If you need some inspiration to get your creative juices flowing, just  take a look at this scrappy goodness!

This month, we’ve partnered with Lena and Tabatha over at Bella Gypsy Designs to cross-promote 6th Sense with their gorgeous Never Too Late Bundle. Take a look at their blog and you just might find a little coupon there, too.

Until the end of May, you can pick the 6th Sense up at 50% off —  you definitely don’t want to miss out on this one!

To be in with a chance of winning both of these template sets, all you need to do is leave me a note on this blog post. I’ll be back on Friday to reveal all along with the lucky winner Enjoy the rest of your week.

But before I head for a snooze on the couch, I’d better get a move on and show you this week’s goodies right ? Firstly though, the winner of this week’s sneak peek giveaway is (3) Caren. Congrats !! Please drop me a line at littlegreenfrog@mail.com or contact me using the form on this blog to collect your coupon.

Abracadabra! These four single page paper-pieced templates are simply magical! Wave your wand and your two photos will be transformed into works of heart with an exciting presentation. With journaling, buttons, banners, arrows, and pieced papers, a magical layout has never been so easy to conjure.

Check out these pages from my talented team :

If you like these templates, don’t forget to pick up this month’s Facebook Freebie which co-ordinates perfectly with the Abracadabra set.

Translate the sweet, homey feeling evoked as that scented candle burns down into a family-friendly layout and you have Candle Wax. The candle fragrance that brings to mind quality time together can be captured with 4-6 photos, a relaxed and friendly clustered design, and touches of the homespun with buttons and layers of cozy papers.

It’s been a while since I managed to find some scrapping time in my schedule so I took the opportunity to catch up on some CT work. Here are a couple of pages using Candle Wax from me

also uses Of Wishes, Dreams and Happily Ever After by Stolen Moments

also uses Take Note Collab and add on alphas by Pink Reptile Designs and Studio Basic

And my team rocked these templates too !

Don’t forget both sets are on sale at 20% off for a week.  I’ll be back next week with more new templates – until then – have a fabulous weekend

With our youngest son Timothy, his infancy has been far from typical. He was born with a number of life-threatening medical issues and has spent quite a bit of time in the hospital. Perhaps even more so, there are moments to treasure and celebrate, and he’s been featured in quite a few of my layouts this past year. I like to do monthly pages as a sort of summary of what the child learned or did during that time — favorite toys and foods, important events, that sort of thing. When I was a baby, my mom kept a detailed baby book noting when I cut my first tooth, what foods I ate and how much I weighed at certain ages. While I don’t keep that detailed of records, I do like to look back to see a snapshot of what baby was like at a certain age.

Credits: Double Latte Template Set by Little Green Frog Designs, I Love My Brother by Melissa Bennett & Meghan Mullens, Alpha from Autumn Adventures by Misty Cato

Credits: Real Life by Melissa Bennett
April SO freebie by Little Green Frog Designs

I also like to capture the little moments like facial expressions and special times with siblings or grandparents. In about three years, my daughter Maia is probably going to be complaining about how Timothy gets into her toys, so I can show her this layout and tell her that once upon a time, she really did adore her baby brother. Timothy is known for his great smile, so it was important for me to capture that, too. Are there special relationships or expressions that you want to remember about your baby’s first year?

Credits: Happy Snaps by Shawna Clingerman
December blog template by Little Green Frog Designs

Credits: All Things Considered by Little Green Frog Designs, Nothing but Blue Skies by Melissa Bennett

I know that things are crazy and hectic with a new baby and you may not be able to scrap as much as you’d like. Let me encourage you to at least take the pictures — you’ll be glad you did! And when you do have the time to scrap, Little Green Frog Designs templates are an absolute lifesaver! They will save you time, helping you quickly create beautiful layouts with your own special creative touches.

Have you used LGFD templates to scrap your baby memories?  Leave me a link in the comments. I’d love to see them and leave you some love.

