Yeah, I'm so trendy, I'm almost 10 years ahead of the curve! I admit that I took a 2-D art class and we had a little PS segment. But... my prof was so darn ancient, I swear he was born before the typewriter, let alone before Macs were big. So I was very much self-taught, even though I should have learned from him. (Example: via PS, we were supposed to scan an image or 2 and then kind of alter them to create a collage. I, and a bunch of my classmates, ended up just making a bunch of photocopies of our original images. We would change the image's size using the copier so they looked "computer-altered." Then we cut/pasted (literally) onto a new piece of paper, and then we made a copy of our final image, so it looked like it was "made" via PS.) *sigh* So when I first started DSing, I literally went through each and every filter and just played with them to see what they did. As for the weaving: I was so proud of myself for accidentally clicking on a layer's image while also holding CTRL, lol, so that I could duplicate layer and then delete the bracket as needed to "weave" them. It was a long process. Long story longer: it was all accidental knowledge, my first few years of PS use!
Haha yeah, every single person who has met my grandson, Wyatt says he looks exactly like his Uncle Chance! Chance and my daughter, Morgan (Wyatt's mom) look a lot alike and I didn't really realize it until they did a face swap one time and other than the makeup, I could not tell a difference lol. And the other day a picture got posted of my granddaughter (my oldest son's daughter) when she was 11 months old and when I scrolled by it, I had to do a double take because it looked so much like Wyatt. Someone said the other day that I must have some strong genes because they all look so much alike.
Both of my children look more like DH than like me (although DD looks more like me now than she did at birth. She was basically a female clone of DH at birth!) My niece, however, is my twin, to the point where if I'm out in public with her, people assume she's my child. When we were visiting a couple years ago, friends at my parents' church--my childhood church, so some of these people have known me since birth--basically accused my mom of not telling them that I'd had a third child. She was like "That's my son's toddler. You've seen her before. I'm not lying. See? She's leaving with them now. Sara's leaving with her two kids." LOL! So, IDK if my genes are strong, but apparently my brother's genes (which are mine except for the Y chromosome?!?!?!) are stronger than my SIL's. Bwahaha! Even SIL's own mom was like "Wow. I'm sorry, but my granddaughter looks like Sara." Hopefully my niece only inherited my looks and NOT my stubborn, independent, "question authority" streak.
LOL that's a great story! The only reason I figure it has to be my genes is because my two older kids are from my first marriage and Chance is from my current marriage LOL. Chance saw a picture of Aaron at my mom's the other day and said "what am I doing in this picture?". He looks so much like Aaron did at his age. And hey, there is definitely something to be said for a stubborn, independent, "question authority" kind of personality! It can make parents crazy at times, but those people make awesome adults!
i love the way you tell stories, you always make me giggle Sara! so funny your ancient teacher had no clue what you and your classmates were up to! love hearing your background details on that LO, you should be proud of yourself!
Oh my- let's go find one- I started with making my daughter's 1st birthday invites in 2009- total rabbit hole! I can't find the very first layouts- but here's as old as I have on my EHD I Found it! My very first layout:
What a funny/great thread - All my early ones used freebie elements. I was still heavily into paper scrapping for a few more years after discovering digi. Took a house move to go completely digi... This was 2006 and I had no idea about shadowing - love my random paper clip and carabiner...
I just looked back at my first layout that I posted in this thread and it sure looks like you and I were picking up freebies from the same place! That striped paper in on my layout as well... lol!
I've left my first layout up on the gallery in another store - for my own reminder of how little I knew. I had never paper scrapped but had seen an acquaintance's albums of her daughter. I thought they were a hot mess and stuff was falling out, the albums weighed a ton etc etc. My dh got me a Mac Mini and I was off, back in 2008. I had no idea of what to do with my PSE4 and the only person I knew (that I thought might help me) was a friend's dh who had the full PS 7. He had no idea of what I wanted to do as he just edited his semi-pro photos. I could find no instructions on how to do the basic stuff and I recall crying when I didn't know how to get an item from the Photo bin to the layout. I 'got' layers but I didn't know how to put things where I wanted them. I watched some of Ali Edwards tutorials and somehow never got the concept of dragging up to the layout. I think I was trying to drag literally into the layer spot I wanted but in the layers panel! Shadows still elude me because I've never tried to make a page look like paper if I could help it. This must have been a template, probably free, because templates gave me a base to work with. This layout also made me cry but I did grasp the CMD-G clipping function!
My granddaughter lived with us until she was six when she and her mother moved away. I didn't want her to forget us so I made her a 400+ page scrapbook of her first years with us. I used a publishing program with a .php extension that I can no longer read. Here is one page from 2006 which I have a PS version of. I didn't know anything about digi scrapping or sites. There are no shadows, elements, frames, etc. but a lot of memories still.
Oh yes Serena, Mo Jackson- I think I have all of her creatinons. I used to move stuff over to CD's of her stuff and have a whole catalog and a list of all the kits and what disk they are on!! and Yup, tons of Christina Renee too I loved her papers... I was on Wish Bliss's CT as well... I have lots of Christina Renee and also Urban ??I like her stuff too.. she retired to do photography. wow.. blasts from the past.
My first TLP layout was for MOC. But of course, right? Now, luckily, that was after a full year of scrapping, so I had learned what shadows are! My very first layout, well...Take a look: Now, because I know that @jenn mccabe will ask: DH gave me Jessica Sprague's beginner class. And a few lessons in I learned about shadows. Technically, I have an earlier digi page that I did in one of those non defunct photo programs from back in 2005. And I know I somehow got them out of the program, but I don't know where they are at the moment. I will say, the program turned me off completely from going to digi, and I stuck with paper for another 8 years!
These are so fun! I love everyone's stories! And yes, @bellbird, I was on the RAKScraps team for years! I actually started making "scrappy" webpages in 2001, a full 2 years before I found digiscrapping, so most of those pages are a long scrolling format all sliced up into bits for faster dial-up loading. (Can't you just hear the modem screeching? ) It took me a really long time even after that to fully switch over to the printable page format (2006-ish), so this is the earliest I have that is easily shareable. It's from 2004. The princess is a high school sophomore now.
I am smiling bc that PL page brings back so many memories!!! I was CT for JS for a few years. Becky released her first PL digi stuff there so that PL digi kit you used takes me back big time! I learned to scrap from JS too. I took a free mini class about adding textures with blend modes and working with frames and word art on our photos ... and I was hooked. I think I used a free trial of PSE and then ran out and bought it as soon as my trial was up! Love your pages Courtney!
When I first started digital scrapbooking I actually used Microsoft Word. When I got Photoshop Elements, I had no idea what I was doing. My first album was an All About Mommy book for our grandkids. This is one of those pages that was created in August 2005. I have to admit that when I look at the pages from this album, I see that I must have been in love with large drop shadows and all things beveled! And, I had not discovered digital scrapbooking websites so only could use colors for papers. It has certainly been a fun 12 years!
My first digital album was mostly pre-designed pages that I just plopped photos onto. However, this page I made myself. I was so proud that if figured out how to cut the spoon to make it look like it was in the cookie batter. I have shadows but look at that word art floating over the shadowed stuff. ha ha. This was a family recipe book I made in 2008 for Christmas gifts to my siblings and parents. It had old pictures and lots of memory stories in it as well as recipes.
This, is my first ever LO. Ever. I had sorta seen some of the Project Mouse stuff, and I was kinda intrigued by the scrapbooking idea. The end of 2015 was not a happy time. I wanted something to remind myself that I did have reasons to be happy. And that was scrapping.