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START A 6 MONTH MAIN KIT OR PROJECT LIFE SUBSCRIPTION & GET A FREE COCOA DAISY GRAB BAG.
We had such a great response to our grab bag promotion last month that we thought we would do it again! Sign up for either a 6 month main kit subscription or our new Day in the Life Project Life kit and receive a free grab bag (while supplies last).
What is in a Grab Bag? Well, every month we have leftover bits and pieces from our kits and add ons and the Bunker is starting to get a little tight, so we have decided to create Grab Bags. Each Grab Bag will be filled with at least $20.00 worth of goodies from the last few month’s kits and add ons.We have two ways you can get one:
1. Get yours FREE when you sign up for a 6 month main kit subscription. Just enter “GRAB BAG” in the comments section when you check out.
2. Get yours FREE when you sign up for a 6 month Day in the Life Project Life subscription. Just enter “GRAB BAG” in the comments section when you check out (You’ll start with the May kit until it’s gone).
Sign up today! Our Grab Bag promo ends May 28th at Noon EST (or until supplies run out)!!
It’s that time of the month again, and today we get to meet the lovely Lisa Saunders! Lisa and I work together to make sure the boards and members of Cocoa Daisy are always happy. I’ve really loved getting to know her and I know you will too! Here’s a bit more about Lisa:
I’ve been scrapping since about 2004.
Louis was 2 and a cardmaking friend got me in to it and I was soon hooked.
I always kept detailed photo albums and enjoyed journaling so this hobby totally made sense.
I’ve worked for several design teams over the years and have had work featured in magazines too.
My first ever commisioned magazine work I actually used a Cocoa Daisy kit. This was before I was on the DT here in 2009.
I started subbing with CD in 2007, my lovely friend Nicky forced me to and I never looked back. I almost instantly became an active chatty member on the boards and it’s been my scrappy home ever since. I got asked to join the Cocoa Daisy DT just before Christine took over and I love being here so much.
Right now I also design for SCRAP365 magazine and Papermaze a UK based scrapbooking shop. I also teach a couple of times a month.
I put my hand to most things. Aswell as scrapbooking and card making, I make mini books and dabble in mixed media.
I’m not quite sure where my inspiration comes from but most of my ideas happen away from my desk. I have to keep a notepad close by. The shower quite often, bed time when I’m trying to sleep, a walk and the worst place is the cinema. This always happens and I end up sitting in the dark making notes and then I can’t concentrate on the movie as I have this new idea.
I love sketches and colour combos. These always help me out if I need that extra push.
I enjoy using mists and masks, playing with stamps and paints and I love any colourful papers but prefer to steer away from primary colours. Simple Stories are a fave right now.
I love to cook and bake, I love being in the kitchen. I work for myself from home. I run a wedding business, which is great to fit around the family.
We are all Orlando obsessed. We live our lives from one vacation to the next. Always dreaming, planning and of course saving
Here are some of my favourite pieces of work for various different reasons.
The sick bowl, it fell and smashed. Louis was so upset. He cried ”I loved this bowl. All the memories”.
Strange child I have!!
This sweet Louis story.
I love how this one came out.
Colour combos really work for me. I love the brightness of this page and the photo that captures my two playing together, they’ve always gotten on so well together.
I think this is my favourite mini book that I’ve ever made.
This was made with the June CD kit 2012.
And my fave mixed media piece hangs in my hall way.
It’s full of little mini pieces of art.
But my fave most recent LO is this one from a CD just a couple of months ago.
It makes me feel so happy. Pretty colours and a favourite Disney photo which brings back such happy memories from our 2012 vacation. Plus that’s my favourite stencil.
And there you have it, a little peek at Lisa and how she creates. We’re so happy to have her here at Cocoa Daisy, she’s integral to our team!
Hi! Aliza asked if I was going to share how I did the photo on this layout. It’s a really easy technique in Photoshop that allows you to print out a photo on patterned paper and get an artsy look. I don’t have Elements, but since it’s just adjusting LEVELS and CURVES and most photo editing software allows you to do that, I imagine the steps are pretty similar.
