Designer Spotlight (February 2026)

February 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Jumpstart Designs

This month’s Designer Spotlight is shining on Jen from J Conlon and Sons, and Sheri, also known as Jumpstart Designs. Jen hasn’t been in touch so I’m not sure if I’ll have a post highlighting her – but she IS hosting some Challenges and such, so I’ll drop that info at the end.

As you may remember, Sheri and I have known each other a long time. But she can still surprise me! We started out with the formalities, chatting about designing. What follows is a transcript of our conversation.

J: I think I know the answer to to this, but I’ll ask you anyway. What lights your design fire most?

S: Color! And sometimes I’ll get inspired by reviewing all the PINS I’ve saved on Pinterest over the years.

J: I KNEW you were going to say colour!! That’s one thing that’s always obvious when looking at your designs. There’s an indefinable quality to the way you use colour that’s very appealing. This one might take a little thought on your part. If you could only use THREE design tools for the rest of your career, what would they be?

S: CTRL-Z (undo) is my favorite Photoshop “tool” for sure! As for the other two…. CTRL-Z and CTRL-Z! LOL

J: <snort-laughs> My sister!! If you’ve read any of my tutorials, I mention CTRL/CMD>Z ALL the time! (I don’t discriminate – Mac commands are always included too.) I’ve found a bunch of other places it works, and use it with gusto. What does your design process look like?

S:    Remember, you asked!

  • I look around for inspiring ideas
  • Think of a kit name
  • Create my preview packaging with pretty title-work. Create files for every product (elements, add-ons, papers, wordart, etc.) so they are all ready to go.
  • Start on elements (usually florals first. I love them).
  • Add to previews as I go along.
  • After about a dozen elements, I change my mind and decide the preview packaging should be a different color, so I change them all.
  • Create more elements then tweak the colors more.
  • Go back and change the preview packaging again.
  • Work on more elements. Stare at them a bunch. Tweak them more.
  • Decide maybe I should go with a different style. Re-do everything.
  • Stare at them a bunch. Tweak them more. Change previews again.
  • Eventually work on papers and other elements.
  • Go back and tweak some more.
  • Tweak the previews more….
  • And on… and on… and on… LOL
  • And about the time I FINALLY get everything done and uploaded to the shop, I noticed I messed SOMETHING up and must go back and fix everything. LOL

J: That’s very… detailed. Almost like I wrote it! 😉 It’s interesting that you use the previews as your foundation. But it works, so don’t change anything!! So, knowing all that, what’s the most challenging part of digital designing? I mean, after all the false starts. ;D

S: The amount of time it takes me to complete a kit or collection. I’ve been told I’m too picky about little details, including how I do my previews. It’s shocking how much time I spend changing and tweaking things. I often wonder how other designers manage to put new designs out so frequently.

J: See above! Your attention to detail is a huge benefit for your fans, though. But yeah, it’s a mystery to me how some Designers are SO prolific. They have to have some kind of secret sauce or something! Wow, those noodles I ate for lunch are making me thirsty. But boy were they good! If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

S: Anything Mexican and cheesy!

J: So, are nachos your go-to comfort food, or is there some other yummy thing you love?

S: Funeral potatoes. WHAT????? (you say)? Yes, funeral potatoes are a thing here in Utah. If you ever want to know what they are, or get the recipe, let me know.

J: I know funeral potatoes! They don’t show up much at the funerals I attend – we lean on perogies… similar principle. My cousin always brings a big tub of soup. She’s half Ukrainian and she says, “Soup makes you strong like bull!” in a heavily accented, gruff voice that sounds just like my uncle. Yeah, we’re a little odd. What’s the funniest thing you believed when you were a kid?

S: As a young child around ten years old, I had heard of “carpools” but really had no idea what “carpooling” was. One day when riding with my mom in the car, we pulled up next to an El Camino and I pointed to it and said, “Look Mom! A Carpool!” (It made sense to me at the time.)

J: It makes perfect sense to me! What else would you do with that? It would be hilarious to see one filled with water and pool floaties, inflatable palm trees  and flamingos around the edges. I can see it now! 😀 Are you a prankster? Have you ever pulled off the perfect prank?

S: Several years ago, I worked for an aerospace company and one of the Engineers that worked there was a huge fan of Twinkies. He always had several boxes of them in his office, and everyone was always teasing him about it. One day me and another co-worker “kidnapped” all of them and held them for ransom. Not a monetary ransom, but just for silly things. He didn’t know which of the several people in the office did it, and it was hilarious watching him try to find out. Nearly every day we would leave him another “ransom note” with different clues or silly demands. It provided daily entertainment and laughter for almost two months before we gave in.

J: OMG! That would have been priceless! I used to work with a very… um… particular… doctor who NEVER had a pen with him. (I mean, come on! How do you write orders in a paper chart without a pen, Laurance?) One day, I waited patiently for him to ask if he could borrow my pen – then handed him a hot pink one with a gigantic blinking eyeball, complete with lashes, on the end. The silence from all the others on rounds was deafening, but I could tell everybody was trying so hard not to laugh. I’d like to say that was the last time he borrowed a pen from me, but no. I can’t. I kinda miss that chaos. Wish I could just pop in once in awhile, just to see my team. Oh well. If you could teleport anywhere in the world, where would it be?

S: WEIRD ANSWER ALERT! I’d teleport to Bali, and here’s why:

I was watching a Netflix series called THE WORLD’S MOST AMAZING VACATION RENTALS. Season 1, Episode 1 is called “The Best of Bali”. The first half of the episode shows the most adorable authentic bamboo hut, surrounded by tropical gardens. It is the coolest thing ever! If I could be anywhere right now… it would be there.

J: I can just see you examining the walls to make sure they used real bamboo. A lot of your designs have a distinct tropical flavour, so I don’t think this is a weird answer at all. Now I think I need to get down to business. Have a fabulous Spotlight month, Sheri!

