Layout Ideas!

Here are a few layout ideas that i have been working on...

Faces are covered due to privacy, but I am happy with how they turned out

so thought I would share. Enjoy!

Hello Glitter...
Anyone love playing with glitter? Here are a couple samples of the cards i have been making the past little while. I love the technique and the possiblities are truly endless of what u can do with this product. Have a great weekend everyone! & ENJOY~

Dreamed About Sale

Come on down to Embellished Memories and participate in the sale you've always dreamed about!!

Starting October 12, 2011.

10 - 40% off everything in the store with the exception of the new Christmas lines, cardstock, Simple Stories "Baby Steps", Stickles and a few other new products.

Most of the store is dotted with different colors: red=40%, yellow=30%, green=20% and blue=10%.

Come in soon as items will go quickly.

You can't beat the price!!!!

October is croppin' time. Our October Croptacular is October 21st - 23rd. Call or drop in the store to reserve your seat. They are going fast! Only three seats left.

Christmas Cards

Kristina Werner has a segment on her blog - 25 days of cards. Check it out. She is doing a different design, different techniques, different cards everyday for 25 days!

http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/

I finished 50 Christmas cards last weekend. Now, just to write them up, address them and mail them in time this year!

Do you make your own cards?

~~Melanie

Creative Cropping Part 2

Use a foreground element when composing a landscape picture. The foreground element gives the viewer a reference point from which to view the main scene. This technique works when composing a picture of a person also. Makes the picture more personal.
A tall item on either left or right side of landscape is an example of a foreground element. You can crop part of it out or most of it, depending on the picture but still maintains a point of reference.

Before you press the shutter, scan the edges of the camera viewfinder to see if there are any distracting objects. These can't always be cropped out and can spoil a nicely composed picture.

Next week learn how to make water stand still or if moving, look like silk.
Happy picture taking.
Edith

NEW CARD KITS!

The first card is one of 6 beautiful cards created with Graphic 45, by Diane. This great kit will be ready for pick up by Saturday October 1st.


The 2nd picture is a preview of another must have card kit, created by Kathy. All these cards are truly beautiful as well, and they are ready for pick up now.

These two kits have full, pictures, instructions and all embellishments to complete.
Make sure you stop by the store to see these amazing kits in person.

Enjoy everyone & have a great night.
Kari

Creative Cropping

I am busy taking pictures and have wanted to learn more about creative cropping for sometime now. I have some great articles that I am posting tidbits from. If I find a good site I will post it on the blog.


Here goes:

Cropping goes hand in hand with composition. If you have a great photograph and it is cropped poorly, this takes away from the composed photograph.

We hear the word composition all the time and many of you already know this. I will start with the basic rules of composition to get the best camera exposure:


Rule of thirds is very important. Experts tell us that we should never place our subject in the middle/center of the photograph. In general this is a good rule, but there are times when you can place subject in the middle. This holds true in some landscape pictures when we want our eye drawn to the subject matter in the background. In general, for good composition, use the rule of thirds. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid over your image in the viewfinder. Place your subject wherever the lines intersect.

Place subject off-center: when you take a picture of your subject off-center, you are giving the viewer the opportunity to scan the picture for other interesting elements. When your subject is in the absolute center of the frame. the viewer gets stuck on the subject. I found this quite interesting and true. Take a look at your photos and pick out pictures that have the subject dead center and pictures that subject is away from the center. Surprising isn't it!




More to follow next week.
I would appreciate any comments you may have as I continue this series. If you have a question , I will do my best to answer it.
Edith

I went to the zoo just the other week....

It's Carolyn and I'm back again, thought I would let you know about my adventure recently to the Calgary zoo. It was a beautiful day - the weather couldn’t have been any better and it has been 8 years since the last time we went. We got to see many of the animals and of course the prehistoric park. On the drive there everyone is excited and singing different songs - the most common one is:

We're goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo
How about you, you, you?
You can come too, too, too
We're goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo.

