iNSD Blog Hop, Give-away and Freebies!

Happy early [inter] National Scrapbooking Day (iNSD)! I always love the buzz of activity (and sales) associated with this special day dedicated to our great hobby. Although iNSD is officially May 5th, Design House Digital is starting the House Party early with a blog hop, sales, a free collab kit, a layout challenge, and more,  all week long! I’ve got so much share and tell you about, so this will be a long post – but stick with me to the end because it’s worth it!!

If you hopped to my blog from Deena Rutter’s blog, welcome! (Don’t you just love her designs?!) If not, you’ll want to start from the beginning of the hop for all the details.

Collab Kit Freebie

Pick up this fabulous FREE collaboration kit from the Design House Digital designers, called Retrospect:



Just grab all the letters along the hop for the coupon code and this packed kit is yours free!

Tip of the Day

I’ve been having a lot of fun this year documenting our everyday happenings through Project Life (by Becky Higgins). [Although I’m a bit behind in posting my completed weeks] This year, I’ve been incorporating digital/hybrid elements into my album. There’s a lot of wonderful digital product available geared toward Project Life, and by using digital supplies I can customize my own title cards and journaling cards.

The other new thing I’ve been including this year is iPhone photos. Their lower resolution images look great printed at 3x4; OR, have a little fun editing with filters through the various apps like Instagram, Hipstamatic, etc. While these apps give you some artistic play time, they can pose a challenge for including in Project Life because of their square shape.

I’ve found two ways to incorporate these square photos: 1. place on the 3x4 journaling cards at a smaller size, and 2. place on a 4x6 card, with plenty of room for the photo (at 3.5 x 3.5 or less) and some notes about the day.

I encourage you to give it a try – it adds some variety to your pages by customizing your inserts with digital products and by incorporating smaller square photos. Even if you don’t process the photos with a smartphone app, you can still incorporate a square photo on your cards.

Freebie

To help you with the above ideas, I made a few 4x6 and 3x4 cards using the Retrospect collab freebie. Download here.



The 4x6 cards (.png) have openings for instagram or phone photos – just slip the photo behind the opening & it’s ready for use on your layout or for printing. The 3x4 cards can be used for journaling or adding a photo. All of these cards work great with Project Life, or any scrapbooking project! I’d love to see how you use them – link me up in the comments if you do!

Layout Challenge

Design House Digital is giving away a digital photo frame! To be entered into the drawing, you need to complete a layout meeting all 26 of the challenges, which can only be found along this hop, by Tuesday,  May 8, 2012, at 11:59 pm MST (that’s 12:59 am for my Central peeps).
My challenge for you: Write your journaling in the form of a list.

Giveaway!

I’m excited to be giving away a $10 gift certificate to the store at Design House Digital! For a chance to win, do one or all of the following by midnight (Central time) on Monday, May 7, 2012:

1. Leave a comment in this post about your favorite part of iNSD.
2. Create a layout or other project using my freebie, post it in the DHD gallery and link me up in the comments below.
3. Follow my blog using the widget in the sidebar (and leave a link in the comments telling me you did).

I’ll be back Tuesday with the winner!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Next Stop…

The next stop on the Design House Digital blog hop is Aria Andrus. Remember, if you get lost along the way, you can go back to the beginning post, which has links to all the sites participating in the hop.
Have fun and enjoy iNSD!

This post was brought to you by the letter “F”!

~Carey

*Project Life is a system created by Becky Higgins for documenting everyday life, or really anything you choose.