Christine Borgfeld Designs

Letterboxing

About two months ago I discovered a new hobby (well two actually) - Geocaching and letterboxing.  Geocaching has gotten lots of attention lately, but if you haven't heard of it, check out geocaching.com.  Its basically a treasure hunt with a GPS.  You look up the cache, download the info to your GOS and then try to find it.  The caches (usually plastic boxes, pill bottles, or ammo boxes) are hidden in parks, cemeteries, parking lots - you name it.  And they are everywhere!  The larger boxes will often  have small toys or tokens that  you can exchange, and each box will have a log book you sign to show you found it.  You also get to track all your finds on the website.

Letterboxing is similar, but it has a whole different aspect to it - rubber stamps!  Each box has a stamp - usually hand carved by the planter or person who hid the box.  When you find a box, you bring ink pads and stamp your log book with the stamp left in the box.  You also carry a personal stamp to stamp into the log book in each box.  (you also don't need a GPS for letterboxing) You can learn more about letterboxing at atlasquest.com.

So I've fallen in love with letterboxes.  I've been amazed at the stamps people carve by hand, and I've made a couple now myself.  And it gets even better...I can scan them and use them in Photoshop!  So expect so see some in future layouts. 

With both geocaching and letterboxing, you get to discover places you would have never considered before, and never knew existed.   There is a small pond I've driven by for years that I stopped at for the first time to find a cache.  I've visited roadside rest areas, state parks, cemeteries, hiking trails, and other neat locations.  So expect some photos and layouts from all these adventures! 

Here is a neat logbook from a letterbox we found in Austin:

Polka Dot Potato store closing

Well, not really, but Ashley has decided to stop selling digital artwork and focus on the print business and some other areas.  So after giving it a lot of thought I've decided not to move my products to another store right now.  I haven't been designing in some time, and I've had a very busy year in areas outside digital scrapbooking.  I don't think it would be fair to join a new store when I'm not available to contribute as much as I'd like. 

I will continue to scrapbook and make some brushes from time to time (and possibly post here to share), but right now I'm just not ready to design regularly.  Right now I'm just going to let life take its course for a while and see where things fall as I focus on some other areas.  So enjoy the last day of the clearance sale if you haven't already, and thanks to those who have offered me spots to sell in their stores. 

I also did a layout last weekend (wow!).  Here is the herd of deer that gathers every evening at my father's house to get a free meal and water.  This is one of the best times of year to watch them.

Alex's Smile

I love Jofia Devoe's artwork and wanted to use this set for a while, but the original colors are pink and red so it never worked out for me.  So I recolored some of it for this layout.  I also used one of my new photo masks from the Distressed Elegance set also. 

 

Credits are in my gallery at DST.

Photo masks aren't just for photos

This is the first of several posts on ideas for using brushes in your scrapbooking and designing. 

Photo masks have recently become popular in digital scrapbooking layouts.  Numerous designers are selling them (including me) and they can make some really stunning pages.  Here is an example from my favorites at DST (click to see credits). 

Basically the mask (or combination of brushes) is used to crop the picture.  I use this technique frequently in blended layouts, but I also use brushes and photo masks to crop part of a background paper and use it to highlight an image.  Here is a quick example of what you can do:

1. Start with an extracted image, a photo mask from my Distressed Elegance set, and a background paper from Jofia Devoe (The Smell of Summer kit).

2. Use the photo mask to cop a section of the background paper.

3. Place the cropped design behind the extracted image, rotate or position as you like, and you have the start of a stunning layout. 

 

 

Artisan Guild Notebook

I'm excited to share that I've been featured in the December issue of the Artisan Notebook!  This is a monthly e-magazine published by the Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild.  The magazine and a monthly kit are available to subscribers.  They have pages of inspirational layouts, tutorials and challenges.  I think the subscription is well worth it and signed up myself. The Portrait Plus section includes a layout with my brushes, a short interview with me and a free set of star brushes I created. 

December brushes are here!

Finally!  Yes I know...I just had to take a break however.  I had family visits, birthday parties and some travel for my real job back in late October and early November, so I couldn't get a set released for November.  But never fear...the new ones are out and ready for you to buy at PDP as usual!  Enjoy! 

PS - for some reason I can't reply to comments on the blog right now..still trying to figure that one out. 
I'm severely blog handicapped! 

a sad goodbye

We lost one of our kitties last week.  It was rough, but I'm trying to focus on positive things so I made this layout to celebrate everything that was special about her.   

Ideas wanted!

So I've been wanting to put together a list of ideas on how to use Photoshop brushes in scrapbook layouts, photos, cards etc. I have quite a few but I'd love to hear yours as well!  Feel free to leave comments and/or links to projects you have done as examples.  I'll compile everything and make it available as a download here and at PDP so everyone can check it out. 

Also - I always love to see any projects you use my brushes in, so please post links anytime.

New brushes for October!

 My new set of Photoshop brushes for October is finally here! I really love the way these turned out.  Now I need to go use them and actually do some scrapping instead of designing.  If only I could do both at the same time!  Anyway, check them out at PDP - $6 for them all for a few weeks or buy them individually for $2.50 each. 

The great bike ride

Well the training wheels are finally off.  After days of riding with daddy's hand clamped firmly onto him, Alex finally got the balancing down and is riding on his own!  Now if we can just get him to put his feet down when he stops! 

The layout uses a free kit from Mag designs.  I don't think its available, but she has some others on her blog and she sells at Shabby pickle designs.  The stick frame and tag are by Natalie designs, from her new fall kit - and as usual its wonderful.