The Sprague Lab

This one’s going up quite late in the day, no? I’ve been getting emails from you, wondering (thanks, Molly! hehe) whether, in fact, I have a “real life” you don’t know about.  Whatever my life is, you pretty much already know about it … so no excuses there. So, I’ll just back slowly out of the room (looking as innocent as possible) while I distract you with this! Ka-chow!

Scanning and Stitching Layouts 

I get asked about this particular technique ALL the time. Mainly, of course, by paper scrappers. ;) There’s a little issue with scrapping 12x12 paper layouts: if you ever want to get your layout back into your computer say you wanted to post it in an online gallery (ahem.. like maybe the one over at JessicaSprague.com…) or email it to friends or family, or perhaps even submit it to a magazine for publication, you have to learn how to scan and stitch.

So here is a video with step-by-step instructions for stitching your scanned layout together seamlessly (and without shadows), and then saving for the web.

Paper + Pixels: Scan and Stitch Tutorial  

More Free Digi Goodness!

July is the 100th issue of Creating Keepsakes! Wow! What a milestone, don’t you think? 

As part of that celebration, I was asked to create a FREE digital kit for download.

And so I did. :)

It looks something like this:

You can download the kit, as well as a really cute boxed playing-card mini album, right here.  

Enjoy! :D

ScrapGirls Interview

I did a guest interview over at ScrapGirls, for their latest newsletter. It was a lot of fun! :D (And I realize that I need a new headshot now.. that one is nearly 2 years old). This was my favorite question (especially given the into to this post):

Name something about you that you think nobody knows?

Go look in the newsletter for the answer. ;)

Last Quick Things

1. Do you ever meet people in your life who are, in very strange ways, your exact paralells? There’s an awesome family in our church congregation, that we feel this way about. A couple of months ago, we randomly decided to go to The Loop, a great little pizza/grill place up the road a few miles. And just behind us, in walk the Packhams. Crazy! We laughed, because we had just been talking about how good the food was here, and then a few days later, there we all were.

Well.

It happened again tonight.

And it’s not like we go there every week - we haven’t been to The Loop since the LAST time we ran into them there, more than 2 months ago. And they were literally RIGHT behind us walking in. No plan, no nothing. Although we had been talking about it a couple days ago. So perhaps the seed was planted, and the subconscious minds were all saying, “mmmm… sausage and goat cheese pizza would be really good…” and that was that.

After laughing for several minutes about the freakishly small chance that we’d all meet TWICE in the same restaurant at the same time, we chatted about scrapbooking and web development and our kids made each other laugh and it was awesome. And the pizza was really, really good.

2. I’ve gotten a few emails about hair product. And this is something I know something about! Yay! :D When I lived in the dry desert of Utah and Idaho, I used products from the Curl Up line from KMS. (You’ll have to click around - silly Flash web sites and their lack of direct URLs! Gah!)

When I hit Minnesota, and now in North Carolina, I need something a little different because of the level of humidity. I searched for awhile, and discovered the Tigi Curls Rock line. I use the Curl Booster (spray on the roots first, when the hair is wet), and the Curl Amplifier, which you just pump out, emulsify a bit in your hands, and work through before drying with a diffuser (and let’s not forget spraying the dickens out of it after it’s dry, to keep the hold). :) I get this stuff at Trade Secret, and I haven’t found anything that works as well for me. :)

3. This girl is exquisitely beautiful, even with a face full of cake. I’m baffled by how she does it.

4. After nearly a week, Ele is finally feeling better and his rash is going down. We’ve been giving him Benadryl and putting cortisone cream on, per his Dr., and I definitely need to pick up some of the products you’ve mentioned. Thank you!

Have an awesome, Phabulous Photoshop Phriday! (and Saturday too, since Friday’s almost done for me. ;))

-J