Photocentric Templates

I have been scrapbooking for something like 7 years, the last two have been almost completely digital. One of the things I love about the switch to digital is the ability to use templates. A second thing I love about digital is the ability to use VERY large photos on my pages. I have combined those two loves in my newest template pack: Photocentric Templates.

These templates are available at my Ahhh Scrap store.

And remember, my whole store is on sale 30% off in celebration of my grand opening!  The sale lasts until the end of the month, so there are just a few more days to take advantage of the sale.

Grand Opening and Sale!!!

I've been hinting at some big news over on the Foosa Moon Facebook page, and the time is here to announce -- I am opening up shop at Ahhhscrap.com!  I am over the moon excited to join the design team at Ahhh Scrap. The grand opening will be announced in the store newsletter on Monday, but I just couldn't keep it to myself any longer!

In celebration of my opening, my whole store is on sale for 30% off through the end of this month!

I have loaded up 2 kits to start, Fall Frolic and an expanded version of Cream & Sugar (previously seen during the Design Factor challenge this summer).

Cream & Sugar is available as individual pieces (kit, alphas, and word art) or as a complete bundle.

Fall Frolic is available as individual packs (3 paper packs and 3 element packs) or as a complete bundle.

Also, remember the link for Bats, Cats, & Hats will expire tomorrow...it's well enough past the Halloween season that I am taking this down.  But be on the lookout for even more new kits and pieces soon!

Coming Soon!!!

One of my favorite places to go for real life inspiration is gearing up for a new year! Log Your Memory is getting ready for the 2012 year with a new logbook and new challenge book. I was part of the design team that worked throughout the month of November to supply the sample challenge layouts and had so much fun in the process!

The logbook has gone through a few changes this year, most notably: it is now TWO books! Yes, you can now purchase the 2012 Memory Logbook and the Weekly Challenges separately, or bundle them for additional savings.  I know I will be purchasing the combo version, as it's a great tool.



If you have used the logbook in the past, now is the time to pick up next year's copy! You can get 15% off if you use this code before November 14.  That's one week!

I love DSD!!!

Oh yes, I love DSD! The shopping, the sales, the chats, the games, the freebies...everything about DSD is great! I started my shopping with a little stop today (thought "little" is relative). My sale total may not have been large, but I sure did have a lot to download! I have ideas for my Christmas offerings stewing in my head...just have to sit down with some paper and make some sketches! This was a great time to stock up on designing needs!  I'll be doing my personal shopping tomorrow, checking out MANY stores, hopefully not buying everything in sight!

Enjoy the sales! Anyone want to share what they've found for the weekend?

Download Links

I've taken down the links to all the design challenge minis and the Kimono blog hop from the Spring, but have left Bats, Cats, & Hats for now. Links to BC&H will expire soon though, so snag it if you haven't already.  Also be watching my Facebook page and this blog for more news. I have a few things I've been working on that will be posted soon!

Thanks for your support!

Rachel

Bats, Cats, & Hats

It's been a while! In the last month, I haven't been very productive in my designing, but I do have something new for you today! We are gearing up for Halloween in my house. The kids are talking up their costumes (at least the one that talks...), and are getting excited for the night of treats. In honor of Halloween, I put together this little kit and want to give it away as a freebie!

{Download Link Has Expired}

On a related note, I will be pulling down some of my freebie links from this summer. Most of them were created for design challenges, and since the challenges are long over it's time to pull them down. So get 'em while they're still available!

Table Manners Elements

The final challenge for Designer Apprentice closed yesterday, and my submission was posted just under the wire. We had to choose one of our paper packs from earlier challenges (one of which I haven't posted here, oops!) and create coordinating elements. I chose to coordinate with Table Manners, and create a fairly generic set of elements to go with the papers.

I had fun working with these papers again, making these elements. This is one of my favorite color combinations, and I loved working with the wood texture again too. I also learned a few more tricks in Photoshop working on these.  (Puppet warp is my favorite new tool!)

The elements <links have expired>. These links will be free for approximately two weeks before I will take them down.

Thanks for all the support during this challenge season.  I will keep this blog updated with new information and products as they become available.  I am not selling in any shops at the moment, but hope to change that in the future! I am also on Facebook A LOT.

~Rachel

Tidal Treasures Alphas

This week's challenge was to create alphas to coordinate with the first week's kit. I decided to keep my alphas on the grey/blue end of my color scheme, and had fun creating them.

There are two different tag alphas. The round tag alpha is lower case only, though there is a blank tag included. The second tag alpha includes upper and lower cases, numbers, and some punctuation. There are also two stitched included with the second tag alpha. They are layered in the preview but can also be used separately. The third alpha is one that I had a little more trouble making look the way I wanted. It mimics beach glass in that it is a matte slightly scuffed finish, but is also slightly transparent, to take on the color of whatever is placed behind it.

