Calendars for 2008

Happy New Year! Amazing that it will be the year 2008 in just a few days! Time to get out the new calendars and replace the 2007 ones. Last year I made several calendars to give as gifts; this year I managed to put together only one but I was very happy about the way it turned out. Then I realized, it's not too late to create some more as New Year's gifts and, certainly, not to late to create one for myself!

Above is the September page from the calendar I created for my son and his fiancee. I used photos that I have taken of them throughout the past year. I am very pleased with the way it turned out. (Thanks to Club Scrap for their 2008 digital calendar kit!)

If you'd like a 2008 12-month calendar for yourself, please email me right away. There are several days on the Webajeb Work Schedule early in January that are open for new orders. However, I need to receive your order by January 2nd, or we may not be able to get your calendar out until the end of January.

However, please keep in mind that we can create calendars beginning in ANY month, and ending in ANY month! So if you'd like a calendar for February 2008 through June of 2009, we can do that for you! Just let us know!

E-me at deborah@webajeb.com.

Have a Happy New Year!

Page Layout using December's Free Template

My friend Susan sent me this page layout that she created using December's free template. Sue simply recolored the background paper to match her photos, popped her photos in, added her own title, journaling and date, and Done! It looks great!

I'd love to see your work, too! If you use one of my freebies and would like to share, please email it to me (web-sized files, please). I'll post it in my blog and perhaps on my website, too, with your permission. Scrapbookers love to see other people's layouts -- it provides inspiration for their own!

Warped Photos

I've been working through another one of Steve Patterson's tutorials (photoshopessentials.com); this time on how to warp photos and then create a collage using another photo as a background image. It's really fun! I only did one photo which I then placed on a background, only because I'm a little limited on time today. My warped photo is certainly not perfect -- I need more practice getting the shadows and highlights right so that the 3-D look is correct, but I thought my first effort came out pretty darn good! I love how the photo seems to pop right off the background. My little brain is whirling with all the cool ways I can use this technique.

This particular photo is of a pelican in Morro Bay, and placed on a background photo of the Morro Bay estuary. Yeah, I can think of lots of ways to use this fun technique. Gotta love those tutorials at Photoshop Essentials.com!!

Digital Layout - San Luis Obispo

I'm really liking the clean, graphic-looking, style that I've been using lately. The first thing that draws the viewer's attention are the photos, and that's the effect I'm always looking for. I converted one of the snaps I took of the San Luis Obispo shoreline into a panaramic-view for the bottom photo, centered the gorgeous sunset above it, and then layered three smaller photos as a group partly over it. I like it!

In fact, I like this layout so much I'm thinking of using it as the basis for my next template freebie - for January. So you may see it again!

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A fun new technique

Here's a fun new technique I learned. You take a photograph, turn it into a line drawing, then merge it with the original photograph so that there's a transition from the line drawing (bottom of the photo) to the photo itself. Interesting effect, don't you think? I learned the technique from Scott Kelby's book, "Photoshop 7 Down & Dirty Tricks," which I have literally read from cover-to-cover. (And even though I now have PhotoShop CS3, the tutorials in this book are still easy to follow and applicable because very little has changed with regard to menus).

That's my nephew, Adam, in the photo, taken last June. If you have downloaded any of the Webajeb Freebies in the past few months you've doubtless seen him before. I use photos of him alot because I happen to think he's one of the most photogenic kids in the world! Always willing to pose, too!

Now for the December Webajeb Freebies. Here is the calendar page for December:
And here is the template:

Guess I had a bit of the blues when I was creating those! To see these same freebies with a photos please visit my website http://www.webajeb.com/ and click on the Freebies link at the top of the home page.

I hope to get the Webajeb December newsletter out soon. Meanwhile, if you have any questions or comments, please email me at deborah@webajeb.com. I alway enjoy hearing from you!

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Freebies for December & a Layout Re-Do

Hi All! I have new freebies for December! They are on my website, http://www.webajeb.com/, and ready for down-l0ading. I hope you enjoy them, and please let me know how they work out for you, as well as any special requests you may have for future freebies, ways to make them more useful for you, etc. I'm always open for any suggestions and ideas and even the occasional complaint!

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will probably recognize the above layout. However, this new version has been updated using a new technique that I recently learned, thanks to a tutorial by Steve Patterson of Photoshop Essentials.com, on how to add the look of sunlight streaming through trees. What do you think??? Pretty cool, huh? This is why I love digital scrapbooking so much; there are so many cool things you can do, and I'm constantly learning new stuff.

Please think about letting me create gorgeous layouts like this one with YOUR photos!

I am still on vacation but the beauty of digital scrapbooking is that it’s easy to take it along. All I need is my laptop and to be able to plug into 110 power now and then to recharge the battery. On our boat, we have 110 power available all the time, so battery power is not an issue like it might be if I were sitting outside in a park or something.

Almost every day on this trip I have transferred the day’s photos from my digital camera onto my laptop where they are instantly available for me to use in layouts. So far I have done nearly two dozen layouts for our trip and we haven’t even gotten home yet!