I’m always looking for inspirating layouts. For one, there are some truly beautiful designs out there and secondly, sometimes I need to boost my own creativity. So, I was thinking about those non-traditional color palettes and how they still can be used to create layouts for the girls we love to scrap. Who says we have to use pink or purple to scrap our daughters, nieces, friends and mothers?  And off I went, searching the galleries high and low for some non-traditional girl layouts. Here are some of my favorites from our talented CT.

Celebrate the Journey by Tamara, using a Flibbertigibbet template. I just love the doodled background, the blues and greys really go well with the black and white photo.

Although purple can be considered girly, I just love what Christine did here with a  Pillowtop template . The bold patterns, blocking background and corner clusters,  just fabulous!

This layout by Fiona really makes me want to go out and play in the rain! Love that star burst background, the pops of color throughout and title work! She used a Cloud Nine template for her design.

And last but not least, Julie designed this great layout using Huggy Kissy Lovey Dovey template . I love the scene she created here with the rainbows, the birds, and house elements.

See, not so difficult right? The next time you pick up a photo of that favorite girl in your life, just think of all the great colors you could use, besides those pinks and purples!

I hope you didn’t spend all your pennies over iNSD as I have some brand new goodies coming your way this week – take a look :

Want to win both of my new packs ? All you need to do is leave me a comment on this blog post and I’ll be back on Friday for the full reveal and to choose a winner. Enjoy the rest of your week

What is a drop shadow?

It is an effect used in graphic design to give an object dimension. If you look carefully at a paper layout, you’ll see that all of the elements have a shadow created by a light source. This is what our eyes use to interpret dimension. To make digital layouts appear realistic, we have to add the drop shadow on our own.

Both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements come with default drop shadow settings but they often look unrealistic. There’s a whole science behind shadowing and no doubt there are more thorough and detailed tutorials available, but we’re going to just deal with the basics here. Once you get comfortable with the concept, you can spend hours perfecting your own drop shadows. (Or not, if you prefer, because there are plenty of pre-made drop shadow layer styles available that do all of the work for you!) Lucky for us, there are talented digital scrapbooking designers who have created their own drop shadow layer styles and have made them available to other digital scrapbookers. I use styles by Flergs and Megan Turnidge. Both are available for free on their blogs.

When you add a shadow, you want the size of the shadow to be commensurate with the thickness of the object itself. If you add a big shadow to an object that is normally very thin (like a photo), the object will look like it is floating off the page. If you add too small of a shadow to a bulky object (like a button or flower), the object will look flat. Much of what I’ve learned about shadowing is trial and error. You really just have to play with your shadows to achieve the look you want. Using the styles mentioned earlier will make things a lot easier, or you can start to customize them even more by changing the color and angles of your shadows. It’s up to you.

How do I install them? 

The process is a bit different with various versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and Windows and MacOS, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy. I’ll be working with PSE 9 on MacOS here, but I’ll provide some suggestions if you’re using Windows as well.

1. First, be sure that Photoshop or PSE is closed. download your chosen shadow styles. Unzip the file and copy the *.asl file to the clipboard.

2. Next, find the folder or directory that contains all of your layer styles. On a Mac, navigate from Macintosh Hard Drive > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Photoshop Elements > Your Version. On Windows (Vista or 7), look for Start > Computer > Local Disk (C) > ProgramData > Adobe > Photoshop Elements > Your Version.

3. Delete the file ThumbDatabase.db3. Then, open up the Photo Creations folder and then, Layer Styles. Once you are within Layer Styles, paste your *.asl file into that folder.

4. Finally, close all of your windows and re-open Photoshop or PSE. It may take several minutes to rebuild the effects database with your new layer styles.

5. To find your new shadow styles, look at your Effects palate, select Show All and scroll until you find the layer style you want. They should be listed alphabetically.

Finally, to apply the shadow style to an object on your layout,  just select the layer in the Layers Palette and then click on the shadow style in the Effects Palate. That’s it!

Happy scrapping!