1. Choose a photo that has little background noise. This one of my kids in Vancouver had a lot going on, but I wanted to use it, so I cropped out all the “noise.” This allows me to make them more the focus, something important in this technique.
2. Now you have to choose an appropriate patterned paper. Obviously you don’t want one that is too dark or too busy, your photo is going to be harder to decipher with this technique so you want to take away as much of the guess work as possible.
I think text, tone on tone, or very soft colors work best. You don’t want to have strong contrast, otherwise you end up with something unattractive coming out of your subject’s face. I’ll show you a few examples of what works and what doesn’t at the end.
3. This is what happens if you just print the picture, not playing with it at all. Not terribly artsy or interesting.
4. So, to remedy that, you’re first going to turn your photo black and white. If you print it you’ll get this. Notice that it’s not really easy to see my kids still. Time to play with CONTRAST!
5. With your black and white photo, you’ll go to CURVES and lighten the picture quite a bit.
6. If you print it out now, it’s much easier to see my kids, and you could stop here, but I still want to play more with the contrast for a more artsy and vintage feel.
7. I go to LEVELS and make the dark parts of the photo darker and the light parts lighter. Every photo is different so you’ll have to play with it until you like the results.
8. This is the result printed out, you’ll notice that you can see my kids better.
9. I love the contrast I’ve achieved, don’t love the yellow in the paper, so I try it on a few other pieces of patterned paper and this is what I get. This technique is not really about printing off pristine prints for posterity’s sake. It’s more about having fun and experimenting.
10. This shows the progression of the photos in Photoshop from color to high contrast, for you to use as a reference.
I hope you’ll try this fun technique out if you have a printer and a photo editing program. It’s fairly easy to achieve a fun and vintage look. You can use if for altered projects as well, like I did on this canvas:
And there you have an explanation of how I did my photo in the March gallery. I promise, it’s really easy.
We asked our amazingly talented Design Team to do a little challenge. For some,
it was easy, for others, it really pushed them out of their box, but they all did it.
Christine sent everyone an Alterable Hip Bag from Maya Road, the only instruction
was to use something we got from a Cocoa Daisy kit or is in the Daisy Boutique on
the bag.
Can you figure out what each team member used that came from a Cocoa Daisy kit
or is available in the Daisy Boutique?
Join us to see what each team member did. Some of the designers will be hosting
their own private giveaways, so be sure to check out each blog, you could be a
winner!
And because we ended up having more fun than we thought, we’d like to give a
chance to alter along with the Design Team. Hip bags will be available in the store
come the June kit. Pick up your own to alter and we’ll have the DT vote on a winning
bag. More details will follow!
Notice a little addition to the Cocoa Daisy Day of Inspiration? Here’s where the contest is coming in. Share this on Facebook, be sure to tag Cocoa Daisy and a friend. Share it on Instagram, tag a friend.
We’ll pick one winner from our Facebook shares and one from our Instagram shares and if you’ve tagged a friend, they’ll be a winner too!
What will you win, you ask? Well, since you’re already a fan of Cocoa Daisy’s, you know how awesome the kits are. You may even be a subscriber, yes? How would you like to win the JUNE KIT? Yeah, even if you’re a subscriber, you can get the June kit for free! And if you’re not a subscriber, you could be a winner anyway (and getting to play with the June kit would be all you need to convince yourself you need to subscribe).
Here’s a little peek at the June kit.
And your friend that you’ve tagged? Well they would win their own June Day in the Life kit (no sneak, but I promise it’s amazing, the exclusive Cocoa Daisy 3×4 cards just showed up in the Bunker and I got a peek. I think they are my favorite to date)! Yah. Just for being your friend.
So what are you waiting for? Start sharing today! You have until Saturday at 8 PM EST to share this with as many friends as you can. Come spend the day with us and get to know Cocoa Daisy a bit better. We’re going to surprise you! Winners will be announced here on Monday, May 6th.