You’re here on the GingerScraps Blog, so I know you’re aware of the Daily Downloads. This is Sheri‘s sneak peek.

Isn’t that cute?! She’s host of one Designer Spotlight Challenge this month, and her regular Jumpstart Your Layouts Challenge, which includes this free (not exactly) mini-kit:

Jen‘s Designer Spotlight Challenge joins her regular Template Challenge and there’s a sneak peek for her Daily Download in her Designer Spotlight thread. Be sure to check them out!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Daily Download, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Feature Designer, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

January 27, 2026 by 1 Comment

Quick Trick: Curses… That Cursor!

Today’s Quick Trick is a touch self-serving, but I can’t be the only one who has old eyes… My mom turned 90 on Sunday and I wanted to surprise her with my favourite black-and-white photo of her, taken in 1963. But it was COVERED in dust specks, and I couldn’t leave it like that! So I opened it up in PSE to fix it. Well. The Spot Healing Brush cursor has become completely invisible to my rapidly declining eyes when the background is any shade of gray and I soon had a headache from trying to see it. There’s a little trick that can help locate it – using the space bar to change the cursor momentarily to the Hand Tool – but it’s very momentary, and if you try to move it, POOF! I needed a better solution, so I did a web search. The results weren’t encouraging… there’s no way to change the colour of the cursor, which would have been perfect. So I tried some of the suggestions people offered. Changing the “pointer” settings in Windows didn’t do anything useful, but I did find something that worked, sort of. I’ll show you what I settled on.

Oy, these screenshots don’t show well here. So I’ll narrate. I clicked Edit>Preferences>Display & Cursors… to access the cursor settings.

These were the settings I was working with for the Painting Cursor, which is what Elements classifies both the Spot Healing Brush and the Clone Stamp. These settings were Normal Brush Tip and Show Crosshair in Brush Tip. That setting appears as a circle with crosshairs inside it. It shows up well on white – it turns black and pops nicely – and black, because it’s white. But any shade of gray and it’s totally invisible to me.

I tested some other options and didn’t like the ones that use an eye-dropper icon. When I switched to Precise and left the Crosshair box ticked. the cursor changed from that faint circle with the crosshairs to just a plus sign, but it was infinitely more visible even against most shades of gray. The one drawback is that the SIZE of the Brush Tip isn’t obvious with this setting. The Shield will appear when you click the Brush over a spot, and you’ll have an idea of size that way. I can live with that.

I will be writing a Lasso-vs-Magic Wand Selection post for you, but I’ve discovered I’ll need more time to prepare it than I expected. Since my husband’s eye surgery I’ve been doing all of our son’s care and transfers in addition to all of my own usual tasks, so I haven’t had a ton of spare time. He has another follow-up with the ophthalmologist on Thursday and hopefully will be cleared to get back to normal. Watch this space!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Wednesday (Individual Style)

January 21, 2026 by 2 Comments

Challenge Spotlight: Mini Kit

Wow, you GingerScrappers have been busy this month! As of 1:20 pm PST, there have been 654 individual layouts uploaded to the 2026 Challenge Galleries. That’s phenomenal… and I think I should track the totals for the year to see just how prolific we are.

I’ve spoken before about what makes a Challenge ideal for an Individual Style Blog post, but I’ll go over it again. Of course, the participants for every Challenge are given identical criteria for each Challenge. Some Challenges can be met in a really wide variety of ways, while others are more narrowly defined. For example the Color Challenge provides participants with 2, 3 or 4 colors that must be used for their layouts. But there are a multitude of kits in the Shop that will fit the criteria. So narrow, but not. On the other hand, the Use It All Challenge provides a mini kit with maybe 10-12 items in it, all of which must be visible on the layouts. Narrow! These narrower Challenges are best suited for an Individual Style analysis. How does the Scrapper USE IT ALL? Can the viewer identify that Scrapper‘s style? What sets them apart? So with that in mind. this month the Challenge I selected is the Mini Kit, hosted by Lisa Rosa Designs. This is the kit: 5 papers, 3 flowers, some foliage, a film strip and 4 word art bits. It coordinates with Lisa‘s Between Then & Next collection, and participants are welcome to use it to enhance their layouts. Let’s look at how it’s been used.

Before I get rolling, I’m going to add some of my periodic reminders about the Challenge Spotlight posts, which may also apply to other posts too. Every layout I post here will be linked to the Gallery so that you can get a closer look, and maybe leave a comment. The link will be attached to the Scrapper’s user name. It will be in coloured, bold, underlined text. Any time you see some coloured, bold, underlined texts in any of my posts, you can safely assume they’re hyperlinks in disguise. Try it out! One other thing about this series of posts is that when I choose a Challenge to examine, I may not be able to post EVERY layout that has been completed for the month, due to the sheer volume of them! (That’s a good thing!!!) To be completely fair in that situation I’ll select all the odd- or even- numbered layouts, or I’ll use a Random.Org randomizer. That way, it’s not me personally choosing which layouts to post, and I’ll always explain how the layouts were arrived at. This month, I selected the odd-numbered layouts.

Layout #1 belongs to nimble4u. She has used all but the word art bits for her layout. She extended the filmstrip to accommodate the photos she wanted to include.

For her layout, photocrazy used all but the mustard patterned paper – which I feel was the right call – and split the filmstrip into two pieces. Using them as background elements rather than to frame smaller photos allows her sunset photo to stand out. Note how the colours in the sky are picked up by the papers, almost as an extension of her photo. Her choice of word art bits is spot-on. Well done!

Here, dhariana chose not to use the large ivory-backed floral paper and used clipping shapes for her paper accents. She chose a spare, white-space style for her version, and added some stitching as an anchor for her cluster. The simple word art title completes the layout.

