Happy New Year, My Beautiful Friends!

Living on the Far Side Of The World, we get to be one of the first, after New Zealand, to enter the New Year. Right as we speak, it will be upon me in exactly 12 hours and 9 minutes and I will be MIA until way after, lol. So when the clocks strike 12 in your parts of the world, know that I will be there raising my glass to a SPARKLING 2007 FOR ALL OF YOU!!!

I wish you all the VERY BEST YEAR EVER! Go and make your wildest dreams happen, glow with happiness and joy every day, love and be loved with passionate intensity, create and share your marvellous art with every single soul in the world!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Love,

Second Week of the JWD Giveaway!

You know the drill! Leave me a comment and go into the draw for another JWD gift card!
Oh and this time, to make it a little more interesting, tell me what your ( = your own) favourite layout is and why.

Go on now, ladies, you have until Sunday night 11.59 pm EST!

Love and Friendship,




ETA: Two more names will be drawn to get one of my new Realistic Photo Shadow frames, available at My Digital Muse! How cool is that!?!

So Many Things To Say! And So Little Time!

Warning: this is a long post. But an exciting one. So you might want to read all the way through! :)

Hi girls!

So how was your Christmas? I can't believe it's already over! so many weeks -months even- of anticipating and sweating over the fact that I was so late with everything.. and now it has already become a memory! A very sweet one, thoug, as I have thoroughly enjoyed spending these Magical days with my family. My family-in-law actually, as my parents, sister, relatives and friends live way across land and sea. I must admit these days are always the hardest. I do feel loved and blessed to be here with these wonderful people I love so very much, but to be so far away from my parents is really tugging at me. I am planning on spending next Christmas with them though, so that is definitely something I look forward to!

On the 24th, I spent the whole day cooking up delicious foods: there were little appetizers, melon with prosciutto as an entree, and the main meal consisted of a marvellous chicken roll filled with spinach, bacon and luscious camembert with a variety of greens (beans, peas and spinach) and homemade potatoe croquettes! To top it off I had made some homemade Raspberry icecream and served them with raspberry sauce and homebaked star cookies!
Everybody was wrapped and licking their fingers!

We spent Christmas Day at my inlaws, where family and friends gathered for a sweet day filled with laughter and excitement. It was good!!!

Now onto some exciting news!

First of all, the boutique at My Digital Muse has opened its doors to the public! We are live and ready to go!

To celebrate the opening of our new and fabulous store, the Fab Five (as I like to call ourselves) have teamed up to bring you an awesome Team Kit: Junk Trunk!

This junk is perfect for that "use it all the time" folder. You know, the one folder you always pull bits and bobs from to finish off those layouts?! Plus it comes with Kimberly's fun font, "Junky Trunky".

And as a bonus, get Lightening actions for PSE and PSCS users: correct a 1/2 stop or 1 full stop in exposures!

"Junk Trunk" is avalable here for only US$ 5.25!

Wait! There's more!

I have finally tied up all the loose ends and sat down to start creating tons of new and exciting goodies. First in line is my new series" If It's Color, It's Good!" that consists of beautiful paperpacks with five deliciously patterned papers and 4 accompanying solids in beautiful, soft tones. The monotone colorscheme lends itself perfectly for mixing and matching papers with each other and perhaps the other papers in the series. You will find that the possibilities are endless!

And wait (again, lol)! As you carefully open each paperpack, you will find a little SURPRISE inside! Each pack comes with two exclusive bonus elements, but I am not showing you what they are yet... I'll leave that to the wonder of the surprise.

Are you tempted? Then grab these beautiful paperpacks now, for a low introductory price of US$2!

"If It's Lavender, It's Good!"

"If It's Blue, It's Good!"

Wait! There's even more!

I have also made some awesome photoframes available for sale! These babies are going to lift your photos to a new height!

Oh yes, they are popular right now! Take your photos to the next level with these photo-frames with realistic shadows. Your photos will look as if they lift off the page! You really have to try this for yourself, the effect is just spectacular!

You have the choice of a small and large frame. I have provided them seperately so you can pick the ones that best suit your taste.

Included in these packs are three transparent PNG's: one 4x6, one 6x4 and one 6x6 frame all ready for you to drop your photo behind. No matter what graphics program you use, if you can open PNG files and work with layers, you can use these frames. Download these gems now and see for yourself!