Here are a couple more that I like a lot:

The "reflection" added to the title of the layout above really ties in nicely with the ocean theme.

I try to make sure the photos are the "stars" of each page, so I often use a very simple layout design like the one above. Subtle background paper, a cool title, and just a few additional elements help the photos to really pop off the page.

If you'd like to know more about our 8-week sailing trip please be my guest and visit my personal blog at http://www.debztalkin.blogspot.com/.

The holidays are fast approaching...be sure to take lots of pictures and then call me to find out how I can help you organize them, and get them put into heritage-quality photo albums that will be family treasures.

Happy holidays!

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Catalina Island Layout

A stop on our sailing cruise was at Santa Catalina Island where we spent one night anchored in their gorgeous little harbor, and exploring their little town of "Two Harbors." We were on the east side of the island, not as heavily touristed as Avalon, and we really enjoyed it. Very quaint; excellent hiking along the cliffs and, as the harbor police said, "one of everything;" one building for showers, one laundromat, one grocery store, one restaurant, etc.! We walked by the one-room schoolhouse where the teacher and her half-dozen or so students were having lunch outside.

I hope you are all busily scrapbooking and/or taking lots of photos! Let me know if I can help in anyway with organizing your photos and creating heirloom quality digital photo albums. I will be back home in mid-December at which time I will try to answer all e-mails that I missed while I was gone, and also get all my work lined up for January.

Be sure to sign up for my newsletter (http://www.webajeb.com/) because there is a special offer JUST for newsletter subscribers!! Also, if you want more detail on our trip, see my personal blog: http://www.debztalkin.blogspot.com/.

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Monterey Bay

I'm on vacation, on an 8-week sailing cruise. Our first stop (after leaving Alameda, CA) is Monterey Bay, after a 24-hour (yes, overnight) sail. We left rain in Alameda and found gorgeous sunshine in Monterey. Here is the title page for the Monterey section of my travel album.

More posts as I'm able to find wireless internet!

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Sparkle!

I learned something new today; something I've wanted to learn for a long time, and it's SO cool! I learned how to use a PhotoShop brush, and add effects to it, to create a Sparkle effect for this photo of my future daughter-in-law's engagement ring. Thanks to Steve Patterson at www.PhotoShopEssentials.com for the free tutorial!

Baby Blake, and my Newsletter Goof-up

My niece, Seana, and her boyfriend, Randy, had a baby boy this past June. Seana sent me some digital photos of little Blake and I totally fell in love with one in particular. I enlarged it to almost fill a 12x12 canvas, then I made digital copies of various parts of the photo, like his little fingers and nose, resized them, and placed them at the bottom, in a row. I love how it turned out. And can you believe it? My inspiration for the layout came from an ad in a magazine.

Having a digital scrapbook layout come out just the way I imagine it in my mind, and almost effortlessly, is a great feeling. Starting up and running a small business these days is incredibly rewarding, too, but also incredibly exhausting. Every day I have more to learn and, typical of my personality type which is to just jump into things with great excitement & enthusiasm but without a lot of thought or preparation, I personally learn a LOT from experience (also known as making mistakes)! I was all proud of myself because I had managed to get my newsletter for October out by the 5th of the month (last month I didn't get it out until the 9th) but then yesterday I was talking to my friend, Susan, on the phone, who is on my mailing list, and I asked her if she got it and she said she hadn't. Huh??? I had tested it and everything.....! Well, as it turns out, after I tested it by sending it to myself and checking to make sure the links worked and it looked good, I was ready to send it out "for real" and what did I do? Somehow I sent it -- again -- to my test distribution list, which only has 2 addresses on it -- both mine! ARGH. I hadn't bothered to check to make sure it went to the correct number of addresses......just goes to show....ya gotta double-check everything. As I told Susan, "no wonder big companies have entire ITS departments....!" My dream is that someday I will be able to afford to pay someone else to handle stuff like that and I can concentrate on creating gorgeous layouts.

On the bright side, it was a good thing I found out that the newsletter hadn't gone out so I could quickly re-send it, and to the correct distribution list this time. Yet another mistake that I won't make again. I'm pretty good at not repeating things like that. It's probably the total humiliation that I feel when I do something so stupid!

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October News

I'm a little slow these days getting everything done. My newsletter for October isn't even written yet, let alone sent out! But I did get the new calendar page done, and the template freebie, so be sure to visit my website to download them. I created the calendar page while I was visiting my mom in Simi Valley, CA., and then I just made the template yesterday, and got both uploaded to http://www.webajeb.com/. I've included directions on using both, so I hope you enjoy my freebies! I noticed this a.m. that a couple of people have already downloaded the calendar page so some of you must have been waiting anxiously, and I apologize for the delay!

The Nature Lover's template (pictured below) is based on a layout I did for my veterinarian, Dr. Brisbin. You can see his entire album on my website; just click on the "slideshows" link at the top of the homepage. The calendar pages have been so much fun to create that I'm thinking of creating an entire year's worth for 2008 and offering it on my website. Of course, it may not happen by January with everything else that is going on.

