Slow Pickin'!

We went strawberry picking again this past May.  We went Memorial day, and discovered that it wasn't a good idea to go so late in the seasons.  There where barely any berries to be found.  The kids were super hot, so they weren't excited about being out there, and to barely find berries in the rows and rows of plants added to their misery!  The homemade ice cream did help improve their attitudes, but I made a mental note to make sure to drag them out that way in early May!

I found the strawberry svg file on SVGCuts blog.  They have cool freebies once a week, as well as a free file with purchase.  I than embossed the berries with the polka dot folder.  I dusted the edges with Canvas Palette ink.  The stems are dotted with my sharpie white pen.  I cut the strawberries at 1, 1.25, 1.50, and 1.75 inches.  That gave me a nice variety of berries to play with.  My paper is from DCWV, it's a glitter stack from last summer.  I used Sure Cuts  A Lot to create my title.  I cut it out and than made the shadow behind it.  That's a cool feature on it.  You can even make the shadows larger around your image.  I plan on tweaking with that some when I do a page for Trey's baseball stuff. 

Sadly, you can't purchase Sure Cuts A Lot to use with a Cricut any more, as they lost a trade mark lawsuit with ProvoCraft.  It does work with several other personal cutters, so if you have one of them, I highly recommend the Sure Cuts A Lot software. I have found it to be very handy to have, and am glad I had purchased it forever ago!  My sketch is from Jeanette Lynton books.  You'll know I always say how much I love those books!

Dang! I made that!

Okay, I don't often walk around being shocked at something I've made.  I'm pretty pleased generally, but things don't always turn out past my expectations when I'm paper crafting!  This page makes me go DANG!  I DID THAT!   

The parts that impress me are my little banners. 

I love those boxy banners at Paper Trey Ink.  Went searching through all my Cricut cartridges to see if I have something in there that was like them.  Looked to see if there was something in a cartridge my nieghbor might have in her stash.  Nope, nothing like the shape they have in their dies....bummer, right? 

Nope! I sat down for too long, and worked it out on my Sure Cuts A Lot.  I put triangles together with a square and worked some magic with them, lined up the edges, and making parts disappear to make it one shape.  Created them myself, I'm so proud of myself!  And I saved them, so that means I can make them larger or smaller, or whatever when I want too! 

Than I played around with the Gypsy last night and layered up my letters on Winter Woodlands.  The font was perfect for a winter themed page.  And layering is a breeze with the Gypsy.  I added the letters to the banner and cut out some snowflakes from Nesties dies, and Cuttlebug die cuts.  Added some scrappers floss, Martha Twine, and gems to bling them up a bit.  Perfect touch on my page...at least I think so!

Supplies:  K and Co. Winterberry paper, DCWV cardstock, SU Garden Green ink, Cranberry Crisp ink, Cricut, Sure Cuts A Lot, Winter Woodland cartridge, Jeanette Lynton's Book,

Thanks for stopping by!

Long Hoppin' Page.

Catching up on some scrapbooking.  Kids being out of school allows more time to catch up on stuff.  Not the house cleaning, though.  I swear, you clean, they trash just as quickly!  This page was a ton of fun to make.  I used Stretch Your Imagination Cricut Cartridge, and Winter Woodlands Cricut Cartridge.  My extra long bunny was cut out with white cardstock, than I layered the eggs/brush in pink pattern paper, added shimmers chalk an stickles to the other eggs to resemble Easter Eggs.  My little white bunnies are from Winter Woodland, and they are also cut in layers.  I dusted the edges of his hind legs, and face with blush blossom, added shimmer chalk, and stickles to give some extra depth to it.  My title is from Stretch Your Imagination, and cut in layers and blackout to ground it more on my page.  Here's a closer shot of the long rabbit, and my cute little white rabbit.

Thanks for stopping by! 
Other Supplies:  DCWV Spring Glitter Stack-10, DCWV cardstocks, stickles, chalk, Jeanette Lynton's Sketch Book.

Trimming The Tree.

Another scrapbook layout. This one is of the kids decorating the tree. Oddly, I don't have a lot of photos of them doing this holiday tradition. You'd think I'd photograph that every year. I used my Winter Folic cricut cartridge to cut out my people, and animals. The main sentiment is from the cartridge as well. This is one of my favorite winter cartridges. It has fun winter images like snow angels, reindeer, winter birds in trees, all kinds of sentiments with shadow backgrounds, winter animals, even a skiing rabbit! I cut all the people out at 2.5. The Christmas Spirit is cut out at 3.5 inches.

