Ro Paxman

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Muse: To be absorbed in one's thoughts; engage in meditation. Not intended to solve the world's problems, another person's problems, or to cover topics completely. One does not have to agree with musings to enjoy them, just as one does not have to be the same as someone else to appreciate who they are.

Would you like to earn a $20 Gift Certificate? Send your own muse to [email protected]. If it is selected for publication in the Scrap Girls newsletter, you'll get to have fun shopping!

It's that time... the Scrap Girls Convention is nearly here! Don't miss the chance to learn, meet, and make friends with other Scrap Girls from all around the world!

Here are the facts:

When: October 8-10th, 2009

Where: Salt Lake City, Utah

What's Included
- 4 (four) meals (two lunches and two dinners)
- A Collection Biggie, designed especially for the convention
- Other free digital scrapbooking supplies, designed for class materials
- PDFs of the class materials
- Action-packed classes on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
- Crops, games, and time to hang out and make friends with other Scrap Girls
- The chance to meet in person and get help from Scrap Girls designers, layout artists, and welcoming committee members
- Memories that will last forever!

Note: Convention begins at 1:00 pm - Thursday, October 8th and ends at 6 pm - Saturday, October 10th.

How many people may attend? Only 126 and almost all of the seats have been sold! Don't miss out on this opportunity - secure your place now!

What will you learn? Here is a list of the classes and who will be teaching:

- How To Create Silhouettes with Brandy Murry
- How to Combine and Mix-up Digital Layout Templates to Create Unified Albums with Angie Briggs
- Using Styles To Make Your Photos look like Oil Paintings with Shalae Tippetts
- Tips and Tricks to Make Albums Fast! with Cherise Oleson
- How To Improve the Lighting of Your Photos with Laurel Lakey
- New Tricks for Using ScrapSimple Paper Templates with Marnie Adams
- How To Make a Slide Show with Your Layouts with Brandie Valenzuela
- Advanced Techniques To Improve Your Layouts with Christy VanderWall

A Canon Representative will be there to teach advanced techniques for using our cameras. She is going to award a prize! Then we will take a field trip for a special photo shoot.

We hope you come because you're special to us and we are dying to meet you! Scrap Girls is all about making friends while we enjoy the hobby that allows us to save our memories in a fun way. Having you with us would be awesome!

Sign up now!

SCRAP GIRLS CLUB

Join the Scrap Girls Monthly Club and you can have fun with the newest traditional digital and printable scrapbooking looks while saving! (A $27.94 value for $9.99 or less!)

The Scrap Girls Club contents are released on the 1st day of the month (or the closest business day to the 1st).

With the Scrap Girls Club, you will receive:

1 Collection Biggie
1 Paper Super Mini
1 8.5x11 Sheet of Word Art
1 Embellishment Set
1 Assemble Your Own Zoom Page Set
1 Designer's Choice Item

Layout by Angie Briggs using September's Scrap Girls Club
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Created for you by Angie Briggs

Alert! Alert! TODAY is the last day you can sign up for the Scrap Girls club and still get this great group of products at this amazing price.
Don't delay... sign up now!

If you prefer not to join a club, the Scrap Girls Club contents are available at regular prices in the Boutique. You can easily find them right now by checking the What's New? section of the Boutique.

Note: The Scrap Girls Club contents are always available for sale elsewhere in the Boutique at their regular prices once the associated club month is released. But all club contents are totally brand new, never seen before product releases for each month!

SCRAPSIMPLE CLUB

Join the ScrapSimple Monthly Club and you can enjoy the newest ScrapSimple looks while saving! (A $13.95 value for $6.99 or less!)

The new ScrapSimple Club contents are released on the 15th day of the month (or the closest business day to the 15th).

With the ScrapSimple Club, you will receive:

1 ScrapSimple Paper Template Set
1 ScrapSimple Embellishment or Word Art Template Set
1 Brush Set
2 Designer's Choice Items

A commercially licensed version of the ScrapSimple Club is also available here.

Layout by Brandy Murry using September's ScrapSimple Club
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Created for you by Brandy Murry and Durin Eberhart

If you prefer not to join a club, the ScrapSimple Club contents are available at regular prices in the Boutique. You can easily find them right now by checking the What's New? section of the Boutique.

Note: The ScrapSimple Club contents are always available for sale in the Boutique at regular prices once the associated club month is released. But all club contents are totally brand new, never-seen-before product releases for each month!

