I love making custom Valentine’s for my kids to hand out at school! There are soooo many fun, unique things you can do with a little Photoshopping and some cute supplies! I thought I would share a bunch of ideas (plus a free gift) today.

First up, our very own Kimberly Kalil has been making some AWESOME printable art and sharing it for FREE on her blog. I asked her to make a couple of fun Valentine’s goodies to share with you. Since these are printables, you can just print, put in a frame, and enjoy all February.

You can download both printables in one zipped file here.

This first one is a printable at 5×7 and perfect to put in a frame. Just use a white erase marker to write on the glass of the frame:

This second is a printable 8×10, again, perfect for a frame. This is something Kimberly says she likes to say to her kids and then insert a funny thing, such as: “I love you more than ice cream,” her kids will often try to top her:

Here are some great finds from around digiland to help you create some FAST and FABULOUS Valentines for the special people in your life:

Some non-traditional Valentine goodies:

If you are new to digital scrapbooking and would like more information on using these products, here are some resources to get you going:

Our Free Digital Scrapbooking Manual

Custom Christmas Cards tutorial

Free beginning digital scrapbooking class

There are also many great kits and embellishment packs that work well for gift tagging and wrapping.

You might want to also check your stash of holiday supplies. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find some tags and word art in some of my Christmas kits that will make wonderful additions to any gift. When it comes time to wrap the presents this year, consider wrapping them up in digi style!

P.S. Kim was the random winner selected from Dawn’s feature on Monday. She won $10 in product from Dawn.

Are you feeling a little panicked about not having your gift shopping done? With Christmas only a week away, time is running out! How about some last minute gift ideas to help out?

GIFT CARDS

The nice thing about gift cards (especially online versions) is that they can be purchased at the last minute and still make it to the recipient in time. We are super excited to finally be able to offer an easy gift card for The Daily Digi’s Digi Game membership! Make things easy on the gift givers in your life and email them a link to this post!

The person that forwarded this email to you has been dreaming of receiving a Digi Game membership! We’ve made it easy for you to give the gift they’ve been wanting most!

1) Just click here to go the gift certificate page that looks like this:

2) Fill in the “TO” and “FROM” information on the tag.

3) Select the length of the subscription you want to give (one month or one year).

4) Click BUY NOW. You will be taken to a PayPal screen where you can log into an existing account or select another option if you don’t have a PayPal account:

Once you have confirmed payment through PayPal, a confirmation email will be sent to you and the gift certificate will be emailed to the recipient. The recipient will be able to apply the gift to an existing membership OR sign up for an account, if they don’t have one. All of that information is included in the email they will receive!

MAKE A GIFT CARD EXTRA SPECIAL

To make an a gift card extra special, consider wrapping it up in a custom gift card wrapper or pairing it with a favorite treat.

MAKE SOMETHING

Really, you still have time to whip up some magic because you are a DIGI scrapper! Here are some quick and easy projects that come together in no time at all.

Make a quote art piece like this Harry Potter layout using ideas from the dingbats post.

• Frame a photo collage. They are so easy to make and you’ll find a lot of ideas in this post Quick & Easy Collages or using the tools at Big Huge Labs – see the post Big Huge Fun for details.

• Use your digi supplies and iron-on transfer sheets to create custom aprons, t-shirts, pillowcases, bags, and more! It’s actually very easy to do and you’ll find plenty of ideas in this Iron-on Transfer Projects post.

TONS OF IDEAS

We have several posts all about gift giving so be sure to browse through them for a plethora of great ideas!

• A Season of Gifts
• Gifts for and from Digital Scrapbookers
• Little Gifts
• Gifts for Guys

Remember to enjoy the journey of finding, making, and/or wrapping each gift you give. It really is the thought that counts!

