the fastest blog header i've EVER made!

my dear friend june knows how much i love both a design challenge AND playing with my digistuffs, so when she asked me if i felt like playing around with some ideas for a new blog header, of course i said, "YES!"

she was happy to leave the whole thing to me, but i asked for a little wishlist, just to get me started. she wanted something a little "trendier"; (her last header was made by our friend kristie and was totally BEAUTIFUL, elegant and understated... somehow june KNEW mine probably would not be, lol!!!) plus i already knew her favorite color is red, and that she likes polkadots, A LOT! unfortunately i couldn't find the email with the other ideas until after i finished my first draft. to my shock and amusement, some of the other things june had mentioned were pennants, stitching, and scallops!!! clearly my SUB-conscious memory is much better than my CONSCIOUS ONE!

(red paper & doily: cherry kit, pink trike designs, design house digital; blue paper: love bandits kit, mindy terasawa, designer digitals; banners: house of 3 sampler kit, rhonna farrer, house of 3; scallops: you are awesome kit, crystal wilkerson, jessica sprague.com red ribbon: back2school free pea kit, shannon freeman, two peas; rick rack: memories kit, sweet shoppe designs; ticket: love word labels, katie pertiet, designer digitals; flowers: prisian holiday kit, o'scraps; font: manuscript)

i did most of the laying out on my laptop, during two almost-an-hour car trips, in which LHJ was driving! :) then i came home and let it simmer for a little bit, and to my surprise, it was looking good enough that i sent the "draft" to june. and then it turned out she loved it too, and i was DONE! well, obviously, i had some FAB products to work with, so that really helped!!! :)

here's my number one digi-tip for ya, free of charge, lol: if you only want to investigate *ONE* digital technique, learn how to add drop shadows to your elements. it's the difference between something that looks good, and something that looks WONDERFUL, imo. here is a second version of june's header. the only thing i've removed are the shadows. all the same products are there, and they are still *utterly lovely*... but it's not the same, is it?

i have to confess that although i love photoshop for editing photos, and you absolutely can not beat it for filters, blending modes and many more "artsy" effects on photos and digi-products... when i'm just "laying out" a digital project with pre-made elements my fallback software is STILL broderbund's printshop. i just prefer the way layers work. and yeah, there's a comfort factor because i've used it for years, but even when i first started with it, the learning curve was a lot less steep. and as i say, i would definitely not want to part with photoshop because it is an amazingly useful and sophisticated program. luckily, my hard-drive... and my heart... have room for both! ♥