Dusty's blog is moving

I'm moving to a new blog site at WordPress.

Along with that move is a major revamp of the DustyD website. So please, check them both out and if you have links to this blog, please update with the new one.

See you there!

and you thought you'd got all your presents...

Hop on over to SumScrapper for a one day super special - everything in the store is 50% off on Saturday December 26th.

I've got my eyes on Pammy's Xmas Wishes for my 2009 Christmas pages.

I've also been hankering after Marcie's Color My World, with its fabulous primary kid colours - perfect for paging up my grandies.

Thinking about those grandies, DigiScrap Princess' Hope would be great for the granddaughters. The kit is celebrating women battling breast cancer but it is lovely enough for little girls as well.


I could go on but it is better you go see for yourself.
See you there!

Great album making from AlbumWorks

I've just finished two amazing terms filling in as Teacher Librarian at a great girls' school while the real TL was off on maternity leave and have retired - again! And this time for good. Time to get back into the fun of digi and dusting off my photo stock pile.

My first big project was to make a Christmas present for my daughter. I wanted to make her a photo book about the first 5 years of her son's life. I wasn't looking forward to doing battle with album software, most I had tried in the past were not all that user friendly. But the fates were looking after me and I had an email about Album Works so I gave them a try. Bliss! The album software was intuitive and allowed for lots of customisation. They delivered with blistering speed and the quality was superb.

They are Australian based but they also deliver internationally. Give them a look at: www.albumworks.com.au/

Dabbling with design

I've enjoyed the wonderful digi-scrapping things made by others and now I'm having a go as well. I am so lucky to have good friends over at SumScrapper who are being very patient with a new designer. Sonya has let me set up a shoppe there and it is exciting to see it growing with new items. I've been making mostly brushes but now I am also doing swatches and botanical extractions as well.

One of the really great things about Sum Scrapper is that it is a community. There is a forum for sharing and gossiping and, major bonus, because Sonya is a professional photographer, we also get lots of help and assistance with our photo taking as well.

So if you like the support of a community plus access to lovely kits then get yourself off to SumScrapper, we'd all love to see you there! And when you get there, hunt down the freebies.

What's that you say?

Using speech bubbles can add an extra twist to otherwise ordinary images. This family album page is a good example. I had the photos of our dog and our son's dog jostling for position of top dog while son's cat watched from a safe distance. The pictures weren't great and I only had a couple. What to do?

The cat on his chair gave me an idea and once he was made Director, I just had to come up with lines for the dogs and turn their images into strips of film by adding holes along the edges. Now the page has a humourous tone and is much more interesting.

I only use this technique occasionally but it is always fun to do. Give it a try!

And which one is our dog? The cutest one of course.

Credits:
Fonts - Tekton Pro; Franklin Gothic Medium; Arial
Overlay on background - thanks to Laitha - Mariella Carugati products, available at PickleBerry Pop

Mobile phone pic too small?

No problem! You can always 'go large' with the design of the page instead.

As so often happens, perfect photo opportunities occur when the good camera is too far away and you know the moment will pass all too quickly. That's when I tend to whip out the mobile phone and snap away with fingers crossed. I know the picture will be low res and if I'm lucky, in focus as well so it can still be used.

This page shows one of those moments. DH had just bought a new iPhone and downloaded an interactive story book for DGS to play with. The looks on the faces show how successful the whole idea was.

I still have to add some story to this page but as you can see, I have lots of room left. Maybe up the top there perhaps?

I used DigiScrap Princess' new kit Annie's Rain for the page. It's available at Sum Scrapper now. The font is PalaceScript MT.

Australiana

I have been having a lot of fun putting together elements and papers with a strong Australian theme that I hope will be used by folks who travel about our great country and then want to put together a travel album with all their pictures. As I have heaps of dusty pics in travel folders myself, I am also designing and developing things for me too. I'm hoping that if it works for me then it'll work for someone else as well.

Here is one of our travel pics taken just out of Kalgoorlie at the old bush two-up ring, now abandoned and falling into ruin. There is corrugated iron everywhere and that inspired me to create a corrugated iron background for my page.

The title, Come in Spinner, comes from the call made at the two-up as the person in the middle tossed the two pennies in the air. Bets were laid on how the coins would fall and fortunes were made and lost at the ring. Conditions there were never luxurious. The little picture at the bottom left is of a semi-circle of corrogated iron painted white with the sign 'LADIES' painted on it.


If you like the background, you can download it here.

Credits:
Fonts - Adler, Arial.
Grunge overlay - Pineapple Plantation Designs

If you do download, a little ‘love’ in the form of a note or comment would be appreciated.