Calendar topper by Dani Mogstad and Cindy Schneider available at Sweet Shoppe

Digital scrapbookers love to create calendars of all shapes and sizes for themselves and for gifts. I thought I would post today and share some of my favorite calendars as well as my digital workflow when I create calendars. It seems that each year I discover something new that helps me get these created pretty quickly.

This is not the first time I have posted on this topic (and surely won’t be the last…lol), here are some of the posts from the past (each one includes some tips):

Fall of 2010
Fall of 2009

Workflow

Here’s a quick look at my digital workflow when creating my calendars. I always do toppers (with matching bottoms) and some CD calendars as well. If you are new to digital and need a step-by-step how to, scroll down to the bottom of this post for a video.

Products

We found some very unique products from around digiland, let’s take a look…

These are the calendars that I used in my video and above:

This one has a coupon for 20% off for TDD readers: 2012_20%_TDD   expires 11.1.11

Now you can easily create an artsy calendar/layouts. This product are combination between art template with calendar. You can use it as calendar or scrapbook albums. Easy to modify to suit with your style.

Mye De Leon has these awesome and versatile calendar collections in various sizes – 8 1/2×11 wall calendars, 4×8 note calendars (perfect for bookmarks!) and 5×6 CD calendars! Available for 30% Off for the whole month of October at her personal store – Digital Scrap Shop.

A digital scrapbooking calendar set by Melissa Bennett. Get an early start on your gifts this year!! I have the new 2012 calendar set done. Each page is 8 1/2 x 11 and ready for you pictures and will make scrapping your memories easy!

Designs by Lili has a great tool for creating your own calendar overlays. For personal and commercial use!

The 2012 kit includes everything you need to put together a beautiful calendar that you’ll love to have displayed all year long. The kit includes a customizable calendar cover and a set of coordinating gift tags (also customizable!).  The calendar is available in both the US format (Sunday – Saturday and the European format (Monday – Sunday).

If you’re looking for fast, easy gifts, then give the Calendar Quick Pages a try.  (Calendar Quick Pages cater to US seasons/holidays). If you’re not in the US, or if you’d like to customize your calendar, then try the Pocket Calendar Kit – You can choose which of the 14 backgrounds to use for each month, place the month titles, grids and elements of your choice on each page to create a truly custom Pocket Calendar.

So Much to Remember and Do by Michelle Batton are fun, doodled monthly stamps (including a leap year February) that can be used to remember activities, birthdays, special events or appointments and can be used on your month-in-review layouts, desktops or printable projects.    More brand new 2012 calendars can be found in Michelle’s store.

These calendars are 12×18 when finished.  Simply open one of the calendar templates, slide in your already-completed 12×12 layout, decorate your calendar bottom– using the same kit you used for your page or another one altogether.  Then, print your 12×18 pages.  After that month is over, simply cut off the bottom strip and the binding strip and slip your 12×12 layouts into an album.  This makes a perfect gift for family and friends, or even yourself!

Printing

As far as printing goes, I can only talk about what I have tried. Last year, I looked all over for somewhere that printed custom calendar bottoms. I emailed just about every printer that offers calendar printing. I found out that Mpix does allow custom designed bottoms, but you have to download their software and order through that in order to get the customization feature. If you try to just upload on their site, it won’t work. I used them for printing last year and will use them again this year.

Typically, I have printed my CD calendars at Costco and cut them myself but last year, I discovered that Persnickety Prints will print them, cut them, and send them with a CD case all for around $10. Great deal and they do a great job printing. You will want to download their template first though, to make sure your sizing is right, not all CD calendars in digiland are the same size (I couldn’t find the template on their site, but will link to it when they send it over).

Tutorial

If you don’t know how to use calendar quick pages, here is a step-by-step tutorial for you:

I love creating digital calendars and if I could think of more people that might want one of my family, I would make a bunch! They are super fun and really great gifts!

What about you, will you be creating calendars this year?