The snowflakes and other sentiments are stickers that I found on clearance. Using them from my stash. The sketch is from my favorite books. The paper pack is Secret Santa from K and Co. I love that it's double sided, because it allowed me to cut the clothing different for Mary and the Shepperd without having to use another sheet of paper. I love when Christmas papers have pink in them, because generally, Gabi's in pink, and so hard to have to match Trey. I'm so odd with having to have my paper match my clothing in scrapbook pages. Not sure a lot people are that way or if I'm overly compulsive about it!

Thanks for stopping by!

First Day Of School.

Been scrapping again. Catching up! Both of these layouts come from Jeanette Lynton's books, Cherish and Image. I can really never say this enough, these books give me such a great starting place with wonderful sketches, and I love how the pages look when I done.

I used my cricut to cut out the titles and accents on the pages. Gabi's cartridges are Forever Young, a complete favorite of mine. Everything but the title was cut out from this cartridge on Gabi's page. Thought she looked sassy striking some poses.

I cut each girl at 5, and the purse is cut at 2.5. Not sure if this is useful for anyone, but if you're using your gypsy, if you know the size you're cutting at than you can select to have layers cut at the same size.

Tip: If you're cutting out more than one image at a time, such as my girls, shadowing of the purse and boots were cut at one time on black cardstock, but in different sizes, you may want to write down the size you're cutting each image.

Really cool feature that the gypsy has, that I haven't found on the Design Studio, is the keep in proportion feature. That means that as long as you know one measurement, it'll keep it all proportion when you change one number. If you haven't clicked on chain, than it can distort your image.

Make sure you've clicked on the little chain link button between width and height on the basic screen. It will show up in yellow when it's been selected. With that clicked, you can type in 5 inches in height, and it'll make the width the correct number for keeping in proportion to the original shape of the image.

Don't panic thinking that it's gonna cut out layers to 5 inches. It cuts them perfectly for layering of the image at five inches. Such as with the girls, the dress is cut to five inch model, but it's not actually five inches. You'll get perfect layers as long as you keep the proportions selected, and know the size you're cutting your image at.

Trey's little boy and dog were cut from the Every Day Paper Dolls cartridge. Both of the kids' titles were cut from Locker Talk. Those were pre-made features on the cartridge. His little model has a skateboard cut out and on the shirt, but its really hard to see it. The dog has a little scarf on it's neck.

Supplies: DCVW cardstock, Gypsy, Cricut, Everyday Paper Dolls, Forever Young, Locker Talk cartridges, DCWV Spring stack.

Take Out Those Images #11.

Okay, I'm super excited to show off today's project. Forgive me, because there's gonna be several photos to show what I did on these pages.

I was sent these images from The Greeting Farm from Tammi. Aren't they the cutest? I thought they'd be a wonderful addition to this page after I had the photos developed. I colored one to look like Gabi, and one to look like Trey.

Now a little bit about the page, because it's got some fun elements on it. Back in December, my neighbors invited the kids and I over for what they call the "Christmas Cookie Cook Off." Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Man, my neighbor was prepared for this too! Sheets covered the tables, and they were all decked out for decorating messy cookies with frostings, sprinkles, cookie cutters, rollers and flour! They were serious about their cookie cook off! They compete to see who can make the coolest cookies. Hands down went to their son's girlfriend, the one where glasses in the photos. She's been to culinary school, and rocked decorating! Second place had to be their son, Patrick, who made an ice cream cone out of a star. I mean, that's crafty for a dude, isn't it?!

The kids loved it, and spent 4 hours rolling, cutting, frosting, sprinkling love, and eating cookies.

Than I kicked it up a notch, and used a neglected cricut cartridge, From My Kitchen, too add some extra fun touches to the page. Do you see that darling timer? Look at the rolling pin...love it! Even cut out a little hand mixer. I had planned on using cookies we decorated that I took some photos off to use for the 'O's in my title, but they were too big. So, had to go with something else. I had grabbed this cartridge the other day when Trey wanted bacon on a hat for Dr. Seuss Week-don't ask. There wasn't any bacon on this cartridge, but it was fresh in my mind from pulling it out for him, and thought it was perfect for this layout.

