Cilenia's Beautiful Mess

Equality = Balance

2012-03-07T08:15:00.004-08:00

Hi there, it's Sherry here, bringing you another wonderful beautiful inspirational layout from Cilenia's gallery! This one was created by mystampin using Cilenia's March Follow Your Art kit, and it's called Equality = Balance:

This layout is most definitely about empowerment. The words that Beth has used are all strong words that enhance this picture of these strong women. To me, it's about the balance of race, balance for women, and the balance of age between the young child and her mother. All of the colors of Cilenia's kit are perfect for the colors in this picture, each bringing out the best in the other. I really love the shades of blue here - it speaks to me of the hope we see in the sky. And what an amazing job of layering Beth has done, and such realistic shadowing - certainly a touchable layout, as well as a touching one!

You can get Cilenia's March Follow Your Art bundle here:

And here's the link to her entire store:

Cilenia's Store

That's all for today - watch for me here tomorrow with another Photoshop Quick Tip!

Sherry

Live chat with me tonight 6pm PST at ReneeTV

2012-03-05T10:22:00.002-08:00

Hey everyone! I will be on ReneeTV "Meet the Pros" tonight at 6:00pm PST / 9:00pm EST answering any questions you may have about my new Building Color Confidence class!

Read about here and long into the chat at ReneeTV

Hope to see you there!

Cool Photoshop Tip!

2012-03-02T05:52:00.000-08:00

Hi y'all, Sherry here! I know I said I would be here every Thursday with a Photoshop tip, but I didn't make it yesterday so, today it's Friday! Next week will likely be Thursday again, unless it's not. Are you confused yet? Tell you what, check every day because Cilenia has something wonderful here almost every day!

Today I'm going to share a tip I wish I had known about a LONG time ago. When I have a document with a number of layers, I'm frequently changing the order of the layers for one reason or another. I always thought the only way you could change the order of layers was to drag the layer to the position in the layers panel where you wanted it. But no, there's a more precise way! You can highlight the layer you wish to move, then press Ctrl-] on the PC or Cmd-] (right bracket) on the Mac to move the layer up one position. And as you would expect, Ctrl-[ or Cmd-[ (left bracket) moves the layer down one position. Repeat as needed until you have your layer right where you want it. Cool huh?

See you next Thursday!

News from the Studio and a coupon

2012-03-01T04:27:00.000-08:00

Hi there everyone!

New products on Sale, Coupon below, AND.....

I am SO excited I'm going to EXPLODE! Building Color Confidence goes LIVE today at ReneePearson.com!

It has always been a lifetime wish for me to share my love and passion of art for real life and digital! And even though I've been teaching Computer Aided Graphics for over 20 years, I wanted to go deeper into the REAL ART of it all....

Well, a few months back, THE Renee Pearson asked me to join her awesome team of teachers! Took me an hour to pick up my dropped mouth from the floor and of course I said YES. lol

I cannot express how thrilled I am to be working with the master artist herself to bring you the first steps in learning art for any kind of project you want to do.

Color is always your basic beginnings but with this class I take you deeper into color understanding, looking at how light and shadows effect colors, exploring how tones and values are almost more important than colors.

I will even go into the dark side of digitally creating artsy background papers, like these shown here below, the last week with bonus videos, along with a fun inspirational wall art project to remember what you have learned.

Watch the Welcome video as a sampling of what we will be learning in the class on the Samples Tab.

Make sure you check out the supplies list too. I'm giving Commercial Use products exclusvie to this class created from scratch by me that I use all the time creating my digital art. I even show you how I created a little bit of them in the bonus video.

So when you're ready to "Get your Colors On" come join me in class.

EARY REGISTRATION DISCOUNT until March 6th!

Student Review of "Building Color Confidence"

by Sabrina Hoglen

Color and design have always fascinated me but I have always been weary of exploring it for fear of failure, despite the fact that I have been told time and again that I have a "natural eye" for it. Taking Cilenia's course has helped me realize why I am drawn to certain colors and deepened my understanding of how they work digitally and in real life!

To be honest, recently I have been feeling that I was forever doomed to using other people's products to enhance my one of kind art. I am now creating my own textures, backgrounds, and papers to use in my photography and digital scrapbooking! Who knew? My creativity is now at an all time high and I am addicted to creating, so be warned once you take this class all you want to do is play!

New Products on Sale through Sunday

And I have an EXTRA 10% off coupon for you too good on ALL my products at Dgitials!

Coupon Code: FYA-MAR01

Expires April 1st. One time use only.

Layout Inspirations

Recent Layouts from my Team and my Loyal Customers

in my Designer's Gallery at Digitals

Just another Mundane Monday NOT!

2012-02-28T04:00:00.000-08:00

I have been seeing LOTS of awesome projects on Pinterest this week using our good old friend Mod Podge. Being an artist with not a lot of extra money to buy always what I have wanted... I came up with an alternate solution many many years ago and thought I would share.

Make my own Mod Podge! You don't really need anything special. School glue from the dollar store, a left over jar from a sauce you've used and water. Yes, that's it!

Squirt your school glue into the jar. Fill the glue bottle with warm water and shake it up really good. Squeeze that into your jar and shake to mix. Yep, that's it! Works beautifully! And at about 1/10th the cost, you can't beat it!

Want to see what is on my to do list to make with my concoction next? Except I'm going to print out some of my digi art to use instead of the comic book like these. But I can easily see Kara or Bailey making these using their coloring pages all over the fridge to make room for new ones. :)

Find the instructions here on the Cut out & Keep Blog.

Friday Fill Ins on Saturday lol

2012-02-25T19:43:00.000-08:00

Was NOT a good day here yesterday and needed to walk away from the computer and unplug for a while. >sigh< As it was as a child, and my mother always told me, "Don't touch anything electronic when you are upset." Why? Cause it goes just as nuts and bonkers as I am. LOL CRASH BANG data lost. >bigger sigh< Will I ever learn…. Couldn't even post my answers to this Friday Fillin because I totally would have regretted what I would have wrote then. Nope, not going there. Wouldn't have been pretty at all.

But would like to thank my two partners in art for calming me, keeping me grounded, pulling in that leash and letting me explode all that the same time! LOL Luv you girls! Thanks Angie and Lynne!

So...here we go! My Friday Fill Ins

1. I'm feeling FAR better than I did yesterday… well, mentally, but physically I am drained.
2. I want to not say something I might regret later.
3. I need to focus on something positive.
4. I was thinking I need to stop doing certain things so I don't feel this way again… lesson learned.
5. I wish people would let go their egos and stop taking credit for things they didn't do or for great ideas they didn't come up with themselves.
6. I'm reading Quilting Arts while regenerating my body and soul.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to JACK, tomorrow my plans include recovering from Jack, and find the energy to grocery shop and Sunday, I want to clean and start Monday fresh with a new attitude!

Photoshop Quick Tip

2012-02-23T06:11:00.000-08:00

Hello my friends, as I promised yesterday, it's me again, Sherry, with a quick tip for Photoshop. One of the first things I did when I got my version of Photoshop was to download the shortcut keys so I could learn them all really fast, then promptly used the paper for doodling - there was WAY too much information there for me to absorb, and I only cared about the ones that related to digiscrapping. As I've gone along, I've picked up some wonderful keyboard shortcuts that do help save lots of time and relate directly to digiscrapping, and that's what I'm going to give you today.

In this instance I have a Photoshop document open and the layers showing up at the side. I'd like to scroll down several layers in order to be able to work with a different layer. I can do that using my mouse, but sometimes taking my hands off the keyboard isn't the most efficient way to move. So! You can scroll down your layers by pressing Alt-[ (left bracket) to scroll down in your layers panel, or Alt-] (right bracket) to scroll up.

I've found a number of instances where this was a quick timesaver for me - try it and see if it helps you too!

I'll be back again next Wednesday, so don't forget about me, LOL!

It's All About The Play

2012-02-22T05:03:00.000-08:00

Good morning - it's me again, Sherry, with another weekly dose of inspiration from Cilenia's gallery at Digitals - there is so much beauty there it's easy to get lost! I have to show you a layout called It's All About The Play by judyinsd:

Pin It

The title of the layout is perfect for the photos for sure! And I must say Judy has done a fantastic job creating the word art for her title, it adds to the sense of fun here. The frame is great for these photos, and the 3 brads bring out the blues in Grayson's shirt. I love the paper strips behind the photos, and the paint splotches. This is definitely a layout that's all boy! That mouse he's sitting next to in the bottom photo is the mascot mouse from Chuckie Cheese, something I'm sure most scrappers with children in the last 25 years or so can recognize - a great place for little boys (and girls!) who are all about the play!

Judy mainly used Cilenia's Beautiful Mess 6 kit for her layout (preview is linked):

Pin It

She also used pieces from Imagine The Dream, Stitches 04 Loopy, and Christmas in July - you can check those out in her store here:

http://digitalscrapbookpages.com/digitals/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=245

Okay that's all for today, I'll see you tomorrow with a Photoshop Quick Tip so be sure to stop back by!

Chance to win an iPad3 from AppSumo

2012-02-18T20:00:00.000-08:00

Someone has to win right?!? Why not one of us?! LOL

http://www.appsumo.com/~mAxma/

Ends April 6th!

Friday Fill-Ins with Following My Art Muse

2012-02-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

Following My Art Friday

Just snippets of what I'm up to in the Studio and adding Friday fill-Ins just for fun. :D

And...here we go!

1. Finally, I slept past 1 am this week.
2. Talking to no one to create a video tutorial sure takes some getting used to!
3. Dad says: You can want in one had, $@#T in the other, but you know what you're left with. Make your own dreams come true cause no one else can or will.
4. Brat is my favorite nick name for me by my best friend Joe.
5. It took a long time, but I'm SO feeling there!
6. My art studio is a huge mess right now, though I wouldn't have it any other way.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to relaxing with a movie, tomorrow my plans include cleaning my office and art studio (oh and maybe the house too! lol, and Sunday, I want to PLAY in the studio! you didn't think it would STAY clean did you?! ;)

Win a class at RP! Ends Feb 20th!

2012-02-17T04:06:00.000-08:00

To participate in our iShot That Twitter Contest. All you have to do is:
1. Go to our contest page at http://tinyurl.com/7urwto7 and answer the question, “What’s your #1 iPhone photo subject?”
2. Follow @reneenews and tweet about our contest. The contest ends this Sunday. Winners will be announced on Monday, Feb 20th.

Think you need a bulky, pricey DSLR to get great photos? Think again.

The most popular “camera” released in the last few years is the Apple iPhone. Learn to take advantage of iPhone’s built-in photo functions, plus the very best free and low-cost apps available for editing, organizing, and sharing your work. Create memorable portraits of family and friends. Capture your world with street photography. Transform everyday snapshots into eye-catching images. With iShot That!, iPhone’s photo power is at your fingertips.

I'm SO there! :D

Type Shortcut

2012-02-16T04:27:00.000-08:00

Good morning! It's me, Sherry, again, with a quick tip for justifying text in your layout! I tested this in Photoshop so I'm not sure if it works the same in Elements, but if you have Elements and want to test it, just leave me a comment below please!

Situation: You've typed several lines of text and realize that it's centered rather than left-justified as you intended.

Solution: Making sure the Text layer is selected in your Layers panel, press Ctrl-Shift-L to left justify text. You can also use Ctrl-Shift-C to center text, and Ctrl-Shift-R to right justify text. (If you are using a Mac, replace Ctrl with Cmd).

Hope this helps save you some time!

The Rose Fairy

2012-02-15T07:17:00.000-08:00

Good morning! My name is Sherry - I'm livingoutloud in the Digitals store, and Cilenia has graciously allowed me to post on her blog a few days a week to share with you inspirational layouts from her gallery, and new releases when they come out. I became a Cilenia fan when she opened her store at Digitals, and I'm so pleased to be asked to do this. I hope I bring a little sunshine to your day!

