Ali Edwards's Blog, page 81
November 5, 2021
In Case You Missed it | November 5
Happy Friday, friends! Welcome to the latest In Case You Missed It. Just a reminder that this is a quick post that will happen every Friday afternoon with all the updates and links that have happened throughout the week. So, let's get to it:
ALI EDWARDS + LAURA WONSIK STAMP RELEASE / STORYTELLING BASICS
This week we released amazing new stamp designs from Ali and two new sets from Laura Wonsik. In addition, we restocked lots of our favorites Storytelling Basics. Digitals for these stamp sets will be available next month in our regularly scheduled monthly digital release. Shop the collection now.
DECEMBER DAILY
The 2021 December Daily® collection is now available in the shop. Find the collection here.
STORY CHATS
On Monday, November 8th at 4pm ET we will host our second chat in our weekly series of December Daily® themed Instagram Live conversations, in this one we will be focusing on all things story-related. Last Monday’s conversation is now available in the blog.
CRAFT THE STORY YOUTUBE SERIES
In today's Craft The Story video Ali is sharing her process for creating a layout using the new Currently Messy Circle stamp Set. Please note: this video is music only, no speaking. Find the video here.
CREATIVE TEAM INSPIRATION
Our Creative Team is sharing their projects using the November 2021 Stories by the Month™ Physical Kit over on the blog. You don’t want to miss their gorgeous projects. Find them here.
CLASSES
December Daily® Prep Day // Join the December Daily® community for a fun online prep day on Saturday, November 6th, 2021. Use this opportunity to finish past December Daily® projects or start working on your project for 2021. This year we are delighted to welcome Laura Wonsik and Pam Baldwin as your hosts for Prep Day. Ali will be online and participating and sharing ideas along the way as well. Entrance to the classroom will be available upon registration, and we have included some fun party prep ideas and a printable package to help you get ready for the day. The first live video will start on Saturday, November 6th at 9:00 am Eastern. Register here.December Daily® Product Play: Back to Basics // For 30 days in November you’ll receive one new idea per day (for a total of 30) brought to you by members of our December Daily® Creative Team, our AED Creative Team, and Ali. Ideas in this workshop will focus on physical products from the Main Kit and our 2021 collection. Our goal with this workshop is simple, fun ideas to use your products to spark stories. Register or learn more here.
As always, we’re so grateful to have you all as members of this community! Thanks for joining me today and have a great weekend!
Working With December Daily® Digitals | Special Guest Shannan Manton
Hello! Today I wanted to talk about working with the December Daily digitals in Ali’s shop and printing them for my hybrid album.
For me, digital scrapbooking products give me the best of both worlds. You can do things with digitals that you can’t do with real-life paper products or stamps - recolor, resize and reuse as many times as you like. But you can also mimic things you would do with real-life products like cutting cards and stamps apart.
I have always printed at home, even when I was a paper scrapbooker (I’m mostly digital now). I work very much in-the-moment and love the flexibility of choosing sizes as I design my page. I could not scrapbook without my home printer. Having said that, printers would have to be one of the most frustrating pieces of tech - temperamental and never easy to set up out of the box. When it comes to fantasies of throwing something out of the window in a rage, it’s always the printer.
I always try and choose a printer that is marketed for photography printing. I’m currently using the Epson XP 8500 Expression Photo - it’s about three years old. Prior to that, I had great luck with a series of Canon Pixma’s. It is often recommended that, like ink, you stick with the brand of paper made for your printer. But here in Australia, I don’t always have access to all brands and I have had great prints from a range of papers.
For my December Daily foundation pages this year, I’ve been using a mix of matte photo paper (just a store brand), glossy or luster photo paper and some vellum and transparencies (just to push my printer to its absolute limit). Because my printer is an inkjet, I have to make sure that these products are inkjet specific - not laser. For example, the transparency pages for inkjet printers have a coating on them to accept the ink and are not clear like regular transparencies.
