Photos, Photos, Photos!

Who, like me, takes a ton of photos on their phone? Well, I really want to scrap those photos that I take! So, with this post, I am hoping to share a few tips and tricks I have learned that help me get those pics edited, printed, and put in my albums...all right from my phone!

Step 1:

Take pics with your phone!  The best camera is the one near you. So use it!

I keep a shortcut on my iPhone so I can get the camera opened quickly. I slide my screen up from the bottom and  have my camera accessible instantly (see it on the bottom right?) When I get back from a trip, or hit 500 photos on my camera roll, I force myself to upload the photos to a hard drive and then delete as many as possible off my phone. 

Confession time: I always keep about 100 pics on my phone of my handsome hubby, cute kids, and adorable granddaughters, for, you know, BRAGGING purposes! But I delete the rest once they are backed up or my phone fills up quickly. :)

These are pics I took on a recent trip to Paris and Rome. 

Step 2:

Edit pics as you take them. I usually do this after a day of teaching or sightseeing when I'm curled up in bed and letting my achy feet rest!  It's fun to put your faves together in collages for Instagram or Facebook (like those shown above), or add fun filters and text on top of them (like the one shown below.) Save those edited pics to your camera roll so you can print them out later. So...how do you edit pics?

Photo & Editing Apps:

This article has an amazing run-down on their favorite photo apps for taking photos and editing. They include popular apps like Snapseed, procamera7, and pic, tap, go.  Of course if you ask 100 people what the best apps are you are going to get 100 different answers. (I just found another app that I HAVE to get-TimerCam! It's a timer for better selfies or group shots when you ALL want to be in the pic! And it's FREE!)

Now here are the ones I use! Haha. I love editing single pics with Rhonna Design or Design Studio. These give me a choice of adding text, frames, filters, etc. Rhonna is a fellow scrapper who does shabby-chic designs like no one else!

It allows the lazy side of me to "remix" other brilliant designs and apply them to my photos if I do not want to make my own! (Reminder-Save all edited photos to your camera roll so you can print them later!) I also LOVE Instagram's filters for photos! I haven't found a filter set I like better than theirs so help me out if there is one you like!

To keep photo editing easy I put all my photography apps in one file on my phone. Once I have edited my pics I use either PicStitch or PhotoCollage to put pics together so I can print them out and add them to my Insta-Scrap album. I like both, but they are different so use the one YOU like! Both are free. 

Tip: I'll show how to put a collage together in my class...so come watch it! 

When I need to print photos I pull out the page I am scrapping and look at the page configuration to see what size photos it requires: 4x4, 3x3, 2x2, 3x4, etc. I pick the pics for that page and use PicStitch to put them together in the correct sizes so I waste less photo paper. I find this the most logical way to print what I want and need!

Printing Tips:

Now that I have my pics edited and put together in nice formats I need to print them out.  I open my Canon Selphy app on my phone and send the edited pics straight to my Selphy CP900 printer using wifi. It is so SIMPLE! It takes about 40 seconds to print a 4x6 out. I only print what I want, when I want. The printer is about $80 and the paper/ink packs can be found for about $12.99 for 36 shots.  I think it's a great price for the comfort of printing at home.

Tip: you can also connect your camera directly to a Selphy and print from it...no need for a phone!

Don't want to print your pics at home? You can also upload your phone pics to Snapfish (my fave),  Walgreens, Adorama, Persnickety Prints (my other fave), Wal-Mart, and other photo-printing sites! They now have options for square pics, etc. See how everyone is adopting to the social media trends?

Other Tips:

What about scrapping pics not on your phone? I have found two easy ways to do this!

1. I email myself lower res shots (500 kb) of my fave photos from my Mac, or hard drives, so I can save them to my iphone and print out when I want. It is also a FAB back-up method for my pics! Just save those photo emails into their own folder so you don't delete them when you are cleaning out your email.

2. You can also use your smart phone to take "scans" of old, vintage pics! I didn't have a scanner and needed copies of a photo taken with *gasp* film. I took a shot of it with my phone and LOVED the results. The phone is so fast and easy that you can get copies of all of those old pics in just a short time! Upload them to your computer or hard drive and clean them off your phone. (And throw that scanner away!)

Versailles, Paris, Giverny, and Rome- Part 1!

It was a day we had been looking forward to for a VERY long time. Britt, Bill, and I were all packed, checked in at the gate, and just waiting to hop on our first flight of the trip!

(This is the cutest packing list ever! I had to snap a shot of it. Just because! Compliments of kate spade.)

Bill and I have been blessed to have visited Europe many times (always for work, but we will take it), but Britt had never been there. Her excitement was seriously contagious! I tried really hard to take pics of every single step of the journey. (She probably got REALLY sick of me saying, "SMILE, BRITTY!")

FINALLY it was time to land in Paris! I just kept watching Britt's reactions. I LOVED watching her face as she saw things for the first time. :)

And, yes, I made her pose by the welcome sign in the airport! We were just going to be crazy tourists this trip and that's OKAY! 

All of our luggage arrived (hallelujah!) so we grabbed them, hopped in a taxi, checked in to our hotel, washed up & changed, and took off on the train to Versailles! I kept telling Britt how important it was to try and stay awake the first day to beat the jet lag. (It was mainly a pep talk to myself. UGH. That first day is the worst! Just think of flying all night with no sleep, then trying to stay awake another 12-14 hours. At my age it's a major feat; even if I am in Paris!)

