A Sneak Peek, a RAK and some Funky news !!

Time for a Sneaky Peek of this week's goodies !! 

I've teamed up again with my good friend Melissa of Cluster Queen Creations to bring you a new grab bag !! I've also got a template pack of my own releasing on Friday too. Here's a little look at what you can expect :

Looks good right ? 

Well if you want to be in with a chance of winning either the grab bag or the single template pack, leave me a comment here on the blog. I'll be back to draw two random winners on Friday.

Want another chance to win the grab bag ?? Hop on over to Melissa's blog for another opportunity to win. (Bear in mind we are both in differing time zones so her post may not yet be up so keep checking !!)

And in other news - Funky Playground Designs are having a designer call !! 

Funky Playground Designs is looking for a few designers to join our design team. If you are looking for a store with a fun, supportive environment then look no further than FPD.

Details & Requirements

3 Contract Types Available:
*Exclusive Designer (may have personal store)
*Exclusive Content (one additional store + personal store)
*Non-Exclusive Designer (two additional stores + personal store)

Consignment Fees:
*Exclusive Designer - 15% + $5 monthly server fee
*Exclusive Content - 20% + $5 monthly server fee
*Non-Exclusive Designer - 25% + $5 monthly server fee
(No additional PayPal fees on sales. They are paid from the consignment fees..)

Requirements
*$50 monthly sales minimum
*Participation in store collabs
*Involvement in FPD forums

Benefits
*Control over your products/sales/coupons in our x-cart shop
*Designer payments are made twice monthly via PayPal
*FPD offers a private designer forum
*Weekly Newsletter & Blog Post to promote new releases
*Site CT

Ready to apply? Then send the following information to funkyplaygroundcalls@gmail.com

*Your name
*A short bio (please include design and store history)
*The reason you want to join the FPD team
*Links to your current store(s)
*Links to your blog, Facebook Fan Page and/or Twitter account
*3 previews of kits currently available in your store(s)
*a downloadable sample of your work. (Kit designers should include several papers, elements and alphas from at least three different kits. Template designers should include several templates.)
*Any other information you would like us to consider when reviewing your application

All applicants will receive a response when the application has been received. Each application will be carefully reviewed and applicants will be notified when a decision has been made. Because this is such an important decision, a response time cannot be guaranteed.

Application deadline is 12 September 2011


If you're interested - make sure you get that application in !! They are a great bunch of people over there.

8/26 New Releases.....

Already, it's Friday again ! I've spent most of the week buying the kids new school uniforms and got my son's new blazer - him starting high school is finally starting to kick in !! We've still got another week before they head back so planning on a few more little outings next week which should be fun.

I have another two template packs for you this week - I had a lot of fun with these ! First up is :

Endless Days

Have a look what my CT did with these :

Niki

Melissa

Tammy

And the second template pack is :

Dandelion Green

And some more gorgeousness from my CT ladies :

Carrie

Tamara

Rachel

Simona

As usual, both packs are 25% off until Monday.

I'll be back on Tuesday next week with a sneak peek and a RAK so don't miss out on a chance to win some goodies !! 

There is still time to enter my blog challenge - the winner will be chosen at random at the end of the month and announced in September's challenge post.

I will also be posting a new "Nifty Fifty" offer next Thursday - I'd love your thoughts as to which pack you'd like to see for half price throughout September. 

Have a fab weekend !!

GSO Thursday 8/25 and LOTM!

Good morning everybody! I am joining you this week from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on my annual anniversary trip. We love it here and are having a great time, but unfortunately Hurricane Irene is going to send us home a full day early. When you only get a week long trip each year, one day makes a BIG difference, so I am headed back to the beach as soon as possible! 

But first...it's been four weeks since our last Layout of the Month, so it is time for another round of layouts to show off this week and the crowning of the LOTM winner! 

Here are some great pages from the galleries this week. 

First up, here is one from scrappinnewbie using the August Challenge Template at Funky Playground, made by Andrea. This is SO much fun to look at! I love the huge picture of Woody along the side and all the stacked up goodies on the left. The viewfinder wheels and all the different patterned papers come together for a super fun page. 

Next up I want to show off this beautiful two-pager from jennschultz using the Sunset two-pagers. Her combination of purples, pinks, metal elements and greenery is really lovely. There is great balance between the elements and photos across the spread, and it is always SO cool to see great pictures of fireworks!

Our next page this week is this adorable single-photo layout from amy! using an All Layered Up template. I think the page just looks fantastic. I love the polka dotted paper peeking through the split, all the different paper layers behind the photo, the cluster in the top left corner and the arrow she used to point to her necklace in the photo. So fresh and pretty!

And one more this week from tiggernjen using a Sunrise template. Isn't this one fun? I like the purple scallops, the eyeball paper strip going across the page and the little burst-flowers scattered about.

Those are the picks for this week...now I am excited to show you the page that has been selected as our Layout of the MONTH! The winner this month created a page that made outstanding use of elements on the page and creatively interpreted the template. Ready to see it??

Here it is!! 

Thrill Ride by navaja77! She used a Chockablock template, which had the photo and paper layers in place, but she really used elements in her own way to make the template work perfectly for her photos. I love the little tucked in popcorn, the paper flowers all over, the ferris wheel and the split title. I also like how she journaled directly on the background paper instead of using the journaling mat that was in the template because it has a great clean look on her page.

Congratulations Ophelia, and I will be pming you in the next couple of days with your coupon code for an 8 DOLLAR coupon to Andrea's store! 

