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In this issue
Letter from Team Digital - Elizabeth Weaver
 Welcome to TEXAS! Or, that is what the sign told me just a few days ago – shown here in the foreground of my rental truck. How many of you are moving this summer, or have made a major move in the fairly recent past? I know of some other members who are; I’m not alone! I hadn’t moved in 13 years, and wow, it was hard. It still is – I certainly haven’t gotten everything unpacked. For starters, the weather has been 100 degrees every day, unusual even for this area. Then there are my two dogs to settle in with the four that already live here – now that has been sort of interesting. My smallish terrier mix sisters are jealous of the rottweiler – and they seem to pick random moments to attack him. (Although they’re settling down). He generally ignores them otherwise, but at 150 pounds he can defend himself just fine against two 25 pound rats. He doesn’t really hurt them, thankfully.
I also have a darling little great-niece here who is just nine months old, and already walking, so the bottom line is I have lots of new photography subjects to distract me from my unpacking chores. I long to get a good photo of the baby and the rottweiler together – does anybody else remember or have Alexandra Day’s beautiful picture books about Carl the Rottweiler who babysits his own family’s baby girl? Well these two look just like them. I love those books – in my favorite one, the mom goes out to do the gardening and leaves the baby inside with Carl, who pulls out all the scrapbooking supplies and, with the tiny girl’s help, puts together a whole scrapbook! Now that is the family pet we all need!
Whether you are having a typical July or are in the middle of life changes, I hope you are photographing every new occurrence that you will want to scrap. Embrace, enjoy, experience, and then capture, create, captivate!
Elizabeth Weaver
DSP Senior Designer
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New to DSP?
New Member Information:
Are you new to digital scrapbooking or new to DSP? Join Digital Elite Team (DET) members Sands and Mars for a New Member Chat. The chat is every other Friday at 10 pm EST (3rd, 17th, 31st July) - You'll find all the information here.
Here is a wonderful opportunity to ask questions about DSP and digital scrapbooking. Whether it’s a question about navigating the site or how to get started, someone will be on hand to give you the answers.
Posting Your First Layout:
Are you thinking about posting your first layout? There's a special first layout challenge each months for you. Post your first layout to DSP this month and you may be a random winner for a free page kit!! You'll find all the information here.
What’s Going On
If you need to know what is going on, you need the What's happening at DSP thread or the Calendar.
Welcome to DSP! We know you will love it!
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Scrappy Award Winners:
DSP's most glamorous award ceremony was attending by a host of glam girls and their scrappy dates! The red carpet was an amazing sight to behold with the ladies all dressed in their finest, supporting fine figures, decorated with a bunch of hunks!
Click here to see a list of the winners and links to the photos or layouts.
Are you ready for the winners?
Best Photo - Nicolette
Best Photography on a layout - CathieMarie
Best Journaling Layout - MyPinkFlipFlops
Best Comedy Layout - Scrapping4Him
Best Graphic style Layout - CathieMarie
Best Paper style Layout - sands_healy
Best 1-2 photo layout - sssnoo
Best Multiple photo layout - MurlieMac
Best Double page spread - Muma
Best Use of Blending Layout - Ineke
Best Extraction Layout - sssnoo
Best Fantasy Layout - terryl
Best Heritage Layout - caraffle
Best Use of DSP Background paper in a layout - Rosiego
Best use of a DSP Quick Click - IglooWigwam
Best use of a SINGLE DSP kit - HeatherL
Best Use of DSP elements - Jeanet
Best use of DSP Word Art - HeatherH
Best Overall Layout - CathieMarie
Congrats to all the winners!!
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Some Useful Links:
 blogger  facebook  flickr  myspace  twitter
New Products Club Digital Events Freebies Tutorials Mentoring Terms of Use Contact Us
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Club Digital
Are you a member of the club?
July 2009 Club Digital
Enjoy summer fun with this months issue of Club Digital . For your scrapping pleasure there are 2 page kits- one soft and elegant in warm summer day tones and one bright and funky and perfect to scrap summer nights. There is also a super 3 photo cool blue toned plopper, and a set of date stamps . Also included is a set of versatile Summer word art , a cute pink button alphabet and As usual there is a great quick click to help you with your layout designs and dont forget the exclusive font
Club Digital now comes in a choice of resolutions - Choose 200ppi or the new 300ppi version when you download.