The Palace of Versailles was pure splendor. Not only was it HUGE, every single inch was decorated, from the floors to the ceilings. We could have walked for days and not seen it all. 

Selfie shot in the Hall of Mirrors! Wowza. Total opulence.

See what I mean? Looks just like our house back home. heh!

Even the grounds were vast, impressive, and over-indulgent!

Britt told me I HAD to get a photo of the Queen's bed...cause my girls are all huge readers and were just shocked and disgusted that custom at the time allowed people to watch the French royalty give birth.

So, according to the tour, people could be as close to the bed as the railing allowed. UGH! YEAH, that gold railing right there! (I understand why they did it. I just happen to feel sorry for those women. Although I DID have an audience when Britt was born. She was early and the doc brought in everyone he could think of, just in case. They joked and laughed about stuff. I wanted to slap 'em. And a janitor just walked in and started mopping the floor as I was delivering Bethany. Seriously? The nurse ushered him out pretty quickly, but, yeah. He must have been totally oblivious. So can I get a bit of those French designers to come decorate my home now?)

Back to Versailles....we loved visiting it! The town was beautiful too! We walked back to the train station and then started the miserable job of STAYING awake for the train ride back into Paris. Just for the record...Britt and Bill both fell asleep. :)

Stay tuned for Part 2...Paris sight-seeing!

Canvas Resist "The Great Escape" Album

Thanks to everyone who came to the Live With Prima show tonight!

It is recorded if you missed it. Click here to watch it!

As promised here are the additional shots of the inside pages that I have done SO FAR. (Oy-I have many more to do.) This is honestly one of my favorite projects. I have just really enjoyed making it...maybe because the photos bring back so many good memories? :)

Here is the cover. I used PanPastels-Turquoise Tint, Turquoise, and Turquoise Shade, Orange Tint, Orange, and Orange Shade to color it. Just go light to dark and blend it in! Then seal with a touch of hairspray or Krylon Fixative spray. (Prima Resist Canvas Journal #557973)

Page 1 measures 5 inches x 8.5 inches and uses new Songbird papers, alphas, flowers, and stamp.

Page 2 is the flip-side of page one. See that adorable Frond punch by Martha Stewart? LOVE it!

Page 3 measures 6.75 x 9 inches (no page is the same size! haha) and shows off that Recollections scallop punch! It works perfectly with our patterned paper circles.

Page 4-flip of page 3

Page 5 is a cute little pocket page measuring 6.75 x 9 to hold all your travel brochures. The pocket is glued down on the sides and bottom only. Then staple with Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher for extra hold on the sides.

Page 6  shows off an extra large pic of the Eiffel Tower and has some scallop punches, stamping and that stinking cute frond punch again!

Okay-that's ALL I have done for now, but I cannot wait to scrap more of my travels soon and fill this book up!

Some of you asked which colors were in my PanPastel tray from the show. Here ya go!

Turquoise Tint, Turquoise, Turquoise Shade and Turquoise Extra Dark
Magenta Tint, Magenta, Magenta Shade and Magenta Extra Dark
Orange Tint, Orange, Orange Shade and Orange Extra Dark
Permanent Red Tint, Bright Yellow Green Shade, Raw Umber Shade, Burnt Sienna Extra Dark
Titanium White, Paynes Grey Tint, Natural Grey Shade and Black

Thanks for watching and stopping by!

:) Sharon

I'm Still Alive

I promise I am. But life has a way of just sweeping by and before you know it your blog has not been updated in a while. More like a few months. Gulp.

So in a nutshell...after Rome my hubby and I continued our trip to Capri,

and back to Rome, and then on to Paris!

 (more pics to come)

Then we flew back home! haha. It was an amazing trip together. We vowed to start doing this more often...you know...leave the kids behind and take off together. It was like being 19 again. :)

Then I had a tour in Australia and New Zealand....that was absolutely amazing. I LOVE both countries. The trip was long...and exhausting by the end, but the people I met and the places I saw made it all worth it. Really cliche, but oh so true.

Then Christmas hit like a tidal wave. However, I got a tree up, made truffles (well, the kids did), decorated gingerbread houses and got all the gifts bought on time. Christmas was wonderful (except my mom not being there. That was hard.)

Then we had a week of birthdays. Seriously...who planned this out? Who has kids born the week of Christmas? Haha. Happy Birthday to Billy (18) and Bethany (24)!

Then CHA hit! CHA is our big trade show for revealing our newest line of products. Prima always has a HUGE release and that kept me swamped all of January. The show itself was only 4 days, but it turned into a 9 day trip to California because of set-up, etc. I won't bore you with details. :) You know what is so cool about CHA? Seeing everyone again...and meeting new people. I love it. It makes it all worth it.

And did I mention our new booth? Our Creative Director is simply A M A Z I N G!!

Shortly after CHA I headed off to Paris to teach at Pour l'Amour du Scrap.

Hubby came along to eat French food and see the sights. I think he secretly LOVES hanging out with crafty ladies. While I was teaching he was chatting with my friends and adding them on facebook. Oh my. Did I mention that my hubby is on Facebook now? Yeah. Now I have to behave.

I'm home from Paris now and catching up on work...which includes a TON of prep for the Europe Tour taking place in March! YES, did you see our flyer? It's pretty cool.

And I know Israel is not in Europe...but they wanted to have us come in before the tour and I am more than happy to oblige people. :)

Here's hoping I don't wait another three months to update.