Pixel Scrapper August Blog Train - Star-Stuff

This month's blog train palette excites me like crazy. So many of the colors on it are ones I absolutely love, hands down, and at least one of the suggested themes was my suggestion ("Galaxy," inspired by some gorgeous star photography and similar using a lot of the turquoise, blue, and purple elements with a dash of a salmon-pink). I knew exactly what I wanted to put together.

Of course, half the month disappeared on me. That seems to be the theme this year. I finished up half the papers early in the month, and then somehow two weeks got away from me and I was quickly running out of time to work on the rest of the kit. I will definitely have to revisit this theme and palette to expand it.

The primary inspiration for this was the Carl Sagan quote, "We are all made of star-stuff." I really wanted to draw that feeling of stars and nebulas into the "galaxy" theme, so I broke out my glitter effects and sparkle brushes, and since a lot of my paint spatter and swipe effects worked well with those, I worked around that a lot. I think the end result is perfect.

Download on Dropbox HERE

As before, the preview shows the limited portion of the palette I used. You can find the full palette at Pixel Scrapper with the rest of the blog train contributions. Everyone's made a great kit to go with the palette, including some great space-science-themed kits.

Thank you for downloading!

Pixel Scrapper Blog Train for July, plus a bonus!

Starting this month, the Pixel Scrapper Blog Train has changed things up a bit. Since some people wanted to play with the colors more and frequently people wanted to go a bit (or a lot) afield of the chosen theme, rather than a single small palette and theme, Marissa decided to try an expanded palette and four suggested themes. This gave designers more "sanctioned" leeway for their designs, and it was well-received in the forums. We'll see how it plays out in practice. I will say, I do miss the cohesiveness previous kits had, but I'm not opposed to this idea.

Here's the guide for this month:

Given the theme and color options, I decided I wanted to do a nautical-themed kit. I'd seen the inspiration photo in the suggestions thread and it appealed to me as a color challenge I hadn't done yet, and would give me some good design ideas to play with. I put off working on it until midway through June, though (life and mood both got in the way), so I tried not to go overboard on the number of elements (no pun intended). I may revisit in the future to expand on the kit, as with many others I've done.

One great thing about the Nautical kit was that I was able to reuse some discarded paper designs from last month's Kumbaya kit. I mentioned on that post that I went through a few paper designs that just didn't work out, so I set them aside. Since they were water-themed, I went back to them and recolored two of the designs and put them in this kit instead (along with a color variant of one).

Since the palettes have expanded, I've started including the palette I used in my preview, as seen in the bottom-right corner. Not every color will necessarily be strongly represented in the kit, but it at least gives an idea of what I restricted myself to.

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But wait, there's more! I wanted to do the fantasy theme too, but not necessarily devote a regular-size blog train contribution to it, so I thought I'd put together a bonus mini for that theme with different color choices. Since I was limiting myself to a very small kit for this, I had to narrow the "fantasy" focus down. We did "Renaissance Faire" last year, so I didn't want to overlap with that terribly much (no sense retreading the same ground when I don't have to). I toyed with the idea of doing dragons, unicorns, princesses, etc., until I came across some inspiration (via Google Image Search) for fairies. I decided I'd do that.

I started with silhouettes of ballerinas, to which I added butterfly wings. I wanted a paper cut-out look to them, so I layered them and added glitter to the wings. The rest of the kit was pulled together with the intent for the pieces to mix and match a little into a single designed scrapbook page, so there's a frame, some paint stamps, a single ribbon, and a bunch of flowers and leaves. Overall, I think it looks pretty good for being put together in two days.

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When you're done picking up your kits, head over to Pixel Scrapper to find the other lovely contributions to this blog train!

Pixel Scrapper June Blog Train

The June blog train theme over at Pixel Scrapper is "Kumbaya," with a nice, bright color palette. The person who suggested the theme mentioned that she was thinking of camping when she suggested it, and that's generally the first thing that comes to mind when I hear that, so I rolled with it.

Growing up, my family camped frequently, and I loved it. My husband and I still try to go camping on the regular with our kids, even if I'm a bit of the less adventurous type (I much rather have easy access to a restroom with flushing toilets, thank you).

This kit was surprisingly difficult to assemble, given the nice palette and the woodsy, camping theme. I ended up making three failed attempts at one paper (saved for a later project) before hitting on one of them, and another paper became a journal card when it didn't really seem to jive with the rest of the papers. By far the easiest part was the word art, which I had firmly in mind from the get-go and love how it turned out. Also one of the journal cards is a modified photo I took of a quote burned into a tree stump that was carved into a chair at our local botanical garden.