One of Cilenia's latest releases is called Vintage Love. I'm going to show you a layout done by mystampin with this kit - the layout is called The Rose Fairy:

This is a gorgeous piece of art! The colors of this layout caught my eye as soon as I went to Cilenia's gallery. Mystampin did a terrific job of choosing papers and elements that are perfect for the concept of her layout. I love the photo of this beautiful child and the way she's blended it into the background paper. When I read the poem, my imagination took me to a place where this little girl is reciting the poem to someone special in her life - it is a beautiful poem and perfect for this kit. The border of rose petals along the bottom illustrates the poem so well, but also gives such a romantic touch. And don't you just love that beaded pin at the top left cluster? Thanks mystampin for this truly inspiring layout!

It isn't shown here, but Cilenia has also given us a really unique alpha set to work with that I know you'll want to use!

Everything in this layout is from Vintage Love except the flower with green leaves behind it, and that is from Auntie's Parlor by Aria.

You can get Vintage Love right here:

And here's the link to her complete store so you can appreciate all of her gorgeous products:

Cilenia's Store

I have enjoyed bring this to you today, look for me again soon!

Valentine's Day Coupon!

2012-02-14T04:13:00.000-08:00

Today and tomorrow only 14-15 Feb!
$2 off any order of $10 min from Aria, Angie and Cilenia in our shops!

Coupon Code: HaveHeart

Happy V-Day everyone!
Big hugs and a Smooch for the cheek!

Weekend Playtime with inks

2012-02-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

So I have officially designated Sunday mornings to PLAYTIME in the Studio! This is when I will play in the art studio just for me! Currently I am working on a canvas filled with black and deep red poppies... will post when done... but OBVIOUSLY I was severely lacking art playtime this past week with all the busyness and found myself watching my recordings of The Voice last night and my "Go To" Box yelling at me how neglected it was feeling this week. Yes, that little bugger jumped right up on the coffee table and scolded my butt! LOL

SO... Since I am heavily influenced by Christina Aguilera and her Burlesque CD (LOVE that movie and her with Cher and all the music... so upbeat and gets me pumping when I power walk but I just adore her and her attitude along with Cher!) I know…totally different worlds there especially coming from an 80's big hair band and southern rock lover, but still the same somehow. ok, so I'm eclectic! lol

I digress…

ANYWAYS.... I wanted to do something a little edgy for a change instead of my usual softly colored botanicals I've been doing lately… guess that's why the black and red poppies are coming out in the studio too! lol So I grabbed my watercolor pad, my ink pen and sharpie marker and went to town! Then I used my Inktense blocks and watercolored it. :) Can you also tell I REALLY wanted to take a ride past few days with the temps in the 70s! LOL

So what do I call it? Ready to Ride! of course! lol Expresses my deep desire to go for a ride lately and tired of waiting to find the time to do so! Where are the boys when you need them to drag your butt away from work and out into the sunshine for a bit?!

Nothing spectacular... just playin!

Other things you can do with your digi art supplies

2012-02-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder about other things you can do with your digi art supplies?

It’s no secret, I LOVE mixing up my digi art with my fabrics and even doing real life art to make home decor items, art quilts, and just about anything else my mind can think up. You can make this as simple as printing your final layout to going full hybrid and coloring your layout after it’s printed as I did here or you can choose to color your brushwork and use already colored elements. My sample here is actually not complete as I will be adding some 3D canvas butterflies to this piece yet.

Of course, you can always print on papers too, but I’m a mixed media artist and love my fabrics! It’s gives a totally unique look to the finished piece.

Click the preview to be taken to the entire PDF tutorial at Digitals.

Hope you enjoy! And if you try it out, come link me up! Would love to see what you do with this. :D

Playing with Fabrics and my Go To art box

2012-02-07T04:38:00.000-08:00

What have I been up to lately?

Someone emailed me the other day asking me what is in my "Go to" supplies box so thought this was something to show you today. Yes… I've corrupted another poor soul into mixed media. lol Sorry Janet! But you're gonna love it! Just PLAY!

This box was just screaming at me to play with Sunday!
I keep this in my Living room with my most loved supplies so if I'm sitting and watching TV I can grab paper or fabric and play. :) No, I can't just sit and watch TV and do nothing else. lol Why waste the time? :D I'm usually found watching my Quilting Arts TV recording Sunday afternoons.

The box is one of the magnetic closing types from Michaels Craft Store that I proudly got a whole set of assorted sizes on sale for 40% off AND I had a coupon for 20% off my entire order. Gotta love it! Just close it up and keep it on my book shelf in there. Looks all neat and pretty when closed up with it's vintage collage covering. Miss Bailey has one too! :)

Supplies in the box? Watercolor paper pad, usually a few pieces of canvas or muslin scraps, masking tape, Derwent Intense Blocks, Water Soluble Wax Pastels, 6 of my fav Pan Pastels, gum eraser, pencil and sharpener, 2 water brushes, small gesso paint and brush, spray bottle with water, assorted ink pens and markers (3 Pigma Micron Pens sizes 01, 03 & 08), Piolet Parallel pen 1.5mm, a black Stained Sharpie, black regular sharpie, white acrylic paint pen, assorted foam sponges, plastic mixing cups (recycled from dipping cups from fast food restaurant), 3 mini misters and several Tim Holtz Adirondac Alcohol inks and 3 silk squeeze bottles with needle tips and filled with acrylic paint in them for sketching outlines. All from Dick Blick's Art Materials.

What to do… what to do….

Always could use some more flowers! Where the heck is spring anyways this year?

Yes, I'm spoiled, usually planting by now.

So I sketched some out using my Sharpie Pen on a piece of scrap muslin.

Added background color and flower centers with Pan Pastels using my foam sponges.

These are a newer item in my box lately as a gift from a dear friend… really wanted to play with them and color blending.

See Lynne! I'm using them! LOVE THEM! Smoooooch!

Lynne is also one of my fellow designers, Aria, in the Follow Your Art series

in case you haven't connected those dots!

Added more details using my black ink Pigma Pen

Can't decide if I'm done with it yet. Stay tuned. :)

Do you play with your art too? Link me up in the comments here! Would love to see what you're up to also!

Love for my Mom! LO Share

2012-02-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

I posted this on our Follow Your Art Blog, but wanted to share here also. This is the page I created for the love I have and how I feel about my Mother. This song has always been the way I felt our relationship has always been.

My mother has always been the silent wind beneath my wings, so what's more fitting than an art page with the lyrics from Bette Midler's song that has that exact feeling of love I have for my mother!

I plan on printing this and then will mat onto a larger gallery wrapped canvas and apply a gel medium top coating to the print so it looks like a fine art piece.

I will be sharing this Hybrid technique this month so watch for it!

Love you Weezer!

Credits:

Follow Your Art Feb 2012 Kit By Cilenia and

Follow Your Art Feb Kit By Aria

Downloadable Love Album on Sale Now!

2012-01-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

Download This Workshop to Quickly & Simply Create a Valentine's Album

Designer Cilenia Curtis and Stacey Mann have created a Downloadable Love Album Workshop to help you put together your own album for that special someone this Valentine's Day, for your anniversary, or any time. It includes everything you need -- templates, tags, a full kit, journaling prompts, and photo ideas -- so that all you have to do is assemble. Start now and you will have plenty of time to finish it by February 14. What a special treasure that album will be!

On Sale now for only $16!

Click Preview to purchase in the shop!

Valentine's Day will be here before you know it, so we have the solution for the perfect gift. Sign up for this workshop and we will provide all the tools and motivation you need to COMPLETE an album for your loved one in time for Valentine's Day!

Included in this downloadable workshop is an EXCLUSIVE set of ten 12 x 12 templates (in psd format) and a full 33 piece love-themed kit, both designed by Cilenia Curtis, that include everything you need to complete at least a 10-page album (or 20 pages if you do each one as a double-page spread.) You can go bigger if you choose to.

You also receive ten journaling prompts plus bonus ideas, and a list of over 20 fun couples photo pose ideas. Just purchase, download, and then work at your own pace. In no time at all, you will have your album completed and ready to give to your spouse, boyfriend, or anyone else you want!

- Set of 10 Exclusive Templates

- Set of 399 Date Tags

- 2 page PDF of Journaling Prompts

- PDF of Photo Shoot Ideas
- Young Love kit which includes:

10 12x12 papers
2 12" in length torn edgers (1 card stock, 1 tissue paper)
3 buttons (1 threaded messy stitching)
2 sewn brown paper edger/stuffers
1 messy cording stitches
4 hand drawn flowers
1 large hand drawn floral flourish element
1 Love Is old note paper
1 large sewn circle tag
2 horizontal sewn string of hearts
2 vertical sewn string of hearts
2 knotted bows
1 red staple
1 stringed set of tiny tags

Some of the sample layouts use Cilenia Curtis' Vintage Love and Vintage Love Mini Kit that coordinate well with the pieces in this workshop. Pick them up for more coordinating design options.

Sample layouts:

How I got from there to here - A personal Journey

2012-01-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

WOW! I'm NOT alone! I'm not the only one who wants to live a happier and healthier life! lol

I shared a layout on our Follow Your Art Blog The Plan is the Key and received LOTS of emails from others who seem to be on the same path as I and wondered how I am using visual journaling to help me on this quest. I want tho thank all of you who wrote and putting trust in me to share. I felt honored!

Yes, I guess this was a grand awareness somehow... I knew it in reality, but receiving the emails I did over the past few days somehow proved it to me that I really wasn't alone or so abnormal. Somehow, this renewed my quest even stronger. You gave me strength. I even had a few "old friends" who have not seen me over 8 years ask me "why"? Why do I feel like I need to be thinner, have more energy... because after all, the last time they saw me was before I moved west, I was the 43 year old mother of 5 who could walk 3' stilts carrying a 40# bucket of plaster. lol I was the one who was 120# since I was 16 (except for those baby months). I skied every week, I played 2 man sand competition volleyball every week... I had more energy than a 2 year old energizer bunny. lol

I'm going to share something VERY personal with you today. It is my hope, that in sharing this, I spark the motivation in others to take that first step in their own personal path. But there is a selfish reason too.

I KNOW by sharing this with others, I am making myself responsible and accountable to me. I am a very private person for the most part. A lot remains private and only shared with a select few. But I believe this is something that should not be. Something wonderful is about to happen because of this grand revelation. I feel it! Actually something already has with a few I have shared this with so I'm hoping by sharing even more openly it helps others. It is only one facet of my story... but it's a good example of how I tackled something through visual journaling and learned something very profound about myself.

SO,

"Why?" they asked. Well... the answer is... life. And an unfortunate turn of events one month 10 years ago. That's what happened.

I was one of the thousands Telecom Engineers laid off that month when a major company went under.

I had the most difficult break up in my entire life and that led to the onset of depression setting in.

I had just bought my dream house, (from that break up), and now feared I was going to loose it.

I was in a motorcycle accident, that left me off my feet for months, I got severe pneumonia during that time and doctors put me on steroids when nothing else worked and between it all, I gained a whopping 50#. Yes, I just said that publicly. And no, the doctors never did cure me after months and months, my herbs did… whole other story. lol

And all of that occurred in matter of a months. And I lost me. Took me years to realize that. (And it was my Art that made me realize that. More on that in a moment.)

Each month and year after that I assumed (secretly hoped), that it would end. The weight would come off. The energy would return. My perfect job would reappear, my perfect soul mate would return, I would feel better about myself, life would be better in general.... It didn't. So I dug into a negative thinking pattern and way of life. Sure I found a new job, started dating again 5 years later, ended up moving across the country for work and did loose my home I loved so much... I did make new friends... but I wasn't happy with me still nor my life in general. It started to be… but more of the same repeated… and then... I basically gave up. Why bother? I was never going to be that again.

Then one day, sitting thinking that, and actually letting the words breathe from my mouth...