SandraJ has used the entire mini kit here. The floral background paper draws the eye in, the single photo stretched the entire width of the film strip and the creative use of the word art bits keep the eye moving.

Nice ‘do, beccasue! She’s used the film strip as a clipping mask for the blue-gray paper, tucking a greatly reduced-size scrap of the striped paper in behind her floral cluster. She has also recoloured some of her flowers. The soft pink background and word art title suggest she really feels transformed.

We have our first adding-to-the-mini layout from justpennys. She’s used items from the mini, such as the flowers and foliage, she’s clipped papers to the tags, blended the mustard coloured mini kit paper with one from the collection and used some of the word art from both to form her title and subtitle. Then she’s added a plethora of elements and papers from the full collection. Nice!

The ivory floral background makes a reappearance with trinanne. It’s the only paper she used, other than a sliver of the pink for a journaling block. She kept the focus on the film strip of smiling faces.

Glori2 chose to document growth in a little person learning new skills. That narrow strip of striped paper divides the layout neatly across the middle, with paired film strips providing the proof. There’s not a shred of pink to be seen. 😉

Are you laughing our loud right now? I LOVE the humour in makeyesup‘s layout. It’s true – dogs have masters, cats have staff. 🙂 I like the narrow yellow paper borders overlying the striped paper in the background and the blue-gray paper in the foreground.

For her layout, kabrak1207 has used almost everything from the mini and added some bits from the Between Then & Next. It’s interesting that the way she’s arranged the papers in her stack makes that blue-gray paper look more green. The spray of elements along the edge of her photo adds the perfect touch to bring all the attention to the little girl’s eyes.

I hope I haven’t made any glaring typos! I never realized how much I use my left ring finger before. The splint is doing the job and I might be able to leave it off in a day or so. And I really should analyze how I injured it so I can prevent a recurrence. Anyway, how would you all like me to learn the difference between the Lasso Tool and the Magic Wand Tool and share it with you?

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Challenge Spotlight, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, GingerBread Ladies, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

January 13, 2026 by 5 Comments

Greatest Hits: Decluttering Isn’t Just for Homes

It’s January. It’s bone-chillingly cold in some parts of the world (although oddly enough, we’re having a very mild winter) and unseasonably warm in others. The holidays are over, and winter stretches out in front of us like a long and bumpy road. There’re no truly exciting events on the horizon, so what’s a girl to do? Well, the flyers are filled with supplies for organizing our stuff… But for Digi-Scrappers, we don’t need to buy anything. It’s all right in front of us! I think now is a good time to talk about organizing our stuff, and maybe actually making some effort to get ‘er done. This is how I do it, but I know y’all have your own way of doing things, The important part is to DO it!

It’s not as important where we start as that we actually DO start. For me, the place to begin will be with all the new kits I’ve amassed but haven’t unzipped. This is actually my New Year’s Resolution, to unzip and relocate my supplies as soon as I download them. I was keeping up just fine for awhile, don’t even ask me how it fell apart this time. I have a backlog, and I WILL attend to it. Eventually. I was using an unzip app but when I moved to my current laptop, I found the newest version to be.. unhelpful. So I went back to the labour-intensive single-folder method. It’s a tiny bit easier with Windows 11, but still laborious. I find it’s less work to create a new folder for those kits with multiple downloads, so they are all in one place when it’s time to ditch the stuff I’m never going to use. Then I don’t have to go back and search all the download folders to find the ones I’ve unzipped. I go through each of the subfolders, deleting all the duplicate previews and things I know I’m not going to use (like alpha sheets!). If the kit is templates, I delete the PNG files and the TIFF files, and I add to the name of the previews to include single or double and the number of photo spots the template includes. That lets me put a keyword like “single4” in the search bar and Windows will find all the previews with 4 photo spots. Once I’ve arranged my folders the way I like them, I move them en bloc to my digikit folder for the store or designer as appropriate. Then my download folder should be empty. Until I fill it up again!

The way I sort my digikits is primarily by store or by designer’s creative team, My GingerScraps folder is ENORMOUS!  With Tinci Designs‘ retirement, I’ll be moving all her folders to a peripheral drive and my main GS folder will be much thinner. 🙁 I rename each kit’s folder: DesignerNameKitName, unless it’s a Buffet kit, then it’s MonthYearBufDesignerNameKitName. That makes it easier when I’m doing a store challenge.

I try to organize my photos as I take them, so the job isn’t too daunting. I don’t care for the Organizer that comes with Photoshop Elements so I don’t use it. But it can be very useful for both organizing and retrieving your photos. The Help menu can give you some ideas about how to maximize your efficiency. The way I file my photos is in folders… what else? I create a new folder for the current year, and a subfolder for each month. (I used to religiously rename my photos for easier retrieval, but have gotten lazy lately. Sigh. Another task on the To Do List.) Photos go into the folder for the month and year they were taken so I have some frame of reference later. I have a folder for the photos my friend Sandy takes and graciously allows me to ‘steal’ and one for the photos I download from Pixabay. My Pixabay folder is broken down into subfolders by topic: Kids, Insects/Flowers, Animals, Portraits, Scenic and such. This method of filing makes it a lot faster to find what I’m looking for.

I also organize my layouts. I have folders for each month’s challenges, with subfolders for the challenges themselves. When the year is over, they all collectively are filed in a folder for the whole year. Then again, I have some folders that have copies of the finished layouts for my daughters’ weddings, my grandkids’ first years, all of my Ireland layouts and for the creative teams I’m on. It’s all about finding things later!

