Monday 25 January 2010

Lets talk about nice people (and Scrapbooking software!)

Good morning/afternoon/evening....

My sleep patterns are getting better, despite my body not wanting to answer to my brain commands, but I have been in a good mood overall, so many nice people making their way into my life.
There are so many givers in the net world, even if we only talk about the scrapbooking "scene" (I could be hours writing about the amount of gifted people who share their music with the world for free, and many other forms of art...)

Starting by the one who brings us the givers as a package, Maria from Digifree, which recently has changed names to CraftCrave.
I have to admit I don't much like the new name, even my daughter made a comment as to the old name making more sense, but the essence remains the same:through this site one can have a blast reading the many blogs found by the searching engine, and get freebies to scrapbook for a year without having to spend a penny....thing is, if you are anything like me, you will feel a bit *guilty* of only downloading freebies, start picking your favorite designers and, when they become affordable, buy some kits.

When buying, I end up most of the time at Digital Crea France . They have very often (once a month at least) sales with full kits for as little as 1 Euro or 1.50, and they are my preferred style, but lest go back to the point (yeah, I know, blame the prescription meds!)

Amongst the many people who create and always give freebies, is the most wonderful Rosemarie (or RosemariePixel, as you may know her) who runs Pixel Scrapbooking
I think I came across her through Digifree, as one does, and the freebies were so cute and so many, I ended up signing up for the newsletters, which allows you into more freebies than if only searching through Digifree (or any of the other search engines, I know there is Lori and some others, but up to date, my chosen one is ...ok, ok, I have to correct myself: CraftCrave (it's gonna take time to get used to this, though!)
But she offers not only freebies but so much more, the first time I went to the site I spent quiet a long time reading, she also has such a beautiful family you can get lost into her creations, a great source of inspiration too.
The tutorials are amazing, and I have clicked in many of the adverts, there is interesting stuff I didn't even know existed.

I have been saying for a while that I wanted to post something about these people, these women who so kindly put their talent out there for everyone to enjoy, and particularly wanted to do this for Rosemarie, so I thought: what better than share my latest experiences with software?
As my concentration levels still are clouded by medication or pain levels (or severe discomfort, as the British NHS would prefer it to be described!) I wasn't sure I would complete the task properly, so it took a while, but I got started... :)

So here is where you can find my thoughts and experiences with the few programs I use & bought, starting by the not so creativity inclined Smilebox and followed by the (at least for me) winner of all prizes, Scrapblog
Just click on the highlighted names to go to the reviews, leave a comment there, come to talk to me here...but above all, sign up for Rosemarie's freebies, everything is amazingly beautiful or teaches you a lot...even if you were just born in a non computerized era (like me!), girls like RosemariePixel (who apparently was *download* instead of just purely born LOL) will help you master the digital arts in a very, very easy to understand way.

Here is a LO I made last night with a mix of elements from different kits, but where the star is PixelScrapbooking moon, which you can get for free (together with some more of different colors) when signing up for the newsletter and having access to all previous freebies.
Stay tuned for the following reviews of ScrapbookMax V 2.0 & DigitalScrapbookingArtist by Serif (used to make this LO)

1 comment:

Rosemarie said...

Aww that layout is too sweet. I love pink stuff!

Thanks for reviewing my site; it nice to see that hours spent doing digi stuff are appreciated!

And I put my hands on a photoshop element software so expect many more tutorials :)
Will try to do them bilingual mac/pc...