The cartridge didn't have a lot of cookies though, but did have the cute gingerbread chap. I thought the hot pads would be perfect with the cookie theme. I mean, how cute are those cherries? I layered up just about all the cut pieces, which is a great feature with the cartridge.

Than in a rare "Ah-Ha!" moment, I added the buttons for the cherries, and to the gingerbread men. Perfect touch, huh?! The gingerbread man was accented with white paint pen. It did have a feature to layer it up, but they were tiny parts, so I just did the pen.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Cricut, stickles, DCWV cardstock, Christmas stack-o9, The Greeting Farm images, Sure Cuts A Lot-title

Trey's Monster Mash

Here's Trey's Halloween page. If you're wondering what he was.....I couldn't tell you! He wanted to wear his Anikan Skywalker costume, and be scary. So, drew on his face, made him happy, and that's how he went. My neighbor asked what he was that night. Eight year old boys, what can I say?! LOL!

The sketch came from Jeanette Lynton's book. I love those books for scrapbooking. It used tearing in the sketch, so I did follow that, because I thought it created a perfect touch with the Halloween theme. The bats are from a set of stickers I found on clearance.

This page also uses the Happy Haunting cartridge that I borrowed from my neighbor. She's gonna be impressed when she sees these pages. The title is a predesigned phrase on the cartridge. It cuts out in one piece, the m's where combined, but I separated them to fit better on the page. The phrases even have a shadow element, so I took advantage of that and grounded the phrase.

I cut out the monsters and layered them up to create their faces, hair and clothes. Cool thing about them, they matched one of the papers I used. How cool is that?! I love matchy matchy stuff with scrapbooking. I love that mummy! Such a cool cartridge. Another one I'm gonna have to grab one of these days!

Gabi's Haunted Scrapbook Pages.

Been scrapping like crazy. I'm behind, working on photos from the fall, and even from last Halloween, like 2009 Halloween. Because I did more cricut cutting on these pages, I'm gonna showcase them separately. Normally, I to put up more than one page at a time, but with details from the cricut, gonna slow down a little and show off a few parts from the cartridges.

This is Gabi's Halloween page from Halloween 10. She was Dorothy, and took a webkin with her as ToTo. She loves her webkins, so she loved taking the webkin along for the walk. I went all out with the Halloween themed papers and embellies. I had gotten some stickers on clearance from Target, and Michaels, and using them up on these pages.

The coolest parts of the pages were cut with Happy Haunted cartridge. I borrowed this from my neighbor. I cut out the title from it's phrases section. It's shadowed out in purple cardstock. The tree is also cut out in layers. The yellow is the bottom layer, black tree the middle, and the grass is the final part. I ran it thru the Xyron sticker maker, and it left some strays of glue. I than poured glitter on it, and rubbed it around the edges, so it's sparkly in person. Perfect for Gabi. I added stickles to the moon, mouth, and grass. I also cut out the cauldron, and layered it up. I ran the flame thru backwards, so I dumped glitter on it too. The coolest part didn't photograph well, but the gate to the graveyard. Very cool! That is layered with the gate, sign, beware, tombstones, and grass. I added some purple rhinestones to the iron gates. Very fun page to make!

I've more of these coming in the next few days, hopefully! Baseball starts, so that might cause some scheduling issues.

Two More Pages Done!

Finished up two more pages for Gabi. This first one is from her ballet routine last summer. She was part of the Diamond's group. They had rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and sapphires. I have to admit, I was disappointed with her costume, because the year before, her ballet costume was also grey. I would have loved a different colored tutu. Lucky for me, she looks wonderful in grey. And if you noticed with her other scrapbook pages of her routines from last year, the majority of her costumes were all black and white. You can see them here, here For a person who loves color in her scrapbook pages, this was painful! For a girl who love hot pink, that killed Gabi. I had found a lovely K and Co pack of papers in the wedding section at Michaels, but I swear I've used them on just about every page from her routines last year.

This was Gabi's lyrical routine, and this costume was full of colors! Yea for me...and Gabi! I was pleased to scrapbook something from that year that was more than just black and white! I pulled out Mariposa DCWV stack, because the colors seemed to blend beautifully with her costume, and well that's a beautiful stack of papers.