I (once again) haven’t taken the time to go through my 1400+ fonts and retag them for MainType. I lost a bunch of fonts when I set up this laptop, and have had to either track them down and download again, or just let them go. I really do need to get on with it! It’s a daunting task, but you know what they say. Focus on the first step. I know the time I spend on it now will decrease the time it takes me to find the one font I’m looking for later. The best part of MainType is that I decide what my tags are, based on MY workflow – how I search for things. And like everything else, if I work at it as I add new fonts, the amount of time I spend on it will go way down. My husband had eye surgery yesterday and we’re still working out how to navigate his limitations; I don’t know if I’ll have free time to actually start anything, never mind anything that requires focus and concentration. But just writing about it is giving me a rash, so let’s move on!

One caveat. If you’re going to delete duplicate files, make sure you only delete the ones you’re not going to want to search for later. I made the mistake of using a Windows utility and chose the wrong metric so it removed a LOT of my original templates and left me with the PSD files for the last layout I used them for. Retrieving the original template takes a lot of time but is necessary when I use the search feature to find previews for my desired number of photos. Oh, and maybe now’s a good time to BACK UP all your stuff.

I’m interested to hear how YOU organize your stuff. So please, share your secrets!

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Designer Spotlight (January 2026)

January 6, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Neia Scraps

Welcome to the first Designer Spotlight of 2026! Up first this year is the Über-productive and highly-sought-after Edneia aka Neia Scraps. Now, Neia and I have had a number of chats, and this time we’ve come up with some great new schtick… she has a great sense of humour and we get along like a house on fire. Wanna know what I’ve learned about her lately? Read on!

J: I’m so happy you’re here again! We must be doing something right, you keep coming back for more. I told you last time we talked how much I love the small changes you’ve made to the spirit of your designs. Bet you didn’t know I bought about a dozen of your collections not long after that chat. 😉 Before we really get into it, let’s remind everybody how you got into digital design in the first place.

N: It started very naturally. I was drawn to the creative freedom — being able to tell stories visually without strict rules. Over time, it became my main creative language.

J: Ah, creative freedom! That’s something we all enjoy. What’s the main source of your inspiration when designing a new collection?

N: Usually a feeling first, not an object. I like starting with a mood and letting the elements grow from there.

J: That explains the subtle shift in your work. It’s definitely more sensitive and passionate. How would you describe your work?

N: Artistic, emotional, and organic.

J: Totally! I’ve noticed that your collections have expanded and become very inclusive. Do you prefer designing papers or elements?

N: Elements. They feel more organic to me — like little characters that can live in many different stories.

J: That’s a great way to describe them. I love elements that are truly versatile. Because, well… my credit lists are the stuff of legend. 😀 I often take one element from each of a dozen kits and bring them all together into one layout. It’s fun! What do you enjoy most about seeing others use your designs?

N: Seeing how personal their pages become. The designs are mine, but the stories are theirs — and that’s the best part.

J: It must be so satisfying! Now, since colour is a huge part of designing, if you could BE a colour, which one would you choose?

N: A soft neutral. Calm on the surface, but very flexible and expressive when combined with other colors.

J: I love it! Colour Ninja! So how do you unwind after a long design-superhero day?

N: A quiet moment with coffee or tea. I like letting my mind wander — that’s usually when new ideas show up.

J: I like a nice snuggle with one of my dogs. (Lately, not the one that keeps peeing on the hallway runner. She’s on the bad-dog list. :D) If you could have any animal, real or imaginary, as a pet, what would you have?

N: A dragon. I’d love to fly on its back. And if that sounds a little Fourth Wing–inspired… that’s definitely not a coincidence.

J: Nothing wrong with a little flight-of-fancy! Would you teleport if you could?

N: I’d go somewhere cold and calm. Snow, trees, a cozy place… the kind of place where ideas slow down and settle.

J: Canada fits that bill! Right now, where I live, we don’t actually have any snow – which is NOT usual, but it’s making a lot of people happy. What one thing always makes you smile?

N: When someone uses my designs in a way I never imagined. That’s always a nice surprise.

J: Aha! You’ve thrown down a gauntlet there. Hear that everybody? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a completely unique and unexpected way to use Neia Scraps designs for a layout. Even better? She’s hosting TWO Challenges this month!! Of course, she’d hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge, as well as her usual My Memories Challenge. (They’re linked up for you, just click on them.) And if that’s not enough for you… This month, everything in her store is 45% off—or even more on bundles! And here’s a little bonus: spend $20 or more and get an extra 10% off at checkout. Use the coupon: NEIA-SL202610

Aaaaaand… the Daily Download, here on the Blog is yours, free, for the taking.

Well, what are you waiting for? GO!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Daily Download, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Feature Designer, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

December 30, 2025 by 1 Comment

Quick Trick: Instant Clusters

While I was working on a layout the other night, it occurred to me that I had the perfect topic for a Quick Trick, something that I just do automatically, that really streamlines my scrapping. Let’s be honest… we’re all busy. So we can all use some shortcuts, right? Now, those of you who are more experienced with digital scrapping might already have this trick in your arsenal, so this is more for the still-getting-comfortable-with-the-process people. You’ll see!

Did you know that you can Duplicate entire clusters with only a couple of clicks? It’s true! Rather than Copying each item in a cluster individually, you can do the whole shebang all at once! Start by finding the various components of your cluster in the Layers Panel. Select each by clicking CTRL/CMD>click until all of them are showing as active in the Layers Panel. If all the things are in a single pile rather than spread out through the stack, you can instead use Shift>click on the first item and then Shift>click on the last item in the cluster to Select all of them in fewer steps. In my sample below. I’m only Duplicating the two leaf elements, which are stacked together.

Once you have the whole cluster Selected, click CTRL/CMD>J and ALL the items will be duped, dropped right on top of the original *cluster*! If you leave the dupes Selected/active, you can move the entire pile up or down the Layers Panel, then relocate them to the appropriate spot on the layout. Those of you who use a lot of Tinci Designs‘ templates will see the usefulness of this! Krisztina often creates her template clusters from five or six elements, which she Duplicates in two or three other locations around the layout, with some items in slightly different orientations. This makes it so quick! The keyboard shortcut for moving layers up is CTRL/CMD>[ and the one for moving them down (handy if you overshoot!) is CTRL/CMD>].