I like to have both 4x6 and Letter/A4 sizes of paper stocked - the larger size is great if you want to work in batches by putting a bunch of cards or digital items on one big sheet and 4x6 is good if you just want to print one photo or card as you go. My preference for digital items like chipboard shapes, stickers and journal cards is to use matte photo paper. It gives the best approximation of the real thing. Glossy paper will give you slightly brighter colors but the shine can be a bit distracting.
I’m using matte for full page photos in this book because I don’t like thumbing through glossy photos and leaving lots of fingerprints. I usually use premium luster or smooth pearl photo paper when I’m printing my digital layouts or photos (Epson and Ilford Galerie brands are my favorite). I also have some Epson Presentation Paper which is a thin photo-quality paper that I use when I want a very thin print and don’t want to add too much bulk - like in a travelers’ notebook.
I always print at best quality and make sure I’m choosing the correct paper type - matte, semi gloss, plain paper or glossy photo paper. Some printers and programs have more options than others. For vellum, I am just choosing plain paper and medium quality because I find high quality is putting too much ink on the page and causing it to blur.
My printer has an A4/Letter tray, a 4x6 tray and a rear feed option. It seems to have trouble picking up too thick or too thin paper from the 4x6 tray (it’s the Goldilocks of printers) so I’ve found manually feeding those papers into the rear slot works well.
If you want your printed digital element to have some dimension, you can glue it onto some chipboard or add foam dots. I don’t love hand trimming with scissors so I usually try and choose items that I have punches for, like circles or squares. I just size the digital item to fit my punch and I can get a perfect circle and use the punch again on some chipboard for the base. Foam dots work too.
Making hybrid elements is also a great way to re-use old chipboard shapes that you have in your stash - just size the digital item to match then glue it over the top. Recycling!
I’ve got a video today - sharing some digital scrapbooking basics, some fun things to do with the digitals and how I set up for printing. Thanks!
Find more from Shannan here:
Digital scrapbooking process videos
New Currently Messy Circle Stamp Set Page Idea
Earlier this week we released some new stamp sets and restocked some of our Storytelling Basics Collection.
One of the sets I really love in that release, along with the alphas, are the Currently Messy Circles. I made a 2-page spread using that stamp set as the jumping off point for my documenting.
Let's dive into the video:
Here's the full 2-page spread (sized to 7 inches wide x 8.25 inches tall - the size of the outside of the page protector):
I cropped my photos to 3 inch x 3 inch before printing and then used a 2.25 inch circle punch to punch holes in my photos to make room for the stamped circles. I adhered the stamped messy circles using foam adhesive squares.
Along the outside edge I used a stamp set that was available with this past year's Week In The Life collection called Large Prompts. That stamp set sold out but we do have the digital version available here.
Currently Messy Circle Stamp SetWhite Cardstock2.25 Inch Circle PunchYellow Puffy Alpha StickersBlack Puffy Alpha StickersWhite Puffy Alpha StickersLarge Prompts 6x8 Stamp Set (digital available here)Rose Garden Crafters InkHoneyman Crafters InkTillamook Crafters InkDeschutes Crafters InkRedwoods Crafters InkLong Stamping Block6 Hole PunchRolling Date StampFoam Adhesive SquaresScotch Dot N Roller AdhesiveBlack Staz On Ink
November 3, 2021
New Stamps + A Storytelling Basics Restock Coming Tomorrow
New stamps will be available in the shop tomorrow at noon Eastern (11/4/21) including a two fun new sets from Laura Wonsik.
Here's a walkthrough of what's new:
Heads up that in the video I mention that the albums will be available tomorrow but we've had a shipping delay and they will be here in a few weeks.
And here's a closer look at each of the new sets + other items added to the shop.
