My latest: a Halloween kit

This is my absolute favorite season... always has been. I remember, as a kid, being so excited to be going trick or treating , I could hardly sit through dinner. My mom drove me around from house to house (we lived in a rural area where houses were far apart and we didn't have sidewalks).

Even as I got older it was still a lot of fun to decorate our houses, especially my friend's house in the middle of town -- they always had lots of trick or treaters. We'd go all out making and painting elaborate tombstones to set up in the yard, fake boards and "BEWARE" signs to tape across all the windows, and rigging up flying ghosts from the second floor to the tree out by the street.

My newest kit is a tribute to all the fun we had on Halloween. It's kind of grungy, kind of cute, just the thing for putting together some really spectacular layouts!

I'm new at this...

After spending the last 13 years doing design and illustration for others (corporations, companies large and small, and individuals), I've decided to venture into the world of digital scrapbooking. It sounded like so much fun -- creating things I would like to create, with no one to answer to!

I started scrapbooking the old fashioned way before it ever became popular, in 2000, after a trip to Key West with my boyfriend (he's now my husband). After our trip, I put together a scrapbook with photos, ephemera from the island, and embellishments I'd made myself: cutouts, little drawings and paintings, pieces of ribbon, etc. Lots of work, and very messy!

Years later it occurred to me, why can't I use the programs I use every day in my graphic design work to put together scrapbooking layouts?

I even had one of my layouts accepted for publication in a Somerset Studio digital scrapbooking magazine... so I must be doing something right!

After having a hard time finding really good papers and embellishments, I decided to start making my own... and discovered Photoshop actions, styles and filters to help me with my work. Then I researched possibly selling my kits. And here I am!

I'm currently selling at www.scraphead.com -- just started this summer, so look for new stuff, coming soon -- three new kits every month!

My first digital layout

When my daughter was born I made her birth announcements myself -- cut paper, glue, ribbon, vellum -- and then decided to do a digital version of it just for fun.

Elements are: scanned floral scrapbooking paper which had a sort of watercolor effect (can't remember the maker), pink flower I hand-illustrated and scanned into Photoshop, lots of fonts, and many Photoshop effects (layers, brushstrokes, transparencies, drop shadows). I also scanned in pieces of lace and buttons which I used as page elements and background textures.