My leaf elements started out at the top centre of the layout, pointing up and slightly left, and ended up at the bottom centre-left, pointing slightly down and to the right. If you’ve got several objects in your cluster and would like to shift them around so they don’t look too matchy-matchy, but still giving you a cohesive layout, go for it!

Can you believe this is the LAST Tuesday of 2025? The next time we’re together will be for a Designer Spotlight. It’s somebody we all know and love; will there be some surprises? Maybe……. Happy New Year, everybody!

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Greatest Hits)

December 23, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Ghosts of Christmases Past

The photographic kind, I mean! I meant to revisit this retro post about preparing for holiday photos earlier, but life got in the way. There are still some holidays yet to arrive, so better late than never. For most of us, photos are the focus of our scrapbooking efforts and anything that can help capture great photos is worth a second or third look. I know we’re all super busy right now, but maybe find a few minutes to gear up.

  1. Find your camera’s battery charger NOW and make sure you use it! If your camera uses disposable batteries, stock up NOW. I keep a basket filled with several sizes of battery so I have them handy when I need them. (Like Sunday at 5 am when the battery in the smoke detector in my bedroom announced it was quitting and moving to Arizona. Fun times!)
  2. Check that you have a fresh SD card in your camera and that it has a decent amount of memory available. If you’re into phonetography, you might want to trim your in-phone collection by saving them to your computer or the Cloud, then deleting them from your internal storage. I have a handy little PhotoStick where I’ve backed up my phone’s gallery. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you also have unlimited Cloud storage as part of your membership perks.
  3. Think about how your typical holiday events usually evolve. There will be some traditions that are carried out no matter whose house you’re having the celebrations at, so plan ahead to capture those moments. Make a list, if you need to. I’d need to! See below for a great list of prompts that I borrowed from Traci Reed.
  4. If you haven’t done it lately, review the manual that came with your camera. Review the settings and modes you’re most likely to use for your shots and remind yourself what each is doing while you’re shooting. I use the metadata from my most successful bokeh and full moon shots to set my camera up ahead of time so I don’t miss the shot.
  5. Refamiliarize yourself with your tripod, if you use one. I have three – an aluminum ball-head one that allows infinite adjustments but takes a lot of room and needs to be set up ahead of time, a mini that’s only for my phone and a Platypod Max, which looks like a little travel iron but is actually a very clever and sturdy tripod that can be set up in minutes on any surface. Why use a tripod? It lets you take longer exposures while keeping the images tack-sharp and it lets you be in the photo! Use the built-in timer and get in FRONT of the lens for a change. You’ll like the results much better than those you get with a selfie-stick.
  6. Practice a few creative techniques that you can memorize so that when you’re ready to take photos of the candles on your dinner table or that gloriously brown turkey, you won’t have to fumble. Practice, practice, practice! The best thing about digital photography is that we don’t have to keep the duds! (Too late for this year, but good to have for next year.)
  7. Do you go all out with a gorgeous table-scape for your guests? I’ve never done it, but I love seeing what others do. (Okay, so I HAVE done a couple of table-scapes in the home decorating game app on my phone. But not a REAL one.) If you’re hosting and have your table all set well in advance (like the experts recommend for sanity’s sake ) take a few minutes to look at it with your photographer’s eye. Take a shot of a single place setting. Try and get the whole table in a shot, easiest if you shoot from one end. Take a closeup of your crystal. (I’m hoping that next year, we’ll have all three of our kids, the two sons-in-law, and our three grandkids all around the table for the first time. Crossing my fingers!)
  8. Don’t forget to get some shots of the dinner prep. Be stealthy and get some candids of the main cook, or if that’s you, get some of your helpers. Look for interesting camera angles of your turkey, ham or standing rib roast. Ask someone to be the carver and get some action shots. And look for smiling faces as the meal commences. When taking photos of food, get in close and vary the angles. Show the flaky texture of that piecrust, the glisten of the done-to-perfection skin on your turkey, the creaminess of your mashed potatoes, the detail of the frosting on your cupcakes.
  9. Composition is key for any photo. Remember the rule of thirds, but don’t be a slave to it. Decide what your focal point will be and compose your photo to make it so – use leading lines where possible and don’t forget white space. Crop your photos in the viewfinder – so much less work later! And don’t forget the background. Is there anything growing out of someone’s head? Take a step to one side or the other and recompose. Think of the Vanity Fair photos the whole world was talking about. And don’t do any of that! (Unless you’re going for brutal realism. Then Christopher Anderson can be your muse.)
  10. Get in close to your subject! Even more so when that subject is a child. Get down on their level whenever possible so you capture their best smiles. Shooting from above should be reserved for those special-effect shots, not photos of kids having fun. For the most natural photos of people though, you can use a telephoto lens and shoot them from some distance. (As long as the light is right!)
  11. Don’t insist on smiles. You know what I mean… those cheesy grins aren’t going to be your favourite images. Rather than having everybody say “cheese” for your group shots, have them say “family” or “money” or “gotcha”. You could go with a made-up phrase, such as “moldy mozzarella”. Another trick is to tell everyone you’re going to shoot on “3”, then count, “1… 2… (shoot) WHOOPS 3!” then shoot a second shot right after that. You’ll get some natural smiles that way.
  12. We’ve all got a folder full of group photos where everybody is stiffly lined up and fake-smiling at the camera. So how can we take better group shots? Having the subjects doing something together is a good start. If you have snow in your area, have the group build a snowman, or have a snowball fight. Or play football in the snow. Beach ball volleyball (in sand or snow) would make some entertaining shots. But if you just have to have a posed group shot, give some thought to who goes where. If you can arrange the people so that their faces form little triangles, you’ll have a nicer image. Have them turn their shoulders toward each other or the centre of the photo so they can get a bit closer together. Make sure you’ve chosen a landscape setting so everybody will be in focus. Think about trying not to cut people’s legs off. If you can, shoot everybody down front from the waist up. Your subjects will thank you.
  13. (Missed it by that much!) If you’re celebrating Chanukah, there are lots of great ways to take photos of your menorrah. A series, with each night’s new candle lighting, would make a lovely layout. Look at the angles. On the last night, when all the candles are burning, an angled shot from one end with each flame visible would be incredible. Some of my favourite photos of my grandsons are of them lighting a candle, with the soft glow of the flame on their cheeks and wonder in their eyes. (Their mom takes amazing photos.)
  14. When shooting your tree, look for a different approach than the typical 8-feet-away-so-the-whole-tree-and-gifts-are-in-the-shot. Maybe take some close-ups of your favourite ornaments. Use a portrait mode to soften the background and make the ornament totally the focal point. Get down on the floor and shoot up toward the topper, or shoot down through the branches and make the presents the subject. Turn off all the room lights and shoot the tree with just the tree lights. Experiment with shutter speed and aperture to create some lovely bokeh effects. Add a human or a pet to the frame. Or take a photo of the lights reflected in a window. (If you don’t want your reflection in your photo, stand at an angle to the window and look carefully at what’s in the viewfinder.) Or take a photo of the tree THROUGH the window! Turn off your flash though, so you don’t spoil the shot.
  15. What about gifts? Well, there’re lots of opportunities around gift opening. Get down on the floor with the kids. Try to capture the moment when they identify what’s in the package. If it’s your thing, you can take some of them channeling Vanna White, holding up a favourite gift. If there’s a very special gift being given, arrange for it to be delivered when you have a moment to frame your image. I really wish I had a photo of myself when I opened a gift from my sister quite a few years ago. It was a resin frame with dragonflies on it, but what made it truly special was that it held a photo of me with my grandfather, who died when I wasn’t yet 4 years old. If you know in advance, you can be ready to catch the emotion.
  16. After the dust settles, you can relax, but don’t forget there might still be some great photos yet to happen. Like when a child falls asleep in the middle of a game, or the dog takes off with a long piece of ribbon… they could be the best shots you get all day. But don’t concentrate so hard on getting good photos that you don’t have fun! At a family reunion, my niece made a point of taking a selfie with every single one of us, and they were all fantastic. If you have mad selfie skills, give it a whirl. You might surprise yourself!