I borrowed my friend's Wall's Decors and More Cricut cartridge to cut out my beautiful dancers, if you can see them in the photo. I've used this cartridge several times, I think I'm gonna have to buy it soon! LOL! I think it's been at my house more than hers lately!

Supplies: Prima, Prima pearls, stickles, cricut, reflections bling, SU ink, Martha punch,

Thanks for stopping by!

Catching Up On Scrapbooking.

Two pages to show off today. One is of Gabi's dance recital from last year called Fosse. This was a big group routine, where all the dancers were in the routine. They all had the same black bling body piece, but different accessories depending on which part of the routine they were in. At the end, they all came out in just the black piece. Fun little routine for the girls. She's taken dance with her friend since preschool, so we always snap a photo of them together. Her friend is a fantastic dancer, so she was in the older girls routine part. Her outfit had a white shirt, and tie.

This page is full of bling swirls, but it's not showing up so well in the photo due to the loud papers.

Than I took the kids to see the Buford Dam in Ga when we visited in Aug when my father passed away. Family still lives very close to the dam, so seems odd they've never been before last summer. My family went every year over the summer. Always funny to go back to something when you're grown, and see how different it is from what you remember. I remember this thing being huge! Being able to see the dam very well from this one over look. I don't recall the bridge that was there now. My in laws said it was different now since 911, and had been built around to keep it safe. The kids enjoyed it, but liked the water area they walked down too over the actual dam.

Both pages I used my cricut to cut out the titles. I used Sure Cuts A Lot software to do my titles in any font on the computer. That program is very easy to use to shadow a title. The Buford page I used a cartridge called Life's A Beach. I used Jeanette Lynton's books Cherish, and Imagine. I pull those two books out every time I scrapbook. They give me a great starting place with a wonderful sketch to work with. I'm always so happy with the end result.

Thanks for stopping by! I'm hoping to get a few more pages done this weekend, since the kids are out of school on Monday.

Other supplies: SU corner punch, stickles, DCWV Summer stack, and Currant stack, Reflections brads, and bling, primas, PTI ribbon,

Minihaha Waterfall

I was doing a bit of scrapping last night. We went on a hike in the GA mountains over the summer with the kids grandparents. We saw some wonderful sites. This waterfall was one of them. I'll be working on more pages of another place we went to that day in the next few days...hopefully! LOL! I used my Cindy Loo Cricut cartridge to cut out the title, and shapes. Fun to layer things up in crazy colors! My sketch is from Jeanette Lynton's book "Cherish".

Supplies: DCWV Summer stack-10, Cricut, Cindy Loo, stickles, SU Pacific Point Ink pad.

Digging the Cricut.

I talked awhile back about going on a dolphin tour with my neighbors. I had so much fun putting this page together. I used Life's A Beach cartridge. I had a blast layering the dolphins. Do you see the one jumping thru the O? How adorable is that?! I loved how the page turned out so much, I had to go show it to my neighbor as soon as I finished. I said she had to love it because her kid was in it! Her cutie pie is the little blond haning out with Trey. It's a fun, bright page, if I do say so myself!

My camera cut off the corner of the page. Was too lazy to take another photo of it! But I promise, I didn't chop Gabi off! It was really cool because the lady working on the boat came and gave the kids a personal little speech about the dolphins. Than I love the shot of Eleanor and Trey under the front of the boat. The papers are from DCWV Summer stack.

Another thing I'm having a blast with is cutting vinyl with it. I added this butterfly sentiment to my bedroom. It's takes about 2 feet or so above my dresser. I had a great time picking the fonts, and butterflies. If you notice one of the butterflies is the butterfly from My Time Made Easy. I purchased it from her, and was able to send it to Sure Cuts A Lot, and cut them out. Super cool! I love what that machine can do! I know I'm just touching the tip of it, but have really enjoyed playing with it and designing things. I used both the Sure Cuts A Lot and the Design Studio for that project. The swirly butterflies were from Home Accents, and the font from the 'utterflies' is from the calligraphy cartridge. I really like the welding aspects of the software's. I use that feature all the time to make words instead of just letters.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed both of the projects today!

Scrappin' Birthday's.