Go see them at the store, as our system has this really cool feature that allows you to zoom in 100% to get the most amazing detailed preview. You will be amazed at how realistic these look!
Don't take my word for it, lol, go see for yourself! Realistic Photoshadows.

So much for the new product plugs.

But wait! LOL. There is more!

I have some tooting to do! TOOT!

Have you heard of DiscTalkRadio? I am in the spotlight this week with my layout Simplicity!
It is so awesome to hear these ladies talk about what they like about my layout. And I have always wanted to be on the radio! Lol, perhaps this is as close as I'll ever get?

You should really check it out! There's a lot more fabulous artists being featured and also some awesome designers such as Robin Carlton (love this girl!) and Shabby Princess (hard not to love her either!).

--> I'm in the spotlight, baby! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!




Wait! There's another awesome toot!

Hmmm... guess I will have to hold on a little on this one. LOL. But I can assure you it's awesome!

Haha, I really should not do this! Too late!!!!

I'll have to leave you for today. I have been downloading way too much this past month and we have exceeded our bandwidth. Therefor we can only use the internet from midnight to noon! Lol... but I will be back soon! In the meantime, there are plenty of wonderful things to do and places to visit in digiland (don't forget to check out the new My Digital Muse boutique!) so I am sure you won't be bored!

Wait! LOL --> thanks for reading this far. You gals are the BEST!!!!!

Love,

Out With The Old, In With The New!

Lol, that's the first thing that came to my mind.

I am sure you all know by now that Plain Digital Wrapper will be closing its doors this weekend. So this is your last chance to use up any GC's or coupon codes you still have AND to pick up the gorgeous Mega Kits that the talented designers so lovingly have together for you!

There's an awesome sale at the moment where you can get all the Mega Kits for US$20! Woohoo!

If you already own some of the Mega Kits, they are on sale individually as well... only US$4.50 per kit! That's quite a bargain for a ton of awesome goodies! :)

I am very excited for the opening of My Digital Muse. I am in the process of uploading some new goodies to the store, so you might want to check those out! *wink wink*

All right, all right.. here's a little teaser. This is part of my new "If It's Color, It's Good!" Collection, very aptly named: "If It's Lavender, It's Good!"

This collection, as you will have guessed, is all about color. It will consist of various paper- and element packs teamed around various colors. This teaser shows you part of the Lavender paperpack. Each paperpack will also include some bonus elements!

And because I *heart* you all so very much, here's a sample paper, exclusively for my blog readers. Enjoy!

Download here.

If you grab it and you like it, please leave me a comment! You would really make my day! :)

Have a wonderful Christmas!

This week's winner is Laura Kaye!

Congratulations, girl. The GC has already been sent. I hope you enjoy it!


Thank you all so very much for your celebrating with me and leaving me so many wonderful comments! Next week, after Christmas, I will post a new thread at DST to give you all the chance to play again! Once again, thank you. I hope you all know that I *heart* you!!!

So Christmas is upon us again. To be honest, this year the whole season has caught me somewhat off-guard. I am rushing to get a million and one things done before Sunday night, and kicking myself for -once again- leaving everything to the last minute!

So I will not be around much anymore until next week. Before I go, I want to send you all my most heartfelt wishes for a Magical Christmas! Enjoy these wonderful days with your loved ones!

I leave you with a layout that I created for the December issue of Digital Artist Magazine.

If you haven't picked up your copy yet, you can do so here . It is filled with lots of marvellous inspiration!

Merry Christmas!

Come Celebrate With Me!

I am so honored to announce that I have been chosen as Grand Prize Winner of Jen Wilson's Meaningful contest! Yay!

First of all I would like to thank Jen for putting together such an awesome contest! She has unleashed the creativity of many wonderful scrappers, who have shown week after week how magnificently they create pages for their treasured memories!

Thank you also to Jen's fabulous Creative team girls, who have worked hard behind the scenes with Jen to make it all go smoothly!

Secondly I would like to extend my most heartfelt congratulations to Gerarda (Nevache) and Emily (scrpbkmom)! Girls, you have been and are a constant inspiration to all of us!

If you want to have a look at my layouts, click here.

And then now, WOW! Have you seen the prize I won!!!!???? Have you? Have you?

JEN WILSON FOR LIFE!

