Two free paper packs

Seems I haven't been around for a while -- summer mostly equals busy for me, of the kind that doesn't allow sitting at the computer. Anyway, I've managed to create two more paper packs, and here they are for you to download, all free. 

As usual, both packs contain six papers, all of them measuring 3600x3600 px at 300 dpi, so they are good to print on 12 x 12 inch papers, if you wish. Originally they were made for my digital scrapbooking layouts, but they are free for you to use for what ever you see fit, for your digital scrapbooking, texturizing or whatever you can think of. 

Click on each image to be taken to the download page and enjoy. 

Vases, Bikes, Summer Nights and Dogs

On day 64 of Beyond Layers, the challenge was to use a certain texture Kim posted and experiment with some masking tricks she shared. She gave a recipe, which I, for once, followed pretty closely without too much tweaking.  I did, however, add another texture. The photo was taken in April at the student exhibition at the community college where I work.

Pictures at an Exhibition - Vase with Birds

Resources:
- texture Jay by Kim Klassen
- texture Tin Type 1900 by Distressed Textures

The second picture dates from our annual camp with the Finnish Dandie Dinmont Terrier Club. Every summer we get together with other Dandie owners and have a fun weekend. The shot was taken on a cloudy and rather windy night by the lake, and I had a lot of fun post processing it rather heavily.

A Summer Night

Thank you for the textures:
- Distressed Textures by Denise Love @ 2 Lil’ Owls Studio
- Paper Pack 3 by dierat

In the third picture I once again returned to Zwolle, where, among loads of bikes, I found this very attractive feminine specimen, and processed with a texture of my own.

The Ladybike

Lastly there's a scrapbooking layout I made of our youngest Dandie Justiina. Originally she was just lying down on the grass, but the very moment I pressed the camera button she jumped up and rushed towards me to find out what it was I was doing. I have been viewing several layouts lately done in the artsy style, and here's my shot at it. I really enjoyed the creation process of this one.

Resources:
- background paper from paper pack I Can See Clearly Now by myself
- masks from Shadowhouse Creations Splatter Mask Set 2 by Jerry Jones
- brush from Moments 2 by Fran
- flowers from kit Bleu comme une orange by Fran
- stitches from Coutures/Stitches 1 by Fran
- text brushes by Aurorabor
- watercolour brushes by Ron Deviney
- splatter brushes by Robyn Cough
- font Jazz LET
- font Zapfino

Yesterday - four free paper packs!

This time I have for you not one, but four paper packs for your digital scrapbooking, texturizing or whatever you can think of. All packs contain six papers, all of the 3600x3600 px at 300 dpi, so they are good to print 12 x 12 inch papers, should you wish. 

These papers have the Yesterday -titles because they have been sitting idly on my hard drive for a couple of years. When I found them, I decided to sort of dust them off and pack them so they might get used. Originally they were made for my digital scrapbooking layouts, but they are free for you to use for what ever you see fit.

If you like them, it would totally make my day if you could drop me a little line. Click on each image to be taken to the download page. Enjoy.

Finding Shapes 2 - Rectangles

Didn't I know this from my writing days - I really can go on tweaking anything I create forever, if I don't simply post it somewhere and call it finished. I used to write and rewrite and rewrite a little poem again and again, literally for years, and now I notice I'm doing the same to my pictures. So it's high time to post these pictures off and be done with them and tackle something new.

I took the first picture in May 2012 while travelling towards Scotland with my students. We stayed overnight in Zwolle, and I found this pretty door on our evening walk in town.

Red Door

I layered the picture with texture Waterfront 17 by Kim Klassen altogether four times with various blending modes, masking off various sections of the texture on each layer.

The second picture dates from the same trip. This time we were heading back home and walked about in Lübeck, waiting to take our boat home across the Baltic Sea. It's just another office building somewhere in the city centre, but I found it attractive, especially how the top floor windows reflected the blue sky and the ones downstairs remained black, but also other contrasts, such as the elaborate 19th century door frame and the modern door with company logos.