Creating Seasonal Displays With ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Altered Paint Cans

Note: Tutorial created using Adobe Photoshop CS4 with Mac OS X.

Gallon-sized paint cans make great gift containers for any occasion. But, maybe you would like to use a quart can as a gift bucket or even a petite holiday display. It's easy to resize the ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Altered Paint Cans to use with the smaller-sized paint can. Here's how you do it.

Open the template you wish to work with. Go to Image> Image Size or hit Ctrl+Alt+I (Cmd+Opt+I) to bring up the Image Resize dialogue box. In the top half of the box, under Pixel Dimensions, click on the blue arrows next to the word "Pixels" and change it to "Percent." Change the width value to "62." (The height will change automatically if you have Constrain Proportions checked at the bottom of the box.) This will change the template to 62% of its original size. Click OK. You will need to add approximately 3/4 inch on to the width of the background in order for it to wrap completely around the smaller tin. Sixty-two percent is the perfect height for a quart-sized can.

The template is now ready for you to customize with your digital scrapbooking supplies. I have created an elegant autumn-themed decoration as well as a fun Halloween one.

Project by Jan Hicks
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Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Altered Paint Cans, Brush Set: Life Quotes: Challenge Set 1, ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Coin Folders Chipboard - 3201 Mini, ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Aged Metals Biggie and ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Sew Doodly Leaves are also available.

I used template two from the ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Altered Paint Cans set. Although you can't see the tree around the left side of the can, I replaced the Christmas tree with the tree from ScrapSimple Tools - Shapes: Halloween 1501. Making little changes like this can totally change the look of a template, making it perfect for whatever holiday you wish.

Project by Jan Hicks
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Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Altered Paint Cans, ScrapSimple Tools - Shapes: Halloween 1501, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Antique Books Biggie and ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Coin Folders Chipboard - 3201 Mini are also available.

Tutorial written by Jan Hicks

FREE STARTER KIT

Free eBook "starter kit" turns your dreams of digital scrapbooking into reality today!

This dynamite eBook is 65 pages - packed full of the information, ideas, and help people need when they are about to dive into this great hobby. It answers all of the important questions new digital scrapbookers have. They are all here for you - in one easy to use eBook!

Bonus! Download the free "Warning" Label, too. It was created for you by Valerie Randall as a little bit of extra fun!

Would you like a chance to try digital scrapbooking yourself?

Scrap Girls' Refresh Collection Biggie offers you free samples of some of our most popular product types. Try making a layout, your own paper with a ScrapSimple Paper Template, a fast layout with a ScrapSimple Digital Layout Template, or experiment with a brush.

We know you'll love digital scrapbooking as much as we do, and we have thousands of products to feed your new addiction!

Ready to Take Off? In-depth Tutorials Help You Become a Great Digital Scrapbooker

Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed!

NEWLY UPDATED! Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Photoshop CS4, CS3, CS2, and CS
NEWLY UPDATED! Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Photoshop Elements 6.0 and 7.0*
Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Paint Shop Pro X (XI)

(*Have Photoshop Elements 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, or 5.0? We have a tutorial program that will work for you. Please visit the product details page for more information.)

Find out what tens of thousands of people have already learned: Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed is the fastest way to learn how to create digital scrapbooking layouts. And because this series covers so many topics with one purchase, it is a bargain!

In the tutorials, you'll see Ro working on her computer and hear her talking about why she is doing what she is doing. It's like having Ro come to your home and give you private scrapbooking lessons. You can create digital scrapbooking layouts today!

Download and CD versions available.

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements users receive:

30-31 movie tutorials
Companion eBook(s)
Collections
Other supplies

Paint Shop Pro users receive 31 movie tutorials.

MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed!

MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed! for Adobe Photoshop
MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed! for Adobe Photoshop Elements

It's time for you to stop playing catch-up in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and start having a blast creating your own digital scrapbooking supplies! You'll also learn all sorts of tricks that professionals and advanced digital scrapbookers use in their layouts. And because Ro covers so many topics in the series, it is one of the most cost-effective methods of moving your skills to a higher level. Join in with the thousands of digital scrapbookers who have chosen to learn advanced skills from Ro. You'll be happy that you did!