The Tidal Treasures kit <link has expired>

This week's alpha addition <link has expired>

Table Manners

I have to keep this post short today, as nap time is almost over! I started this week's paper challenge with another idea in mind completely. But as with many creative pursuits, it morphed as I looked around the internet for tutorials on making textures. What started as a pack based on color started to remind me of my grandma's table, that now sits in my own dining room.

To download the papers, visit the DSA gallery <Link has expired>

The next challenge has been announced, and this week I will be working on alphas to match Tidal Treasures. Work has started, and I am excited with what is turning out.  Have a great week!

Tidal Treasures

To wrap up the summer, I decided to enter the Designer Apprentice challenges at DigiScrapAddicts (DSA). Just like the Design Factor, Designer Apprentice is a series of design tasks meant to challenge designers and stretch our skills. I love having the deadlines and guidance.  Part of what I'm looking forward to with Designer Apprentice is the mentor aspect. Unfortunatly, this week I faced a series case of create block and didn't have anything prepared before the mentoring deadline, so I have to wait until the Week 2 challenge to hear feedback from my mentor.

When my creative block finally lifted, I was right back at the beach, so to speak.  The challenge was to photograph or scan 2 items as part of a mini-kit. I kept circling back to the beach treasures my daughter had in a jar.  Even though I made a beach kit for one of the DF challenges, I decided to use my own source material to make a unique kit.

This kit can be found here at DSA. <Download Link expired>

I think my favorite pieces in this kit are the scatter and the tag. The scatter was maybe not so much fun to extract, but I love the way it turned out. And overlaying a shell on the tag made it really fun for me. I may have to make a heritage/period kit at some point. The newsprint paper is created from a scan of a newspaper I found in my hope chest (that had belonged to my grandmother) dated May 1941. It is full of new about the war in Europe and current events in Seattle at the time.

This kit has actually been up for a few days at DSA and as a result, my week 2 pack is almost done!  Keep watch over the next few days for that one to be posted!

Melon Madness!

The final week of the Design Factor challenge is here.  I spent this week knee deep in melons.  I even found myself dreaming of ways to use melons in the kit! Those melon scalloped mats...one of my midnight ideas.  I've really got to switch my creative clock around! I'll sleep a whole lot better if my ideas come in the morning than while I'm trying to fall asleep!

To download Melon Madness, <Links have expired>

I'm kind of sad to see the end of the Design Factor...but excited to share that I will be taking part in ANOTHER challenge series, Designer Apprentice, at digiscrapaddicts.com.  So there will be 5 more weeks of free kits to share with you!  I find I am learning so much through each of these challenges, and stretching my creativity at the same time.

Flowers, Ribbons, and Strings Oh My!!

Welcome to the First Digi Scrap Connect Blog Train.  This blog train is comprised of 24 fabulous designers who have been participating in the Design Factor Challenge the last 5 weeks.  For our 5th challenge, we were required to make an element pack using CU items.  Since 1/2 of the items for all the kits would be coming from the Scrap Matters great challenge freebies, we were worried that we were going to have flowers, ribbons and strings coming out our ears with this challenge :).  We decided to have fun with it and turn it into a great Blog Train by adding some fabulous papers as well.  Flowers, Ribbons, and Strings Oh My!!  the blog train was born.  We hope you have fun collecting the great mini kits.  If you get lost along  the blog train, just return to Digi Scrap Connect to find the list of all participants.

Here is a list of all the participants:

DigiScrap Connect {Home Station}
Piccolina Designs
JDK Skrapz
Dancing Princess Designs
Inspired By Dominic Designs
Dana's Footprints Designs
Milly Dee Designs
Amanda and Millie Designs
Rose Thorn Designs
NanaScraps
Kim Hackworth Creations
Scraps by Mara
Digital Gator Designs
Snackpackgu's Designs
Rumki Designs
Designs by Angel
Scrapdragon Designs
ScrapN2Nspire
Rebecca Meyers Designs
Ramona Memories
Binty Designs
Lizard Dau Designs
Digital Harmony{Previous stop}
Foosa Moon Creations {You are here}
PamlaKlenczar {Next stop}

And now for my contribution!  The colors made me think of the beach and the items that my daughter comes home with in her pockets when we have visited in the past. Because we had to use CU items, I couldn't scan in her actual treasures, but she has many shells and bits of beach glass tucked away on her desk in a jar her grandma gave her for that purpose.  

I have uploaded the papers and elements separately so that if you have already downloaded the elements, you don't have to take the time to download them again.  