"REALLY?" I asked myself, more like yelled at myself. "I don't think I want to accept that." And by then my RA had really kicked in, because of the weight gain, because of the unhealthy living, because of the inactivity, and I could not walk up or down the stairs without severe pain and feeling like I was 80… and I could not hand sew any longer, I could not run around and play with my dog or my grand-daughter, I was not going out and enjoying life with friends, I had become a hermit, I again was not having an easy time with finances, life, a relationship.... it hit me! Do something! I was screaming it at myself!

And this appeared in my journal. Notice the black background of doom, but the peak of a brighter thought with color. Says a lot to me at least.

Art from Beautiful Mess 3

As we all know, it's hard to get motivated to change something so huge that has become such a norm in our lives. It actually became overwhelming... which is how I ended up there. We let all those little voices inside of us tell us we are fat, we don't look in the mirror because that's not us. We don't go out because we don't feel good about ourselves or how we look. Etc. Etc Etc. I was so there! I could see it everywhere in my life, but mostly in my journaling. It was screaming at me and I was not paying attention. This, along with another statement I wrote later, "You can not become whom you want, by remaining what you are." It was my wake up call.

So what did I do? How did I begin a new path? How did I change my reality? I journal it. Not just write in a diary of being miserable or not having or being what I wanted, but take my old lessons of whenever I wanted to manifest something or get rid of something negative I would get creative and do a visual art journal page or pages to make it sink in. I would put all those negative thoughts down on a page, and cover them all up with paints and something pretty. I released it!

This is a page I did that day of realization. What you don't see is the writing under the book page covered with white gesso paint. Those are the negative thoughts. I painted over them, I glued AND stapled paper over them. They were put away! It felt good!

Art from Beautiful Mess 1

Then I did a page of positive affirmations of what I wanted to become, what I wanted to attract in my life. But I would do it in a present tense. "The mind is a powerful thing" my mother always told me. If you believe it, it will be. Everything you can imagine can be real. Somehow, believing and knowing makes us take note of everything around us and helps us work towards making that belief a reality. Yes, the first step is usually the most difficult. But I had a plan... or at least an idea for one. :)

I would dig in and make a very defined plan on how to get from here to there! DEFINE, CREATE and BE the person I wanted to be! Not just my physical body, but ME all around and the life I want to be living. My Happy Place. My perfect True. My deepest Intensions. I wanted to be the person I was, but BETTER! And a side note of honesty here… if others didn't like, so what! This was for me and no one else. And if I didn't like me or wasn't happy with me, no one else would be either.

What I did…

Step 1: List 5 things I want to be or have in my life. My Goals. My Intensions.

Step 2: Break each of those down into bite size pieces of mini goals to reach for.

Step 3: Focus on each of those mini goals and implement something, anything, in my daily life to attain them.

Step 4: PRACTICE each day, working at least one thing for each goal and make it my reality.

Remember these? The first one was actually from almost a year ago, but I felt the need to do again so I did another page. And the 2nd one was my first step for my first goal renewed this month.

Art from Follow Your Art January

How? By being honest with myself. By Following my Heart, my True. How again? For me, by following my Art! Let my creative side of my art seep to the top and spill into my daily thoughts and stimulate my creative thinking... to get creative with My Life!

I am using my daily visual art journal pages help me grow, help me create and form my reality. I have never art journaled for just fun and whimsey. I do it with purpose, with meaning. Just like most of us don't scrapbook just to put a bunch of meaningless pictures on our pages. They all mean something personal to us. They have value and purpose.

Visual Journaling is the same for me. I use it as an outlet for negative thoughts. I use it to affirm positive thoughts. I use it to be creative and get all my creative juices flowing and it always sparks me to be more creative in many other areas of my mind and my life... like how to get my body and energy back! lol

And when I do art... it rejuvenates me. It makes me happy. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. It makes me believe I can concur something bigger.

And I do! I always have. I have always been the one they talk about and say that I always get what I want.... How? Because I work for it! Because I create it! We make our own reality. We make our own accomplishments along with our own failures. And I know it's because of the fear of failure that can stop me from accomplishing by goals. So I know I need to make smaller goals and even mini daily goals to have that feeling of accomplishment and the positive energy to tackle a bigger ones.

We are responsible and accountable to only ourselves for everything in our lives that happens. Something else my mother's voice is always reminding me in my head. When something is not right in your life, look at what I am contributing to that negative path and change it. Change the negative thoughts and actions I am contributing, and the path will change. Whenever I have reminded myself of these words, and put this into action, it absolutely works!

What am I doing towards that negative path of being overweight and not having any energy?
VERY easy to see once I sat down and thought about it, and was honest with myself about it.

I think that cookies and ice cream are ok to eat because it makes me feel 'mentally' better and what's one cookie? or two, or three....

I don't get up and do something active. I use work as an excuse not to. Or I use that I'm overworked and too tired to get up and be active.

I over salt my food for flavor knowing it aggravates my RA, knowing it's not good for my heart and body and makes me retain water which makes me feel bloated, which makes me feel tired.... See the circle?

I think that staying in oversized clothes hides this from everyone... but it really is only hiding it from me. I only had to stand in front of a mirror naked to have that one slap me into reality.

I think all of this will just magically go away and be better one day.

NOT!

Art from Beautiful Mess 7

Begin agin Today! I am working for a better me! I will be that me that I want to be. I will love who I am. I will do what I love. I will have what I need to do it all also!

I am putting it out there to the universe to attract all that I need to get it done and be my reality.

Today: I will put the salt shaker out of site and reach. I will ask my family to help me by doing this also.

Today: I will do at least a 30 minute walk. I will make a time each day after to drop what I am doing and just do it!

Today: I will not reach for cookies, or chips instead of lunch.

Today: I will eat breakfast

Today: I will not work more than 12 hours and will stop in time to have an hour for me before evening duties.

Today: I will put a happy face or a pretty stamp in my journal for accomplishing these things. :D

Tomorrow? I will do the same and add another thing I can do towards my goal of living healthier.

If I falter in something, I will focus on that one thing and then add something else the next day. I will NOT let it get me down, I will not feel like a failure, I will just learn to tackle one thing at a time until it becomes my new habit.

I know me... I know what tempts me and how to remove that temptation. And I need to make an honest effort doing that. Most likely those Oreo cookies cannot be in the shopping cart next time and if the kids want cookies, they have to have something different that is not so tempting for me. lol I also know that if I explain that to them, they will help me. Love my kids! And if not, I will learn to look away. I will learn to find something healthy as a substitute.... like frozen Strawberry Banana Smoothies. :)

Want to know a secret? I have been, and am, using this exact same method for several things in my life. Work, love, family, and even time for playing in my art studio happy place. :) I have them all broken down the exact same way. Doesn't matter what the goal is.
DEFINE IT! CREATE IT! MAKE IT A REALITY! One step at a time.
Only YOU can make it happen. No one else can. No special pill can, no amount of money can. Only YOU! oh, that is for me by the way, not for you reading this. lol But you can take it with you if you like. :)

Want proof it works? I've lost 20# in a matter of a couple weeks. I did fall off a tad over the holidays, but jumped right back on. I didn't put any more weight back on, but I didn't loose any either. But, I do feel better and have learned my triggers. I don't think of it that I failed, I reviewed it for lessons to learn.

I now know I can not have ANY salt or sodium in my diet or the RA flairs up and it is one of 2 things that really really effects me physically. I know now if I don't make time for my walk, or time for personal time out for some kind of art, I feel down and have no energy. I know that if Oreo cookies are in the house, I will find them and I will eat them. lol

But I only learned all this from journaling each day and looking back at the patterns. I could see my up days, my down days, even in my art... I could see this by the daily eating record I decided to do, to figure out what exactly was effecting me physically and mentally, and putting it in my journal. I saw that when I was not doing my private time happy hour of art quilting or art journaling I would mentally be down. I saw that all of this effected me as a whole in how my days were in general from everything from being too tired, to being edgy and negative with my family.

It ALL effected me. Which just made me work harder sticking to what I was doing and would make it better and easier not reach for the salt, the cookie, etc. and force myself to stop and walk, to make time to vent using my art as a tool, to be creative in art for me, and on and on.

See the circle?

Knowing your circles, your habits, your patterns can be a very enlightening experience. But even more for me personally, it became empowering! I am now armed with what I need to succeed. And I will!

I hope by sharing all of this lengthy story helps others reach for their goals. And if you want to journey with me, you are more than welcome to. If not, that's ok too. I still will. I have learned that expressing through my art is my way of working it all out and setting the goals and sticking to them.

And all those other facets I am working on? They are on their way to being accomplished too. :)

Bonus? My closest friends and my family see all of this and are taking mental notes. Some will look at their own lives, some will not. But if they learn even only one thing from all this, it was all worth it.

ok… now all I have left to do here is click that publish button on top… it's a little scary, but here it goes. lol
Hugs, C

PS: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, I'm just me, a spiritual creature of nature, who has chosen to learn and grow and decided it would be a good thing to share. And if you read this far, God love you! LOL Cause this was a whopper of a post!

Where in the World is Cilenia? My week in a nut shell

2012-01-08T10:16:00.000-08:00

SO - The year started out a little rough for me personally. I had all these great intentions and lots in the works to get started on… and then it happened! Compy melt down! (Also why you have not seen me online anywhere and posting here or on my personal blog). BUT, it does make for a great inspirational post right now. lol This week I will have a lot more inspirational layouts from all of us too.

Now, if you know me, my compy is my right arm, I admit it! It's where I work, I play, I journal, I teach, I chat, I keep in touch with my friend's and family… yes, right arm is the only way to feel about it. I felt crippled!

The problem was, I had seen little issues coming up and knew this was coming and procrastinated about it for a few months now. My Bad! And really bad that it took this for me to do something about it actively. So guess what has been added to my 2012 goals list?! lol To never let this happen again and make a plan of a maintenance schedule so it never does. :)

So what does a Visual Journaler do in a time like this? Journal of course!

Why? First because I was able to express the negative and get it out of my system. I put it away. I have lovingly named this layout Melt Down partially because that's what my compy did, and partially it's because that's what I did that day. Not good! And I'll be honest, if I didn't journal about it, it would have been far far worse… not a pretty picture. lol

I did write in my paper journal (BECAUSE MY COMPY wouldn't cooperate! lol) But I did also transfer it to my digi journal for the last 4 days. :) I like to see my progress over the 4 days of the situation and somehow it makes me feel all better inside. I do know that the process gave me the time to think and be a little creative AND helped me test out the restored computer and as you will soon read, it also was my hour today for ME!

I had my frustrations that first day, (denoted with the red paint and ink splattered and the scribbled scratch (which was far more intense in my paper journal but thought I'd spare myself that here.)

I took a negative experience and have now, four days later, turned it into an opportunity. An opportunity for me to get it together, create a plan, not let it get there again, and get control back over my compy and some chaos folders!

Ahhhh A deep sigh of relief came as I created my new plan.

So here you are… my days of melt down and progress in my visual journal.

Credits: Follow Your Art Jan Beautiful Mess 1 Sewn paper strip Beautiful Mess 6 brush and butterfly

NOW I can get back to my plan of attacking my other intentions with this behind me.

You can read about those on our Follow Your Art Blog.

Hugs! Of to start my new plan. :)

Have you heard? New Follow Your Art Visual Journaling year long workshop!

2012-01-01T07:44:00.000-08:00

So what happens when you put three designers together who share a passion in art, journaling, and visual journaling for self improvement? FOLLOW YOUR ART!

I am honored and humbled to be working with these talented and creative ladies! We have become close friends who spark each other endlessly. Not just in art, but in everything. If you haven't checked out our new blog yet, you're going to want to!

Follow Your Art 2012 What is it?! First, it's FREE to follow and do with us!

In a nut shell, it's visual journaling, art journaling and creative thinking while focusing on self improvement all wrapped up into one. It's listening to our inner voices on how we want to be and what we want to manifest in our lives to be happy using art as our expressive voices. It's the knowing, "We cannot become whom we want, by remaining what we are." We are not discovering ourselves... we are creating ourselves anew to Who we want to be!