Now for the list of prompts I promised! As I said, this came from Traci Reed via Facebook. It’s a bit less crisp than I’d like, but it’s still readable, I hope. Some of them are already here in the text, but definitely not all.

I would be remiss if I ignored those for whom the holidays are NOT the thing of loving memories and happiness. If that’s you, think about what DOES give you joy and take photos of that. Many of the above tips apply equally to photos of more ordinary events; sometimes getting out of our own heads and letting distraction help with that can be really therapeutic. One of my closest friends lost her dad last week and she’s really not feeling the holiday thing at all. Remember, if it’s something you feel, it’s perfectly okay to document it, even if it’s painful. Reality bites a lot of us, and the holidays can be really awful. Just know that I see you.

Next Tuesday, I’ll try to have a Quick Trick for you so I don’t create more chaos in between the Big Days. Take care, love you all!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Lets Celebrate, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

December 16, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: Bucket List

This week has already started feeling like it’s a month long. I have so much left to do, and disaster is lurking around every corner. But as long as that finger I sprained back in March doesn’t pitch a fit (as it has been for the last few days), you’ll all have a Blog Tutorial to check out while I brave the crowds at Costco. 😉

For this month’s Challenge Spotlight, I chose the Bucket List Challenge, hosted by Scraps-N-Pieces. The prompt: This month we’d like you to read a new book, scrap your favorite book/author, scrap your reading list from this last year. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering how I can shoehorn this Challenge into a box labeled Individual Style. It’s really not that big of a stretch. Creativity begins in the brain, where we process information and formulate ideas. Each of us will take a prompt like this one and approach it from our own perspective. And in doing so, we give others a glimpse into our innermost thoughts. You’ll see!

There are six layouts for this Challenge (so far) and they’re all quite different. I’ve linked each to their spots in the Challenge Gallery so you can see them in greater detail, and perhaps leave a comment or two. Just click on the Scrapper’s name. Here we go!

Grace. has taken the prompt quite literally (pun intended!) by writing a book review. I think her approach is very clever. It took me a bit of time to really see all the thought she put into the layout, even though she had a checklist to follow. The book choice tells me she enjoys suspense, but her review doesn’t really say much about whether the story lived up to her expectations. The *no stars given* implies she didn’t love it, but maybe she just missed that part. She reads on an e-reader, and has a busy life. Oh, and her scrapping style appears to be “clean and simple”, but only if I base my evaluation on this one layout. 😀

Of course, Katherine Woodin is an open book. (Yep, it’s gonna be one of THOSE posts!) To anyone who spends any time in the Gallery or the Forum, Katherine’s daily diary gives glimpses into her life. Her journaling is legendary! She was widowed fairly recently and her Bucket List layout tells me she’s learning how to grow around her loss. <3

If one reads between the lines of KatL‘s layout, you might pick up on the fact she works in a library. It’s not front-and-centre in her journaling, but the clues are all there. She truly CANNOT live without books! 😉 As for her scrapping style, she loves the layered look, with lots of papers and just a bit of grunge.

What vibes are you picking up from MemmieNelleke? It’s obvious she’s Dutch just from her name, and the books in her photos support that conclusion. She reads books in series, has several favoured authors, likes historical fiction and has a special interest in the Holocaust. She likes bright colours and has a love for children.