First off, I want to clarify; I am not an interior designer. Outside of taking an Interior Design class in college, working at a linen store that same year, reading lots of magazines, and pinning stuff I like on Pinterest, I don’t know very much at all. I do know what I like, however.

I do LOVE using my digital scrapbooking supplies and skills in my home décor though. I will often see something I like and try to figure out if there is a way to duplicate the look using Photoshop and some digi supplies. I found some pins on Pinterest that inspired the look I’m going to share today. Here’s a look at the images, linked to their original sources:

I liked the curtain rod in the image above with a wreath hanging on it.

I loved how many photos were displayed in the image above.

Then there was the summer window display at a store in my mall (not sure which store) where they strung oversized Polaroids across several clothes lines (totally kicking myself for not taking a picture).  I love the look of Polaroids and knew I needed to use them somehow in a feature for one of my walls.

All of those were the jumping off point and inspiration for this…

How I Did It

I did a Google search for the dimension of a Polaroid and found this site. I made myself a template based on those measurements (the template has been uploaded for members).

I grabbed One Little Bird’s Vagabond kit and decided her white paper would be perfect to use for the Polaroid frame. I brought the paper into Photoshop and shrunk it down to the size of the Polaroid frame (using the transform control corner anchor points). Then, I duplicated the paper layer twice and clipped them as well.  I adjusted the colors on two of the papers so each was different. Last, I flipped and rotated each paper so the distressed edges looked different on each frame. Here’s what my layers pallet looked like:

Here’s what my template looked like with paper clipped to it:

I cycled through each paper layer making one visible and turning off the others as I added different photos. I ended up making an action to add photos to the template and save them.

My template was created on a 4×6 canvas so I could just upload and print 4×6 without any adjustments at all. After printing came the trimming (and lots of it since I had 88 Polaroids printed that needed trimming):

I used three packages of this burlap ribbon by My Minds Eye that I purchased at my Local Scrapbook Store (LSS) (it came to around $12 for all three):

I also used some cute little paperclips by Tim Holtz that I ordered from A Cherry On Top:

I cut each strip of burlap in half and then ironed it. Then, I hung it on my curtain rod, here’s how:

Notice the short end in back and the long end in front. This loop is on the front side of my rod.

Bring the loop over the top of the rod and around the back.

Pull the two ends through the loop.

Take one of the clips and pull one end out so you can loop it through one of the woven burlap threads.

Continue to slide the paperclip through until the opposite end is hanging from the burlap.

Hang a photo and repeat all the way across the top row. I did not measure to make sure everything lined up perfectly because that was not the look I was going for. I do understand that this look might drive others crazy though, so feel free to measure if you want.

The bottoms of my burlap wanted to twist a little bit, so I put some heavy clips on the back, hidden by the Polaroids. Over time, the weight will retrain the burlap and it will lay flat.

Total cost for this project was under $30 because the curtain rod needed a new home (a.k.a. I already had it).  I’m super happy with my faux Polaroids on burlap and have had several compliments on the feature already as people have come to visit. I can’t wait to try out my next project!

Have you used your digi supplies and/or skills for your own home decorating projects? Share them with us in the comments.

I loved seeing people smile when I handed them the bag and then, when they realized my information was printed right on the bag, they would say, “How did you do that??”

Here’s How

I filled the bags with HUGS, they make me happy! I got the bags from Sweet Baking Supply Company and ran them through my printer. I did learn a few things (the hard way), so here are some tips for you:

• Print only a few bags at a time (1-3 worked best)
• Set up the document size to the size of the bags in your printer settings or control panel
• Be sure to have enough bags to practice
• Run a test with just one bag and make sure you have them inserted in the printer the correct direction.

I folded over the top and punched two holes through all layers of the bag.  I then used some cute bakers twine to tie them closed. I know that the first time I looped string or ribbon through like I did on these bags, it took me a few tries to get it right. I thought I would show a couple of pictures for those of you that haven not dabbled in paper :

You start by looping the string (or twine/ribbon) through the front of the bags:

Cross the string in back and loop back through the opposite hole toward the front of the bag:

Once it’s through on the front side of the bag, tie it in a bow, and cut any extra.

