost boxes from my children’s youth and my own childhood.

Member Spotlight

The first spotlight of 2007 is DSP member Stacey, better known as stacey42. (Be sure to ask her where the 42 comes from . . . I'm sure she has the "answer!") She has two adorable boys and a style that has grown and grown. Seeing her layouts will definitely bring a smile to your face as they just shine with love for her boys! Stacey joined DSP a year and a half ago and has joined in many challenges and contests.

She is one of the many friendly faces at DSP! You can see her gallery here and be sure to check out the challenge to scraplift her! Scraplift her layouts and you can win!

Read more about her here. Congratulations, Stacey!

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You can view her gallery here - and watch for her DET layouts throughout January. Congratulations, Lori!

Featured Designer: Elizabeth Weaver

Ah, what can I share with you this month? It's a fresh new year. We made it through the holidays in one piece. Okay, so there's a little clean up to do after the holidays, but hey, it was all worth it, right? And you know you took a lot of photos of family get-togethers or trips you took. I've been pretty good the last few months about "scrapping last month", and I hope it will be no different in January, even though there will be a few more photos in the stack.

One thing I will do is use pages out of the 4 x 6/6 x 4 brag book size Mini Albums, to plop in a quick photo of my child opening a gift, and send it to the gifter as a thank you note. What a nice surprise when they get to see your child's face (or yours!) opening their gift, and what an easy way to thank them! Included in this newsletter are a couple of ploppers for just such use, but check your stash of mini albums and the store for more choices!

I wish each and every one of you a wonderful and prosperous New Year, filled with hopes and dreams coming true for you and yours. Thank you for being such a wonderful part of my own hopes and dreams at Digital Scrapbook Place!

Elizabeth Weaver
Designer
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January- DSU175- Intro to DIP taught by Lori Davis
February- DSU290- Exploring Digital Design Styles taught by Lauren Bavin and Sharon Topliss
April - DSU332- PSP Advanced Techniques taught by Lori Davis
June- DSU192- Intro to Graphics Tablets

You still have a chance to get in on our January classes. Late registration is open until January 5th. If you are interested in these classes or any of our other classes, please visit our classes page for more information.
Here is our February line up so you can start making plans now!

DSU170 – Pixel Magic: Introduction to Digital Scrapbooking (Formerly Scraps of Digital and HP CSA)

DSU211/311 – Adobe Photoshop: Creating Digital Elements for Beginners and Advanced Users (self-paced)

DSU231 – Corel/ Jasc Paint Shop Pro: Creating Digital Elements for Beginners (Pre-requisite DSU130 or similar experience)

DSU261 – Adobe Photoshop Elements: Creating Digital Elements for Beginners (Pre-requisite- DSU 160 or similar experience)

DSU292 – Adobe Photoshop: Creating and Using Overlays (PS and PSE Pre-requisite- DSU 110, DSU160 or similar experience)

DSU350 – Photography: Creating a Home Photography Studio (Pre-requisite DSU151)

Be sure to visit our classes page for more information regarding these classes and our other great classes at DSU!

We would love to hear your suggestions on future classes! Send your suggestions and comments to me at dsu@digitalscrapbookplace.com.

We’re also looking for qualified DSU instructors! If you would be interested in teaching, please contact me for more information.

Challenges/Contests/Events
Check our Calendar of Events and the January Links thread for a complete list of all events and challenges. Here are a just a few of our exciting Challenges!

A Special Note - be on the look-out for a new area of DSP for advanced scrappers. Special challenges, more advanced tips & techniques, inspiration that's a little more difficult, etc.

Trend Setter Contest
The Trend Setter contest starts on January 1st. (It's not too late to join in!) Digital scrapbooking is an ever-changing art form. Paper-scrapped authenticity, graphic layouts, freestyle, art journals, use of white space, clusters of elements . . . the newest, latest trend is ever evolving. What will be the next, hippest, hottest technique?? Be sure to check out the Trend Setter gallery as our contestants show us what they can do and will surely inspire us all!

Hall of Fame Gallery.
Check here for the best layouts at DSP - nominated by our designers.

DET Bootcamp
Join in to stretch your scrapping skills in preparation for the next DET Contest coming up in March 2007. (Come join even if you don't plan to enter the DET contest - the Bootcamp is open to all!)

Freebs with Tina
After taking a break while Tina moved, Freebs with Tina is back starting Jan 4th!

West Coast Crop
Likewise, the West Coast Crop - on hiatus during the height of the holiday season - is back starting Tuesday Jan 2nd. We'll start the New Year with a Stone Soup Crop!

Freestyle Fandango with Suzanne
An ongoing series of challenges designed to inspire you, and challenge you to stretch your creative skills! Weekly challenges usually boast FANDANGOLICIOUS posting bonuses (freebies)!

Prompts & Props with Bethy and Z
Prompts are a challenge idea, something for you to scrap about. Props are a freebie, something for you to scrap with! From now to the end of the year we're going to focus on gift making, so that you can have a few easy quick things done and in the bag at Christmastime.

Tell Me A Story
Join the "Tell Me A Story" Challenge with René Bross. We all have stories or events that have happened in the past that we, sadly, don't have photos for. Here's your chance to scrap that special memory or story without using a photo, or use a photo of something representative of the event. Use René's new "La Boheme" series and earn a special posting bonus. Check René's Challenges and Chats forum for more details.

Beginnings with Bethy: The first challenge of January for Beginnings with Bethy brings us a lovely kit filled with flowers and a rich tapestry of colors. Be sure to check out her forum and join in! The first challenge, beginning on the 4th, will feature the Floral Traditions page kit with a posting bonus of the coordinating add-on! See previews of all the upcoming items she has on her blog under the buzz for January!

The Newsletter Desktop Calendar Plopper

A newsletter exclusive! Specially designed ploppers for your computer desktop. This month's offering is from our featured designer Elizabeth Weaver. She used her As I Ride By and As I Ride By Again kits (both available in the store this month.) The Calendar grid is Kim Liddiard's 2007 Calendar Stamps - Wide Classic.

Download the PNG file of your choice here: 1024x768 hires version and 800x600 regular version. And just like any of our ploppers, put your photo on a layer underneath the desktop plopper. Angle and size it 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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