BriannasScrapper is very serious about her books. She doesn’t just read them, she logs them at Goodreads, she scores them and she basically devours them! There’s a little bit of everything here, from fantasy to suspense to feminist literature and romance. (I thought I was doing really well, having read 75 books this year. I need to pull up my socks!) IT’s impossible to get a bead on her scrapping style from just this one layout, though I would expect her other layouts to be highly organized. 😉

Our last participant is Yvonne55. She’s also reading in Dutch, enjoys reading in series and likes thrillers. (I want to see if I can find an English version of Het Bloemen Meisje; the story sounds really engaging. No, I don’t read Dutch, but Google Translate does.) Her scrapping style is classic, and she likes bright colours.

With Hannukah already underway, only 9 more days until Christmas, then Kwanzaa and New Year closing out 2025, I know we’re all crazy busy. And it shows in the Challenge Galleries. I hope you can all find a few minutes to just breathe. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest and you’re on evacuation from the flooding, or digging yourself out in the snowbelt, please be safe. If you’re travelling in the coming weeks, you be safe too!

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Book Lover, Challenge Spotlight, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Fonts)

December 9, 2025 by 2 Comments

It’s THAT Time Again! Christmas and Winter Fonts

Fontaholics, UNITE!! I spent some time at Dafont.com looking for some new and awesome Christmas-y and wintery fonts we haven’t seen before. I won’t tell you how many I’ve downloaded though. 😉 But I can tell you that the free version of MainType isn’t adequate for my font collection. 😀 And speaking of MainType (it’s a font manager, for those who don’t know) if you’ve downloaded and installed a bunch of fancy fonts with swirls and flourishes, but when you use them all you get are the boring base characters, here’s a link to a tutorial on unlocking those special characters… I mention this because there may, or may not, be some fancy glyphs with one or two of the following fonts. There are eight “Christmas” fonts, five wintery fonts and four sets of seasonal dingbats coming at you momentarily. They are all FREE! (For personal use, of course.) As always, the name the designer has given the font is your link to it at dafont.com. Just give it a click.

When I saw Christmas Calling, I was immediately transported back to my childhood – doesn’t it just scream Frosty the Snowman to you?

Twinkle Christmas is a pretty, twirly font that can be used for pretty much everything… titles, subtitles, captions and journaling.

I think Christmas Holiday is a more generic font, and would be ideal for layouts about cutting Christmas trees, sleigh rides, toboggan parties, ski trips and the like.

I could totally see this font with red, white and green Christmas Candy cane stripes, with an acrylic or gel Style applied on top to give it some curves.

Amore Christmas is a classic, elegant font perfectly suited to layouts about holiday pageants, choir performances, church service and even prgrams. It’s an all-caps font with both the curly and plain characters.

If you live in a cold part of the world, odds are you’ll have snow for Christmas. (I thought for sure we would, after we got about 8 inches last week, but it’s all gone, it’s 50°F and the forecast is for more of the same. 🙁 ) What I like about Christmas in Winters is that it’s very legible and would be a good title font for any winter layout.

Look at this!! It’s so baroque and capital F fancy! When I look at The Christmas, I so want to have the main parts of the letters a deep, rich red (or maybe green), and the curlicues gold. I’m going to play with it for sure! It has both upper and lower case characters as well as some basic punctuation. No numerals though.

So… I played with this one. So fancy!

Christmas Comeback is a multipurpose font as well, with upper and lower case letters and basic punctuation but no numerals. I wouldn’t necessarily call it “Christmas-y”, but I might want to use it for card sentiments.

Now on to the winter fonts. Frozenland is a good, all-purpose winter font. It’s probably not quite right for journaling but has both cases, punctuation AND numerals. That drippy icy topping on the letters cries out for a pale blue, curvy Style.

Freezing had me thinking about that ombré technique from earlier this year. It all-caps, but in two sizes, No punctuation, no numerals, so mainly a title font, I guess.

Snowby is just FUN!

Snowballs is a demo font. The thumbnail shows letters that are included, along with numerals and punctuation. The full version has an assortment of additional characters; when you click on the name, you’ll see a link to where you can purchase, if you so choose.

This one, Snow Flakes, is my most FAVOURITE! It speaks to me of snowball fights, building snowmen, winter carnivals, skating parties… whatever fun one may have in the snow.

Now bring on the dingbats! Wonderful Christmas Symbols is filled with seasonal silhouettes. There are 159, all different! I could see using them for a border, on tags, with a beveled style to create brads… really, so many options.

Winterlight Symbols is another 52-silhouette collection. They’re a little more stylized.

Last Christmas Symbols has a bit more of a detailed, traditional look. It has some religious symbols mingled with secular Christmas images, winter sporting events and nature.

And finally, Fantasia Decorative is an outline collection with so much potential.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that all of you have downloaded at least one of these… am I right?

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Fantastic Fonts, Tutorials Tagged With:

Designer Spotlight (December 2025)

December 2, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Its The Scrappy Kat!

Seriously? Only 29 days left in 2025… don’t blink! Our final Designer Spotlight for the year is on Katina, aka The Scrappy Kat. She and I haven’t actually chatted before, so it was lovely learning more about her. We talked a bit about her design process and then had a few chuckles. Check it out!

J: Thanks for putting yourself out there for me to grill, Katina. Tell me how you got into digital scrapbook design.

K: As with most designers, I venture to guess that they started out the same way, as a layout artist on another designer’s creative team. After a while, I started to dabble in designing for blog trains and other freebies. I finally worked up the nerve to make my first kit that I submitted to an on-line store and I got the position. My digital scrapbooking design career was born.