NEW 6x8 STAMPSFirst up are 4, 6x8 stamps sets from Ali:
Here's a look at the new alphas in use:
NEW 4x6 STAMPS
Just a heads up that we will be restocking our black pleather 12x12 albums and page protectors in the coming weeks! We had hoped that they would be here for this release but they are coming soon. Stay tuned for details on when these will be available in the shop. Sign up for our newsletter here.
December Daily® 2021 Live Chat | Planning & Workflow
Starting the first week of November, we will be hosting a series of live December Daily®-themed conversations on our December Daily® Instagram account.This week’s theme is planning & workflow and we were thrilled to welcome host @frecklepickle, Creative Team Members @ashleyhorton75, @krystal_idunate, and community member @kirstenh for this conversation! You can find a recording of the conversation below, or on our Instagram account.
Our themes for the next few weeks are:
Week of November 1st // Planning & PreparationWeek of November 8th // All About StoriesWeek of November 15th // PhotosWeek of November 22nd // Playing With ProductWeek of December 1st // Let's Go!Week of December 15th // Mid-Month Check-InFinal dates, times, and guests will be shared as we get closer. Recordings of the conversations will be available on our December Daily® Instagram account and will also be shared here in the blog.
As always, thank you so much for being a part of this community!
November 1, 2021
AE Creative Team | November 2021 Stories by the Month™ Physical Kit
Stories of gatherings. Stories of gratitude. Stories of living this imperfect and awesome life. Today we are delighted to share the special projects made by our awesome Creative Team using the November 2021 Stories by the Month™ Physical Kit.
As always, we are so grateful to our Creative Team for sharing their stories and creative inspiration with all of us!
October 29, 2021
In Case You Missed it | October 29
Happy Friday, friends! Welcome to the latest In Case You Missed It. Just a reminder that this is a quick post that will happen every Friday afternoon at 4pm EST with all the updates and links that have happened throughout the week. So, let's get to it:
DECEMBER DAILY
The boxing period has closed and the entire 2021 December Daily® collection is now available in the shop. Find the collection here. Digitals // Our entire collection of digitals is now available in the shop. Additional 10x8 layered templates will be available in November. Shop digitals now.STORY CHATS
On Monday, November 1st at 10am ET we will start a weekly series of December Daily® themed Instagram Live conversations on our December Daily® Instagram account. On Monday we will talk about Planning & Workflow. Story tuned for our full schedule of weekly chats. If you can't join us live we will be sharing recording of the conversation on the blog.CRAFT THE STORY YOUTUBE SERIES
Ali is taking a short break and will be back next week with the next video in her Craft The Story YouTube series.CLASSES
December Daily® Prep Day // Join the December Daily® community for a fun online prep day on Saturday, November 6th, 2021. Use this opportunity to finish past December Daily® projects or start working on your project for 2021. This year we are delighted to welcome Laura Wonsik and Pam Baldwin as your hosts for Prep Day. Ali will be online and participating and sharing ideas along the way as well. Entrance to the classroom will be available upon registration, and we have included some fun party prep ideas and a printable package to help you get ready for the day. The first live video will start on Saturday, November 6th at 9:00 am Eastern. Register here.December Daily® Product Play: Back to Basics // For 30 days in November you’ll receive one new idea per day (for a total of 30) brought to you by members of our December Daily® Creative Team, our AED Creative Team, and Ali. Ideas in this workshop will focus on physical products from the Main Kit and our 2021 collection. Our goal with this workshop is simple, fun ideas to use your products to spark stories. Register or learn more here.As always, we’re so grateful to have you all as members of this community! Thanks for joining me today and have a great weekend!
October 26, 2021
AE Creative Team | October Stories By The Month™ Digital Kits
Fall is here along with all of its fun adventures and activities. And today we are delighted to share the awesome projects our Creative Team created using our October Stories by the Month™ Digital Kits!
As always, we are so grateful to our Creative Team for sharing their stories and creative inspiration with all of us!