Looking at the sky

I started processing this photo as another textured image, but was never quite satisfied with it. Then I revisited some digital scrapbooking sites and ran across these techniques of making a photo look part like a drawing, part like a painting. Tried it, and still wasn't quite happy with it, so I went on to try out another new technique, using frames but painting partly outside the frame. These techniques are certainly something I'm going to play with later on, too.
 Resources:
- Brushes & frame
- Brush stamp 
- Papers 
- Font 1
- Font 2 

The third picture is from Salzburg, on a trip we took to the World Dog Show immediately after my trip to Scotland. We walked along the Salzach under a bridge, and high up there was this cage, for maintenance, I suppose.

Kein Eintritt

This one was created much like the one above: I started by texturing the photo, then decided needed a frame, then decided I'd make it into a scrapbooking layout. *sigh* Now I'm letting go of it. No more tweaking.

 Resources:
- texture Cool Grunge by Kim Klassen 
- mask by Julie Mead Designs
- background paper from paper pack Green Finch and Linnet Bird by myself
 - font Dusty Rose NF
- font Mary Helen JF

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme free paper pack

A free paper pack you can download. I created these actually already in May, watching all the different greens emerge. Spring always brings to my mind a certain part of a poem by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. It's a song old Bilbo Baggins sang in Rivendell, I think, when he gave Frodo Sting and his mithril-coat.

"For still there are so many things

That I have never seen

In every wood in every spring

There is a different green"

Anyway, the title of the pack comes from a very different song, which I also love. I give you exactly one guess as to what the song is called. ˆ__ˆ 

Click the image to go to the download page. Enjoy!

All By Myself free paper pack

Yet another freebie paper pack I've created this spring: All By Myself. Click the preview to get to the download page. Enjoy!

Freebie paper pack Wineberries, Dogwood and Tea

Here's another free digital scrapbooking paper pack for you. Click the preview to be taken to the download page. Enjoy! 

I Can See Clearly Now paper pack

Here's another free scrapbooking paper pack for your pleasure.  Just click the image to be taken to the download page. Enjoy.

Pieces of Me, Day 3

Another picture post to the originally one-week Beyond Layers challenge Pieces of me. On the third day the topics were Kitchen faucet and Your front door.

The first image needs little explanation. It's the kitchen faucet installed in our kitchen at the time our house was built 11 years ago, very typical in Finland. I still love the tiles we chose for the wall.

Photo taken on 23 February, 2014.

Resources:
- ribbon by Mediamilitia
- texture Waterfront 19 by Kim Klassen
- font Janda Elegant Handwriting by Kimberly Geswein

The second photo dates from last autumn. Without the chrysanthemums, it could have been taken last weekend, or any weekend when we have no longer or not yet snow. Just like yesterday, on a day off we like to work in the garden doing this and that, and the dogs keep watch. They sit or lie at the door, on the lawn, under the trees, occasionally even in the flower beds and let us know immediately if any suspicious-looking strangers try to pass by our yard in cars, on motorbikes or bikes or, horror of horrors, on foot.

Photo taken on 12 October, 2013

Looking at the picture more closely, now I actually notice another thing that tells this is an old photo. The girls (Justiina at the bottom left, Marleena at the top right) nowadays look much more adult. 

Resources: 

 - texture Empty Page by Kim Klassen 
- paper Wineberries Dogwood and Tea 03 by myself (coming soon)
- font Sweetly Broken by Brittney Murphy Design
- PhotoMask 53 by Julie Mead

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep - a new paper pack

I have been rather prolific with scrapbooking paper packs lately. I really enjoy putting them together, layering texture after texture and tweaking them. There are two new sets after this almost finished, so stay tuned if you like them. Like all of them, this one is free to use for anything, download and enjoy.