Visual Journaling - What is it?
It’s a combination of Art Journaling and a personal diary.
It is very personal and intentional.
It’s where you can play and let out your inner artist just for you.
It’s where you can express feelings and thoughts and dream.
It can be a private place for healing.
It can be a notebook to keep inspirations and give your Muse permission to dance.
It can be anything you want it to be! There are no rules!

I wrote a page on what Art Journaling is to me. You might want to read it to help you form ideas on how you can use a Visual Journal for yourself.

So what is the Follow Your Art all about? Read more on the Follow Your Art Blog….

Here's an excerpt from our first of the month's posting. January 2012 Theme: Setting Goals to Soar

January always reminds us of looking at our lives and goals and starting fresh for the new year.

We'd like to take this a little deeper than the usual goals. We also want to help you listen to your inner voice and really think deeper about your dreams and help you plan out the stepping stones to achieving them. Yes, they can be applied to any goal or plan you might have, but we tackle them a little different. We create journals, specifically art journals, visual journals to set our goals, plan them out, carry them through. Hope you find something useful here to help you create your own.

During the entire month, we will offer some additional ideas and inspirations to get those creative juices flowing not only for scrapping and art journaling, but more for achieving your ultimate dreams.

READ MORE... and get a coupon code and sign up for our Newsletters and receive a freebie mini kit sampler too there!

And I have a ton of new art in my shop too! All part of this wonderful new adventure and journey with my art playmates!Hope you join us!

How Pinteresting - Home Decor Crafts to do

2011-12-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

Don't know about you, but I LOVE Pinterest! You can find my boards here if you want to get lost for a while. lol So many awesome ideas and you can follow those who have the same styles and taste as you do. Today I was looking for some ideas to do with Miss Bailey while she is out of school for Winter break. Enjoy!

1 - Cookie Sheet turned kitchen calendar!

2 - Turn empty jars into storage for herbs

3 - Jars turned into pretty votive holders
4- Magnets on bottoms of bottles for easy in reach art supplies

And today our craft project is!?!?

MAGNETS!

Miss Bailey has quit the art collection on the frig and we are out of magnets so this is a perfect project for us today. Kara even wants to do too!

Tips & Technique Thursdays - Another Workflow Tip

2011-12-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

This is a Tip within a Tip post! Like that?
I subscribe to Planet Photoshop's Tip of the Day and each day I get a nice little Tip in my inbox. Now I have to say, after working with Photoshop since before it was Photoshop somewhere in the late 80s, I thought I had a pretty good idea of all it could do. But it never ceases to amaze me how Planet Photoshop consistently has tips that make me sit back and say, "I didn't know that!" Highly recommend you check them out there. Those guys are pretty smart cookies!

Here's a good example of one from this past year.

Bypass The New Layer Dialog
Pressing Command-Shift-N (PC: Ctrl-Shift-N) creates a new layer and brings up the New Layer dialog so you can name it. Personally, I find it kind of annoying and not a lot faster than clicking on the Create a New Layer icon. However, if you throw the Option (PC: Alt) key into the mix, it'll bypass the New Layer dialog and just create a new blank layer.

Provided by Matt Kloskowski

I'm a HUGE fan of hotkeys and shortcut keys in any computer program… anything to make my workflow faster I'm all there. So this simple addition of a keystroke is perfect for me! As a designer I don't really care what the layer name is and have always been irritated by the pop up Dialog Box and could not for the life of me figure a way around it… so I just put up with it…. for years!

I will say, when I design templates, I do use the Dialog Box so I can name the layers fitting to what it is to make life easier for my customers, but it's nice to know that when I don't care, I can get to designing faster now.

I also have a NEW Techniques Tutorial at Digitals this week in case you are not a Newsletter Subscriber there or missed it. Creating Layers of Realistic Shadows

This is an excerpt from a Workshop I am working on called Shadow Study to be released in January 2o12. It gets you started on the basics of how I use shadows on my layers to make the whole layout more realistic looking and almost "touchable" when printed. Hope you enjoy and would love to hear your comments after you read it. Everyone loves comments right? Well, I do, but love even more what I can help you with to learn.

Also, feel free to let me know what you would like to learn more about with Shadows and I'll be sure and try and cover that in my Workshop. :)

On another note, I have a new kit in the shop today and it is 25% off today through Christmas.

If you are a newsletter subscriber, Twitter follower or Facebook friend, you received a little gift from me this morning in celebration of my birthday today. :) Better go and check and download it before Christmas!

Here is a preview of the newest kit.

Hope everyone has a very Merry and Joyous Holiday!

Template Love and $2 Tuesday

2011-12-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

By popular request, I'm going to be bringing back for you a new PSD Layered template each Tuesday through Wednesday and also have a $2 special item both days too in the shop. Some will be by my Team Members, some will be by me, but all will be using my artwork in the shop.

This week, ValeriGail has created an awesome template to celebrate the little artist in your home. She is using my art from my kit School Days - Art Class. This is in a PSD Photoshop file form with layers and also in a png form for Quick Pages for other programs.

Make sure you get it Tuesday or Wednesday for free. After that, you can purchase it in the shop if you like.

Also new in the shop today is a brand new stitching kit with red, green and white stitches all mixed up and a little crazy like. Perfect addition to holiday pages. It's on sale today and tomorrow for only $2 so act fast!

Now I'm off to the post office with my darling little Miss Bailey. :)

Anything but a Mundane Life

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

This week Miss Bailey hit a milestone! And as Nana, I claim bragging rights. lol

Bailey has always taken an interest in being involved with anything I do, but takes extreme interest when it has to do with gardening, art or sewing. I make art quilts, bed quilts and wall hangings and usually have several projects going at once depending on the stage they are in. This week, I was adding the final touch to a wall art quilt we were making as a gift hand stitching the binding on. Normally over the past 2 years Miss Bailey would sit next to me and want to pull the needle through the fabric after I had taken the stitch. So we'd sit together, I'd poke the needle in, come up carefully catching a few threads and then Bailey would want to pull the needle the rest of the way. She'd watch very closely and with such interest, but would never want to poke the needle herself out of fear of sticking her finger.

As usual, I explained every step to her, showed her how you go down right next to where you came up just outside the binding edge, rock the needle and come up a scant 1/8" up through the binding catching just barely a few threads, and pull the thread taunt and repeat. WELL! This day, she informed me she was ready to try herself. She carefully did as I had shown her… a little hesitant coming up with the needle so close to her little thumb nail as she poked through, but she did it! She smiled the biggest smile I've ever seen. Yeah, you did it Bailey! Immediately, she wanted to do another, and another… and after about 5 stitches, her's were perfect! I mean PERFECT! I was totally amazed.

She ended up finishing the other half of this quilt all by herself… that's about 30" in length and an hour of time. She just kept going! Not making a sound, looking so serious and paying close attention to her stitches and even backing out and trying again if she hit a hard spot or it wasn't close enough to her liking…. reminding me that I've always said 10 stitches per inch. lol I explained they didn't have to be that close because this was an art piece… I only do that when it's going to be used like her bed quilt. I did have to help her with the finish end as there are 5 layers of fabric where the two ends bind together, but she did all the rest by herself.

And you know what that child said when she was done?! "Can we do some more Nana? I want to make a woobie for the couch now!" lol And what's REALLY funny is when I told her mother Kallie, about it later and showed her the photos, Kal RAN to find her unfinished quilt and handed it to Bailey and said she could finish hers if she wanted! LOL Now understand, Kal has had that quilt in a bag for about 4 years unfinished because Kallie hates to do the hand quilting part. lol Bailey was SO excited! So guess what we are doing with our craft time this week? Yep, finishing her Mommies quilt! :)

What's even more awesome, is Bailey helped paint this quilt too and sat on my lap and helped guide the fabric while we machine quilted the interior areas. I SO wish I had someone here at the time who could have taken photos of that too. What an awesome story this would be to give to the person who will receive this art quilt now as a gift. :) Can't show you the whole thing yet for obvious reasons that this is a gift. But we have the photos and will post later. So we are off to the post office today to send our little presents off. Little later than I wanted, as Miss Bailey wanted to be a part of each one and it took a little longer than we had hoped while she was still in school past few weeks, but they will get there. :)

And I was so excited I just had to scrap a page about it right away!

I am one proud Nana!

Credits: Art Journal Challenge Dec 2011 Full Kit and Beautiful Mess 7 Stitched Alpha

From Aria: Photography-Photoshop Tip: Selective lightening

2011-12-14T04:35:00.000-08:00

Aria Digital Scrapbooking: Photography: Selective lightening: A good friend asked me recently how to do selective lightening on a photo. There are always many ways to do things in Photoshop, but my fav...

Weekend Fun & new blog!

2011-12-12T04:32:00.000-08:00

Little glimpses into what we did this past week and weekend here in the studio and Kara's concert. :)
The weekend was half lost because I had a high fever Saturday and spent most of it in bed. But we tried to make up time for it. :)

Do you like the new blog? I wanted to make my blog match my website and be 100% my own art. The coding made me a little nuts last week but I was determined! lol Spent 19 hours straight on it the one day. Still tweaking, but almost there. You might want to scroll to the bottom too. :) ok, geek in me was really really proud of how I got those to appear and work. I wanted somewhere people could see content by subjects since I'm usually all over the place playing with my art. :) Hope you like!

My Kara had her Dance Team Christmas Concert and Kallie tested out my new iPhone taking movies. lol I couldn't go Saturday as my fever was spiking. Was very disappointed. This this is the first time I have ever missed one of my kids concerts.
Still learning how to use the iPhone, and was also difficult because Kara's boyfriend saved seats front row and center, which was a plus, but hard to video. Here's just one of them, but it's one of my Fav Christmas songs, so it's the one going up!

I also got a new canvas word art piece completed too! Miss Bailey helped me of course, can't keep her away from the studio when Nana has something going. lol I took my 8x8 word art pieces and made them fit for the canvas I had on hand. Gotta love digi!
I already have abetter way to do this learning from the mistakes. I had basic instructions from someone else to start, but already figured out a better ways to do this after seeing how it went. Hope to get the other 2 done this week or next weekend. First I created my inspiration art in digi from my Beautiful Mess 7 kit (funny how that started out from real life art scanned in and now is back into.) I did create the alpha just for this as I went. I printed here at home and put onto canvas. We had a lot of fun with this project! But then again, Bailey has fun with anything messy and sticky and has to do with a paint brush. lol
Sorry about the poor photos, but I'm learning how to take these on manual for practice. :) See girls, I'm trying! LOL Not too bad for my first attempts right? ;)

We also made some new art quilting blocks. This one is going to be a collage of blocked pieces. I wanted to try out some different techniques and also some different needle tip bottles I got last week. Much nicer for sketching with the paint. And we tried out using the Inktense pencils too on these. Has it's pluses but still like working with the blocks better for painting. I found I had to add too much water to the sketched pencil work and that made the color bleed too much for what I wanted, but can think of times I'd like this too. All play, that's how we learn. :) This is now sitting on my sewing machine pieced together and ready to quilt. Now… to come up with a kewl quilt pattern for the open area blocks. :) Next one is gong to be poppies I think. ;) But Coneflowers and Daisies are my favorite flowers so several of these had to be them. These are all Christmas gifts this year as cash is a little shorter than we would like. Think they will like?

Hope you had a creative weekend too!

Feel free to link me up with what you have going on! Love to see what others are doing in their own little art studios. Doesn't matter if it's digi, fabric, wood or anything, it's all art!

Live chat with Wacom at RP Dec 6th 9pm EDT

2011-12-05T08:58:00.001-08:00

Joe Sliger from Wacom will be on ReneeTV tomorrow night at 9pm EST. Joe will be demonstrating tablet techniques with Photoshop. He's a very savvy guy and the webinar will be very informative.