Omg how totally awesome is that! Lol, I hope we both live long and prosperous lives! I am so over the top excited!!!

CELEBRATION TIME!!!

Of course, this calls for a celebration! And it would be worth nothing if I didn't share the joy with all you wonderful girls that I *heart * so much.

So for four weeks I am going to give one lucky winner a 5$ giftcard to Jen Wilson Designs. (I know it sounds little, lol, but hey, I am on a budget!)

Just leave me a comment here and at the end of the week I will let my husband draw a name from the list. I will do that for 4 weeks, so don't forget to play each week to get a chance!

Now go get your glass of champagne and some nibbles and celebrate with me!

Cheers!

Tutorial: Creating Realistic Shadows For Your Photos.

A (very) long time ago I promised to write up a little tutorial on how to create the realistic shadow I used on one of my layouts. In the meantime this technique has grown quite big in popularity, so if you ever wanted to know how to create your own, this tutorial is for you!

This tutorial is written for Photoshop users. I do not own any of the other programs (yet) so I have not been able to find out how usable this is for those of you who use a different graphics program. Feel free to try and adapt this! :)

Please bear with me, as this is the very first tutorial I have ever written, lol. I have tried to explain everything as well as I could, however if you are having any problems, contact me (info below)!

Ready? Here we go:

Step 1 - Create the border around the image

Select your Rectangular marquee tool. Create a new layer and call it "Border". Draw a rectangle.
Set white as your foreground color and beige (#F7F2E7) as your background color. Select your Gradient tool (in your toolbar, underneath the Fill Bucket tool). Fill the selection wih a linear gradient from the upper left corner to the bottom right corner.
Do not de-select yet.

Step 2 - Create the mask

Create a new layer and name it "Mask". With the selection still active, go to Select>Modify>Contract and enter a value of minimum 5 pixels, depending on the initial size of your rectangle. You can choose the border to be as wide or narrow as you please.
Use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the new selection with any color you like.

Note: pink border is added for display purposes only

Step 3 - Add your image

Open the image you want to use and drag it into your document. Position it on a layer above the mask layer you just created.
Hold down the Alt button and position the mouse between the mask layer and the picture layer, the mouse pointer should look like the on in the picture below.

Left click. You have now created a clipping mask: your photo is visible only inside the rectangle you created for the mask layer. You can now drag the photo, and even resize it, to your liking to fit neatly inside the rectangle.

Step 4 - Adding a realistic shadow

Now for the fun part!

Create a new layer and call it "Shadow". Lower the opacity of this layer to 50%. Position the shadow layer below the frame layer (first layer you created).

For Photoshop CS2 users:
Ctrl+click the icon for the frame layer in your layers palette. Marching ants will appear around your rectangle. Select your Paint bucket tool and fill the selection with black. Make sure you work on the empty layer you created below the frame layer! Deselect (ctrl+D).
Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and enter a value of 5 (or more, depending on the size of your image. You will want to create a soft glow around the black shadow)

Go to Edit>Transform>Warp. This will add a customizable grid to your photo.

Now alter the grid as shown below:

Click Enter to accept the transformation. Tada! Your own realistic shadow that will make your photo pop off the page!
You can of course experiment with these settings to create your own desired outcome!

Earlier versions of Photoshop unfortunately do not have the Warp command within the Transform tools. But fear not, you can still achieve the same look by using paths.

We'll re-create Step 4 to accomodate for those users.

Create a new layer called "Shadow" and place it below the frame layer.
Ctrl+click the icon for the frame layer in your layers palette to select the layer. Marching ants will appear around your rectangle.
Go to the Paths palette and choose Make work path from selection (4th icon from the left on the bottom of the paths palette).
Select the Path selection tool (next to the Type tool in the tools palette) and add an anchor point on the right and bottom side of the path. To add an anchor point you simply right click the path and select Add anchor point.

Select the Direct selection tool (hidden underneath the Path selection tool).
Now move your anchor points so that the path looks something like the image below

To be honest, this might be a little tricky. I have not fully mastered working with paths myself, and it might take a little bit of practising to get the path to look like the example shown above.

When you are satisfied with your path go back to your paths palette and select the Load path as a selection button (3rd from the left). Fill the selection with black and set the opacity to 50%. Deselect (ctrl+D). Make sure you are working on the layer below the frame layer!
Delete the path and apply a Gaussian blur to the shadow layer. I used a value of 8.