This months content includes
- Afternoon on the Verandah Page Kit
- Sweet Summer Nights Page Kit
- Fresh Blue Plopper
- Pink Button Alpha
- Circle Date Stamps
- Summer Cool Word Art
- DSP Font - DSP Foxy
- Laying Low Quick Click
Club Digital is the hottest club in town! Get your monthly fix of the best digital scrapbook products for an incredible price! Something to suit every style and level of digital scrapper!
Club Digital includes two page kits, one plopper or overlay, a quick click template, an alphabet, some wordart, a font, and png stamps! And there's more! We now include an exclusive store saving coupon just for Club Digital customers. Not only are you saving by being a member, but you receive a coupon that increases your value savings! On top of that, you can can enter an Club Digital exclusive challenge just for members (with great prizes)!
Over $27 in value for the incredible price of only $5.99/month or even less with a longer subscription! Club Digital is just $17.97 for three months ($5.99/month), $33.00 for six months ($5.50/month), or $59.88 for a full year ($4.99/month)!
Club Digital now comes in 2 resolutions. Choose either 200ppi or 300ppi from the drop down box to select your choice of resolution.
When you purchase, you are automatically entered in to the following drawings:
Buy a 3 month subscription and go into the draw to be upgraded to a 6 month subscription
Buy a 6 month subscription and you might win an upgrade to a 12 month subscription
Buy a 12 month subscription and your name will go into the draw for a $30 coupon for the DSP store.
Welcome to the club!
Here is a selection of layouts created by the DSP designers using this months Club Digital Selection.
Click here to subscribe to Club digital today
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Featured Designer -Nicole Youngn
Imperfect Perfection
I have perfect kids (yes I am totally delusional, but hear me out!) They are perfect in THEIR way. Maybe not my way, or the world’s way, but they are exactly who they SHOULD be!
I struggle with being a slight perfectionist, wanting things to be JUST RIGHT! I have only recently mastered the task of leaving the house sans make-up and coiffed hair and still guffaw the idea of not at LEAST curling eyelashes and spraying just a LITTLE bit of hairspray to control those flyaway hairs (ok, so that’s considered hair and makeup, but give me a break!)
So as I am watching (with a bottle of antacid in my hand) my children grow into their own little independent selves, I see how totally imperfect their personal perfection is! My 9 year old daughter is DETERMINED to have a fashion sense all her own. The latest fashion tip which she kindly advised me of was that clashing was cool. Ok, sure, whatever! My 3 year old on the other hand has determined that band-aids solve all of life’s dilemmas. If you just SLIGHTLY bump into something and for even one MILLISECOND it hurts, then it MUST have a band-aid! And while these little things are so minor and so trivial, I want to remember them, when I am old and gray (ok, so I just had to pull a few the other day, but DO NOT get me started on that!) I want my children to look back at pictures of themselves (not those portrait studio pictures where the hair is in place and there is not a speck of dirt to be seen) but to see themselves as they REALLY were! Totally imperfect but perfectly themselves! I want to capture every moment as it was, not as I wish it were. But if I had to be totally honest, I wouldn’t change a thing! These little imperfections are what make us wonderfully unique! (Ok, less the gray hairs!)
Nicole’s Links
Click here for Nicole’s Team Digital Bio
Click Here for Nicole’s Personal Gallery
Click Here for Nicole’s CAF=E! Challenges
Click here for Nicole’s CAF-E! Gallery
Click here for All Nicole kits
Click here for Nicole’s Blog
Earn prizes and have fun with the Featured Designer Challenge!
(Be sure to check the bottom of the newsletter for a special freebie from Nicole to our newsletter readers!)
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Upcoming 2009 DSP Crops and Events
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Member Spotlight: Ineke
 DSP Member Spotlight for July is Kay a.k.a kaybutler@mweb.
“Graphic-y grungy” - is how Kay describes her favorite scrapping style, but says it really depends on her “mood of the day” as to the style of the layout.
