Princesses and Paperbags

Good Morning to you all!

I hope your weather is as beautiful as ours. We've got a high of 21 coming up today and I just heard on the radio (z103.5 of course!) that this was a record making March due to the complete lack of snow - at least in Toronto. All very exciting, though I know we're due for at least one more blanket. It's probably coming next week, it always happens right around H's birthday.

As you may or may not know, I'm taking a not-entirely-voluntary semester off and reexamining what I want to do for the rest of my life. It's pretty clear that that is not tourism. I've always had a great love of books, and not just the stories in them either. The books themselves are every bit as sacred as the secrets they contain and this combined with the absolute meditative calm I feel in any library has lead me to believe that my future may lie in the Library and Information Sciences. Some digging has told me that the highest qualification you can get is a Masters. Now, I'm not the most scholarly, but I can get pretty awesome grade if I really really try. I had 100% in the Science Fiction class I took as a Gen-Ed last year for mopst of the semester and finished with a 95. Luckily this is not the be-all and end-all of Librarian education. I can get a library technicians certificate through College and that is what I am shooting for now, while keeping the Masters thing as a distant, idealist plan.

All this, coupled with my general love of books and reading has inspired me. I have started creating a collection based on some of my faveorite and most beloved stories. It will be a rather spread out and long-term project. I fully intent to continue adding to it and updating it whenever the mood strikes me. I have decided to sstart with some classics I, and most other Canadians (and I'm sure many of Americans as well) grew up on. Robert Munsch is a Canadian childrens writer who has created countless fun and light-hearted stories. I remember listening to many
of these stories on tape, as read by the author and I always loved the sound effects and the way he told them. Listening to them now, I still admire the way he seems to fully imerse himself into the story, much to the delight of his audience. The Munsch kit will include 3 stories at this point - Mortimer, Milicent and the Wind and, one of his most well know, The Paper Bag Princess. I had some troubl;e narrowing this list down and so I may also use the two runner-up - Jonathan Cleaned Up and Love You Forever (Which I know is a faveorite of many). I already have the Alpha done for Paperbag Princess. In fact, I think I'll make that today's Freebie.

What are your favorite Munsch tales?

More to come. I still don't have any of my usual tools and such because my portable HD is dead, so it'll be a bit slow, but I'm working on it :)

Happy Scrapping ♥

Pumpkin Spice Freebie

With Thanksgiving coming up for so many of you, I thought I'd put up this great autumn themed alpha. It's a full set of Capitals and several bits of punctiation. I've also thrown in a little surprise :)

I'm fully in the christmas spririt thanks to the Toronto Santa Clause Parade yesterday afternoon and as a result I expect I'll have many seasonal freebies, tutorials and even a few quick pages for you in the coming weeks. Check back often and to be sure you don't miss anything you can now subscribe to my Twitter account! (On a side note, the background on my twitter page is a modified version of the one I've been trying to get up on the blog).

Happy Scrapping ♥

Fun with Fonts

I've realised I have a problem. It started out innocently enough. A couple minutes here and there browsing and clicking. Then minutes became hours, and files became folders. I love fonts. I love how they're named, how they instantly jazz up any layout, powerpoint or assignment when used strategically and appropriatly and I love how a slight font tweak can take a page from 0-60 instantly.

Many of you have (or really should have) several 'decorative' fonts already on your computer wheather they came with it or because you've done some poking about already, but listen, there is so much more! First thing you've gotta do, before you can even conceive the end product is get your hands on some the raw materials.

The first website I want to mention, Font Diner I stumbled across when doing an assignment for an eleventh grade project. I had decided to use a retro theme for the title page and headings and such.

Most of their fonts are for sale, however there are some really awesome ones available in their freebies section's free silverware'. is one of my favorites!

Awesome site number two is Free Digital Scrapbooking.com. It offers lots of usefull (and free) supplies and a pretty varied Fonts section. I've been going there for ever and only recently realised they had fonts!and are the two I'm most excited to use right now. They have them organized by category (Grunge, Cursive, Patriotic etc.) and I encourage you to click through and look at them all.

Most of my fonts come from whatever google turns up for me. Ussually 1001 Free Fonts, Font Freak and DaFont. These are (for the most part) pretty interchangable. They have different ways to search and view (alphabetical, grouping, author etc.) and a preview. 1001 offers a custom preview if you're having trouble picturing the end result. If your into Dingbats there's plenty of those to, though I don't get it. I'll just google the picture, I don't want to go through the alphabet to find one. LOL.

To install new font's (in Windows) open the "fonts" section of your control panel. Start>Control Panel>Appearance and Themes>Fonts (in the sidebar under See Also) OR My Computer>Control Panel>Fonts. You now have a choice. You can copy and paste the new files into this section (good if they're spread out) or you can install them by going to file>install new font then browse through the folders to find the one you saved your fonts under. After opening each folder the fonts in it will show up in List of Fonts section. You can Select All or just the ones you want. Then it's just OK and you're done.

Now on to the fun part!
When making Powerpoint presentations and title pages one thing that drives me ab-so-lutly nuts is to many fonts. However, with scrapbooking, if done right, multiple font's can look really cool. For example:

and

The first LO uses 19 different fonts, including the letters at the bottom. The second technically only uses 2, as the "m" and "y" are alphas, but it shows the effect you can achieve with vaired types.

So when should you use fonts as opposed to alphas? Personally, I use fonts anytime I'm writting anything longer than 4 or 5 letters. It's so much easier than searching for, opening in Photoshop, resizing and positioning each individual letter. If I want to be able to put the letters at different angles, resize them or add lots of effects I'll use an Alpha set.

Any questions? Feel free to comment!
And as always,
Happy Scrapping ♥

2 Awesome Alpha's

Well I'm starting to get all the kinks of the store ironed out. I have two fabulous Alpha sets up right now - Gel and Block Letters. You can get them in the store :). And of course it's all free.