Not for my husband he likes the David Wilcox version and sings it even on days we aren't going to the zoo:

I went to the zoo
Just the other week
Saw the kangaroo
Had a talk with the chimpanzee
He said, "Hey brother, if you want a thing that's hip. Do the bearcat."

Do you have songs that you and your family sing on the way to the zoo or on vacations that everyone joins in and has fun with? Have you ever scrapbooked the title of a song to incorporate with your layout? Or the lyrics even?

If you haven't been to the zoo for awhile it’s a great way to spend the day - just watch out for the peacocks as they seem to have free reign everywhere and are not afraid to get close to you especially if there is food nearby looking forward to scrapping the pictures soon! Probably at the Croptacular October 21, 22 and 23. Hope to see you there!!

My apologies for the large space between pictures. I am still learning how to post to the blog. Practice makes perfect doesn't it?? Hope everyone is having a great fall day. Get your camera out and ready as fall colors will soon be in full array and they make wonderful pictures to scrapbook.

Try some creative cropping for a different look. Trim out all the non-essentials in your picture. There are so many creative ways to crop a picture. I will post some of these ideas to the blog next week. Stay tuned.

Kari designed a lovely scrapbooked notebook for Cooper's first week of school. What a neat idea Kari. A great way to use up scraps and probably works for a number of ages.

Sale, Sale, Sale!!!

October is croppin' time. Our October Croptacular is October 21st - 23rd. Call or drop in the store to reserve your seat. They are going fast!!

We are having a COLOR SALE from Wednesday, September 20th to Monday, September 26th.

All products colored yellow, orange, pink, turquoise or black are 30% off.

NOTE: Sale excludes cardstock, Tim Holtz, Stampers Anonymous and kits.

Hope to see you soon!!

"It's the most wonderful time of the year"……..

Every year when the Staples commercial starts playing for back to school supplies I start giggling and realize it’s the time to get everything organized and ready once again.

Get the school supply list out and sort through what leftovers we have from the year before we can "reuse". Then heading to the stores to try and find all the "new" supplies, including the 3 boxes of Kleenex to share with the class and the 12x18 sketch book. Some of the items are not so easy to find and you can spend so much time looking for them.

Then comes the school clothes shopping, making sure that you have not 1 but 3 pairs of runners. You have to have the daily walking to school shoes, the non-skid non-marking gym runners for phys-ed and then the spare pair in your locker in case the ones you wear everyday to school get dirty.
I don't mind but it does get a bit out of hand, especially since children usually grow and those 3 pairs alone may not make it through the whole school year. Then the different colored tshirts for the different team color days. Do you know how hard it is to find a plain purple tshirt for a boy?
What happened to those days where you had a pencil case, notebook, binder and 1 pair of runners and another pair of shoes? We never had to bring in Kleenex for the whole class either you used your sleeve or went to the bathroom and used toilet paper.

Well the kids are back to school once again and most motorists are obeying the school ground zone speed limits, the alarms are going off and most of the time everyone is getting up and ready when they need to. The weather has been exceptionally nice which has been so fortunate.
I always take a first day of school picture and this year I forgot until after school that day. My son was accommodating and did the posing for me. I love scrapbooking that picture and seeing how much they have changed and grown from the year before. Do you take pictures of your children on the first day of school? If so, do you do a different layout every year or just put the pictures next to the year before?

My name is Carolyn and I am a "scrapper" and have been a friend and customer of Embellished Memories since just after they opened their doors. I will be popping on the blog every couple of weeks for some stories, quotes and ideas or to get your ideas on a project I am working on. See you soon!

Hello to all you scrapbookers out there,
Embellished Memories is hosting their wonderful October Croptacular.
Get ready for an exciting scrapbooking weekend October 21st - October 23rd at the store. Fun, food, socializing, see old friends will be part of the menu and of course scrapbooking.

Spots are filling up fast, so call or come down to the store and sign up. Weekend cost is $80.00. What a bargain for 3 fun-filled days of scrappin'.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Design Team Update

It is with sadness that we have to announce that our new design team additions decided not to continue on with their postions. Unfortunetly with the summer months it has been hard to find replacements for them.