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep paper pack

Pieces of Me, Day 1

Changed my username on deviantArt, so I thought I'd create a new blog here as well. It seems I'm not primarily posting scrapbooking layouts, as I thought I would when I first started, so I felt  it a bit restricting to call myself ScrapEija. Now I'm Eija Ite (or Eijaite), exactly as on flickr, and happy with that, since it means Eija Herself. Life's busy, but I have managed to steal some time for photos and for Beyond Layers, which of course has been long officially over, but I'm going to plod along and only then tackle Beyond Beyond. That naturally means that particular course will be long over, too, before I have any chance to work on it, but so be it then. I'll do what I can when I can and am not going to stress over it.  I'm a bit sad to have missed the community side of it, but glad to have met nice people anyway in Blogland.

The pictures I'm posting this time are my take on the originally one-week BL challenge Pieces of me. There were two topics for five days, and I've covered at least one of them for each day. Here's my Day 1 challenge.

Favourite Chair

Resources:
- paper Blue Jean 02 by myself
- font Milton Burlesque NF by Nick's Fonts
- font Skia

The pictures show our Dandie Dinmont male Renny in his favourite chair in our study. I took the picture on in February, but it could be anytime (for example right now). Yes, he is in the small picture as well, hidden under the cover.  He might sleep for a good while under the cover, but at some point it gets too hot there and then follows the really fun part, when he starts manouvering himself out. You see a wriggling, twisting blanket, then it usually falls down and some feet appear under it, then after some shaking and puffing, out dives a dog on a bad hair day. This is a favourite chair, though, because there's almost always somebody there, at least whenever either one of us two-legged family members are in the study.

Another challenge for day 1 was On My Feet. I couldn't decide which one of these picture I prefer, so I'm posting both. The first one shows another favourite spot of the doggies in the study: lying on the feet of the person sitting at the computer. Here we have Renny and his daughter Marleena, while I'm typing this the one warming my toes is Grandmother Foxy.

Dogs on my feet

Resources:
- background texture Scripted by Kim Klassen
- font Bradley Hand ITC

My other take for the challenge is a picture I took of my feet in socks knitted by Marjo last autumn. They have been my favourite footwear at home this winter. I blended two textures by 2 Lil' Owls on the background and used this lovely brushed mask by The Scrappin Cop on the photo.

Homemade Socks

Resources:
- textures Carnevale 45 & Vintique 5 by 2 Lil' Owls
- mask by The Scrappin Cop
- font Windsong by Bright Ideas

Paper pack freebies

Long time no see. I suddenly noticed there are quite a few digital scrapbooking paper packs that I have made and published on deviantArt, but not here. So here goes. They are all free for you to use, click on the image to be taken to  the download page. Enjoy!

Quote Challenge revisited

After a good while, I decided I'd play along the quote challenge from Beyond Layers day 39 anyway. I had already had a look at some quotes, so I went back and did some digging for photos. Seeing the results, I'm happy I did.

First Tulips

A picture of the first tulips pushing up, taken on 2 May 2013. Thought the quote was pretty apt for the image. The prompt word was "life".

Resources:
- font KG Ways To Say Goodbye by Kimberly Geswein

Sleepers

The quote challenge word was "peace". This made me think of our latest little puppies when they were little puppies, in this picture less than a month old.

Resources:
- textures from Shadowhouse October Square Texture Set 2 by Jerry Jones
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts

Foxy - Indian Summer

On reading the prompt word "change" I knew immediately what my quote would be: Dorothy Parker's poem Indian Summer. Ever since I first read it I've loved the poem. And I roughly knew what I wanted to do with the images, too - originally I associate the poem with our second-ever Dandie, Veera, whom we called Madame, because she was very dignified, self-assured and definitely not one to fool with. She was a businesslike, no-nonsense personality, but charming. However, since she left us years before the age of digital cameras and even the scans I have of her are not of very high quality, the dog in the photos is our present Madame, called Foxy. Totally different, with a lot more sense of humour (yes, Dandies come equipped with that), but certainly a lady who knows what she wants, who turned nine this week. In the last picture, by the way, she is not growling but actually smiling.

