Maternity Sketches by RealScrappy

I'm feeling kinda guilty that I haven't written for awhile. It's been crazy. I got a HUGE ugly virus on my home computer. I took it in and it was getting fixed for a week. Now I've got it back and the virus appears to be gone, but it's so freaking slow and it takes forever to open anything. I haven't tried digital scrapbooking on it yet, but I'm dreading it. I'm not sure I'll be able to. Not when it takes five minutes just to open a file! Very depressing.

So I haven't done a whole lot in the digital scrapping world for a while. BUT, at work I've been working on a few maternity pages. I just pull up Photoshop and work on it here and there throughout the day during spare moments (thank goodness for my Keyboarding class) and it's taken me forever, but I do have two of my three maternity pages done. So I'm going to share those with you today.

I find that ever since I discovered Sketches by Suzy, I scrap just a little bit differently. I'm more inclined now to sketch out my page before actually making it. I like drawing boxes and circles and indicating where each thing will go before I actually scrap it. So for my maternity pages, I actually made three sketches of my own. I figured I might as well share them with you and make them downloadable, but keep in mind--these are made for 8 1/2 x 11, not 12x12, so if you DO download them, you'll have to adjust them to your preferences.

So, here are my finished pages for my 1st and 2nd Trimester. Obviously, my 3rd Trimester page isn't finished yet, as its not over! I'm 31 weeks today, so it will be a few more weeks before 1. 3rd Trimester is over and 2. I have the time to extract myself from baby twins to finish scrapping it!

So obviously I used my Petite Bebe kit from Dianne Rigdon to do this page. I think it turned out quite nice! Though it's not been one of those pages that just came together easily. Mainly because there is SO MUCH JOURNALING in it. It's hard to work that in!

Here are the sketches for all three trimesters:

If you would like to download my sketches, they are here: RealScrappy Maternity Sketches You can certainly change the weeks to match the weeks that fit your pregnancy and the events that occur. I made several changes myself, especially since I know I won't be getting 40 weeks, only 38 with twins, so I put my 3rd Trimester sign in the 40 week box instead. I may change it up even more depending on when I deliver. I probably won't see 38 weeks either! (though the doctor tells me I'm no where near going into labor and probably will carry them full term. Good news!)

No, I do not intend to start making sketches and put them on my blog--that's not really my focus. But I thought this one time I'd offer a little freebie!

Quick Tips 3: Closing Files

I've been using Photoshop for seven years. And I just discovered this little trick by accident today. It excited me so I thought I'd do a quick tip about it.

You find that when you digital scrap you end up with A LOT of files open on your computer. They can be a pain to manage. I know, I know, I should just close them when I'm done as I go. But I don't. So I always have tons of stuff open.

Did you know that if you double click on the PS icon, they immediately close? Why this is any faster than clicking on the x close box, I don't know. It just is. Somtimes I can only see the left side of the file and not the right. For some reason, this made me excited. Sorry. This is a really lame tip. You are probably thinking, "Duh Megan! I totally knew that! Where have you been!" But that's pretty much what my Quick Tips section is for--all those little things that you didn't know you could do and are a total "aha" moment when you figure it out.