Let’s get started with my picks for this week.

Obsess by LovelyMissKait was scrapped with a TechnoGeek template. This is so cool! Great black and white pictures and I love the cord stapled to the title. The colored disks she used in place of some of the paper pieces look great and I like the clip on the photo too. A wonderful techie page!

This two-page spread is called Surgery Day and Timberlyn scrapped it with a Moonstruck Magpie template. What really struck me about this are all the photos, they just drew me right in. I think its so important to scrap these kinds of memories, and she has done such a good job capturing such a hard day! Lots of details, lots of information, and lots of small medical elements tucked here and there. I like the way she has used the circle alpha for all her information at the top of the right side.

Mom2jackaia scrapped this sweet page with a retired An Apple a Day template. This is so sweet and soft and pretty. I love the watercolor painted paper and the striped paper underneath the cutouts. She has lovely photo coloring and AMAZING shadows, especially on that string! I love the song lyrics she used on her page, too.

This Techie layout was scrapped by jennschultz with an Appleton Tales template. Awesome background paper, first off, and she chose a great journaling font, too. The shadows on those white and aqua flowers are killer! I like how she has all the journaling in different blocks and the grays all over the page look great with the other colors.

There they are, nice work ladies! See everybody next week!

Hello everyone, I’m excited to announce this month’s Froggy Find, the 6^th sense. Read on for a fantastic coupon! For those multi-photo lovers out there, the 6^th sense template pack proves a digi scrapper’s dream. Add the wonderful purples, blues, and greens of Bella Gypsy’s Never Too Late bundle, and you’ve got some gorgeously designed layouts. The CTs worked with these beautiful products and have some inspiration for our readers today!

The 6^th sense template set includes four 12×12 digital scrapbook templates, designed for layouts with six photos. Each template comes in psd, tif and png files all at 300 dpi.  Also provided in .page and .sbpage file format to work with Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus software Version 3.0 and 4.0

We paired it with Never Too Late bundle by Bella Gypsy for today’s post. Ever notice how life moves ever so quickly along? Bella Gypsy designed this kit to remind us that it’s never too late to change or to find happiness. This digital scrapbook kit is full of lush colors, gorgeous patterns and elements you won’t be able to get enough of! Pst, I also heard there’s an extra special surprise on their design blog  found here.

Now how about some eye candy?

by Debby

by Ellen

by Iowan

And a few by the Bella Gypsy girls

Now finally, the coupon you’ve been waiting for… 50% off the 6th sense template pack, good through the month of May!

First up, look at this beautiful page by mom2one using a Let It Slide template. I love the colors, first of all, and the sparkles! The metal accents are such a pretty visual anchor against the vivid blue green background, and she’s got some lovely shadows as well. I think the jeweled frames are just lovely. My favorite part, though, is the word art. The first time I read it on the page I actually sighed from the cuteness!

My second pick this week is You Sparkle by DoggiNo, scrapped with a Snapdragon template. Good grief how could anyone not smile at that picture! I love the perspective on it, and the colors are really vivid, too. The cheerful colors all around the page are so pretty and my eyes keep darting all over the take everything in. I really like how she has used the green corner stitches as well.

Here’s a page with the same Let it Slide template used above, and this one is by Cindy. Right off the colors and shadows totally grabbed me. I love how it all looks against the white background. Tons of messy splatters paired with the sweet doilies…perfect! And finally, those vintage ornate frames look awesome!

And here is my final pick for this week. Chaoticlilshadow scrapped this with a Cottage Garden template (one of my all time favorite LGF packs) and I think this is just adorable. The sweet photos are such a great combination of smiles and sweet look-aways, and I agree with her that she caught some adorable shots. The bright pinks look so nice with their blue dresses and I really REALLY love the large word art she has tucked behind her pictures. Just perfect for a page with kid photos. The greens and the white fence behind the large photo make it just oh so Springy!

So there you have them! I hope you enjoy these finds, and that you are having fun wrapping up iNSD. See you next week!