Okay, a small miracle on this scrapbook page! It's completed before he turned nine, or was almost became nine! I do tend to fall behind on my pages, and will try to not get a year behind! His birthday was 7-11, and it's not Sept yet, which means I did good! LOL! He looks so sweet and innocent in the photos. Time sure does fly! This will also be the only page that has glitter in his scrapbook! I added bling to the candles. I used the Celebration cartridge, and the design studio to weld and create the border of candles.

The cartridge also cut out the title. I love the photo of him giving the I love you sign. It's such an endearing photo of him. As you can tell, he really love legos!

My case about being behind sometimes! Gabi's birthday is in Nov. So, these pages are well over due! Good thing they just get excited to see the pages when I'm done and don't complain about why they aren't done yet! Gabi will flip thru her books all the time. Trey, well, when I told him I made him some pages, he wasn't as impressed this go round. Guessing he might be at the age where he won't appericate them until he's got kids of his own. Coarse, he did say he picked up the expression he used from ICarly's Sam. Ump! Don't get snarky over scrapbook pages with your Momma! LOL!

I saw some tricks on how to take photos with birthday candles. I loved how it looked in the scrapping mag, so I tried when we were getting ready to sing to her. Her face is lit up so perfectly! She loves her American Girl Dolls, and had to have her doll in the photo with her. She got to go to the American Girl Doll Bistro in GA the next day. So, there's a page coming about that as well. She was all about doll that weekend!

She was a bit funny with the AMG sticker I used. I pulled out Rebecca. I know she's got the doll, and that outfit. So, I put her on the page. Gabi had to point out, that wasn't Rebecca in the photo, but Nikki. She could tell, because Nikki has freckles, and curlier hair than Rebecca. So, any other momma out there who will be scrapping a future page of American Girl's, don't look at just the outfit on the doll! LOL!

Supplies: Trey; Basic Grey papers, Cricut, SU ink, DCWV cardstock, PTI buttons.

Gabi's: DCWV Blossoms and Butterflies stack, DCWV cardstock, Cricut, SU ink, Jeanette's Books.

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrapping Snow Day.

We had a great snow day this past winter. Funny, cuz we had some no snow snow days too, with no snow at all on the ground, but the kids still ended up out of school because the weather man swore it was coming.....which was fun for the kids until they lost half days too make up for the missed time. Which Gabi was not happy about, and complained up and down how unfair it was, because they didn't call off school!
This one time though, the weather man got it right! We had a very nice snow fall! It was fun watching the kids in the neighborhood enjoy it. It was a good time for Max as well. He got to play in the snow as well! And some of the other dogs were out playing as well.

Just a funny note on this, you can't tell in the photo, but Trey's wearing a pair of my rain boots. He didn't have any snow boots, and he flat out refused to wear a pair of Gabi's old pink boots! Can't really blame him, but the rain boots were way to big on his feet!

My Cricut has been getting quite the work out! But I'm loving what I'm making it! I have the Design Studio and Sure Cuts A Lot, so it's fun to sit down and figure out what I want to put on a pages while I'm scrapping. The snowflakes, the title, hat, mittens, and scraf are all cut out with the Cricut. I love using scraps to make to make accessories on the page. I used some glitter paper for the snowflakes, and the Magic of Winter title. So, the page has some bling on it. The snowmen are actually part of the designer paper pack from DCWV. This is an older retired stack.

As always my layout is from Jeanette Lynton's books.

Thanks for stopping by!

Trey Pages.

Here's some pages of Trey. This is his Fall ball pages. I love this sketch! Would you believe there's 13 photos on that page? All together the double layout has 17 photos! That's a lot of photos! The 2x2 size of the small photos captured the spirit of the game without cluttering the page.

I cut out the baseball chap, ball field and accessories were cut out with the Cricut Every Day Paper Dolls. Had a ton of fun finding all the baseball themed stuff on there. That cartridge had a ton of stuff on there! Learned thru trial and error, that the person seems to just cut out the one size. So, when I was tring to make him a set size, and hit the real dial size I kept getting just a 3 inch head! So funny! I stopped trying to make him bigger after that, and think he's just the right size for the page. But I want to play with that one some more, because of how much stuff it has on there. The stickers I've had forever, and was glad to use them up. The designer paper is Hopscotch. It used to be at Michael's but I don't think they sell it any more.

