[Digital Pick] ScrapArtist’s Freedom Rocks

freedom-rocks-brag-bookIf you’ve got a stack (or more likely, a folder full) of 4th of July pictures from last week waiting to be scrapped…this week’s product pick is a patriotic two-fer from ScrapArtist’s Cori Gammon!

First, for a quickie way to make a 4×6 album out of the pictures, there is the Freedom Rocks Brag Book. The kit includes 10 pre-made patriotic themed pages that print at 4×6 inches – just drop in your photos, print them, and slip them into any small photo album. This kit would be great for sharing photos with grandparents or other family members from the holiday weekend!
freedom-rocks-page-kitIf you would prefer to make full-size 12×12 pages or design your own other projects, the design elements of Freedom Rocks are also available as a full kit. This huge kit includes 19 patterned papers, 6 solid papers, and a massive assortment of patriotic embellishments that include gems and felt elements.

Patriotic designs can often look stale because everyone of course tends to use the same stars and stripes design elements and the same color scheme. But these designs look really fresh and the colors are really rich.

[Digital] Buy Digital Kits for Charity!

songbird-avenue-endless-summerAt Songbird Avenue, you can fulfill your need for cool new digital scrapbook supplies while you support worthy charities. The digital scrapbooking boutique does only one kit per month, and proceeds of that kit – minus Paypal fees – are donated to a different charity each month.

Each month’s kit costs $8.00 and currently $7.47 of that goes straight to charity. Kits are each primarily designed by a guest designer, and the designer gets to select the charity. July’s guest designer is Dani Mogsted and her selected charity is S.A.F.E. House, a domestic violence shelter in New Mexico.

The kits are only available during their month of release. Since doing their first kit in May 2007, Songbird Avenue has donated over $15,000 in kit proceeds to charity.

Since the only costs deducted from the kit proceeds are Paypal fees, the costs of hosting the site and other Songbird Avenue expenses are paid for via unobtrusive ads on the site. If you are interested in advertising – a great outlet for targeted advertising of digital scrapbooking products -  contact Songbird Avenue at songbirdavenue@gmail.com

[Digital Pick] Two Peas Basic Backgrounds by Sande Krieger

basic-backgroundsThis week’s digital pick is Basic Backgrounds by Sande Krieger at Two Peas in a Bucket.

The paper pack includes 9 background papers in the currently trendy ledger paper styles – including three that are kraft-colored, another popular design choice for many scrapbookers in recent times. All of the papers are 12 x 12 and 300dpi (suitable for printing).

These backgrounds will make a great foundation for a variety of pages…versatility is always a great thing!

CK Media Hiring Editor-in-Chief

CK Media has a job listing up on Monster.com looking for an editor-in-chief for an “Industry-leading women’s hobby magazine.” Although CK Media encompasses more hobby publications than just the scrapbooking ones, the position’s qualifications include “has a strong interest in the paper crafting and scrapbooking industry.”

So whose position is being vacated? Does this have to do with shuffling from Stacy Julian’s leaving Simple – is Jennafer Marten changing positions because of that? Or is one of the other editors at CK Media (Stacy Croninger of PaperCrafts or Brian Tippetts of Creating Keepsakes) changing positions? Obviously some major changes are about to happen at one of the papercrafts magazines. (I didn’t include Digital Scrapbooking in that list because the job description seems to focus so much on papercrafts and doesn’t mention any digital aspect.)

If you wonder if you might be qualified for this position, it is listed as being full-time in Riverton UT (although all three magazines’ offices are actually in Bluffdale, UT so the location is probably listed wrong). CK Media would prefer candidates with at least 5 years of writing and editorial experience, and degrees in English, Communications or a related field.

Other required skills include:

Direct editorial team:

  • Coordinate workload so that editorial, art, and production departments can produce magazines, special issues, web content, and other products with minimal overlap.
  • Track multiple projects and ensure that all steps on the timeline are completed according to schedule and all handoffs are complete, accurate, and on time.
  • Manage budget.

Manage and grow the brand:

  • Oversee the strategic direction of the brand and ensure products produced are top in their category and contribute to the brand strategy.
  • Work with other lines of business to track product effectiveness and improve product accordingly.

Write, edit, and proof content:

  • Work with team to plan content for magazine, special issues, web site, and books.
  • Oversee print proofing and QA for all print products.
  • Write editor’s note and other articles as necessary.

Overall skills required for this position are:

  • Creative, organized, self-directed, and has a strong interest in the paper crafting and scrapbooking industry.
  • Solid knowledge of and ability to perform within magazine and web publishing cycle, with a proven ability to produce deliverables for multiple ongoing projects.
  • An excellent understanding of the paper crafting industry and our readership, or, at minimum a strong interest in paper crafting, scrapbooking, or other interests pertinent to our female demographic.
  • Exceptional writing and editing skills pertinent to women’s lifestyle topics, or the hobby and craft industry.
  • Self-directed and able to proactively solve problems and keep an editorial team running smoothly.
  • Knowledge of basic computer programs (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook).

Best of luck to all the candidates!

Photoshop: Armed & Dangerous

Earlier this week, I took a workshop that unleashed me into the world of computer graphics and digital design. I spent six hours in an adult education computer lab getting an introduction to the basics of Photoshop. Now I am imagining endless possibilities of perfectly edited photos, beautiful text effects and scanning without waiting for it to fit into my husband’s schedule. I have Photoshop: I am armed and that is dangerous.

What’s so dangerous about that, you ask? I will explain.

My husband works in the field of computer graphics and so up until now I have relied on his assistance to do my scanning and occasional critical photo editing and other digital work. I didn’t learn how to do it because it was faster and easier for both of us to just have him do the tasks, and with his professional skills he could get better results than I could probably ever reasonably hope to achieve. But recently my work output has increased to the point that my needs have outstripped his availability to assist me, so the time had come to throw me out of the nest and force me to try my own digital wings. Conveniently adult education was advertising the upcoming workshop and so I signed up and off I went to venture into the land of Photoshop.

I came home with a hundred questions for my poor husband about how to do things and anxious to put my new skills to use learning how to scan. In the meantime, I immediately sat down and tried some photo editing. After peppering my husband with a half-dozen questions, I produced my first photo edit – for a tag for Donna Downey’s blog book project – and was thrilled with the results! I admired my handiwork and basked in the knowledge that I was managing Photoshop!

That thrill started me thinking…most of my pictures are film and getting them scanned to disk reduces the resolution over what they would be if they were taken originally in digital. So of course I need a better digital camera than my current 2.0mp model so that I can have better originals to work with for editing (ignoring the fact that I have long espoused my preference for film).

And then I started thinking….wouldn’t it be so much faster to scrap some pages digitally? And I wouldn’t have to worry about wasting anything making mistakes, or making trips back and forth to the photolab, or guessing what print sizes I need, and it would be so much cheaper. So of course I need to buy some of those great kits of digital elements that I see all my friends using for their digital scrapbook pages.

And then I started thinking…now that I have photoshop to do the effects in, I should really start doing colored text on my pages. It would make them look so much more put together. So of course I will need to buy some more ink cartridges since I’ll be using them so much faster.

See what I mean? I am armed with Photoshop….and it’s dangerous to my budget!