Ocean Safari

One of my family’s favorite vacation spots is Sea World. They love the whales, dolphins and the sharks! During the summer, we make lots of visits to our local aquarium as well. My kids really love that you can touch the rays and starfish, and they love looking at the octopus and the sea horses too! Since I have so many photos of them in these places, and since they are all such water-loving little swimmers, I thought a new deep sea kit was in order for the summertime!

Ocean Safari is a cute ocean and sea life themed kit. It includes 22 textured papers, full alpha, over 55 unique elements and 23 word bits. As a bonus, when you purchase the Ocean Safari kit, you will get the Ocean Safari Page Titles for free!

Ocean Safari is 20% off during Happy Hour through Friday, HERE at After Five Designs. You can take an additional 15% off your purchase price through the weekend using this coupon code: KA_OS_15






Ocean Safari Page Titles are free with your purchase!



My creative team created lots of cute layouts using Ocean Safari. I have posted a few here. To see more examples of what you can create using this kit, click on the additional images HERE in my shoppe.












Choosing a name for this kit was so difficult because there were so many amazing names to choose from! Thanks to everyone who took the time to suggest a name for the “name this kit and win it” contest. I want to thank Bethanne for her name suggestion! I love the name “Ocean Safari” and thought it was perfect for this kit!! I also really loved the suggestion “Octopus’s Garden” by Zin from the Alps. I’m a Beatles lover and I was so tempted to choose that name! I have a free copy of the Ocean Safari kit for both of you! Please email me at kristin.aagard@gmail.com so I can arrange send a copy to you!

If you would like a 12x12 Quick Page and/or a Facebook timeline cover QP, head on over to my FB page HERE. Click the little freebie tab up near the top and download them for free!

I also have a fun freebie for you here. This one is kind of different than any I’ve done before! Some of my creative team used these on their pages, and I really think it’s a fun addition to the kit. You can use these Ocean Safari Watery Overlays to create a fun, underwater effect on your page. Drag an overlay (or several of them) onto your paper, elements, photo, or your whole page. Change the blending mode to overlay (or play around with the settings until you find one you like). I hope you enjoy playing with these!

Download Ocean Safari Watery Overlays HERE

Name It and Win It!!

I will have a new kit available next week! I have a little sneak peek for you here! I’d love for you to help me name it! Leave a comment HERE on my blog and let me know what you think the name should be. If I pick your name, you’ll get a copy of the kit for free! (If more than one person chooses the same name, I will draw a random winner from those suggestions.) Make sure to leave your name suggestion by noon on Tuesday for a chance to win! Good luck! (And thanks in advance for the naming help!)

Story Time Sale & Photoshop New Document Preset Tutorial

My friend Nikki Beaudreau is retiring from designing at the end of the month. (Sad!) Our collaboration kit, Story Time, will still be available in my store after she has closed up shop. But since Nikki is having a retirement sale, you can pick it up through the end of June at 50% off! So if you don’t have this bright and fun kit in your stash, now is a great time to pick it up! You can find Story Time HERE in my shop at After Five Designs!



I have a short Photoshop tutorial/tip here for you today.

Because I have so little computer time (like most of us), I employ an arsenal of time saving techniques when I'm scrapping and designing. I'm a big fan of creating presets in Photoshop to save time. You can make a preset for almost anything.

I want to show you a quick and easy time saving technique today. I use it almost anytime I open up a new Photoshop document. You can create your own New Document presets and use them instead of resetting the properties each time a new document is created.

I will demonstrate how to create and save a 12x12 scrap page layout preset that you can refer to each time you start a layout. To begin, click on the file menu and select new. In the New File Dialogue Box, set your layout dimensions as you would normally.

For a 12x12 page:
Width and Height: 12 inches
Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
Color Mode: RGB Color, 8 bit,
Background Contents: transparent (or white if you prefer to start out with a solid background)

After you have set your document dimensions, click the Save Preset... button.



In the New Document Preset dialogue box, type a name for your preset. I named mine, Scrapbook Page – 12x12. After you have typed a name for your preset, click OK.



After you have named and saved your new preset, click the drop down arrow next to Presets.



You will see your newly created preset on the list in the drop down menu. Click your new preset name and then click Ok.



You now have a new file preset you can use each time you create a 12x12 scrapbook page. Each time you start a new page, simply open a new file, choose your preset and start scrapping!  Your document dimensions will be just as you like them in just one simple click.

Since I often print photos in 4x6, 3x4 and 5x7, I have also set preset dimensions in those sizes. I have a preset saved for 8.5x11 documents as well. You can create as many New Document Presets as you like in any sizes you wish.

I hope this tutorial is easy for you to follow, and I hope that you will follow it and create your own New File Presets!

I'll be back very soon with a sneak peek of my new kit coming next week!!  Happy scrapping!

Hair Day

I was first inspired to create a hair themed kit when my son had his first haircut in February. And I’m so happy to finally have it finished! I have included as many fun hair themed elements as I could think of. And lots of others that were suggested for me on Facebook. Thanks so much to all of you who gave me inspiration for this kit! Your suggestions were so helpful and I tried to include as many as possible!

Hair Day includes 20 textured papers, alpha, over 50 unique elements and 45 word art, tags and page titles. Hair Day is available at 20% off through Sunday, at my guest store HERE at The Lilypad. You can take an additional 15% off using this coupon code: KA_HAIRDAY_15


























I drew two random winners to the sneak peek contest on Wednesday for a chance to win a free copy of the Hair Day kit. Here are the results:



Congratulations to Alyna (June 13, 2012 – 1:21 AM) and Blonde Valor (June 14, 2012 – 5:16 AM)! Please email me for your free copy of the kit! kristin.aagard@gmail.com


I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and if you live in the US, a very happy Father’s Day! Go spoil those wonderful men in your life!

Happy scrapping!!

Brush Alpha 1 and Hair Day Sneak Peek!

I hope that you all have been enjoying your summer as much as I have! (If it is summer where you live!) My kids have kept me running and there has not been a lot of time for creating new digi goodies. But I did finish up two brand new things this week that I hope you will love! One is a brand new kit, that has been a long time coming and will be available on Friday. I have a little sneak peek of that for you at the bottom of this post!!

The Lily Pad has an awesome 50% off sale every Wednesday called, Something Old, Something New. I have something brand new in today’s sale HERE in my TLP guest shop. Brush Alpha 1 is a hand painted alpha and brush set. This set includes uppercase letters, numbers 0-9 and some symbols. The alpha is included in individual PNG file format in black. You can  quickly and easily recolor the PNG files using a color overlay to create a very versatile alpha in any color. If you use Photoshop, you can choose instead to install the ABR file and brush your alpha right onto your page! Brush Alpha 1 is available at 50% off, today at TLP!





I started working on a hair themed kit in February after my son had his first haircut. I have finally finished it up, and it will be available for you at my Lily Pad Guest Shop on Friday!! I have a little sneak peek here for you! If you would like a chance to win one of two free copies when this kit releases on Friday, just leave a comment for me HERE on my blog (by noon, Thursday, June 14^th) to let me know you want a chance to win! Also, make sure to check back on Friday to see if you won. Or you can just subscribe to my blog feed by email and keep up with my blog right from your inbox! You can subscribe by email HERE. Good luck!!

Happy Scrapping!!