Note: These are NOT beginning tutorials. If you get this training and you have never used Photoshop or Photoshop Elements before, or if you aren't pretty sure of yourself in the software, you are going to be lost. You simply have to understand layers, where things are located, and all of the basic, important skills that Ro teaches in her Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed series before you try to use it.

eBooks

Scrap Girls offers a large catalog of eBooks covering topics that will expand your digital scrapbooking abilities to new heights. Here are just a few samples:

The Virtual Canvas eBook

What happens when you move digital scrapbooking beyond the basic page? What happens when you allow the layout to blur the edges between keepsake and art? The Virtual Canvas: Celebrating The Art of Digital Scrapbooking eBook will provide those answers for you.

Colour (me) Creative eBook with 36 color swatches

Learn about the color wheel, color terms and their meaning, how to load the colour palettes in Adobe or use the colour strips with a colour selection tool. You get both valuable lessons and inspiration in this book filled with 48 layouts showcasing the use of the colour palettes along with links of all the products used to create the digital scrapbooking pages.

Scrap Girls Tutorials & Way Cool Stuff eBook Set
2009 - 2nd Quarter

Now you can have all the past Scrap Girls Newsletter tutorials and Way Cool Stuff articles of the 2nd Quarter of 2009 in one convenient PDF format. It's easy to find those helpful hints with just the click of your mouse. You get two eBooks for the price of one!

Start to Finish eBooklets

Start to Finish eBooklet - PS: How to use ScrapSimple Tools: Custom Shapes & Patterns

Nothing could be simpler than learning to scrapbook digitally with Scrap Girls Start to Finish eBooklets. Step by step written guidelines and detailed screenshots will help you learn new digital scrapbooking skills. Included with the eBooklet are the actual digital files you need to create a finished project!

See more titles

Layout by Theresa Kavouras
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Designer Freebie by Theresa Kavouras coordinates with her Volleyball Collection Mini

Commercial license versions of Brush Set: Hana are also available.

* There is a "free download" button on the details page for each gift. You don't need to put them in your shopping cart unless you are shopping for other items. Also note that if you are slow reading your newsletter, you may find this freebie has already been retired, as the freebies are only available as gifts for about two newsletter cycles.

CROPS AND CHATS

East Coast High Noon Crop
Wednesday, September 30th - 10:00AM MT

Join your guest host April Showers for the East Coast High Noon Crop every Wednesday at 10am Mountain Time. These crops are designed to allow you to work on your own photos and themes, simply giving participants a one hour goal, and a fun, new challenge each week! On September 30th, we'll do a multiple photo challenge! Create a layout on any theme, any topic, and any colors - using seven or more photos! You'd be amazed what you can get done in just one hour! We hope you'll join us!

NSBR Chat - Early Edition
Thursday, October 1st - 2:00PM MT

What is NSBR? It's a non-scrapbooking related chat! We talk about everything, including some scrapbooking and usually chocolate. It's a great chance to meet new friends, catch up on what everyone is up to, and just relax! If you have a problem, we'll lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on. Have some great news to share? We'd love to celebrate with you. So, join Shari (Shari PV Mom) and Michelle (Shelbi) on October 1st at 2pm MT in the chat room Lobby! Hope to see you there!

Sketch Challenge Crop
Thursday, October 1st - 7:00PM MT

Join Marnie (sprinklz) for the Sketch Challenge and Crop, Thursday, October 1st at 7pm MT in the Scrap Girls Chat Room! Like getting a little jump start on your layouts? Then this challenge is for you! A few hours before the challenge begins, a sketch will be posted for you to use as the starting point for your page. You can be inspired by the basic arrangement, the amount of photos, or copy it literally. All interpretations are welcome and encouraged!

What's New Chat
Friday, October 2nd - 9:00AM MT

Join Michelle (Shelbi) and Becca at 9am Mountain Time on Friday mornings to chat about all the cool new things in the boutique. You never know who else is going to show up! What are you getting? What did you kaboodle? And most importantly show us the layouts or other projects you made with your new goodies! There's a thread every Thursday and now there's a chat too!

Back-Up Party and Chat
Friday, October 2nd - 2:00PM MT

Need a little extra motivation to back-up your layouts and stash? Join April Showers in the chat room Friday October 2nd for a Back-up Party and Chat. We'll also go over several different ways to safeguard your files. You won't want to miss this one!

NSBR Chat
Monday, October 5th - 7:00PM MT

What is NSBR? It's a non-scrapbooking related chat! We talk about everything, including some scrapbooking and usually chocolate. It's a great chance to meet new friends, catch up on what everyone is up to, and just relax! If you have a problem, we'll lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on. Have some great news to share? We'd love to celebrate with you. So join Carla (CRS) on October 5th at 7pm MT!

