Even when I was a paper scrapper, figuring out how to mix patterned papers was a tricky thing to learn. I’ve studied this topic a lot as a scrapbooker and a designer and I have some easy tips to share that will help you learn how to mix papers like a pro! This tutorial will be useful whether you are a paper, hybrid, or digital scrapbooker. It’s not specific to any app or program, just some basic design advice with lots of example to help illustrate the principles.

I hope you enjoy it and will share the link with your friends.

Whether you’re new around here or a longtime reader, I want to be sure you have an easy reference guide to some of my most useful posts. I know it can be difficult to search through years of archives and you might not even be aware of all the material I’ve written about here on this blog. I hope this is a post that you will pin or bookmark and visit often. These are all posts that will give you a lot of great information!

Now that we are almost through April, I thought it would be a good time to check in on my one little word. I chose the word JOY to guide me through this year. I haven’t been overly focused on this word but I have made it a point to notice joy in my life and to appreciate it more.

I have a brand new video tutorial all about scrapping with black and white photos. I do a detailed walkthrough of how to edit existing black and white pictures as well as turn color photos into black and whites. I also show how to use black and white photos on modern pages and also heritage layouts. I think you will find it very useful, no matter what programs you use for photo editing.

I’m so excited to introduce another collection in my Color Stories series. This time it’s all about Beautiful Blues! I’ve always loved blue and would definitely rank it as one of my very favorite colors. This collection is so versatile and you will be able to use the pieces for many different types of layouts and projects. It’s all up in the shop now and be sure to watch for my newsletter later today because there will be a little something fun for you there!

I’ve got a brand new tutorial to share and I’m really excited about it. I’ve literally spent days and days working on it and I was waiting til everyone went to bed tonight to record it so there wouldn’t be any background noise. I had some difficulty getting my video segments to record properly and finally got that worked out by about 11:15 p.m. No sweat, everything was ready to go and I just needed to hit record and go through everything I had prepared. Suddenly, the microphone wouldn’t appear in my list of devices. I had tested it several times throughout the evening so I have no idea what happened. I’m now writing this at 1:00 a..m. and I have to admit defeat for now and head to bed.

I’m excited to tell you all about my favorite script fonts today. My previous post on the best basic & free journaling fonts was very popular and I definitely want to continue on this series. I see so many posts out there recommending hard-to-read fonts. I’ve made thousands of scrapbook pages over the years (both paper and digital), taught scrapbooking classes, written for instructive scrapbooking sites, and been a digital designer. I’ve looked at A LOT of text and fonts over the years and have put a great deal of thought and study into my own font choices. It’s tempting to just download all the amazing fonts out there, especially when they are free. If you love fonts, go ahead and download to your hearts content, but be sure to do some research and figure out which ones look the best. Focus on readability above all else. It will make a huge difference in your projects!

I’ve had a strangely busy week for someone who is still staying home all the time. On top of that, we went without internet for about 8 hours yesterday because of a Xfinity outage. I’m so dependent on the internet that it kind of messed with my entire day. I might need to work on that just a bit. lol!

Speaking of the internet, I sure love it for inspiration. I love searching for quotes and pinning them to Pinterest. I’ve been working on this board for years and thought this would be a good day to share a few of my favorites.

It took me a few extra days to finish my March roundup but I’m so happy to have it done now. I love having a record of our everyday life and my roundup tool helps me make sure I’m keeping track of these details in a quick and easy format.