Many of you know, if you read my other blog (http://www.deztalkin.blogspot.com/), that my husband and I are heading out on an 8 week sailing cruise on the 17th of this month. So, needless to say, we are running around like crazy trying to get ready. Adding to the "fun" is my hubby's bout with strep throat, and me having pulled a muscle in my back 2 days ago. PLUS, our oldest son and his fiancee have planned a BBQ in southern california for their parents and grand-parents to meet and get to know each other. That's on the 14th which means a drive down there and back, using up 3 to 4 days of our preparation time.

All of these things are making is difficult for me to really concentrate on my little biz, and it's marketing needs. And, since we'll be gone and my internet time will be much more limited, I am going to have to defer any new work until I return. It's frustrating, yet it couldn't happen at a better time since, at the moment, I don't have any new work! I am mainly working on marketing ideas/strategies, creating the freebies & newsletters, updating blogs, as well as fine-tuning my website. There are bells and whistles I'd love to add to it (a counter, for one) but all these things take time and, in some cases, learning new stuff.

While we are on our trip I will be doing a LOT of layout work, using my own photos. It would be a good time, too, to work on the 2008 calendar. I'd also love to create lots more templates that I could offer individually and at a really good price. Internet access will be sporadic at best, so most of what I will work on will have to be offline. But keep watching this blog for updates, and visit my website often, too. I'll be updating both as I am able. And, as always, e-me anytime and for any reason; deborah@webajeb.com. I love hearing from you!

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Digi-Scrappin' Full-Time Now!

A long-awaited day has finally arrived. I am now "employer-free" and ready to devote a lot more time to my little business. It's exciting to think I can plan and portion my days in whatever way I want, and I'll have the time to do the marketing that's necessary to bring in more clients and more work.

I'll be doing some fine-tuning of my "new" website, as well as uploading lots of new samples of my work. More freebies, too! Calendar pages for October, November, and December, and digital scrapbooking templates, too.

I have follow-up work to do with former clients, the October newsletter to send out, as well as tons of learning to do now that I've upgraded my PhotoShop software to CS3. Boy, is that software cool! Not to mention also going on a long sailing cruise next month, but my laptop is going along, too, and most marinas now have free wireless internet (how cool is that?) so I'll still be able to spend time "on-line."

So stay tuned, and check back frequently, both here and at http://www.webajeb.com/!

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Website Woes

I'm far from a professional website-builder but, because my small business is still less than a year old, and barely in the black, I do all my own website work (http://www.webajeb.com/). There was a definite learning curve there but with the help of the technical folks at Crystal Tech (where my website is hosted) and their on-line web-building tool, I actually built quite a nice website. I even learned a little about html so that I could make a tweak or two to the source code. There were a few little flaws in my design that I wasn't totally happy with but I learned to live with them.

Well, yesterday I got it into my head that at long last I was going to fix one of those little flaws. I wanted all my main category links (like About Us, Pricing, and Specials) in the header of the website, instead of some up there, and the rest in the body of each page. It is during the "build" process that those links are created, and they are not directly editable once they have been created. Plus, I kinda wanted to change the template I was using to something a little simpler and cleaner looking. So I stepped through the build process using the tool provided by Crystal Tech, choosing a new template, and specifying the links I wanted to display in the header.

What I didn't realize was that the tool was creating BLANK pages for the header links and, since the names of those links (or web pages) were the same as before, my original web pages with all the cool content I had slaved over, were overwritten!!! AUGH!

Eighty percent of my website was hosed! Gone! Kaput!

After some spinning around the room and swearing (luckily my husband wasn't at home at the time), I tried to calm down and THINK. I realized I had back-up copies of a few of the lost web pages so I restored those. Then I simply sat myself down and plugged through re-creating the rest. Since I originally built the website and have tweaked it a hundred times over the last 8 months, I was able to dredge most of it up from memory. The build process didn't delete ANY of my image files so I didn't have to search them down on my hard-drive and re-upload, so that was a big help.

I'm 95% done now and, what do you know? I like the website better now than I did before! And I learned some new stuff, too, like always keep back-up copies of every website page! I actually have two backup copies of each page now: one on-line, and one on my hard-drive.

How much you want to bet I never need them???

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Webajeb's Got Blog!

Hi, and welcome to BlogWebajeb!

I'm Deborah, and I own and run Webajeb Digital Photo Albums & Portfolios, a fledgling company that I started in March of 2007. I'm one of that new breed called a "Scrapbooker for Hire," but not your ordinary scrapbooker for hire, I am a DIGITAL scrapbooker for hire. Quite a different animal, and one that I hope you will enjoy getting to know through my posts. To quickly get a good idea of what I'm talking about feel free to visit my website http://www.webajeb.com/ and visit my Gallery. Lots of GREAT stuff in there!

Here, I'll be blogging about my experiences in starting up a small business; the ups-and-downs, lessons learned, my continual growth as a digital artist, and all my discoveries along the way. I hope you'll visit often, and leave comments. I love feedback!

More soon! Meanwhile, feel free to email me anytime!

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