Joe will also be giving away a Wacom Bamboo Capture pen tablet to one lucky participant. Whoo Hoo! I love my Wacom but would really love this one! I'd give mine away if I got this one! lol

Check it all out here on Renee Pearson's blog. Chat with Wacom & Win a Bamboo

Live with Intention - A Challenge with Freebie

2011-12-01T03:38:00.001-08:00

This month's art journaling challenge is all about living our lives with Intention! Making a plan, setting our goals and creating our steps to make our intentions a reality. This mini kit is the perfect starting point to create this. It's dreamy colors are calming to help you focus your intentions and get serious about living them by taking that first step in defining them.

Something I am very much doing right now personally! Each year starting on Oct. 31st I look back and make sure that I am living with intention. That I am doing what makes me happy, doing what answers the whispers inside me to be happy and live the life I want to live. I look at my daily life and double check to make sure that I am taking my steps to get there and redefine any intentions that need to be. Yes they do change, and yes, I do find myself doing things that are not a part of those goals. Time to look at the end results I want and make a plan to get there. By Dec 1st I usually have my full intensions defined and I spend this month making my plans, making my steps to reach the reality I want, planning how to incorporate them into my daily life. I start slow, intentional, and begin the process of incorporating them in daily so it's not so overwhelming. By the first week of January I usually have them in place in my daily life to start working towards those goals.

This year I am looking for more time… (I know aren't we all? lol), but I am being very intentional to make sure that I have more time to enjoy doing what I love most which just happens to coincide with my other intention of what I need to be doing to further my career and earn enough money to provide for my family.

This means looking at how I currently spend my time, how can I do better at scheduling my time and sticking to it? Where can I carve out slots of time to delegate for what I want to be doing, and time to do what I need to be doing to reach my own personal goals. I have many smaller goals too and need to be scheduling them into this mass of time and make it all work in harmony. When we keep our intentions in the front of our thoughts, have a plan, make small steps within that plan to work in on a daily basis, we can and will make our goals a reality.
Inspiration-Passion-Commitment = Goals and Intentions = Reality

My first scribbles of defining my intentions. :)

Ideas to journal:
Define your intentions/goals and be exacting about it, make a list of smaller goals and steps to reach that bigger goal, list some things you can do each day to live with the intention of reaching that goal. List things your've already accomplished to reach your goals for some positive reinforcement that you are on the right path and can do it.

This month my art journaling took on a new form because of my personal intentions also. Not really new… but an old one brought back with a twist. Following my inner passions, I used my digi art and combined it with my fabric art and created a mini art quilt. See the whole process. I do plan on posting a little tutorial about this too soon if you want to try your hand at mixing digi with quilting art. :)

Amazingly, this SO inspired me, so much it lit a fire inside of me, my intentions became MORE defined. I am sure I will be sharing if you want to watch as I start to implement and work this. It was also what inspired the Dec Art Journal Challenge kit and part of what you will get for free to join me in this challenge. :)

So enough of my ramblings, here is your free mini kit to get you started on living your intentions.
Art Journal Challenge Dec 2011 Mini Kit

And if you want the full kit, you can find it here. :)

Can't wait to see what you create this month!
Make sure you go to the Dec Life thru Art Journaling Challenge forum and leave us a link to your page and I'll send you the prize bonus mini kit link via private message from our Dec collab.
Blessings, Cilenia

Day 5 Freebie and Destination Template re-release

2011-11-24T05:01:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!
Today is Art Journal Project Day 5 of my 15 days of free downloads during my Featured Designer spotlight. Don't forget to get 2 more pieces of my Art Journal Project kit!

I have also updated and re-released one of my favorite templates I created in 2007 called Destination.

Destination was created for a poster I did for my riding brothers of their trip to Sturgis. I wanted something special and unique to show off the awesome photography done by my brother Robert. This template makes it easy for you to achieve this also with the special effects of the blocked out areas all done for you already within the template.

I have also included instructions in the download how to use this template and how I achieved the look for the background photo shown here with the desaturated color and merging the 3 photos I used to create one background.

This poster was inspired by our motto: It's not the destination that counts, it's the journey getting there.

Here is my final poster I did. It's easy to change the 12x12 template to a poster size just by enlarging your canvas and moving the gridded portion where ever you like. And don't take these bad boy looks too seriously, they really are a bunch of teddy bears with the biggest hearts you will ever know, and all three are some of your best FEMA and homeland security personnel too. :D Hey, a girl needs to feel safe when she rides with her brothers doesn't she? lol I have the best of the best next to me. This was the last year we all got to ride together as almost everyone was relocated for their jobs after that. 2007 is a year I will never forget, as it went down as one of my best years of riding ever!

Luv and miss you boys!

Spanky - Bartman - Notorious

aka Mike - Bart - Robert

Playing with a new art quilt

2011-11-22T11:34:00.001-08:00

First don't forget to get your Day 3 freebie today in the shop to get 2 more pieces of the kit Art Journal Project!
And don't forget, on Dec 5th, I will pick 5 winners for $5 each coupons from all the comments from Nov. 20th - Dec 4th!

I have been really wanting to try my hand at negative watercolor painting, except, if you know me, it's going to involve fabric! lol So got out my Inktense inks and just ran with it not sure where this was going to go.
I decided to do a 24" x 18" piece to keep it manageable.
The first thing I did was sketch out using white acrylic fluid paint with a 7mm applicator tip.
Bailey snapped this one of me doing it 2 nights ago. Had to let this dry overnight.

So this is where I spent yesterday afternoon, playing to the muse and even Miss Bailey got into it with me blending colors. This was our first evening. Sorry, my camera skills are not very good and Nicky isn't here to take her awesome photos! lol

Close up in my dim light last night.

Shot at my art table where I've been, just in case you're curious. :)

Today I added more color and now I'm looking at it wondering if I'm done with inks or not. lol I really like how the flowers are standing out with this negative technique!

I took it outside to get these shots cause Nicky is always telling me natural light is best for taking pics. (yea and her awesome camera too! lol) Did my best Nicky, but these pics really don't show as well as I would have liked.

A couple close ups. Still wet in some areas, but it will blend a tad more as it dries.

So now I have the big debate… more? Was thinking maybe some more color spotted above the flowers also to make them pop kind of like I did here of the left towards the bottom, but I am partial to the white space too. And I want to keep the path of light going too. Maybe some more leaves and branches blended into the background areas…. hmmm

Then of course, I will have to add a butterfly, no garden should be without one right Marcie?!

Maybe a quote… and figure out how I want to quilt this. :D Right now I have too many ideas so going to sit back and think about that for a bit.

Now you KNOW somehow this will end up in a new digi kit right? lol I do have December's Art Journal challenge to do this week. :)

Off to "sketch" out a few more ideas.

Stay tuned! Cilenia

I'm the new Featured Designer at Digitals and have Freebies!

2011-11-20T04:36:00.001-08:00

Did you see the Digitals Newsletter Yesterday morning?! I'm the new Featured Designer! Whoo Hoo!

You can find out more about me too from an interview there with the wonderful Miss Stacey, founder of Digitals, did with me. I see I did a little typo there for what's on my wish list… and just in case Santa is looking, that's a Long ARM Quilt machine, not an Art Quilting machine! LOL Maybe Santa will win the lotto to get for me, cause that baby is not cheap! lol one can dream can't she? ;)

And a Double Celebration is in order because my last week's Tutorial was the Featured Blog Post over at The Hive too! Thank you fellow Hive artisans! So happy you enjoyed! I felt very honored.

Join the celebration with me for the next 15 days and get your Free Daily Download and shop till you drop with my entire shop 30% off including all new releases!

Each day you will get 2 Pcs to my latest kit Art Journal Project! I invite you to get them all and show me some of your art journaling too! Link me up in your comments or show it off in my Designer's Gallery.

And to help you celebrate with me I'm giving away $25 in coupons good for a year on Dec 5th!
At the end of my Designer spotlight I will pick FIVE winners from all comments on my blog, between today and Dec 4th, and each will win a $5 coupon from yours truly, ME!

Want some extra chances to win?!
Link us up in the comments with your LOs, help share the love by sharing the link to here on your blog or FB, or share the link on my FB page, or re-tweet me on Twitter with this announcement and then come back here and comment again to tell me you did for your extra chances to win!

To start us off, here's my art journal page I created that inspired the creation of this kit. I have been really trying to focus my intentions this past week and if you know me, I usually put them in some form of art to help me remember and focus on them. I also used some pieces from my Beautiful Mess 1 kit.

Learning to Master Myself

And check out this page one of my CTs Beth made using this kit and Aria's Add-On she created to coordinate with my kit to celebrate with me too!

Living in the Moment

This is Aria's, (one of FAV artistic digi playmates, aka Lynne), awesome mini add-on kit! I just LOVE these "Art Fusions"! I am SO using these to make another page! Perfect for layering, using blending modes on to really add some artistic flair to a layout! Lynne is just so awesome at this and did you know almost everything she creates is created from her own photography?! Wow, I need photography lessons from her! She's really really good!

Off to get Aria's beautiful Art Fusions and do some playing! I did some Goal Visualizations in my notebook yesterday that I want to put into an art journal page as affirmations to help me manifest my dreams into reality. These are PERFECT for my own personal "Notes to Self"! :) How Lynne has this ESP in knowing exactly what I need is beyond me! Oh wait…. it could be that we art play on Skype all the time! lol She's been holding out on me… because this was such a wonderfully beautiful surprise to find. Thank you Lynne! Luv you!

Biggest hugs to all of you and can't wait to see what you create! Maybe you want to create some art journaling too with some positive affirmations or a scrap page. Remember to share for your chance to win!

Tips & Techniques - Placing a photo within a framed area

2011-11-16T06:15:00.001-08:00

Have you ever had an odd shaped frame you wanted to fit your photo within or an overlay frame and not quite sure what might be the best method? I was asked by a "newbie" to digital scrapbooking on how to do this last week and used her question to create a new mini tutorial for Digitals Newsletter this week.

One method I did not discuss was simply erasing all the outside parts of the photo you don't want to show. But this is what I call destructive as if you change your mind about it's placement within your frame, you have to do from scratch again. My first choice method will always be to create a clipping mask as I show how in Method #1 in this mini tutorial. But as with many things in photoshop, there are many different ways to come out with the same results. I used to use Method #2 for years in photoshop and non-photoshop graphic programs. Each has it's own purpose, but in learning each, you will think of other ways to use these skills.

Here's a preview of the PDF page 1. View and download the whole mini tutorial here.

Off to work now I go. Finishing up a quick page album with my CT for December's Free with Purchase gift.

And I have some exciting things to share starting this Saturday as I am the new Featured Designer at Digitals and will have free daily downloads over the following 15 days so that at the end, you get the entire kit! So be sure and check back Saturday and each day in the shop for your free daily download!
Want a peek? Sure you do! lol It was created from a personal Art Journal Project and it's still going, so I'm sure there will be add-ons to this kit. :)

I also re-released an updated version of my Days of December Kit and that is now in the shop at a discount of what the original mini kits sold for. I plan on having the 22 page Album PSD templates up also this week if you didn't get it previously. These are perfect for your December Daily albums.

Till next time,

Tips & Techniques - Recoloring Elements 1

2011-11-09T06:03:00.000-08:00

I was playing along with my long time mentor Anna Aspnes in her newsletter she sent out a few weeks back for recoloring and was actually quite amazed how different I do the same things. I could have sworn she was the one who showed me the current way I do it, but I was wrong as her way is totally different. We exchanged a few emails about our different techniques and as I was explaining the conversation and differences with another friend, she requested I write up a tutorial the way I do it. She totally understood how Anna does it from her tutorial, but wanted to try the way I did it too. Each are correct, just different and good for different applications.

There are so many ways to change the color of your elements to match other items or even photos in your layouts, these are just a couple of my personal first choices.

Click the preview to view the entire tutorial in PDF from Digitals Tutorial Photoshop section. This was our Mini Tutorial of the Week in the Digitals bi-weekly newsletter Building Skills Tuesday.