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Thanks for stopping by! As always, I'd love to see what you do with my designs.

Balloon Bash - DF Challenge 4

I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post.  It has definitely been busy though.  We had a trip to Seattle to watch my brother get married, and I still am not sure I've fully recovered from the craziness!  It's a good thing school starts a week from tomorrow. Maybe things will start to slow down again!

While I was gone I put together this mini kit for the Week 4 challenge.  The challenge was to use a shape on all the elements and patterned papers.  I was in a celebratory mood, so I used balloons! I think this turned out pretty fun, and have a few new favorite pieces in this kit.

See that little brad in the middle of the flower?  I learned how to make glitter, and used it there.  My other favorite piece of this kit is the alpha. I love the little bitty balloons that follow the shape of each letter.

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Thanks so much for stopping by!  I'll be taking part in a blog train on Thursday with my kit from week 5.  I have all the elements done (that was the week 5 challenge) and just have to put together a few papers today to round it out.  See you then!

Final Lap - DF Challenge 3

Wow! I'm not sure where the time went this week! Maybe it was the holiday weekend that threw me off. I had fully intended to post an add-on to Cream & Sugar, but time just got away from me. I will hang on to the add-on for a time when I don't have a new mini-kit to share with you!

This is a kit that has been floating around in my head since I started toying with the idea of designing for myself. My husband competes in endurance mountain bike races. Like 12 and 24 hours of relay racing. Even with a 4 person team, that's a lot of riding. When I went looking for kits to use for the photos he took, all I found were kits aimed at kids learning to ride. I finally found a color scheme I liked, and it fit perfectly with this week's neutral monochromatic color challenge (with a pop of color!).

I had a lot of fun putting this kit together, with a combination of extraction and shapes used to created the various elements.

You can download Final Lap <Link has expired>. There are 6 papers (4 patterned, 2 solid) and 13 individual elements in the mini. Hope you enjoy!

Cream & Sugar

Sitting here this morning with my cup of coffee and waiting for the kids to wake up, this is the perfect kit for me! Combining my morning coffee habit with my love of a nice cuppa tea in the evening, this kit has everything needed to remember those relaxing moments.

This kit was also created for the Design Factor Challenge #2. The challenge was to use patterns completely drawn by me. Looking through the gallery at DSC, I see that there is a lot of interpretation as to what "drawn" means. I took it to mean actual drawings, so that is what my patterns are -- drawings by me. Not my strong suit, in my mind, but it worked!

To download directly from this post, <Link has expired>. The whole kit is in one link, so depending on your download speed, it may take a bit.

As always, if you use my creations, please link me up so I can see what you're doing! I love to see my work in action.

I'll be back in a couple days with an add-on to this kit.  I had so many element ideas, I had to keep some back!

Design Factor Challenge #2...

The second challenge for the Design Factor was posted a little while ago, and boy is it a doozy! I'm brainstorming one possible theme, since it is wide open theme wise, but what has me worried is that all the patterned papers must be created by hand...so no easy-peasy stripes or polkadots. But that's why they call it a challenge, right?  I've actually got 5 patterns sketched on paper if I go with the theme that is spinning right now, but not sure what that 6th pattern might entail.  And not sure I can carry the theme to get the required elements.  Hmmm...guess I'll be stewing all night at this rate!

For now, I'll just have to let it all stew and mix, and maybe someone will post a question that will make something gel.  I'm not even sure what questions to ask to help work through this pattern challenge! Off to bed, as it's almost midnight here, and my husband will be up in just 3 short hours to watch the Pikes Peak Hill Climb race.  I think they're nuts, but that's why I'm sleeping in and not joining in on the "fun."

More Lemonade Stand

Happy weekend! The weather is finally starting to feel like summer here, which means I am spending more time inside with the air conditioner on than I am outside.  That and I'm eating a whole lot more ice cream and popsicles! Oh, and wishing my grill worked so I could cook outside instead of raising the temperature inside!

I'm itching for the next installment of the challenges at The Design Factor and waiting for the designers I CT for to post their upcoming kits, so I decided to do a little more creation with my Lemonade Stand mini. I put together a border and a cluster:

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Remember to go back to <Link has expired> to get the entire Lemonade Stand mini.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Lemonade Stand

Yesterday I posted the preview of my mini-kit, Lemonade Stand. I spent a little time during nap time later in the day to put together a page with the kit.

Working with the kit was a lot of fun. I pulled some of my favorite pieces to work with, and was able to tell about Maggie's summer plans (ALL of them) in one simple page.

Lemonade Stand is available as a freebie, either by visiting the gallery at Digi Scrap Connect, where the Design Factor challenge is being hosted, but I am also going to be putting the links here today too! So you don't have to go anywhere extra if you don't want.

