Computer Scrapbooking at it's best. Computer scrapbooking - Digital Scrapbooking has become the lastest trend in scrapbooking.

Each month, the Design Team puts out a sketch and the members at Scrapbook-Bytes create an original, creative layout following the design of that sketch. At the end of the month, the Design Team votes for three winners to be featured here! This month's sketch belongs to Design Team Member Valerie Vaughn (withunmind).

The competition was steep and votes were extremely close! All the participants did a fantastic job and we'd like to give all of you a huge pat on the back!!! Thank you to all who submitted a layout!

October's sketch

by Valerie Vaughn

"Baby Love" by Lauri Nowling

(SN: Laurie9585)

PROGRAM: Adobe Photoshop 7.0

FONTS: Texas Hero

TECHNIQUES: This layout was based on a print Laurie found at http://www.art.com called Happy Heart I by Anna Flores. She saved a copy of the print to her hard drive and opened it in a separate window in Adobe Photoshop and pulled the colors for her layout right from the print. Laurie states that she gets so many of her design and color ideas off from artwork.

The heart blocks and the side journaling block were all created separately using brushes she downloaded from http://www.anotherbrushresource.com.

The journaling is a quote Laurie got from the soup at http://www.twopeasinabucket.com. It reads: We are each of us angels with only one wing and we fly by embracing each other.

Thanks to Shellyrae for the torn black mesh!

"Dirt Tracks and Telephone Poles" by Joyce Booth

(SN: Joyce)

PROGRAM: Paint Shop Pro 8

FONTS: Bradley Hand, Pepita, and Century Gothic

TECHNIQUES: The track surface and scenic stationary were created from scratch in PSP 8. Joyce flood filled the background with black and used the selection tool to draw narrow sections for the line and flood filled with white and yellow. She used a stencil font for the numbers, then applied a texture. The stationary was a simple rectangle flood filled with yellow. She then layered a telephone pole photo on top and lowered the opacity. Next, she used a custom brush she had created from scratch and erased the left side of the photo.

Journaling reads:

Dirt Tracks and Telephone Poles:

It was your freshmen year of high school and your goal was to train hard and qualify for the Drake Relays. The one track and field meet that every serious high school track athlete in the state dreams of competing in. All classes all are eligible. Small rural 1A schools compete against large, big city 3A schools. You trained relentlessly that whole school year. That's what it took. You are a distance runner. Mile after mile. Heat, rain, snow and cold did not deter you. Training twice a day. Telephone poles were your distance training markers. You lived too far out of town to train on the school's dirt track. Your school is one of the smallest rural 1A schools in the state. That spring you won race after race, the distance triple crown, 3000, 1500 and 800 meters, at every meet. You did it! You ran a qualifying time on a dirt track. That's where you compete. May 1, 2000, Drake Relays. You are nervous. You are the girl from nowhere. The one no one has heard of before. You are the underdog. You vow to do your best. It's a privilege just to qualify. You have met your goal. Bang! The gun goes off and you find yourself running with 23 of the states best distance runners. Tick, tick, the seconds on the clock are flying by. 400 meters and the runners are packed together. Tick, tick, 800 meters and there are breakaway groups. Tick, tick, 1600 meters and you are towards the back of the lead pack running in 8th place. TIck, tick, 2400 meters and you are holding at 8th place. Tick, tick, there are 200 meters left. Everyone else is tiring, but you are still strong and have a kick. You say to hell with it. It's all or nothing. The stadium is going crazy. Everyone is yelling and clapping, but you don't hear them. You are concentrating on the finish line. It's over. You placed third. Everyone is still yelling, cheering and whistling. Not for the winner, but for you. With 200 meters left you poured everything you had into your kick and stunned everyone by moving from 8th to 3rd place. You were 3/4ths of a second from taking 2nd place. Your time: 10:13.55. Two teenage boys sitting, behind your mom in the stadium, summed up what everyone else was saying. "Oh, my God! Did you see that chick? Who is she? She was awesome!" She's the girl that runs on dirt tracks and trains with telephone poles.

"At the Waterhole" by Meryl Bartho

(SN: Meryl)

PROGRAM: Adobe Photoshop 6

FONTS: Mariah for the title and JanieHmk and Jot for the journaling.

TECHNIQUES: The diamond shaped elements are copied from the giraffe skin, with a bevel, as are the thongs which are used to "hang" them from the branch (this was from a photo, extracted). The photo was copied 3 times, two used as backgrounds. The rings, also used as "brads" are from a bar of Meryl's husband's soap, photographed and extracted.

Journaling reads: Whilst visiting Kruger we came across this giraffe drinking from Roodewal water hole. He perfectly mirrored the emblem on the signpost, but before we could get the camera ready he'd changed his pose. Luckily, when we returned to camp, we found that Rob and Caryn had captured the moment perfectly, whilst we had the sign - one of the joys of being in such a great group! Thanks Rob & Caryn!