Tips, Tutorial and $2 specials oh my!

2011-11-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

Long time no talkie! I'm sorry… I usually pride myself on being able to stay on top of things, but the last couple weeks got totally out of control for me here… just come over and take a look at my house! lol It is definitely showing the results of the chaos.

Besides helping Stacey at Digitals start up some new Bi-Weekly Newsletters, besides writing and recording the new classes for Renee Pearson and lots of tutorials, and besides getting ready to start up a new Designer's Studio and an Artist's Journey for life & art journaling starting in 2012 with two awesome designers Aria and Angie Young… It was my Miss Bailey's birthday yesterday, yes my Hallow's Eve grand-child. Look out world because she got those roller blades she's been wanting! lol

And it was trick or treating of course, and I swear we had over 300 children come knocking at our door, and to top it off, it is also the mark of new years in our house. It's the time for honoring the dead and those who have passed and a time for looking inward and the beginning of a new year and the beginning of Winter. Which I did not get to celebrate in my normal fashion unfortunately. Today I will spend the majority of the day cleaning, reorganizing and getting my head back that I left somewhere under all this chaos. "I'm right on top of that Rose!" lol I digress… So ready to take a deep breathe today and regroup.

I did manage to create an affirmation page this week to mark my new focus for the new year. Too many things in my life have been slipping by the past year and I need to stop and enjoy the moments with my family. So I made this reminder to myself to take that time. :) Call it my New Years resolution.

I created the background from 3 cardstock papers and used my brushes to mask off pieces and parts to create a whole new background paper, which I'm sure will end up in one kit or another eventually. lol Then I added in some pieces from my Beautiful Mess 1 kit and some of my art used to create that kit to finish it off and did my personal journaling. I also managed to create a new tutorial on How to Pin a Tag using masking, which you can find at Digitals now too. Click the preview for the PDF at Digitals.

It was the mini tutorial in the NEW Building Skills with Digitals Newsletter yesterday. If you don't get these and want to, you can find the subscription for them here at Digitals. And you receive a wonderful new kit from Amanda too when you sign up!

Also featured in today's newsletter I have a $2 sale item. My kit Tween Years! Hurry though, it's only on sale till midnight EST at 67% off. I made this kit at the request of my teenage daughter for some artwork she wanted for her room. 15 papers and 34 Elements. Pretty good deal for $2. :) There are two other $2 specials in the newsletter too from two wonderful Designers.

I also uploaded some tip cards this week too! You can find them here below or in Digitals Tech Talk Forum too if you prefer.

Photoshop Quick Tip 009 - Cutting Alpha from Sheet

Photoshop Quick Tip 010 - PSE Circle Text Path

I also have uploaded a re-release of my Blue Winter kit in the shop today. This was one of my most favorite kits last winter so I decided to bring it back after a few requests. Make sure you look at the additional images because this is not just a Winter or Holiday kit!

Well, off to get a little work done and then work on getting this house back in order. :) Then it's time to crack the whip again on myself. Do the cycles really ever end? lol

Have an awesome week everyone!

Tip of the Week - PSE Circle Text Path

2011-10-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hi there!
I have another Tip of the week card for you today. This one was by request for our PSE users.

You can download this for printing by clicking the pic, right click and do a save as.

And if you didn't get a chance to comment to win on Saturday's post Sneak Peek and chance to win! make sure you do today as I will be choosing the winner tomorrow morning. :)

Till next time,

Sneak Peek and chance to win!

2011-10-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Update:
WINNER IS….

farabee

22 October, 2011

Teach me, teach me, teach me to use that new kit! Love that new kit!

Watch your email today for your coupon to get your kit for free! If you don't see it, email me and I will get to you right away.

I know I've been quiet a lot past few weeks. Sorry! We've been really busy at Digitals launching a new newsletter and some really kewl things to come. Be sure you are signed up there to see all the latest new art, exclusive newsletter freebies and of course the latest news. If you are not subscribed, click here to get on board! And you get a cute kit for subscribing too! Now how awesome is that?!

So I did a new kit finished to release next week. This started out over a month ago as an idea for a Holiday kit, but somehow morphed so I decided to release it now. Still would make a nice base kit with these colors for a Holiday kit… and you might see it as a Dec Daily template set, but I'm wanting to play with blending and transfers so I think it will turn into a very artsy set by the time I am done with it.

So here is your sneak peak… and from all who comment here, I will have random.com pick a winner this Monday by midnight PST to win this kit before it's released next Tuesday. :) You can tell or ask me anything you like.

And I found a new surprise from my Miss Bailey again. Her imagination never ceases to amaze me. I have her a bunch of my old papers from my paper scrapping days to play with this week. Look what what I found today waiting for me? :D Come on, you know you want to say it! "Awwww"

She calls this her "Love Box" complete with a card hidden inside.

And there was even a built in pocket inside the box with cute cut up dolls in it. :)

Don't I just have the most awesome grand-daughter?!

Love you babygirl!

Weekend Fun

2011-10-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

So we went to the movies last night and saw Contagion. Good movie by the way, a little too close to reality so it scares me more than a horror flick. But I like those kind of movies. :)

So this is what I woke up to on my desk from my little Miss Bailey. :) Come on, say it… "Awwww!" She's always making me happy little things and leaving them as cute little surprises to find. This little card will remind me how precious she is and how the littlest things can matter the most. :) Kind of like getting flowers for no reason at all. (which is what she did yesterday, but from my neighbor's yard! lol At least she asked first this time! )

So what does a girl do when she feels happy and inspired by such sweet little thoughts

and wants to doodle and play?

Draw her wild hair that is reflecting back at her on her window! LOL

ok, so I put it on a youthful face, cause this is NOT mine! lol Now just to think of a way to use this! Lynne seems to have it all figured out! lol Will have to see what she does.

And now I have tremendous urge to play today.

These colors are screaming out my name sitting here beside me.

Which of course leads my eye to the sewing table and my almost finished latest art quilt.

Which in turn leads my chair from my desk and magically slides over to my sewing machine.

Guess where I'll be the rest of the morning in my quiet corner?

Well, until Miss Bailey gets up at least and then we both will be there with her on my lap sewing our happy hearts out. :) Then we will be cleaning the pool, and tending to the gardens this afternoon enjoying being outside in the warm fall sunshine admiring the migrating humming birds taking roost in our tree for the winter. :)

Enjoy your day and your weekend!

Do something for yourself today that makes you feel happy!

Remember, you don't have a soul, you are a soul that has a body.

Evolution of a Page - Techniques for tearing paper and blending

2011-10-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with one of my favorite digi playmate's kits A walk in the Woods by Aria aka Lynne, to be released next week and wanted to experiment with some blending effects and layering elements as it's been a hot topic with my digisister group. >waving< Hi girls!
By the way, this kit is awesome for Fall layouts and also for any woodsy type of photos you might have. I just loved it and felt honored she let me play with it before it was released!

So here is the page I am making today of my eldest son Adam and his son Ashton. Perfect pictures for of them to use with this kit.

So I started with two of her awesome artsy papers and brought in one of my town edges from my Beautiful Mess 1 kit as I wanted to quickly tear one of the papers for layering.

The fist thing I do is pull all three into a new canvas with the torn edge on top. I had to size it up slightly using my transform grips to make sure it was over the edges of the canvas so it tore completely down the whole paper.
I used my my Magic Wand tool (W) and selected the area to the right of the torn edge. (see the marching ants around my selection below).
Then I went to the main menu Select>Modify>Expand and enlarged by 2px so that it was slightly larger than my torn edge.

I clicked onto my top paper layer and at the bottom of my layers panel, I clicked the Add Vector Mask icon. This masked over the part NOT selected, so I simply type Cmd/Ctrl I to invert the mask for the right side of my paper to be masked.

Now of course, my torn edge does not match the color scheme here. Easy peasy fix. I simply applied a color overlay using the Fx layer style by double clicking on the layer grey area.
I picked one of the lighter creamy colors from her paper, changed my blending mode to Overlay to retain some of the texture and clicked ok.

Next I dragged my torn edge layer below my top paper layer and with my Move Tool selected (V), I used my arrow keys and nudged it over 3 pixels by tapping the right arrow key 3 times so that just a tip of the creamy torn edge just peeks out from under the darker paper on top as if it was actually ripped like in real life.

I gave the torn edge a slight shadow, by again double clicking on the grey area of my layer in the layers panel, and setting my shadow setting to be 75%, 3px distance, 5px size and changed the blend mode to Linear Burn, so that it was just slightly lifted from the bottom paper for what I feel is the most realistic look for a paper on top of a paper.

Next I found she had an torn note paper element in her kit, so I brought that in under my torn edge layer. It was a little too busy for my photo, so I duplicated the top paper, dragged it over the torn note paper and clipped it to that to carry the color from the larger torn edge. Then I applied a drop shadow, created that into a layer by right clicking on the Fx icon on the layer and nudging the shadow layer a tad to make it appear the torn note paper is slightly lifted at it's corners.

I added one of my torn ledger papers, again from Beautiful Mess 1, then my photo on top and one of her element sticks and staples on top of that to ground and attach my photo.
so here is what I have so far. I'm sure I will tweak all of these and their placements as I develop the page, but this gives me a good visual of what I know I'd like to do.

Lynne has all these awesome fall leaves, some painted leaves and woodsy flowers in her kit, so I know I want to use some of those too. I'm sure some of them I will simply pull in, cluster or tuck in here or there with custom warped shadows but also wanting to play with another photo I have that I want to blend in here and maybe use some of these leaves to create a photo mask with and also thinking I could create a brush from 1 to blend in my next photo too.

So here was my progression of each added piece and what I did. It's really about playing with your specific photos and elements to find the arrangement you find most appealing. Do NOT think that I just simply dropped these in and placed and left them, I think I rearranged this layout 5 times before finding what I liked the most. That's part of the fun and all the while thinking about my boys and what maybe I will write as journaling on this.

Added some leaves tucked in here and there and peeking out above and beneath papers.

Added a leaf, enlarged and clipped a photo to it and tucked it under my torn paper.

I cut a piece of the background paper out using my marque tool and copying to a new layer. (select your area with the marque tool (M), and then click Cmd/Cntl J to copy to a new layer.)

I gave this a low shadow and added my journaling and turned both the paper piece and the journaling slightly using my transform grips and moving just under the leaf photo.

Then I used the same photo on the top corner, flipped it horizontally, (Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal), changed my blend mode to Multiply, duplicated the layer, and changed it to soft light to lighten it up, but still blended into the background.

I lowered the Multiply layer's opacity down to 33% to lighten it up a bit and blend in nicer.
I then created a brush from the large leaf.
Select Cmd/Ctrl click on the layer's icon to select, and from the main menu, Edit>Define Brush Preset.

I added a layer Mask to each of the photo layers.
And painted black on the mask with this leaf brush with varied opacities of flow to blend in my photo to the background.

Here was my final result. Added my Title and a date and called this done.

I encourage you to play a little with any of the techniques I have done here. Each can add it's own uniqueness to your layouts. Once you master one, add another one. Then start combining them to create your own beautiful memories.

If you have any questions on any of the items here, please feel free to visit us in the Tech Talk forum at Digitals. I would be happy to explain in detail on any of these techniques, and you never know, it just may appear in one of our newsletters at Digitals that we will be starting up Oct 22nd on Tuesdays. I'm calling it "Skill Building with Digitals", so be sure you are signed up to receive these.

Till next time,

Photo Tip From Aria: Auto Select

2011-10-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

Aria Digital Scrapbooking: Auto Select: A tip for beginners: An Auto Select checkbox is available in the Options Bar when you use your Move Tool. If you have trouble selecting an...

Birthday Party & Oct Art Journal Challenge

2011-10-01T05:16:00.000-07:00

Happy 7th Birthday Digitals! Come and celebrate with Digitals!
My ENTIRE Shop will be on sale all week for 30% off plus some little specials tucked in here and there too.