October 24, 2021
Making December Daily® Digital Foundation Pages | Special Guest Shannan Manton
We're excited to welcome Shannan back for the third post in her series on working with digitals for December Daily®! This week she's sharing her plans and video tutorials for setting up digital foundation pages. . Let's dive right in!
I haven’t really done foundation pages before. To be honest, there have been a few years where I haven’t even decided on a size or ordered an album until 1 December.
I’m a pretty fast digital scrapbooker with a simple style so I never needed lots of time.
I also liked to wait and see what photos and stories I had for the day before I made any design decisions or put my pages together.
This year though, I’m doing away with any kind of structure or 25-stories format so I feel more free to make some things ahead and have some pages prepared. I’m also trying some other textures in my book like vellum and transparencies and I know that printing can be a struggle so any of that stuff I can do ahead will be helpful.
A lot of my prep has involved looking through the digital collections, resizing cards and papers to 4x5 and adding in some photo mats.
I’m also making some completed pages about general things I love in December (mainly because I am so excited to start and have been so motivated by this year’s kits). It’s good to hold a few finished pages and see if the reality of this project matches my vision.
Now is also the time for me to set up my computer work flow. I have all of my 2021 December Daily kits in Lightroom within their individual folders. This way I can look in individual kits or in the main folder and see everything all together.
I have also set up a December Daily 2021 folder on my computer where I can save all of the pages I make as well as resized cards and page templates ready to go. I have subfolders for Journal Cards, Patterns and Printed (just to get them out of the way).
I’ve got a process video today (split into two parts because I talk a lot) if you want to come along while I set myself up, talk through my plans, make some digital foundation pages and share some digital basics in Photoshop Elements.
Happy to answer any questions here or over on instagram.
Find more from Shannan here:
Digital scrapbooking process videos
October 22, 2021
In Case You Missed It | October 22
Happy Friday, friends! Welcome to the latest In Case You Missed It. Just a reminder that this is a quick post that will happen every Friday afternoon with all the updates and links that have happened throughout the week. So, let's get to it:
PIECES OF HOME
Or new Pieces of Home collection went live this week. We hope you can join us for this documenting project on November 15th. Shop the collection here.
DECEMBER DAILY
The boxing period has closed and the entire 2021 December Daily® collection is now available in the shop. Find the collection here.Digitals // Our entire collection of digitals is now available in the shop. Additional 10x8 layered templates will be available in November. Shop digitals here.
CRAFT THE STORY YOUTUBE SERIES
Ali is taking a short break and will be back next week with a new video in her Craft The Story YouTube series.
CLASSES
December Daily® Prep Day // Join the December Daily® community for a fun online prep day on Saturday, November 6th, 2021. Use this opportunity to finish past December Daily® projects or start working on your project for 2021. This year we are delighted to welcome Laura Wonsik and Pam Baldwin as your hosts for Prep Day. Ali will be online and participating and sharing ideas along the way as well. Entrance to the classroom will be available upon registration, and we have included some fun party prep ideas and a printable package to help you get ready for the day. The first live video will start on Saturday, November 6th at 9:00 am Eastern. Register here. December Daily® Product Play: Back to Basics // For 30 days in November you’ll receive one new idea per day (for a total of 30) brought to you by members of our December Daily® Creative Team, our AED Creative Team, and Ali. Ideas in this workshop will focus on physical products from the Main Kit and our 2021 collection. Our goal with this workshop is simple, fun ideas to use your products to spark stories. Register or learn more here.Create With Canva // In this two-week workshop, Kim will introduce you to the technology of Canva, a free, design anywhere, graphic design platform that is filled with powerful tools for memory keepers. Learn how to organize your digital files, print your photos, and work with all types of digital elements to create hybrid projects that unleash your creativity. Kim will be using December Daily® digitals. Register or learn more here.
As always, we’re so grateful to have you all as members of this community! Thanks for joining me today and have a great weekend!