And this concludes our tutorial for today :)

If there are any steps that are not clear, or you require some assistance, send me an email (nancy at nancycomelab dot com) or leave a comment with your email address and I'll get back to you!

Have a marvellous day!

I am being tagged by my beautiful, wonderful friend Yen :) So here goes:

A - Available or single: Enraptured since 1999!
B - Best friend: Marquez, my husband,
C - Cake or pie: A moist, succulent piece of cake!
D - Drink of choice: Freshly squeezed orange juice
E - Essential item you use everyday: My computer!!!
F - Favorite color: Orange and turquoise
G - Gummy bears or worms: Gummy bears! I have this thing with those worms.. they remind me of, well, worms! Lol.
H - Hometown: Ghent, Belgium.
I - Indulgence: Belgian Chocolate and Tim Tam's (ask Jennifer why!)
J - January or February: Every month of the year has its charm and I love them all!
K - Kids & names: No children, unfortunately.
L - Life is incomplete without? The love of and for my family and friends.
M - Marriage date: August 3, 2002
N - Number of siblings: 1 sister, Peggy, four years younger.
O - Oranges or apples: Oranges, no doubt about it.
P - Phobias or fears: Spiders and heights!
Q - Fave quote: Don't imitate. Innovate.
R - Reason to smile: Every break of a new day gives me a reason to smile.
S - Season: Spring would be my favorite
T - Tag 3 people: Peta, Becky and TracyAnn
U - Unknown fact about me: Aargh! I wet my bed until the age of 13! (please don't tell anyone!)
V- Vegetable you don’t like: mushrooms!
W - Worst habit: being lazy!!!!!
X - Xrays: huh?
Y - Your fave food: Pork sausages with mashed potatoes and apple sauce! Lol. I'm still a child at heart.
Z - Zodiac sign: Cancer

This was fun!

Pajamas 4 Love.

Since I cannot say it any better myself, I am going to quote the organizer of this delightful charity event: Jodee.

QUOTE
What is Pajamas 4 Love, you ask? It a kit created by 75 of the most generous, kind hearted, giving designers in the industry. These designers are the heart and sole of this community giving of their time and talent to bring you these 200 pages, 363 elements, tagbooks, quickpages, templates, fonts and mini albums. This GINORMOUS kit has been broken into four smaller kits for your downloading pleasure as well as the full collection at a discount. If you are on dial up we offer you the collection on your choice of CD or DVD. Each individual kit is $5, the whole collection for download is $15 and the CD/DVD option is $21.

You can find this kit at Elemental Scraps

It seems that in the digital community we are looking into the eyes of a child with cancer far to often. Most of the time you'll be browsing a gallery and notice a once healthy child now losing their hair or in a hospital bed with IV's. This is exactly what happened when I stumbled across Katherine Lent's LO's of her gorgeous daughter Corinne. Corinnes once beautiful locks were being replace by smooth skin and my heart broke into a million pieces. I immediately went to read her blog and what I found was a child, no older then one of my own, having just turned three, that was fighting for her life. I also found a woman that in the face of all this sadness, stress, fear and frustration wanted more for others than she did herself. Over and over I read where she said how important blood donation was and how much her baby girl could just use some care packages. I went to her and asked if we could help, that we had an idea for a project of sorts and wanted her permission to do it and she agreed. Out of this conversation pj's4love was born. PJ's mission is three fold. First, we want to sell this HUGE kit to raise money to send gifts of love, little angel baskets to each of the kids we watch grow up in LO's and whose blogs we are drawn to hour by hour. Ethan, Corinne, Asher and Mason will be the first recipients of our love packages. We also will be doing this for each of the 11 beds in Stonybrook Hospitals Pediatric Hem/Onc Unit. Each care package will contain a really comfy pair of pajamas that will be so full of love that when warn will hopefully help the kids to feel wrapped in our love every minute. If the kit raises enough money we want to include other little goodies that kids love to get, the kinds of things that boost their spirits and make them happy, even if just for moments at a time. Second, all the remaining money will be used to help buy new toys, books, coloring books, crayons, batteries and goodies for the playroom at Stoneybrook. This is on request of Katherine herself, as she says the playroom is in desperate need of a little love and care. They don't even have a volunteer to staff the playroom, that is more like a broom closet, and the toys are run down and in poor condition. The 50+ kids that call Stoneybrook home while they fight cancer and have chemo treatments need a place that shines a little sunshine in their lives. If you have anything you would like to donate, please contact me at joedee AT elementalscraps DOT com and I will put you in touch with the appropriate people. Third and yet ANOTHER one of Katherine's requests, we will be having the digital scrapbooking communities first EVER online blood drive. We are asking that each of you go to your local blood bank or collection facility and donate blood. These kids need blood transfusion at times to stay alive and its one small thing we can do to make a difference in the world. For your donation, you will receive a coupon book, chock full of the most generous coupons from some of the best designers in the industry. We also have a GREAT gift for the very first person to donate and bring back proof (pictures time stamped of you donating or a receipt of some sort). Shannon, owner of DST, has graciously given us ONE DIAMOND MEMBERSHIP to give to the lucky first prooven donator. HOW GREAT IS THAT!!! I know that its Christmas time and things are tight for everyone. I know that most of use lead very busy lives with children of our own, but this is our chance. Our chance to show love to some wonderful kids who have been dealt a bad hand. To show them that people love them, care about them, think about them and pray for them frequently. Help us to help make them smile and give them the knowledge that no matter what happens we love and care about them and will do our best to make life a little sweeter for them, each and every one.
UNQUOTE

