Stuck

I made this for the DHD speed scrap over the weekend. These pictures always make me laugh. Sometimes I think I may take too many pictures of Trotwood's mad faces but they are just so darn funny!

DHD Spring Blog Hop and Tutorial

Thanks for participating in the DHD Spring Blog Hop! Today, I'd love to show you how to create a text wrap effect in Photoshop when you do your journaling. Something I love about scrapbooking is how you can preserve precious memories by telling stories through photos and journaling on your layouts. In my opinion, the way you present your journaling on your page can add even more to the story being told and by wrapping journaling around different elements or photos in your layout, you create a better flow to your layout.The first thing you will want to do is use the rectangle tool to outline where you want to place your journaling (make sure to choose the rectangle tool and not the rectangular marquee tool). When you make your square or rectangle, include the overlapping element. Choose paths and add to paths when you use this tool.

Next, choose a shape in the paths menu that you want to use to cut out around the element or object that you want to journal around. You can even use the freeform pen tool if you have an irregular shape you want to cut out of the journaling area. Make sure to choose the "Subtract from paths area" option before beginning your cutout. Your cursor will turn into a large plus sign with a tiny minus sign at the bottom. After you've created your cut out shape, by holding down your mouse and spacebar, you can reposition your cutout if necessary.

Last, select the Text tool in Photoshop and move it into your journaling area where you plan on beginning to type. As soon as your Text tool is inside the journaling area with the subtracted cutout, the cursor will go from the normal square text cursor to having a dotted circle where the square was.

And that's that! Here is a page I made using this technique and part of the Spring Menagerie kit, which you will get for free if you complete the blog hop by gathering your scavenger hunt letters! (The area I "cut out" in this layout was around the pink butterfly.)

You can download here a very basic template of this page for free where the journaling text wrap is already done for you. My mystery letter to the DHD Spring Blog Hop Scavenger Hunt is:

Check the DHD blog for updates on Mad March Memories Challenges and great sales for the whole month of March! Also, if you’d like to enter to win a gift certificate to the DHD shop, leave a comment on my blog including your email address before March 18^th at midnight. Don't forget to visit the other blogs in the blog hop to collect all the letters to the scavenger hunt! Your next stop is Audrey Neal's blog.

Where we are

I know I haven't posted a real blog post in awhile. Doing the scrapbook pages has been a good outlet for me. It helps me be creative while expressing my feelings at the same time. So, where are we right now? Well, in all honesty, Mr. Rochester and I are doing okay. We have bad days and then we have better days and I think lately, we've been having more of the better days, which is good. We are so grateful to have our little, spunky Trotwood in our lives. He brings so much joy and laughter into our house every day...having him around makes it easier to cope.

Currently, we're in the process of seeking answers to our situation. It took awhile to get copies of all of our medical records together but yesterday, we were finally able to meet with a maternal fetal specialist for the first time. Actually, we ended up seeing two specialists and neither one of them could tell us exactly what our problem was. That was disappointing because after speaking with other doctors, I was already convinced that we must be facing a condition called NAIT. Yet, for different reasons, the specialists we spoke with yesterday were not convinced that NAIT was our issue or that our daughters suffered from the same condition. That was a surprise. The doctors went ahead and got a blood sample from me to have it tested and if my blood is positive for what they're looking for concerning NAIT, then they'll take Mr. Rochester's blood and hooray we will have a diagnosis. However, it may not turn out to be as easy at that - we'll just have to see.

These past two months, I've had some time to recover from my surgery and everything that's happened. I have loved being able to stay home with Trotwood and have treasured our time together. On Monday, I have to return to work and the craziness of life will again ensue. I want to thank everyone again for the thoughts, prayers, meals, cards, flowers and plants that have been sent our way. Forgive me if I did not personally send out a thank you letter to you for any service that you provided us at this time. We could certainly feel the love of others through their service to us and I believe that we have truly gained much peace and strength from all the prayers being offered up in our names.

1,2,3

This is another sort of art journaling layout. Very cathartic to do.

Crazy Train

I hosted the recent 4play feature at Design House Digital and this is the layout I created for it. It's a fun, weekly challenge if you ever want to participate in it. I just love watching Trotwood play with his trains!

And again!

I had to take down my last digital scrapbooking post because I submitted it to another magazine and it's going to be published! I really can't believe it and I'm so excited. It will be in the Sept/Oct issue of Creating Keepsakes.

Planes, trains, & automobiles

It's so much fun to watch Trotwood play with his wheeled or winged toys.