J: It seems like there are basically two paths to digital scrapbooking design… belonging to a creative team, as you say, or not being able to find the style/theme of product you like so you create your own. 😉 Whatever the path, you’re all awesome! Is there a story behind your brand?

K: My name is Katina, Kat for short, then just add a cool cat on my logo, and voila, that’s where The Scrappy Kat comes from!

J: Of course, the simplest explanation is usually the best one. What does your design process look like?

K: I always start out with the palette, then makes my cardstocks for the kit. After the cardstocks, I create the pattern papers for the kit. After all the papers are made, I start on the elements. When working on the elements, I try to include both themed elements, but also all the basics for creating a wonderful layout. This includes ribbons, flowers, greenery, fasteners, frames, tags, confetti, banners, and more.

J: The palette appears to be the initial spark for every Designer I talk to. The Buffet always has a specific palette, and most of you create collections for those, so it’s a bit of a no-brainer. I love a Designer who includes fasteners and tags. They’re very necessary for my particular design style, and make me that much more likely to buy a product. Good job! What stimulates your imagination most, especially when you’re lacking inspiration?

K: My number one inspiration is my creative team. When I am feeling stuck or have lost my design mojo, I turn to them for inspiration and kit ideas. They never let me down.

J: That’s fantastic! True teamwork always means back-and-forth-give-and-take. Do you have one kit you’re most proud of? I know… it’s like being asked who your favourite child is, right? 😀

K: My kit called, “My Boy” is my favorite by far. I sometimes struggle to find kits that are boy friendly. I like to have elements that are great for clustering and creating a masculine layout without having to use tons of flowers. That is what inspired me to create this kit, to scrap all the photos of my son, Logan.

J: YES!! This! I won’t say I don’t put flowers on my boy layouts, but if I have more options, that’s great! Browsing your Shop, I see a lot of masculine kits and more androgenous colour palettes. So, all you moms-of-boys, check it out… My grandsons have two very different personalities; the older one is very intellectual, science-y and introverted – but goofy. The younger one is a drama llama, literally – he’s already acted in local theatre – he’s 9 – and he’s a bit of a trickster. Are you the prankster, or the prankee?

K: In high school I was voted class clown. I was the queen of practical jokes. However, one day, my two best friends decided to get me back for years of pranks. They took my jar of Carmex and squirted super glue inside. I didn’t notice until I had smeared it all over my lips. Luckily, I smelt the glue and didn’t put my lips together, or I would have really been in trouble. This was before super glue remover, so I had to wait for it to rub off on its own. It was a mean prank, but in hindsight, I deserved it.

J: Oh dear heaven! That could have been a very bad scene!! Thankfully, the skin on our lips and in our mouths turns over really fast. I’ve glued my fingers together more times than I should mention, and have used skin glue on surgical patients. You were lucky. Oy. My tale of woe? I was catfished before catfishing had a name, and generations before social media. I was 12 and had a huge crush on the boy next door. Looking back, I’m not sure what the attraction was, but it was what it was. I found a note in my desk at school that seemed to be from him, asking me to meet him at the library after dinner. I stayed until the librarian kicked me out into the dark and he didn’t show. Later I found out that the note was written by one of the girls in the next grade who apparently “hated my guts.” She laughed and laughed at how gullible I was. The next year, she was suspended from school for 3 days after she attacked me physically on the ball diamond. Of course, she blamed me, in that abuser look-what-you-made-me-do way. They say living well is the best revenge, and I wound up much more successful than she did. 😉 Anyway… Let’s talk about pets. If you could have any pet, real or imaginary, what would it be?

K: Poodles, poodles, poodles! I have three miniature poodles (Gizmo, Rigby, and Ziggy) and I’ll always have poodles. They all have their own personalities, but they are all loving and live to please me. They are my buddies!

J: We have a white standard poodle somewhere in our neighbourhood. She’s beautiful. Dog people are the best, aren’t we? I’ve met more people just by walking my dogs. They love everybody and can totally drag my up the side of the mountain when they see someone they know. Or someone they don’t know. And then they want to jump up on them so I throw myself in the way. What’s the silliest thing you’ve ever done in public?

K: When we are grocery shopping, I love to dance along to the music they are playing when a good song comes on while I go down each aisle. The whole time embarrassing my husband and son that are with me, as they beg me to stop.

J: I just did that!! I was with my sister and started dancing in the shoe department. She must be used to being out with our brother – she didn’t seem embarrassed at all. Is there one song above all that will get you going?

K: That’s easy. It has to be YMCA by the Village People. If you don’t know how to spell out the letters and sing along to it, we can’t be friends. Just kidding.

J: No worries there! I was barely out of my teens when it came out and can totally sing and dance along! What I lack in talent I make up for with enthusiasm. Oh my, look at the time! My son will be home any minute. I just want to ask one more question. If I was starting out as a new digital Designer, what wise words would you tell me?

K: Find a designer willing to mentor you. The advice they can give you is invaluable and it will make starting out so much easier. It is great to have someone to bounce things off of and answer all your questions.

J: Wise words indeed! Thank you so much for letting us peek into your world. We all hope your Spotlight month is a smashing success! <takes deep breath before launching into the requisite spiel…?

At risk of sounding like a broken record, don’t forget that our Spotlight Designer provides all of us with the Daily Download. For those unfamiliar, the DD is a complete kit, portioned out in bite-sized packets the links for which are posted each day of the month, here on the GingerScraps Blog. The links are good for 5 days, so don’t panic if you miss a day. Want a sneak peek?

There are often add-on packets posted to the GingerScraps Facebook page too. Katina is also hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge this month in addition to her monthly Journaling Challenge. Make sure you take a look. And as if all that wasn’t enough… she has a sale!

… if your budget hasn’t been blown on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday sales. 😀

Now I must get back to trying to make our security cameras work again…

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Daily Download, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Feature Designer, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With:
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