She says it takes her forever to do a page and that if “Snail-scrapping is a style”… then she would wear the “crown” as the snail-scrapping queen!
Kay draws inspiration from her five beautiful grandchildren – and what inspiration they turned out to be, as Kay is the person who started the HUGELY popular Grannies Thread.
Congratulations Kay. Thank you for being our member spotlight. Be inspired by Kay’s gallery here and read more about her HERE then share the inspiration and take part in the Scraplift the Spotlight challenge for June.
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It's Shop Time!
My Memories Suite:
My Memories Suite is a premium digital scrapbook application that allows users to make beautiful scrapbooks that can be enhanced by music, narration, video, and the Internet. Create digital albums in minutes using one of many designer templates, or design your own pages using page kits (click here for a tutorial). Share your albums as beautiful hardbound books, print individual pages, watch them on a DVD, or view them on the computer as an interactive CD. You can even share them on an iPod or turn your pages into printed greeting cards that can be mailed directly to family and friends. The robust features of the software provide the graphic tools to make beautiful digital photobooks, while at the same time keeping all your memories—your pictures, videos, and music—preserved in one place.
It is the ideal tool for the beginning scrapbooker who wants to get started and create some awesome albums AND the sophisticated scrapper who wants to create something a little different and very special.
Shop Time Inspiration
It’s time to SHOP… let’s get those baskets at the ready.
We are half way through the year and what have you scrapped? The good news is that there are six month’s left in the year and that’s lots of time to tell the story of what has been happening in your life. It is not to late to participate in Project 365. Check out the forum and the gallery for loads of great inspiration. There is also a wonderful Project 365 category in the store.
Did you know you can do a search for any colour you want, it's so easy to find just the right products when you do a color search. Search for product for your project by color. Or search for Red White and Blue to support for our inspiration colors for July.
Have you checked out the theme gallery lately, you’ll find lots more kits plus some awesome word art, ploppers, alphas and wow – loads more ideas. Here’s the theme for our inspiration event patriotism, and another one for our inspiration style bling. Perhaps you might find some inspiration for our relationship, grandparents, in the family theme.
Gift Certificates Send anyone the perfect gift!! Gift Certificates are a wonderful way to say - Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, I Love You, or even Just Because!
Did You Know...
...you can get to the store by typing shop.dsp.me in your browser URL bar? Get to the store even faster!
Do you love the product you just purchased and want to tell others? Please consider doing a review ... pass the good word along! We love to hear from you.
Happy shopping
Featured Product - Red White and Blue Mega Kit
Perfect for July 4th and many other occasions this patriotic red white and blue themed mega kit will showcase your photos and provide many hours of scrapping pleasure
With over 20 backgrounds and 60 elements, 2 alphabets and an exclusive font there is enough here to keep you busy all month
Red, White and Blue Mega Kit
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Inspiration for New and Advanced Digital Scrappers!
Digi-Scrapper Inspiration by Mandy
Windows - Frame Your World.
For quite some time now I have been wanting to do an inspiration piece looking at WINDOWS – no, not the operating system , but rather as a keyword to inspire layouts.
What springs to mind when someone says the word window? Do you picture looking out at the world outside your window, or the sunlight streaming in? How about commonly used expressions and song lyrics that say something about “the world outside your window”, “a window on your world” or “eyes are the windows to the soul”?
For me, the idea of “windows” offers a whole range of scrapping possibilities. Since your home is the place you live, keep your treasures, make memories and raise your children, it is also a great starting-off point for scrapping both the immediate world outside your window, and giving a “window on your world” glimpse into your life. If you are using the idea of a room with a view, or the view from my kitchen window (for example) you might like to extend that to capture pictures of that view with the changing seasons. Another idea would be to do heritage using the theme: “Windows on the Past.”
In times of change, for example: moving house, moving to a new area, or children moving to a new school; scrapping the “windows” of your “old” life will help children (and adults) remember, and perhaps even give a sense of closure on the old, and acceptance of the new.
 How about a “Window on your World” album? It would even make a great project for children – they can photograph their bedroom, house, friends, favorite park, school, and scrapbook them.