Creative Card Chat
Tuesday, October 6th - 6:00PM MT

Do you use your digi-supplies to make cards? Do you want to? Instead of going to the store every time you need a card you can save money and have fun making cards with your stash! Make a note of any cards you might need for the upcoming month and join Michelle (Shelbi) and April (April Showers) for the once a month Card Chat on Tuesday, October 6th at 6pm MT. Can't wait to see you there!

Life Moments Chat
Tuesday, October 6th - 7:00PM MT

Time for another Life Moments Crop! Life Moments is a crop dedicated to pages about yourself. We often neglect our own stories while preserving the stories of our loved ones. We're creating an album about ourselves, one layout at a time. For this month's topic, let's scrap an anniversary! It doesn't have to be a wedding anniversary, but an anniversary celebrating something in your life. So, join Carla (CRS) in the chat room on Tuesday, October 6th at 7pm MT!

East Coast High Noon Crop
Wednesday, October 7th - 10:00AM MT

Join your guest host April Showers for the East Coast High Noon Crop every Wednesday at 10am Mountain Time. These crops are designed to allow you to work on your own photos and themes, simply giving participants a one hour goal, and a fun, new challenge each week! On October 7th, we'll do a color challenge! Create a layout on any theme, any topic, using the color PURPLE! You'd be amazed what you can get done in just one hour! We hope you'll join us!

SEPTEMBER EVENTS

September Message Board Game: BINGO!

It's that time again! Join us for an exciting game of BINGO on the Message Board in September! Pick 25 words from the list provided in the Monthly Message Board Game forum and send them in an e-mail to [email protected] with a subject line that says "BINGO CARD" and your message board user name by Wednesday, September 2nd (11:59pm MT) in order to play in the first round which will begin Thursday, September 3rd. Each day, members of the Welcoming Committee will call 5 random words from the BINGO list. Match just 15 of those words to win a BINGO. You must be first to call "Bingo!" in the game thread to win that round. After a winner is called, the boards can be cleared and a new round will begin the following day. All winners win a $5 gift certificate to the boutique! We like to see lots of winners, so please remember that each person can only win one round during the month. Have fun!

If you miss the first round cutoff date, you can still play! Just send in your Bingo card at any time during the month and you'll be eligible to begin playing when the next new round starts. Everyone who sends in a Bingo card will receive a confirmation email that their card has been received. If you do not receive confirmation within 24 hours, please re-send your list of words.

Layout Contests:

September Monthly Layout Contest: We're coming up on the date 09/09/09. For this layout contest, we want you to create a layout using repetition. It can be a photo that is repeated, an embellishment, a color... the possibilities are many. Create your layout and post it in the September Layout Contest Gallery by Midnight MT on September 30th. Be sure to list your credits in the description or under the details tab. If your layout is chosen, you will win a $10 gift certificate to the Scrap Girls Boutique!

September Mid-Month Layout Contest: Everybody has some one or something in their life that has made a difference for them. For the September Mid-month Gallery contest, we want you to scrap a page about someone or something that has been a positive influence in your life. It could be a parent, a spouse, a teacher, an organization, or maybe a school or church. Create your layout and post it in the September Mid-Month Layout Contest Gallery by Midnight on October 15th. Be sure to list your credits in the description or under the details tab. If your layout is chosen, you will win a $10 gift certificate to the Scrap Girls Boutique!

Signature Contest: Season of Change

Summer is coming to a close with Fall just around the corner in the Northern hemisphere and weather is getting warmer in the Southern. Kids have gone back to school and before we know it, the holidays will be upon us. It's time to update those signatures. The guidelines for signatures and instructions for linking can be found here. Create your signature using mostly Scrap Girls products, following the guidelines, and upload to the Season of Change Signature gallery by 11:59 PM Mountain Time, September 30th to be eligible for the contest. Two winners will be randomly selected - one person will receive a $10 gift certificate to the Scrap Girls boutique and a runner-up will receive a $5 gift certificate to the Scrap Girls boutique! It's time to replace those crazy monkeys before they're gone for good!

Check our message board calendar if you have any questions about what is happening at Scrap Girls. All event times are given in Mountain Time Zone unless otherwise noted. Need help converting time zones? Check out the World Clock - Time Zone Converter. (Use 'USA-Utah-Salt Lake City' as the location for the Mountain time zone.)