The other page is from Mother's Day. I took the kids to a State park with the James River as the backdrop. Since it was Mother's Day, they had to wear what I wanted, and smile when I said smile! He was a total ham, and did a great job for me. Turned out he was sick too! Oops! He slept the whole way back home. Guess that was why he was so polite! LOL! But great photos of him!

I used one of my favorite paper packs from TAC, Sands of Time. It matched the colors of the photos perfectly! It comes with a sheet of letter stickers, so his name is from that sheet in the set. I used About A Boy, retired, stamp set from TAC, for the small sentiments you see on there. The little boy is from All That's Scraps. You can see the freckles I gave him to match Trey.

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrapping Good Time.

I've been on a scrapbook kick this week. Gotten quite a few pages done. Posting real quick, so my MIL can peak at them. I've been using my Cricut like crazy. Loving it! Playing with the Design Studio and Sure Cuts A Lot software too! As always, my sketches are from Jeanette's books, Cherish, and Imagine. I can't say enough about what they've done to my pages since I started using them. I'm big on a lot of photos in my pages, and the sketches make it totally possible to pile them in there, and not look crowded. And uses at least three sheets of paper per page, so as a paper addict, gotta love that!

Anyhow, just gonna put up two pages at at time. I've made way more than that this week, but figured it would be a bit much to put them all up! Today's pages are from when we visited family in AL. We don't get to see them too often, so we try to snap photos of the kids together. They have one cousin there, and she's a few months younger than Trey. We try to get them an outfit that'll work for both her and Gabi, and match Trey well enough. We took them to a local park and snapped some photos of them together. I used some retired stamp sets from TAC for the sentiments added to the papers.

We also visited the local Zoo. I have to say, shockingly, I don't think I've ever made a zoo page. I'm trying to recall one, and can't. Might have to dig thru older scrapbooks and see if there's a page in there. Either way, I stamped out the animals from TAC's Wild Things sets with Versamagic pads. The paper is probably a bit too toddlerish for their ages, but its perfect for the theme, and I've had that cute DCWV Nana's Nursery stack for so long, I'm happy to use it up! My title choice is because the Zoo had a train that we rode thru the zoo. Which was why I also used the train sheet on the pages.

Supplies: All papers are from DCWV stacks. Stamps were TAC. Cricut, SU inks, Versamagic Inks, primas, nesties.

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrapbook Pages.

I've been scrappin and finished some pages. I went on a organization kick last week, and cleaned up my crafting space. So, when I wasn't scrapping, I was cleaning up! And that took some time! But I'm happy to say my desk is still clean after two days! That just about never happens!

My first page is from photos I took of the kids on Mother's Day. Since it was my day, they had to wear what I wanted them to wear, smile when I said smile, and go to where I wanted to take their photos. I took them to a State park that runs along a local river. I think that's the best time I've ever had taking their photos! I think that'll be a new tradition for us! They really did enjoy walking along the river bank too.

I mentioned going Strawberry Picking with the kids and friends. Go figure I had no strawberry paper at home. Worked with what I had in my stash. Probably the best way to go anyways, since my paper keeps expanding....paper packs breed like rabbits! Than after I got my page done, saw all kinds of wonderful strawberry paper in all the stores. I cut my strawberries out with the cricut. Isn't that tool the best? I think I've used it on every page I've created since I got it. Love using it to cut out the titles.



Gabi's dance recital is coming up next month, and I'm behind on her photos from last year. So, finishing up a few routines she'd been in last year. Sadly, her favorite dance instructor left after this recital. She's been around Gabi or taught Gabi since Gabi was 6. So, I had to snap a photo of them-bottom right page. Gabi was heartbroken when she left.

Half the fun for me is trying to catch those things that are part of their lives. My kids whole heartedly love Webkinz. I think everytime Gabi has a few extra bucks in her pocket she has to get another one. I mean, she's got quite a collection already! But she always seems to find one she doesn't have. Last year The Greeting Farm did a Blog Hop, and for it, I'd created a party for their webkinz. Had to make a page for them because I'd done all the work for the 'party'.

All my layouts are from Jeanette's Lynton's books, Cherish, and Imagine. I really can't say enough about these two books. They have really helped me with my layouts, and making my pages more striking. Very cool books. I recommend them to all my friends.