We decided to give our other two designers a well deserved break. However they don't listen very well and have been dropping off new layout ideas at the store for display. We will have pictures up on the blog over the next few weeks.

We appoligize for not announcing this sooner, summer is always a crazy time for all. Keep your eyes on the blog for new ideas to start popping up. We appreciate all of our customers support & you are truly all very important to us.

Dear Photograph

OMG What an awesome idea!
We have so many photos of us kids growing up infront of province markers, my baba's store front, my grandparents house, the cabin....I SO want to do this with these older photos!

http://dearphotograph.com/

What have you been up to this summer?

~~Melanie

I also heart b&w photos

So would you like to see more of the photos I took in Waterton?
I love black and white photos, there's something about them that leave so much to the imagination. I like the timeless quality of them. And most (if not all) digital cameras that are made make it easy to take b&w. My Olympus takes that feature, and takes it one step further with a grainy film option. You don't get that on your Canon, my Dear Boyfriend. :) I love the way the Prince of Wales hotel looks kinda spooky. The clouds were amazing that day, probably because of all the wind...
So that's what I got for now, hope I inspired you! I have some really cool pictures of a bear to show you later too! Enjoy the rest of the day!
~RonniH.

I *heart* Waterton

If you're my friend on facebook, then I'm sorry, you've seen these pictures before. If you're not my friend on facebook, why not? Lol. I thought I'd just stop over here quick and show you some of my favourite pictures I got last weekend when I was in Waterton with my boyfriend. It was just a day trip, but it's my favourite place in the world to go. I love the mountains, the walking trails, all the tourists, the candy store, the flora and fauna that are there to take photos of, and did I mention the candy store??I can and have spent all day just taking pictures, and I can't wait to go again next weekend. I plan on a mini-scrapbook of my favourite places, and lots of these photos will be in it. By the way, if you want to, you can click on the photos to make them bigger. :) Till next time, have a good day!
~RonniH.

Happy June

So far, so good, no rain today, right? Right?
While the sun is shining (at least for the moment), get out there and take some photos of all the flowers. Get down right low, get in close, just get out there and see what you can capture.
I don't know if these are weeds or not, but they're always a sure sign of spring. I've also heard you can eat them... don't unless you know for sure, but I thought I read somewhere you can. Anyone know?

See the ant I managed to capture?

I got right down on my belly for this shot. Luckily the grass was (mostly) dry.Bleeding hearts are one of my favourites. The bright pink colours are so *happy*!
So get out there and take some flower photos. Winter will be here before you know it! LOL Have a good week, I'll be back again soon.
~RonniH.

Design Team Announcement!

Sorry for the delay ladies, but we are sure you won't be disappointed!

We have decided to add 2 designers to our team. Each designer will take on part time positions, so you will have double the fun & inspiration will not be lacking.

Our first lady we would like to introduce is Flo. Flo is new to the area & has been scrapbooking for 5 years, she comes to us from Ontario & she is very excited to join our team. One of Flo's first creations is now in store, which is a definite must see! We have posted a few pictures on facebook & will be sure to post them on here as well for your viewing. Watch our blog over the next couple days for Flo's full introduction, and our next announcement.

Have a great day!

In honour of the summer that was...

I wonder if summer will ever arrive? Dont get me wrong. I am not a fan of the heat, sun, bugs, fresh air....you know all those things that go along with the most loved season. But I am kinda getting tired of the grey and blah weather.

After a rainy long weekend here, I just puttered around the house. I scanned in a few layouts I recently completed. Thought I would share here with you since it has been awhile since my last share.

We spent a lot of time last summer (on the nice days) at the waterpark on the Westside with our friend and her kids. Kbear also spent a week at the lake with the family (yup, there are a few more layouts to be completed on that trip!).

Thanks for looking! ~~Melanie

***sorry for the unclickable images. They wont go larger. Something to do with this blog and the system that I use to stitch my layouts.