Resources:
- template 018 by myself
- background papers from paper pack Green Finch and Linnet Bird by myself
- font Lavanderia by James T. Edmondson

By The Frozen River

The fourth prompt was "intentions" and for this, the Douglas Adams quote was my absolute favourite. It's so true for me in so many ways. The picture shows my home town since 1987, where I definitely didn't plan to move. When I first went to study, I somehow thought I'd end up in the south, Helsinki or thereabouts. And here I am, 600 kilometres north, and have been happy here for more than a quarter of a century. Oh my. I took the picture on a walk in the centre on 1 May this year. Yes, it was pretty cold.

Jackdaws

The last prompt was "focus". I like the quote, and the photo is one of a series I managed to take on 8 June of a gang of Jackdaws, who landed on the grass and  were a bit shy of me, obviously thinking the treat on the ground might belong to me. They circled around, trying to appear nonchalant and uninterested, until one of them started the approach. Unfortunately none of the photos I took of the actual attack turned out any good but well, that's life, right?

Finding Fences

Day 52 challenge at BL was to go and find some fences. The idea was to find some interesting (somehow I think they were meant to be pretty?) fences and photograph them. Well, this made me dig into my archives for something not so much pretty but what actually was precisely what we did last autumn. We went looking for fences.

At the end of October, tired of the little girls always finding their way on the fields and disappearing there to hunt for heaven knows what, we finally decided it had to stop. We had fenced a sizable part of our property back when we moved here in the 1990s, but back then, we had
a) a large dog
b) many dandies
c) unrealistic ideas about the need for space
d) illusions of how much time we'd be able to dedicate to taking care of our yard.

Over the years, we kept repairing the fence here and there, but had already come to realise that we had fenced much more than was either necessary or practical. Parts of the fence stood in the middle of untouched old fields, pushing up fireweed and willow, parts were rotting in the wet ground by the brookside. So we went to the bushes to find the old fence and dig it up and move it so that it could be planted closer to our actual garden.

Not so easily done, the two of us toiled away with it for a good while, but   after a couple of weeks, just before the the ground frost set in, we finished the project. The fence had to be revisited and the posts banged in again in the spring, and we'll have to do the same every spring after the ground frost melts, but there's significantly less fence to take care of now.

Resources used:
- template 27 by myself
- paper Cloudbusting 05 by myself
- font SF Arch Rival by ShyFonts
- font Janda Elegant Handwriting by Kimberly Geswein
- font KG Call Me Maybe by Kimberly Geswein

Of Travelling and Knitting

The challenge for day 48 at Beyond Layers: to have a loved one photograph you doing something you might consider mundane. This one was meant to made us think about our special gifts, that whatever we create and touch is of value and important. Kim took pictures of her friend Myriam making a salad, peeling and dicing and so on.

Another aspect of the challenge, as I see it, was using our hands, and that made it easy for me to choose how to tackle this one with photos I already had: my knitting. I don't know if I see it as mundane, but I definitely am happy for finding it again, and I suppose it could be considered a gift?

Resources:
- template 25 by myself
- paper Happiest Search 05 by myself
- font SF Arch Rival by ShyFonts
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts
- brush Stitched Mess by Kim Klassen
- Post it sticker by Akizo

This layout actually meets another challenge demand, too: the photo of me grinning goofily and holding the finished sock was taken by my friend Marjo. The sock was a trial for a bigger project, to test out if I, who had not been knitting socks for the past thirty-five years or so, could knit some pairs of this pattern or not. I had the correct yarn for the pattern at home but not in the correct colours (grey, black and white) but who cares - the purpose was only to try out the pattern, and I had three colours anyway, orange, green and grey. So as we took a train to Helsinki to celebrate Marjo's birthday, I started knitting, and before we arrived back home, the sock was finished. The sock is actually rather crappy, but for a first effort after such a long time I'm mightily pleased with it. But no, I'm not going to knit more of them.