Lemonade Stand Papers
Lemonade Stand Elements

Thanks for visiting, and I'd love to see what you do with Lemonade Stand. If you use the mini, please leave a comment (with a link if possible).

Design Factor Challenge 1

I decided to participate in the Design Factor Challenges at Digi Scrap Connect. It is a non-competative 6 week challenge, which should be perfect for helping me practice designing while also adding the pressure of a deadline. I'm one of those people who needs a deadline looming before I can really be creative -- part of why I started working on Creative Teams a year ago.

Anyway, the first week's challenge was to create a summer themed mini-kit.  My mini quickly turned into a regular sized kit while working this week, but I pared it down closer to mini-sized for the final submission.

This kit was inspired by my daughter, who was super excited for summer to start so she could set up a lemonade stand with her friends. They held meetings to plan and draw posters, and on the day of the stand they were up early to set up along side a neighbor's garage sale. I used some of my new (and very weak) Illustrator skills to draw some of the elements, and others are scanned and extracted by me.  Part of this challenge was that there could be no "CU" items used, so everything had to be from scratch.  It was a great challenge, and I had a lot of fun putting this together.

To download the papers and elements from this kit, please visit this page. <Link has expired>

Still Learning

Learning happens all the time, sometimes it's a conscious effort to learn something new, other times it happens automatically. I am a learner by nature. I suppose it is a natural compliment to my ability to teach. As of yesterday, I am now learning Adobe Illustrator, and hoping to be able to use it to enhance my design work. I am still learning what my abilities are in regards to designing kits, but one thing I have been having fun making lately are templates. I am working on a couple different template designs, and hope to have something finished to offer by the end of the week. For now, my designs will be available for free on my blog, as I continue to work through where this process will take me.

Kimono Blog Hop

As promised, here is my portion of the quick page blog hop for the Kimono Collab at Jessicasprague.com.

Here is a link to the kit itself. There are over 50 papers and 35 elements in this great kit created by the participants in the March 2011 Art of Digital Design class.  I have also linked the photo, so you can click to photo to be taken to the kit in the store.

While I did not get to create anything for the collab itself, I did create a quick page with some of the pieces, to show just what is possible from this gorgeous kit. I have included the bare bones version of the QP, so you can add your own title and journaling to fit your picture. 

(Sorry, link has expired)

(link has expired)

I would love to hear what you think of the quick page and the collab kit.  Please leave a comment below!

The next stop on the blog hop:

 Previous stop on the hop:

Here is a complete list of participants, in case you get lost:

Kim Hackworth www.croppycatterscorner.blogspot.com

Melanie www.mellybirddesigns.com

Michele Pouliot crumpledpaperdesigns.blogspot.com/ 

Stephanie Costello & Dori Melton www.lusciouslifestudios.com 

Pamla Klenczar PamlaKlenczar.blogspot.com

Rosa Mia Nissenbaum rosanissenbaum.blogspot.com

Christina Ming chirstinaming.wordpress.com

Anissa Burson www.anissaburson.com

Foosa Moon Creations www.foosamoon.blogspot.com

Mary Moseley thememoryboutique.net/newsite/?page_id=838

Maribeth Graf www.gingerlimedesigns.com

The Digital Celt www.thedigitalcelt.com

Zindra Nelson www.zindrasdigitaldesignstudio.blogspot.com

Jellybean Design www.jellybean-design.blogspot.com/

Lady Bug Designs www.ladybugdesigns-becky.com

Corie Farnsley - pixelsandpix.com/

Yvonne Michelle - www.photecstasy.blogspot.com

Little Birdie Digital Designs alittlebirdiescrappedit.blogspot.com

Monique Helfrich moniquehelfrichdesign.blogspot.com/

Kimono - Reaching across an ocean

I have been participating in the Art of Digital Design class at jessicasprague.com. I don't know what will become of this newfound knowledge (if anything), but I am always interested in learning and took this new leap. The class was really picking up right about the time the earthquake hit Japan, and as a class, it was decided we would make a collab kit to sell in order to help with relief efforts. Fast forward a month, and I was not able to add anything to the collection due to other work responsiblities, but what was put together by my classmates is amazing.

You can view the full kit here. All proceeds from the kit go to the Red Cross to help support relief in Japan, and you can snag it for 25% off until Sunday at midnight, at which point it will be available for full price.

Tomorrow, there will be a blog hop hosted by the members of the class. A post will be added here with full details tomorrow!

Welcome to Foosa Moon

Welcome to Foosa Moon Creations.  This page is currently under construction, and will see many changes over the next few months. Please come back often to see what's new. Better yet, follow this blog to be among the first to see what Foosa Moon has coming up!