When it comes to doing your window layouts, you might clearly have a window in the photograph, but if not you might want to look at some of those gorgeous “window” elements in the various kits in the store and use them to literally frame your photographs on the layout.
Tips:
- Look at Tina’s The View From My Place Challenge and use it as a jumping off point.
- In the DSP Store, use the [Click here to see layouts using this product] feature that shows layouts done with the kit. Remember the search looks through your layout description for the DSP product code… so always try to put the kit code in that descript field when you upload a layout.
Digi-Scrapper Inspiration by Meg
Chopping the Canvas
During the summer, we're out and about so much, I don't always have my camera handy to capture all the little day-to-day moments. I've found myself using my cell phone's camera much more than I would ever have expected. It takes a decent picture, as long as I don't try to enlarge it much. About the same quality as my first digital camera, a Kodak point and shoot that looked like a brick (and felt that heavy, too). Coincidentally, my kids have recently gone camera crazy and have begun documenting their every move with that old Kodak and my "purse camera", another point and shoot. So my photo files are filling up with small photos that are no less precious for their lack of quality.
While the accumulating photos may not be the best, they are wonderful reminders of all the fun things we are doing. More importantly, I’m viewing the summer through my kids’ eyes, and discovering what they find interesting. I love this peek into their minds, and they are rapidly honing their skills and enjoying the creative process. But what do I do with all these tiny photos? There aren’t any real stories to go with them, but I want them in our family scrapbook anyway, for they definitely tell a story of their own. 
I’ve begun making differently sized pages and, instead of making a separate mini-book as I’ve done in the past, I’m inserting them right into our family scrapbook alongside the full-sized pages. And I love the look! Here are two of the pages I created (I generally do two at a time, so I can place them back to back, but you could place a decorative paper there instead):
The photos on my daughter's page were taken by her, on a low megapixel camera, so it was good to keep them small. I added a poem she recently wrote about her home, and instantly we have a treasured page for our album.
The photo on my son's page was taken with my cell phone, so fairly low quality. But a funny moment, and one I wanted to capture!
The key for these small pages is definitely to keep it simple! Don't overload them with elements, just get the memories on there and move on!
To put them in your album, you can buy specially sized, or divided, album pages. Or, you can create them yourself! I print at 8” x 8”, so I printed these two pages (8”x 4” each) on one piece of photo paper and cut them apart. After inserting them back-to-back in a standard 8” x 8” album sleeve, I ran it through my sewing machine.
 Here they are in our family album, I love how you can see part of the pages on each side. I enjoyed creating on such a differently sized canvas, and these pages add interest and dimension to the album. Such fun little surprises as you flip through!
Try making half pages for your albums, I bet you'll love the results! Next, I'm going to try some horizontal half pages and maybe even stick in some small squares or 4” x 6” minis!
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Create a great day!
Meg
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Artful Activities: Creating Moments into Memories
When you first join DSP you want to devour every little bit of information there is and it seems a bit overwhelming at first but the absolutely best place to visit first off is the 'What's Happening' page, it's packed with useful information to help you choose to participate in a designer run challenge or contest or make a date to be at one of our awesome chat session. To find out the daily and weekly fun at DSP check out the calendar of activities, there's never a dull moment at DSP and you're sure to find something to your taste to challenge you artistically
Coming Events:
Keep watching for other upcoming events in July...
Contests, Challenges and Chats
- Designer Exclusives: Our Designers are the best there are and they are really generous, if you enter one of their challenges you’re more than likely to receive a chat and/or posting bonus just by using their nominated kit for the challenge. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain – like more stash for less bucks with these great challenges.
- Inspiration Station (IS News)
This is a call to all dedicated DSP scrappers to ‘strut your stuff’ and inspire us with your creations. Just choose any or all of the calls for layouts the current month and you could be showcased in our Newsletter or Blog. We have a few rules so check them out and then join in the fun. Check out the current edition of Inspiration Station News or here for Previous Issues
- Calls for July will include:
- Color - Red, White and Blue
- Event - Patriotism
- Relationship - Grandparents
- Style / Trend - Bling / Jewels
- Club Digi - ... July 09
- CD or Mega Kig - Mega Kit
- Project 365 - a project for how YOU scrap. Check out our Project 365 chats and the Project 365 store category.