Plus, starting this month, I will be leading the Art Journal Challenge at Digitals on even months so be sure and stop by there and play with us. You can get a free mini Kit to get you started and when you complete it, I will send out a coordinating Bonus Kit for playing along. Both kits are created in the same colors and theme of the Birthday bash, so by the time the week is done, you will have huge MEGA Kit! WhooHoo!

Here's our flyer for the Birthday Bash and please feel free to link up your friends and post this on your blog or facebook too!

Here's some things going on!

October 1-7 and as always, it's your participation that makes it wonderful! Our theme this year is "Point and Shoot" and will focus on photography.

STOREWIDE SALE:We are having a store wide sale of 30% or more off everything!* We have over 10,000 products in a myriad of styles by your favorite designers so everyone will be able to find things to fit your needs.
*Excludes advertising and gift certificates.

BLOG TRAIN
Visit these designers' blogs every day Oct. 1-7 for a new freebie. Collect all 7 from each designer. The freebies change at midnight Eastern time each night. Be sure to thank them and shop in their stores!
Alessandra Designs http://www.alessandradesigns.blogspot.com/
Amanda Thorderson http://flamingo-amanda.blogspot.com/
DeDe Smith http://www.designzbydede.com
Diana Burton http://www.dbdesigns-scrapnmore.com/blog
Elka Romero http://elkaromero.com/
Kathryn Estry http://kathrynsdigitaldesigns.blogspot.com/
Kristmess http://kristmessdesigns.blogspot.com/
MC-Designs http://memoriecreations.blogspot.com/
Maddy Fernandez http://oilnwine.blogspot.com
Nini's Notions http://ninisnews.blogspot.com/
Pati Araujo http://patiartedesign.blogspot.com/
Paula Yagisawa http://designsbydreamerpaula.blogspot.com/
Silvia Romeo http://www.silviaromeo.blogspot.com/

CELEBRATION CROP
Hosted by DeDe Smith on Saturday, October 1st at 1-3pm EST in our chat room. DeDe will have a free mini kit for all who attend, lots of fun conversation, and a dozen prizes to give away so don't miss it!

PHOTO TREASURE HUNT
Join Hostess Amanda Thorderson in our Birthday Bash forum each day Oct. 1-7 for a fun photography-related challenge. Everyone who posts their completed challenge will receive a free mini kit each day! People who complete all 7 challenges will be entered into a drawing to win one of three prizes!

FACEBOOK FREEBIES
Each day, one of our designers will offer an exclusive freebie on her Facebook page. While you are there, we hope that you will Like their page. The freebie on Oct. 1 will be on the Digitals Facebook page and we will link there to the pages for the following days.

DAILY DOWNLOAD CARDS
Designer Glenda Ketcham has a free greeting card for you to download each day of our celebration in the store under the Free Downloads category. Be sure to come by every day of the week so you don't miss any!

CHALLENGES
For each challenge you complete, you earn one mini-kit. There are 12 challenges that start in October, plus a bonus set you can download for free in the storeand another on our Facebook page (Oct. 1 post). You can also earn 7 more pieces of the kit by participating in our Photo Treasure Hunt! Sign up to do the challenges here in the forum and get started on those fabulous pages!

See our Birthday Bash forum for all the up to the minute details!

And don't forget to get your October Digitals Newsletter too! Lots of goodies in there this month!

October (Birthday Edition)

New Art and Chance to WIN and extra coupon

2011-09-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hi again!
I am moving my new release dates up to Wednesdays from my usual day of Thursdays. So for today I have a new kit for release and on sale. Beautiful Mess 07 and Beautiful Mess Alpha & Numbers only.
Now they are 20% off already, but I'm going to give my followers an extra 10% off good from today through Friday only.

Extra 10% Coupon Code: Mess07

This is good for the kit and also on the Alpha & Numbers Mini kit. NOTE: Don't buy both, the Alpha and numbers are in the Beautiful Mess 07 kit, but if you only want them, I've given you the option to do that instead. :)

First here's a some awesome pages created by my awesome team! I just love these girls! They always amaze me with the pages they create! You can see the enlargements too if you like on the product page additional images and I'm sure they will be uploading to my Digitals Gallery soon too. ;)

And while you are here, I'd like to let you know that Digitals is turning 7 in a few days and they have lots of fun things planned you won't want to miss! Will have more details on Oct 1st for you!

But you will want to Save the Date for this one!

OH Almost forgot!

From all commenters here I will choose one winner to win a coupon good for the price of this kit.

You can comment anything you'd like me to know.

What kind of kits you'd like to see, colors, new techniques to learn,

even how your weather is where you are, anything! lol

I will be back on Saturday Morning to announce the Winner!

UPDATE:

I have received a few emails that Blogger is giving some people issues and those who want to comment for a chance to win have not been able to. Rest assured, if this happens to you, just drop me a note via email and I will put your name into the hat. Promise!

email me at cileniac at yahoo dot com

So sorry this is giving some of you problems today! Will do my best to figure out why.

Inspiration Tuesday - Art for Healing

2011-09-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Most know that I am not only a scrapbooker of life, but I am also a Life Journaler who expresses in her art and creates a mixture of art journaling and a diary which I like to call my Visual Chronicles. I also use digi art to create a LOT of wall art for our home and as gifts, but will save that for later.

Today I'd like to talk to you about using art and scrapping as a way of healing. I believe expressing yourself in your art and getting feelings and emotions out using it is one of the best ways to start a healing process. Many times I put all that negative on there and then paint over with possitive thoughts and words. Sometimes I just need to reinstate my positive affirmations too. It all helps!

I posted a little 2 weeks ago about needing some of these affirmations in front of me. I created the page, printed it and put it above my desk. It was filled with words of wisdom as a reminder to myself daily. You can see it here.
I also felt the need to create a page about the negative feeling so I could get it out of my system and put it away.

Next time life decides to throw lemons at you, dig into your stash and journal it and make some lemonade. :) I can just about guarantee you will feel better after.

Here are some samples from myself and a few of my "Creative Hearts" that I share with. And if you so choose to share yours, please link us up here so we can give you a big cyber space hug and some love on taking that first step towards healing within. And it's ok, not to share too! Took me a lot to post this one, but when I shared with a few very special friends, some of them were inspired to try it and have said how much it helped them too. So my wish is to reach out to more and share. We all know life is not always a bed of roses, but if we didn't have the bad with the good, the good would not be so wonderful when it did happen.

By me on a very sad day of realization

But this was me the very next day rejuvenated by releasing those negative feelings!

By Betty Jo

By Valerie

By Gail

By Sabrina

Tip of the Week - Cutting Alpha from a Sheet

2011-09-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

I include not only single png files of letters for my Alpha in my kits, but also a sheet of the entire alpha. Why? Because I prefer option 2 here on this week's Tip of the Week. Next week, I will show you a kewl trick on how to speed your workflow if you prefer to use the single png files.

Click pic to see full version you can print out and save

Art Journaling for the Muse to return

2011-09-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

So what does a girl do when she is working on a new digi scrap kit, a new Art Class, and has to also create a new challenge for the forums and hits this brick wall roadblock because her muse took a hike down the street for the day?
CREATE of course!

I had the backgrounds half created already… but have only half the kit done for a new Beautiful Mess kit I've been working on. I've been wanting to create a poster for my Studio with all the dark rich colors I love but bring into it some light and have some inspirational affirmation words to look upon.

So that is what I do when my muse has left me… I go within… deep into the soul. The black writing in the background is my negative words for the day… "why can't i focus" I've taken these words and blended into my background… they are there, but put away. Then I got to work on my positive words and get creative with writing and fonts and a little typography.

The end result? My Muse came back home! Yeah! Hopefully now I can complete my work with her happily singing in my ear. lol
Off to send this to my printer so I can frame it and hang on my wall above where I sit. :) I just bought a bunch of thin black 16x20 frames at Michaels at 40% off that are just dying to be filled and hung.

What a beautiful journey I had today awakening the soul. Thank you my muse! Now let's play!

Little Art Quilting, little Art Journaling, new products on sale

2011-09-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

A little digi, a little inking, got a bunch of new products in the shop and I'm one happy camper today! Ahhh accomplishment! What a great feeling. lol

So first here's how my morning went. Had a bit of a let down yesterday and was still feeling blue this morning, but I was determined to pick up my petticoat and give myself some words of wisdom for the day to remember. What you don't realize is I wrote all the negative journaling into the background and you can barely see the color of it through this… that's why they call art journaling therapeutic! :D Wirte it all out… then cover it up and put it away!

Credits: Beautiful Mess 4 - Mixed Media Kit Elements; Anna Aspnes - Art Paper Bkgrnd, Angie's Journal It - Exploration - Kit scallop elements and Angie's Altered Tags - Set 11 Dina Wakley Sihouette stamp.

One of my CTMs, Valerie, is just starting to get into Art Journaling, (yes, I corrupted another one lol),

anyways, she asked how I build my pages and wanted to see one from beginning to end… I responded to her…

"Hmmm down and dirty quick version?

Start with an artsy background like I did, (or make one like we will in the class).

Place overlays, artsy mats, title work, play with positions... add journaling as it comes to you... play some more with placements and color for balance... will learn some more about that too in the classes.... change it all over... put it away... take out play some more... LOL Get the picture? ROFL

Seriously... in real life and digital, I usually create sets of backgrounds as my mood strikes. I have been known to create huge sheets of background canvas and cut up for a journal too. I usually journal first most of the time because that's what drives me to Art Journal. 50% of the time I cover up negative journaling so it can just barely be made out it's there... bet you don't see it on this one, but it's there behind the final journaling in color... looks like splotches of color on the background. Journaling is therapeutic and healing, get it out... fade it out... put it away and think positive. :)

Then I usually add my elements, paint some more... and play with it. I do put it down eventually as you saw this morning. lol :)

If you are just starting out... play fast and furious! Who cares if it doesn't come out exactly the way you thought... it's for you! And you don't have to always do journaling... lots of mine are just words or titles that are from my thoughts. I'm in it for the play. :D"

On to my next "do something for yourself today" affirmation. :D

Next I played on my art quilt and got it all ready for sewing a little wild. That's my project for tonight… after dinner, after homework with kids and after giving Miss Bailey her bath. :) Or maybe 3am would be better. lol Just something fun to do that I doodle sketched by the pool a few weeks back.

So her she is, all ready to sew. This in on muslin and I use the Inktense blocks to paint and doddle everything with my Pilot Permaball Pen. Will have a nice home above my desk.

And I got a TON uploaded and on Sale now through Saturday in the shop today too.

Here's a few beautiful LOs from my team members Lynne, Lisa, Nicky & Beth! Wonderful job girls!

The items they used are all below.

MultiPhoto Templates Artsy 1-6 Bundle

Also sold in 2 page sets

The bonus with these over the MultiPhoto Set is there is a top layer of a wet film plate overlay that you can adjust opacity or blending on to give your page a special and unique look and also a bottom artsy overlay layer you can also adjust your opacity and blending mode on to give your background paper an artsy and unique look.

MultiPhoto Templates 1-6 Bundle

And the coordinating Kit

Vacation Time

Playing around with some Art Journaling

2011-09-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

I needed to get some mojo back so I did some Art Journaling today using some of my art with Angie Young's art. I just LUV playing with out digital art together. :)
I've had this quote in mind to do for a while… and as it says, I just needed to get back to being me. :) Hopefully this will fuel the muse and inspire me now (after my afternoon swim lol).

See here in the gallery for credits.

Have a great weekend!

Scraphic Design: Foundations | Seat Giveaway

2011-09-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

Tiffany is giving away a seat to her awesome class Scraphic Design: Foundations! I personally took this class and highly recommend it! Run over to Tiffany's Blog HERE and post a comment about your biggest design challenge for a chance to win!

If you already bought the class, you'll get a full refund if you win. Good Luck!