I am very honored to have been part of this wonderful collaboration to help children in need. Thank you to Jodee who has spent a lot of time and effort into bringing this marvellous kit to you. And a huge thank you to all the designers who have participated. It feels so good to know that there are many people who care.

Now go and hug someone today :)

Featured Scrapper at Digishoptalk.com.

This really warms my heart:

Belgianangel: Featured Scrapper at Digishoptalk

Thank you so much, ladies. Thank you so very much.

Hugs and cuddles,

{Last But Not Least}

Exactly 15 mins before I need to head out the door, here are the last two layouts for Jen Wilson's contest:

Week 5 - A tribute to my wonderful husband

Click here for full credits

Nothing conventional here, lol, I used almost no elements because I wanted the focus to be on the title and the journaling. The colors were intensified to create the sense of passion.

Journaling reads:
"Never in a million words could I ever begin to tell you what it means to me to come home to you every day. I never realized how starved I was for this deep, wonderful love.
I know every expression of your face, all the
gestures of your sweet heart, every slightest
motion of your soul, every deeply concealed fold of your thoughts. And I love it all. I am enraptured by it. I am enraptured by you. For me, to love, is to love you."

Week 7

Click here for full credits.

I usually only use the elements of one kit for my layouts, here I wanted to incorporate more variety by taking bits and pieces from several of Jen Wilson's magnificent kits. The large and small cropped photo is of mine and my husband's hands.

And with these I am wrapping up my entries for this contest, which ends on December 2nd.
It has been a wonderful journey creating these meaningful layouts. They have given me the opportunity to see what makes me a beautiful, real person; teaching me how to embrace myself, with my hopes, dreams, loves and fears.

I hope that everyone who was with me on this journey has had an equally amazing experience. Your layouts were all so truly wonderful!

Love and friendship,

{Week 7}

Crazy, hectic busy around here and I am off for a couple of days again, but before I do I'll leave you with another layout, this one is for week 8 of Jen's Meaningful contest.

Click here for full credits

This layout is about how I have been going through some rough emotional times lately. Feeling as if I lost myself. As I try to come to terms with many things, I realise I have to patiently wait for me to return to myself.

This poem I wrote a couple of weeks ago while trying to capture how I feel.

"Passed the seclusion
where it is lonely
where vision is only what was there
lies a place
where silence is filled
with the sound of waves
roaring against the timeless horizon
seeping through holes
finding ways into tiny desolate pools
where the water is still
waiting for your return..."

{Two New Layouts}

Okay, so I guess it is a start. :)

First up is my entry for Jen Wilsons Meaningful Contest - Week 6

For detailed credits, click here

It is the first time in almost 6 years that I have talked about how I felt when my beloved Grandmother left this earth. I am really loving this Meaningfull contest, it has forced me to open up and use my creativity to express my innermost thoughts and feelings.

Secondly, another LO as part of my November Guest spot on Corina Nielsen's CT

For detailed credits, click here

Isn't my little girl the foxxiest? :)

Moving on to the rest of my list... I hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Hugs,