- Scrapolution – It’s a DSP evolution, a scrapping revolution, and our New Year’s resolution:
It's a SCRAPOLUTION!!
It’s all about YOU, our members, our friends, making scrapping goals and Team Digital supporting, guiding, encouraging, joining, and cheering you on every step of the way. Check out the current themes and prompts.
- Scrap with the DET – Digital Elite Team and DET Alumni
Our past and current Elite group of scrappers have some great challenges going at the moment and you’re sure to get well chosen CC should you need it – learn from the best
- Elite Challenges - be sure to check out the challenges run by our DET Alumni and DET.
- The Grannies If you’re a Granny or a Granny In Training (GIT) or just a Wannabee, you might like to see what other Grannies are up to, what challenges they have going. There is never a dull moment when you join this happy band of digi scrappers.
- IOTW - Item of the week – Abby
The Item Of The Week is a priced to sell and generally cost only a few cents so create a LO using only the IOTW and be in the draw to win a free kit.
- SNL - Saturday Night Live - MarsOlson & Debbers
This is where anyone can create their own digital scrapbook kits to share with other SNL’ers, from elements and papers to word art.
This is just a small selection of popular challenges that DSP currently has running but be sure to check all of them out here. And we have a special blinkie to place in your signature to always remind you where to find the best scrapbooking challenges on the web. Check the end of the first post in the What's Happening thread for the blinkie code.
Happy Scrapping!
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DSU Information
Summer is in full swing here in Texas and as one person said its "stupid hot" here. I know that I'm going to be spending ALOT of time in doors if the weather stays in the triple digits like it has been! However, there is an upside to spending so much time inside. It's allowing me to catch up on alot of scrapbooking that I haven't been able to get done yet. If you are trying to avoid the summer heat then DSU has the perfect solution for you! DSU offers fabulous classes from beginner to advanced to help you with your digital scrapping goals.
In case you didn't hear the exciting news, DSP has just added a new class to our line up- DSU198: Storytelling! It's debuting in July so you still have time to sign up if you missed the cut-off for registration. Late registration will run from May 1st - May 5th and will incur a $10 late fee.
To read more about this new class or any of our other classes, please visit our classes page. To register for any of our classes, please visit the DSU registration page.
Here is our line up of classes for August:
DSU220– Adobe Photoshop: Brushes (Pre-requisite- DSU 110 or similar experience)
DSU250– Adobe Photoshop: Photo Correction (Pre-requisite- DSU 110 or similar experience)
We would love to hear your suggestions on future classes! Send your suggestions and comments to me at dsu@digitalscrapbookplace.com.
Amber
Dean of DSU
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Desktop Calendar Plopper
A newsletter exclusive! Specially designed ploppers for your computer desktop. This month's offering is by Nicole Young Download the plopper here! (Sizes: 800x600, 1024x768, are included.)
And just like any of our ploppers, put your photos on a layer underneath the desktop plopper. Angle and size them as you please, add journaling, and save it as a jpg. Then update your desktop wallpaper background by browsing to your new image! Voilą! Favorite photos matched with this month's calendar to help keep you up-to-date all month! Look for a new one each month in our newsletter!
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Newsletter Challenge
We are always striving to make our newsletter more interesting and useful. If you have an idea, let us know about it! If it's an article idea, a feature, even something you'd like to write, shout it out to us. So, put your thinking caps on and come up with some new features, article ideas, or something fun you'd like to see in our monthly newsletter. Then email it to comments@dsplace.com. (Please type "Newsletter IDEA" in the subject line of your email.) We can't wait to see your ideas!
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Newsletter Freebie
Exclusively for our newsletter readers, DSP Designer, Nicole has created this fabulous plopper. Grab it here! Size: 200ppi or 300ppi
Thanks, Nicole, we appreciate it so much !
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Many thanks to the newsletter Team:
Kim, Meg, Mandy, Amber K, Nicole, Lynnette, Sharon, Elizabeth
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