Which sort of brings me to the next layout. I got a new sock pattern to try out from my boss, and I really like it. She said it's a traditional Finnish pattern, and anyway, it's simple and pretty. These pictures were taken when I was celebrating the World Wide Knit in Public Day all by myself, knitting in public but without much more company than some cyclists, joggers, jackdaws, wagtails, thrushes and a heard-but-not-seen pheasant. The weather was wonderful and my knit-in-public days pleasant and relaxing.

Resources:
- template 26 by myself
- brush by Mouritsa
- paper Blue Jean 02 by myself
- font Denigan by Måns Grebäck

Polaroidish

Day 47 at Beyond Layers was called Polaroid Love. I was somewhat suspicious of the theme to start with. We've never had a Polaroid camera in our family, so I really cannot say I'd love Polaroid. I do remember somebody we knew had this cool camera with which you could take these instant photos, but they never were that popular with the people we knew. But then I thought about it from another point of view: what I remember very well are the first colour photos from the 70s that started very soon losing their colours and turning red and faded, especially in the plastic pockets where we used to place them. I shudder to think my Granny's large album with all plastic pages, little pockets full of reddened photos, some almost impossible to make out anymore…

Furthermore, there seem to be these actions for that sort of effect - blur, fading colours - floating around, so I thought perhaps I'd now get to try out some of them within these polaroid frames Kim urged us to download. So I did try out various actions, with pleasing results. Then I dediced to turn them into scrapbooking layouts, and also got the opportunity to use some scrapbooking papers from the Au coin de l'objectif website, which I has been my favourite scrapbooking resource for years. It's a treasure trove, though nowadays I tend to make my own papers.

All these photos were taken on 1 May on the now already traditional Mayday orienteering event in town. It's a lot of fun. The local orienteering club places these about 20 check points around the town, the map with the points is published in the local paper, and people go around punching the checkcards also published in the newspaper at the check points. You can find as many points as you wish and in the order you wish, but if you punch your card at at least six points, you can return your checkcard and take part in a draw of some little prize. Some people take it as a sports event, running or jogging the whole route, but for many it's either a nice walk or a family cycling tour. We take a walk with the dogs and of course I take the camera along, since there's always something nice to see. I thought these pictures were well suited to this challenge, because they were sort of timeless, places that certainly had been there in the seventies. And now I'm even happier to have taken and played with the pictures, because two of the photos couldn't be taken anymore - the buildings have been pulled down this summer.

Resources:
- action Vanilla Peach by NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements d'un premier anniversaire by Au coin de l'objectif
- font Tusch Touch 1 by Måns Grebäck
- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Dusty Haze by Sarah Lynn Cornish
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 2 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Vintage by  NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 4 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Seventies by The Pioneer Woman
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 3 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Doesn't look too bad. Perhaps I'll do something like this later on, too.

Cups

Wow. Posting day 46 of Beyond Layers already. This time the challenge was to capture some cups during the week. I didn't use a week for this though - just one day.

First I thought I'd browse my archive, because I know there are some cups there, but then again, why not shoot some? So I grabbed the camera and went to my new small "studio" with a pile of mugs and started shooting. Taking many pictures of course meant I was going to scrapbook the results. Not to make the pictures tiny, I ended up making three layouts with the cups. Silly? Perhaps, but fun.  I was also rather self-sufficient this time, using my own resources, which makes me even more pleased with the results.

The first set was our dog-themed mugs, included are the Dandie Dinmont Terrier ones and some from special occasions: one from The European Winner Show in Helsinki 2006 and two from Helsinki Winner Show 2012.

Resources:
- texture Mute Light 01 by myself
- papers Cloudbusting 03, 04, 05 & 06 by myself
- template 22 by myself
- fonts Love Ya Like A Sister  &  KG Call Me Maybe by Kimberly Geswein

The second layout starts with unique handmade mugs made by a colleague of mine, a teacher of pottery. Then there is our wooden mug-stand, which I absolutely love, with yellow Teema mugs by Arabia. There are also our two Moomin mugs, my Little My and Better Half's Stinky, our plastic mugs for travelling and Glühwein mugs I got as a present from my German students.