I have a board on Pinterest that is dedicated to Little Gift ideas, so check it out if this is something you enjoy.

Giving little gifts don’t cost much, but they bring BIG smiles to people’s faces! Everyone loves to be thought of!

If you have some little gift ideas, be sure to link up to them in the comments.

The wordart was available for a limited time only and has been removed.

One of the great benefits of hybrid for digi scrappers is that you can use your supplies over and over again. This is particularly useful when it comes to hybrid projects! Here are some happy little hybrid creations that have caught my eye lately:

.

I love these little abc blocks! What a sweet addition these would be to any nursery. You can find the instructions and product links on the Life of a Modern Day Hippie blog. (Isn’t that a great name for a blog?!)

.

CD Sleeves can be decorated to create little favor bags – they are perfect for a big cookie as well. This idea from Eighteen25 would be a great hybrid project!

.

This hybrid chick project is perfect for digi scrappers who can print out their own paper. You get to decide what prints go on your own double-sided paper!

.

Any day can be Valentine’s Day with this sweet little love notes box! See step-by-step instructions on The Hybrid Chick.

.

I love finding inspirational hybrid creations like this one from leightheo in our Digital Inspiration Flickr Group.

.

tettletop20 is another flickr group member who makes great hybrid cards. Love this one!

.

I love this sweet little basket by flickr group member wildblueeyez15068

.

Finally, this might be the most intricate hybrid project I’ve ever seen! This amazing creation by Vinnie Pearce even has a free download template so be sure to check out her blog.

.

If you are looking for a way to stretch your supplies and your creativity, add a little hybrid happiness into your digi routine and have some fun!

Lauren has this really fun project:

Jacque and Amber have this:

You can get instructions and download printables for this advent calendar on eighteen25:

You can download the supplies to make this cute vintage spool advent on Just Something I Made:

You can see how to create this cute advent calendar on the Hybrid Chick. I made a similar one a few years ago:

Misty has this fun template set:

Heather Roselli has this fun cookie sheet tin:

This fun idea is by Maya Road via Write.Click.Scrapbook.

I love Stacy’s activity advent calendar and the advent album idea she shares in this post.

Love these advent bags from Moment to Moment:

Crafty Crow has 24 advent calendars to make

Last year, I teamed up with Cindy from Skip To My Lou to create some quick printable countdown tags.  Because of timing and our posting schedule here at THE DAILY DIGI, it was only briefly mentioned in a P.S. to a post.  In case you missed it, we are bringing it back for a very short time:

Also, I thought I would post links to our older Christmas posts, so you can find them easily:

Christmas In October

Christmas in July 2009:
It’s Christmas In July
Not Just For Christmas
Gettin’ Crafty
Let’s Celebrate
December Daily (Janet)
Start Those Gifts Early
Scrapping Christmas (part 1)
Scrapping Christmas (part 2)

Other Posts:
Twelve Days of Christmas
Photographing Christmas
December Daily (Katie)

I’ve been wanting to create an AWESOME album based on the blog 1000 Awesome Things and “The Book of Awesome” all by Neil Pasricha, for a long time. When Katie mentioned the book as her pick of the week on the Digi Show, I knew I HAD to do it!  I decided if I created a deadline for myself and gave the album to our readers on Digital Scrapbook Day, it would actually happen…and it has!

Once I started brainstorming the AWESOME little things in my life that I wanted to document, it was really easy.  I actually had to decide to stop creating pages. It came together very quickly and I am happy with the results (my family really enjoyed it too and the kids can’t wait for me to make them one of their own).