Okay ladies, that's a month, so next week we start fresh with a new batch of GSO's! Thank you for your continued support of Little Green Frog Designs and for getting your pages into the galleries! 

8/24 Sneak Peek

It's that time again....Sneak Peek time !! 

I really love the way these template packs turned out and can't wait to show you them in their full glory on Friday...but for now, here's a little look at what's coming to my store this week !!

Kim will be here tomorrow to post this week's picks for GSO as well as announce the Layout of the Month winner for August !! Make sure you check back to see if it could be YOU !

I'll be back here on Friday with a full reveal of this week's goodies !

8/23 CT Spotlight - Meet Melissa.

I missed out my spotlight post last week due to my trip but I'm back this week to showcase another of my fabulous team. This week it's the turn of Melissa (aka PrettyPeaches) :

I love her pages and her style of scrapping - recently enjoying the story of her wedding and honeymoon through her layouts ! Here's what Melissa had to say :

How did you get started and how long have you been digiscrapping? I have been digi scrapping for about 2 years now.. I started out paper scrapping, as I wanted to make a baby book for my first nephew.. I didn't think I would love scrapping as much as I did.. but a 20 LO book, became a 75 LO book!! LOL.. then when I got married, I decided that I would like to create a wedding album for us, my parents and the in laws.. realizing that I would have to do things in three's, I thought there has to be an easier way.. So a dear friend encouraged me to try digi scrapping.. as I then would only have to create once and print 3  And once I got the hang of it, I was HOOKED!! Sadly, I started doing digi to get my wedding album finished, but I haven't completed it, and its been 2 years!! Ouch!! But I guess thats what happens when skills improve and I feel the need to re-do all of my LOs.. LOL

What advice would you give someone just starting out digi-scrapping?Do some research, and what I mean by that is, go through galleries to see what you can really do with digi scrapping.. And scrap lift people.. And better yet, give templates a try  Read some tutorials, so you can learn new things on how to improve on your new skills.. And find a digi scrapping community to call home.. As many communities have great challenges and encourage you to step outside your scrapping box!

On average, how much time do you spend scrapping each week?
At the moment the hours I spend scrapping changes every day.. It will depends on what mood Dylan is in.. I would definitely say it’s a few hours a day.. I would say at least 15 to 20 hrs a week  Wow that sounds like a lot! 

What are your scrapping strengths/weaknesses?
I know one of my biggest weaknesses is that I work on a LO until I feel like its complete. So a LO can take me a few hours, or a couple of days. I guess this can also be seen as a strength as well. Then people know I am not just whipping out a LO for the sack of whipping one out.

Who or what inspires you in the scrapping community? Any person or site in particular that you look to for inspiration?
WOW.. This list is LONG.. So I will say it like this, don't just grab inspiration from ONE person, I grab it from MANY.. as there is soooooo many talented scrappers out there.. I find most of my inspiration comes from ScrapMatters.. I love going though the gallery and leaving love for others.. and usually something catches my eye and I just have to try it out  And they have awesome challenges..

If you could have Andrea create a template pack just for you, what would it be and why?
These LO’s would contain a TON of layers! And the pack would be LO’s that would look nice for making 2 page LO’s. I am a bit obsessed at the moment about making 2 page LO’s. 

What is your favorite LO you have ever done for Little Green Frog Designs?


Describe yourself in 4 words : Optimistic, Loyal, Creative, Talkative 

What bad habits do you have?
I think my worst bad habit is that I am a true procrastinator.. I put things off til the last min.. I even do this with scrapping.. I scrap when I should be doing other things, like cleaning, cooking, going out to do things.. I still get things done.. But usually a lot slower then my husband would like  

To have a nosy at more of Melissa's fab pages - head over to her gallery here.


I'll be back tomorrow with a sneak peek of this week's goodies !

Sunday School - Photo Actions

Today for school I want to talk to you about photo actions. I only use a basic point and shoot camera and quite often my photos leave a lot to be desired.  This is where photo actions can be worth their weight in gold; they can make a fairly unspectacular photo look much better and more useable.  Another reason I like to use photo actions is to help my photos match the kit I am using. 

Let me show you some examples:

Here is a perfect example of how an action can improve your photographs. My point and shoot camera is fairly useless in low light as you can see here.

However I really wanted to scrap the photos from this character meal. I was able to save them by running an action on them and make them more scrapable.

In this example I wanted to create a layout of my flag family photos from Disney using the kit below. However if you look you'll see that my photos were taken on a bright summers day and the colours were very vivid and did not match the kit at all.

Just by running a simple photo action on them I was able to mute the colours and make them work with the kit perfectly.

The photo below is gorgeous but I really wanted to warm it up to give a sunshiney feel for my layout so again a simple photo action saved the day.

So where do these actions come from? Well I have a couple of places I visit.

My Four Hens is run by Sarah Cornish a professional photographer based in Mystic, CT. Over on her blog and in her shop you will find actions, textures and  along with tutorials, giveaways and lots more. If you haven't discovered My Four Hens yet head over there now you are missing out!

The Coffee Shop Blog is run by Rita a stay-at-home mum with a passion for photography. On Rita's blog you will not only find a whole host of photo actions but lots of other goodies as well; custom storyboards, textures, brushes, patterns and tutorials. The best news of all is that everything on Rita's blog is completely 100% free!

I hope that if you haven't tried using actions on your photos before that my tutorial has inspired you to give it a try. 

Have a Happy Scrappy Week!