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When you're done here, head over to Pixel Scrapper for the rest of the blog train. There's a good variety there, with some outdoorsy/camping kits like mine, some very groovy "hippie" ones, and some spiritual-themed ones inspired by the lyrics and history of the "Kumbaya" song itself.

PixelScrapper May Blog Train - Vintage Memories

Happy May, everyone! I hope this blog post finds you well.

This month's blog train theme is "Vintage Memories." When I think "vintage," I tend to think of fancy old wallpaper patterns, dusty pages in old encyclopedias, and lace. Lots of lace. The color palette for this one also had that dusty old feel to it, which worked great for what I had in mind.

The main problem with this one was just cleaning up images of lace. Honestly, why are there so many tiny bits? On the other hand, I had a lot of fun making the two frames I used, a tea-stained Polaroid frame and a vintage cardboard slide with a bit of tape on it. And confession time: one of the papers is just a slightly adjusted photo of a tablecloth I have.

Download link has expired.

When you're done, head over to PixelScrapper for the rest of the blog train. Everyone has done a wonderful job on their parts!

PixelScrapper April Blog Train ... not a Fools post ;)

Happy April, everyone! March got rather crazy there, and it's not showing signs of slowing down at the moment, so first and foremost, everyone stay safe and stay healthy, and please WASH YOUR HANDS!

Before we get to the blog train entry, I want to apologize for any slowness on my end getting my past blog train kits up for purchase. We've had an adjustment period here getting the kids setup with their online classes and dealing with other stresses in our lives. Rest assured I'm still working on putting the kits up on my Etsy shop, where you will be able to purchase ones you've missed (every dollar helps). I'll be posting here as those go up, so you know which ones will be available and when.

On to the blog train, and I hope it helps cheer you up. The theme this month is "Around the World." True, it's a bit difficult to do an in-person world tour right now, but maybe you've got photos from past trips you want to scrap. Maybe this train will give you some ideas for upcoming trips. Who knows. :)

I had fun with this one. So many ideas. I know when I suggested the palette I was intending to play with some fun contrast between the blues and orange/golds included, though ultimately my mini took a lean toward the browner shades. I still love it. I really wanted to do something with vintage travel posters, which resulted in me learning different ways to force an image to a specific palette with varying results. I'm happy with the end product, though, and want to play with this one more in the future.

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When you're done, head over to PixelScrapper to find the rest of the blog train. There are a lot of fun vintage-feel kits mixed in with everything, if that's your jam.

Hope you have a good month, and hang in there!

PixelScrapper March Blog Train

It's a new month, and that means a new blog train!

For March, the theme chosen was "My Tribe" with a soft palette heavy in cool colors. The theme is meant to evoke unity, friendship, family, and connections, so I decided I would go with my "family of choice," my close friends.

This one was trickier for me, not because the theme was difficult, but because I had a rough month with inspiration hiding and leaving me with an artist's block. I managed to power through at the last minute, though, and put this mini kit together for you. Like my other mini kits, I may expand on this one in the future to assemble something larger. In the meantime, enjoy!

Link expired. Check my Etsy for the kit later!

When you're done, head over to PixelScrapper to pick up the rest of the blog train contributions.

Stay tuned to this blog for updates on where you can get past blog train mini kits you may have missed.

PixelScrapper Blog Train Freebie and Coordinating Kit Sale!

Happy February, all! The theme for this month's blog train over at PixelScrapper is "Delish," a food-inspired theme and palette. You'll find my contribution at the bottom of this post.

This time around I had so many ideas for things to make that I ended up pulling together an entire kit, in addition to my blog train freebie. For the month of February only, you can get the coordinating kit 50% off using the coupon code PSFEB2020BLOGTRAIN. Just visit my shop and the code should apply (if not, you'll enter it at checkout).

Inside this coordinating kit, you'll find lots of extra elements that coordinate with the blog train freebie, as well as a printable PDF for the recipe cards included in both kits. This coordinating kit includes:

• 22 12"x12" digital papers (14 patterned, 8 solid)
• 12 themed word art
• 3 recipe cards
• 1 coordinating alpha
• 44 additional elements
• 1 PDF with 4 printable recipe cards (three different designs, one variant)

Doesn't it look so nice in use?

And here is the mini kit for the blog train, which uses items that coordinate with the above kit. This mini will only be free for the month of February, so get it while you can! (Includes alternate British spellings where applicable.)

Link expired. Look for the mini in my shop later this month!

And when you're done, hop over to PixelScrapper for the rest of the lovely contributions in this train.

Thank you, and have a lovely month!