I used the Basic Grey Luggage Tag chipboard album to adhere my 4×6 prints to.  The chipboard was “undressed” (as Basic Grey calls it), so I painted the edges black with acrylic paint.  I just printed my layouts, rounded the corners, and glued them on the tags after the paint had dried.  I used a cute ribbon to hold it together (the album did come with a ring, but I like the ribbon.  You could also tie ribbons on the ring for a fun look).  All digital supplies (except the “My Album of Awesome” gift from us) are listed below each page they appear on.

Here’s a look at my whole album and then a free gift for our AWESOME readers!!

additional supplies: hearts are from Everyday Life, free to Digi Game subscribers.

additional supplies: Danielle Engebretson

additional supplies by Kate Hadfield and Jacque Larsen

additional supplies by Kate Hadfield

additional supplies, music notes by Dani Mogstad, movie doodles by Kate Hadfield

additional supplies by Kate Hadfield

additional supplies, by CD Muckosky

***downloads no longer available, but stay tuned for more information soon on how you can get them***

As our gift to you, I’ve created a little collection of the foundational digital goodies I used in my Album of Awesome.  It includes:

2) Layered 4×6 PSD pages with the kraft paper and awesome border on them
2) “awesome” borders in png (left and right)
1) “My Album of Awesome” title word art
1) doodled border without words
1) 4×6 kraft paper
1) “awesome” word art alone
1) staple

This album was uploaded for subscribers of The Digi Files and the Digi Game last night and will stay in your new “Bonus Gifts” downloads for the month of November.  Watch for other things to be added through the month.  Happy Digital Scrapbook Day from us!

After discussing this album with my family, we will often ask each other, “What was AWESOME in your day today?”  My kids now tell me things they want me to include in their AWESOME albums.  It’s been AWESOME!!

Over the next couple of weeks on Wednesdays, we will be sharing some fun Christmas gift ideas, projects and other cool things you can use your digital supplies to create. Today we are looking at gifts you can give (will be doing a different post for calendars ).

I think this Memory I Spy Shadowbox project would be easily recreated with little digital layouts (just measure the spaces and create the layouts to fit):

Team member Jenn created these canvases last year and had them printed at Canvas on Demand:

Some ideas from The Hybrid Chick:
Stocking Stuffer Gift Time
Magnetic Nativity Tin
Easy Printable Advent Calendar
DIY Christmas Tree Banner
Neighbor Gifts in a Jiffy

Heather has these (think neighbor/friend gifts):

I have always wanted to make one of these cookie sheet advent calendars and Heather makes it super easy:

and a layered template version (isn’t that finished product CUTE?:

Mari has these cute files to use with your personal cutting machine to create some very fun gifts:

This cute cake box could be turned on it’s side and make a really cute Christmas tree:

This card would make a great holder for a CD of music or photos:

This would make a great gift (or use it for yourself):

Karah Fredricks has these cute printable pillow boxes:

Kelleigh Ratzlaff has these cute trees:

Kelleigh also has these ornaments:

Love this template set for a Christmas Album:

This would make a cute mini album or banner:

This word art would be so cute on Christmas Cards:

These coupon books would make some great gifts:

This would make a great gift for the favorite kids in your life:

Another match game from Mel:

You could make and entire gingerbread village and put treats inside too:

and a house ornament:

Some cookies from Chelle’s Creations:

Create a nativity:

How cute would these be on headbands for your teen or tween girl?

Make a collection of recipes (or family recipes):

A planner of a different kind:

A gift to create for your favorite coffee drinker:

Gift card holders:

Christmas in July 2009:
It’s Christmas In July
Not Just For Christmas
Gettin’ Crafty
Let’s Celebrate
December Daily (Janet)
Start Those Gifts Early
Scrapping Christmas (part 1)
Scrapping Christmas (part 2)

Other Posts:
Twelve Days of Christmas
Photographing Christmas
December Daily (Katie)

Also, don’t forget the standard photobooks and other cool things you can get customized with photos! Hopefully, you got some good ideas that will help make your holidays a little less hectic!