Resources:
- papers Mellow Yellow 03 & 04 by myself
- stitches by Gunhild Storeide
- font Lavanderia by James T. Edmondson
- template 23 by myself

The third layout includes out two Russian tea sets and some rarer mugs, such as the hand-painted one in top-left corner.

Resources:
- papers Lemonade Stand 03, 04 & 06 by myself
- font Simply Glamorous by Brittney Murphy
- font Seaside Resort NF by Nick's Fonts
- template 24 by myself

That was a nice bit of work for a rainy day in July, in between typing dog show critiques.  It's only apt that I post it after the most rainy day I've ever experienced... it doesn't often rain here without a single break the whole day through, but it did yesterday.

Will be posting a pile of other challenges today as well, some of which have been sitting on the computer since July.

Rediscoveries

Long time no see... well, better continue from where I left ages ago. The prompt for day 35 at Beyond Layers was about shaking things up, taking a new route… The big change at this very moment is typing this blog after such a long break, in the effort of finishing the eCourse sometime during the next two months when the material is still available.

But the sort-of-new thing I've done recently has been to rediscover old skills. I've taken up needlework again, after years and years of not touching any. Far easier than working with photos: doesn't require computer, there's hardly any brain effort needed, it's just simply relaxing, something you can do when you're in the half-braindead state you get to when you finish work late in the evening.

It started during the Christmas holidays. My friend was sitting in the armchair next to me knitting, and I was feeling restless, doing nothing next to those busy hands. I think she needed a crochet hook for finishing off something, so I went rummaging in the needlework baskets and boxes, and while I found what I was looking for I also discovered a hairpin loom. I faintly remembered having crocheted three shawls in this method ages ago, one for my mother and one for each granny, and had to go and dig on the net how you actually do it. To my great delight I found instructions and started working. To start with, I made a couple of scarves of left-over yarns, and then I actually went shopping for yarn for a new project! I ended up buying this lovely multi-coloured yarn called Peippo (Finch in English). It is actually rather heavy, meant for socks mainly, but I made a huge shawl with it.

Hairpin Lace

Here I photographed the two scarves, the loom, mother's old needlework basket, the fun yarn and the beginnings of the shawl. The photos were taken on 2nd January.

Resources used:
- background papers Road to Sunset 01 & 04 by myself
- brush from Bittbox
- template by Katie Pertiet

Will post some photos of the finished shawl later on, and other stuff I manage to make. Not if. When.

Sweet Georgia Brown paper pack

Here's another digital scrapbooking paper pack, this time various browns. All free for you to use, click on the image to be taken to  the download page. Enjoy!

Click here to download the papers

Life's Light

Playing catch-up at Beyond Layers… the day 33 challenge was Honouring Life's Light. The purpose was to capture "anything that shines light into your life", to celebrate the love.

This one was so easy. My bright spot, as Kim said, is without any doubt similar to hers: the pets. There’s been a Dandie Dinmont Terrier in our household for more than twenty years, and after the first half year there have always been at least two of them. Our current pack has six members, each one of them unique, each one of them special. Life certainly isn’t boring with the lot of them around, and I really cannot imagine life without them.

We discussed this with Better Half some time ago, trying to imagine what our lives would have turned to if we hadn't taken the first Dandie. You know, "Turn a different corner and we never would have met." Although we are both blessed with good imagination, neither of us could really figure out where we'd be now without the Dandies. But there's one thing we concluded: it certainly would be hugely different. There are so many things we're involved in nowadays - and have been for years - that have evolved out of this, our whole way of life, how we see the world, friendships… everything.

The scrapbooking layout shows the whole current pack in photos taken between 29 July, 2011 and 25 October, 2012: the old Great-grandauntie Leia, Granny Foxy, Mom Misaki, Dad Renny and their daughters Marleena & Justiina.

A Pack of Dandies

Resources used:

- background paper Happiest Search 01 by myself
- gradient from the Super Dooper gradient pack by Digital Phenom
- template 212 by Yin Designs