End of the month one day sale and some Inspirations

2011-08-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note.
Digitals is having an End of Month one day sale. Did you miss the last one? Get in on this one! :)
My shop is all 20% off for today Aug 31st only. Ends at Midnight PST.

Did you miss the release sale of my newest Kit Beautiful Mess 4 or the Stitches 06? Now you get them on sale.

And here's a little Inspiration from my AWESOME Team using the Beautiful Mess kits!
See MANY more here and all the credits from them and also some really inspirational ones from my customers!

Technique Thursday - Extending your stash with overlays and brushes

2011-08-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

Hi there!
Have a little tip for a technique to extend your paper stash today!

So you have this nice solid card stock! Nice color, but want a little more artsy style to it?

Take an overlay you have and pull into the layer above your card stock layer and name it 'Overlay'. Change the layer blending mode to soft light to lighten the tint. (You can experiment with other blending modes, just use this one for now.)

I used my Overlay from Artist's Tool Box 08.

So now you have a nice softly grunged paper.

Now let's create a new layer above your overlay layer. (Shift/cmd-N) and let's name it 'Brushwork'

Using your Brush Tool (B), select a texture brush you like. I again used one of mine from my Artist's Tool Box 08. And just stamp a few in a pleasing pattern. I used the color black.
Change the layer blend to Soft Light again to keep it simple for now.

Now we have another nice background. That's 3 from one card stock paper.

Now… want to have 2 more real fast, but have them coordinating with these?

Easy peasy! Select your Overlay layer and click cmd/ctrl I.

Do the same with your Brushwork layer.

This inverts the color of the layer from black to white.

Like magik, you have 2 more coordinating papers with the same hue but a different tint and shade!

Sweet!

Hope you liked this little quick trick technique today and if you like, create a paper of your own, play with different blending modes for each too. Then come back here and leave us a link if you like in the comments so we all can get inspired!

Till next time!

New Releases and Winner!

2011-08-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

I want to thank all of you who gave me suggestions and I've already created one new mini tutorial and another partially finished which both will be posted very soon in a very special place, so stay tuned cause you know I'm going to link you up!

Now for our Winner! #6 Comment, Flowersgal! Contact me via email to claim your prize at cileniac at yahoo dot com

Anonymous

21 August, 2011

Gorgeous kit. I would love to learn more about blending. So often I admire (but can't seem to duplicate) layouts using this technique.

flowersgal

You've won my newest release Beautiful Mess 04!

This is being released today and I put it on sale along with Stitches 06 PU and Stitches 06 CU kits from this month.

And if you are a Newsletter Subscriber, you will receive a NEW Painted 4 Template today so watch your email! If you're not, you're missing out on exclusive Freebies and Coupons. Sign up here near the top under Places to see or on my site CileniaCurtis.com under Newsletters.

Here is a page I made from the yet unreleased Painted 4 Template and Beautiful Mess 2

This page was created for a good friend and is a little reminder to him about never giving up his Little Boy dreams and how proud I am of him for it.

Till next time,

Sneak Peek and chance to win!

2011-08-20T06:57:00.000-07:00

Hi there everyone! Been very very busy here with some upcoming surprises, but did manage to get a new kit created for my Beautiful Mess series. Beautiful Mess 4 will be released Tuesday Aug 23rd. Want to win it before it's release?!? See at the bottom of this post how to. :)

Beautiful Mess 4 is all neutral colors and will work with many kits you already have in your stash extending them even more or use alone too. You will my love of mixed media really coming out in this one with with many rub-ons that are perfect for layering, using as masks to blend in your photos by either clipping to or using as an overlay on your photo and playing with the blending modes as show by Nicky here below.

By Nicky

From Nicky how she did this: I put the RubOn3 over my photo and shrunk it down just a little (the photo had been cropped to a 8x10). Then I changed the layer mode to Color Burn. Then I copied the layer, flipped it horizontally (edit, transform, flip horizontal), and moved it to the other edge. Then I used a layer mask on each. For one I used a circle brush to erase where the two rubons overlapped. Then I changed to Cilenia's Artist's Tool Box 04 watercolor brushes (which I use ALL THE TIME), and erased the parts that were over the baby. That's it.

Here's a little more art from a few of my AWESOME team members for your viewing pleasure.

Would you believe Valerie took these pictures at a local Shopping Mall! Wow, I want to shop there just to see this art and I'm not a shopper!

By Valerie

Valerie also used Stitches 06 - Framed - Personal Use

Wonderful Photos of when Marlyn and her family visited St. Paul ruins! So jealous but at least I get to enjoy the sight through the lens of her camera!

By Marlyn

Marlyn also used a template modified from Sketchbook Templates PSD Layered Quickpages

And I'd like to welcome our newest CTM Beth Ervin! She created a LO for Beautiful Mess 3 this week and used some items from the new Beautiful Mess 4 too. What a SWEET little girl and a perfect LO for this memory. Welcome Beth and thank you for being a part of our team!

By Beth

So how can you win this kit? It's simple! Just tell me something here in the comments you'd like to learn for any of your artistic endeavors! Be it digi scrapping, mixed media, art journaling or life journaling! I'm working on several nice little mini series of tutorials and want to make sure I include what you want to learn. :)

I will announce the Winner Tuesday morning here.

Ciao for now!

Tip of the Week #8 - Word Art Sticker

2011-08-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Ever want to make your own word art for a title that looks like a sticker? It's very easy! Here's how.

Click on pic to enlarge and save to your computer.
Thank you Dar for helping create this tip!

Inspirations and my morning muse

2011-08-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

I have been a little out of sorts this past week as I was not feeling at the top of my game with a four day long migraine, so I decided to spend some time cuddled up with my new Quilting Arts Mag in my bedroom with the shutters closed guarding my eyes from the intense Nevada sun. Feeling the inspirations taking me over, I started sketching ideas for a new Art Quilt I want to make as a gift for a friend who is learning design. I wanted to do something different but inspirational and educational. I plan on making a color wheel showing all the color families in flowers into a pretty art quilt. More on this later as I put this away until I finish my other art quilt with Miss Bailey. :)

I then went surfing for a new Beautiful Mess inspiration for a new digiscrap kit. I wanted something calming, (with my current state of being), and neutral. Something that could easily be combined with any colors from one's stash. I frequently read Rebecca Sower's blog since I discovered her back in 2009 from a Somerset Studio Mag I have. This week she posted this wonderful neutral photo collage and it's a perfect muse for me today. See her post here with all the photo credits.

So armed with my new inspiration, I came up with a "non-color" color theme! lol
Off White - Creams - Silver - Taupes - Charcoals

I spent my morning pulling fabrics, textures and my vast collection UFOs (Un-Finished-Objects), together in my studio to develop a mini inspiration board for this with my color swatch pulled from these. We'll see where this takes me and I promise to share my journey how I develop this.
Besides… it's not always about the destination, it's about the journey getting there. And that entitles playing… and if you know me personally, you know it's all bout the PLAY for me! :D

That reminds me of a quote I saved from Robert Dancik, a jewelry artist. I feel like I have said this a million times in one way or another and thought his words of wisdom were worth sharing with you.

"Do not underestimate the importance of play. Play is serious work. When I play, it is open-ended exploration into my artwork and my processes. I don’t focus on where it may lead or what the end product will be, but instead put my attention into enjoying and learning from the experience of simply exploring. So the next time you are creating, don’t worry about where you’ll end up... just enjoy the ride."
Off to play for now!

Photoshop Quick Tip 007 - Text Path Basics

2011-07-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

Today's Quick Tip is about how to create text paths in Photoshop CS.

Still converting all my past tips and tricks into these printable cards.

See all my Tip Cards and Designer Inspirations Cards

Last day of Christmas in July Sale & Blog Hop

2011-07-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!
Thank you SO much for all the comments here and also the ones sent to me personally… you guys have made my week with your sweet words of thanks! Big hugs to all of you!

Today is the last day of our Christmas in July Blog Train and Sale in the shop! But don't worry, follow me here and sign up for my newsletter so you never miss out of a freebie, coupon or tutorial.

Sundays early mornings before the house rises are usually spent with me doing something for me and I had seen a while back one of my fellow art quilting buddies doing a painted background and adding all kinds of keepsakes as embellishments… now it would have been awesome to share this with you if I could find the darn link! I just spent an hour going through my history even. Could have sworn I bookmarked it! I will find and post so you can see.

Anyways! It inspired me to create something for our digital stash. You know, those kits we just LOVE and like to look at too. Little bits from here and there. Of course, you can use this for many things, but it's just an idea. I will share mine when I get it completed.

I made the painted 3" squares from my brushes and paint textures and then created a new stitched grid… can't have a patchwork looking art quilt without stitches! lol

The "painted patches" are on one layer and if you click into your Layer Styles FX try a Color Overlay with your fav color. You will now have varied hues of the same color. Lay your stitches on top and you have the beginnings of a page to put pieces of your favorite things. :)

Of course you can put pictures too, but since we are all obsessive scrappers and have lots of stash, this seemed like a kewl way to show them off just like quilters do in using their fabric stashes and left over lovelies. I will be taking mine and printing and putting on a piece of stretched canvas or wood with a clear gesso and then adding some things like real pins and thimbles and some added touches of inks and doodles to celebrate my love of digi, quilting and art. :)

Hope you enjoy and I'd love links back to your art too to see what you come up with!

Here is your download link for Xmas-in-July-25

Here is a list of all the wonderful Designers participating this week for our Christmas in July Blog Train!

Make sure you check back each day for a new freebie. And be sure you leave a little love for each of them you download! These girls work hard to bring you these gifts!

Alessandra Designs http://www.alessandradesigns.blogspot.com/
Amanda Thorderson http://flamingo-amanda.blogspot.com/
Barb Speck http://www.barbspeck.blogspot.com/
Cilenia Curtis http://cileniacurtis.blogspot.com/
DeDe Smith http://www.designzbydede.com/
Diana Burton http://dbdesigns-scrapnmore.com/blog/
doinDigital http://doindigital.blogspot.com/
Elka Romero http://elkaromero.com/
Helena Monteiro http://helenamonteirodesigns.com/
Kathryn Estry http://kathrynsdigitaldesigns.blogspot.com/
Maddy Fernandez http://oilnwine.blogspot.com/
Nini's Notions http://ninisnews.blogspot.com/
Pati Araujo http://patiartedesign.blogspot.com/
Silvia Romeo http://www.silviaromeo.blogspot.com/
Tallula Moon www.tallulamoon.com

Dreamerpaula http://designsbydreamerpaula.blogspot.com/

christmas in July Day 7 Freebie & Winner

2011-07-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! Weekend? yea, that word is not really in my vocabulary, but I did play a little today with my seahorses. :) They got some new sea grass to hang around in. They kept curling around my fingers while I tried to plant it in their tank. Gotta love it. :D

I also want to thank everyone for all their comments all week! Really makes a girl feel loved! Thank you!

OK, on to the good stuff! Lets see who random.org picked for our winner of my upcoming kit Beautiful Mess 3 from Day 5.
drum roll please…

Anonymous

22 July, 2011

Thank you so much for sharing your talents.
I would love to see a kit that features things a woman might choose to do to relax. Scrapbook, knit, sew, read, journal, listen to music, travel... We are all so hectic with our lives anymore that we have forgotten how to relax and decompress. In the old days women used to travel and visit more. They had the same amount of time as we have but they had a secret.... they made the effort to go visit and they took their handwork with them. They would take their embroidery, darning, knitting anything that could be packed along easily and done while visiting. We are losing so many things, How many people do you know that tat these days? I have taught myself how to tat and it is fabulous for relaxing. Thanks again!

Anonymous, please email me at cileniac at yahoo dot com to claim your prize!

On to today's freebie. I luv bits and pieces to tuck and overlay or layer. So I thought I'd share some I made this week. I made and am using these with my Beautiful Mess 2 kit, but you could easily recolor if you like to use with any of your stash.

Here is your download. Bits-of-Mess