This is one of the coolest kids I know.
He is still in that awesome place where he believes in magic. Oh how I hope to encourage him to never lose that skill at being delighted by life.
At his family birthday party last night he was thrilled and thankful (expressing his thanks both spontaneously and when he was gently reminded). One of my favorite parts of the evening was when he read his cards out loud (the first year he has done that). Hearing, in his own voice, what each of us wrote to him was really special.
While Chris lit the candles on his cake he went into the other room so he could be surprised by the cake and all of us sitting around the table. With the cake on the table and the candles glowing Chris went to get him, had him close his eyes and walked him around the house before bringing him back to the table (so glad I had long candles for the cake). When he was brought back to the table and opened his eyes we all yelled surprise and the look on his face, the absolute joy, was priceless.
The photo above showing him in mid-wish before blowing out the candles is my favorite from the day.
I hope you enjoyed the basic information on Scrapbooking With Your Computer this week. I definitely let the content evolve over the course of the week (keeping it really simple) and still have a bunch of things on my list to share with you.
With that in mind I am planning to do two things:
(1) Coming soon I will do another weekly feature focused specifially on hybrid scrapbooking. I want to put some projects together with step by step photos of my processes. I need a little time to get that going.
(2) I am going to designate one day per week for a post on Scrapbooking With Your Computer. Each week I will bring you a specific tip, how-to, or video tutorial that will walk you through a specific process or idea. Some concepts will be digital and some hybrid. I currently have a list of questions that I will be using to generate specific content for the next few weeks but if there is something specific you would like to see me cover feel free to leave a comment below or email me ali at ali edwards design dot com.
![Two Peas](http://www.avantlink.com/gbi/10513/24901/21775/26723/image.jpg"width="120"height="240"style="border:0px;"alt=)
happy birthday simon. this is really sweet. i love that magic too that our kids have it’s the most amazing thing i love their genuine excitement.
thanks for sharing.
Happy Birthday Simon!!! I love the snapshot of him and the story to go with it is the best. Thanks for sharing it with us. TGIF & have a great weekend!
Ali, wish Simon a very special Happy Birthday from all your bloggers! You are so blessed with a beautiful family! It also shows that you and Chris are fantastic parents. Thanks for sharing so much of your life with us. It makes me smile each day and gives me hope.
Question: when you do a hybrid page, do you start the page with the intention of doing hybrid or does it just evolve? And if you start with the intention of doing a hybrid, do you sketch first so you know how big of a space you have for your digital elements?
what a lovely photo. love the expression on his face.
will you also do a follow-up post on mozy? i am thinking of using them for storage and wanted to know your final thoughts about it.
First off…happy birthday to your little man.I can’t believe how much he has grown!!I also wanted to say thanks so much for the tutorials. I made my first Digi page yesterday in photoshop (the second one i have made ever)thanks to you.I had so much fun I made another this morning!! Things I would love to see would be how to do drop shadows, photo editing, and how to use actions. You are a great teacher!!!
Yep – I have it starting again and will do a post once I get the first backup done
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Great photo and Happy Birthday! I was wondering if you will be posting any tutorials on actually making templates? Or possibly having a tutorial for sale at Designer Digitals showing this process? If you get this twice, sorry, I didn’t know if my last one posted. Thanks for all the great ideas and inspiration!
Thanks so much for dedicating your week to digital. As a newbie to Photoshop Elements, I found it very helpful. I am wanting to learn more about editing my photos as well so am feeling a bit overwhelmed with the big learning curve but am having fun at the same time. Your photo and journaling about Simon’s b-day made me smile. I have a 7 year old son and just LOVE this age.
Such a beautiful photo of Simon…Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday Simon!!!
Happy Birthday simon, Hope you had a wonderful day, You have a beautiful boy I also have a little (big) boy who will be 8 in a few weeks time It’s a lovely age where they are still baby’s underneath but big boys on the surface.
Also I have loved this weeks posts thank you I have learnt so much.
Have a great weekend
Emma
Thanks so much for doing this. I really enjoyed and needed to hear some of the information you shared on scrapbooking with your computer. I love the photo of Simon and it’s funny that I remember the birthday that my daughter first read her cards but she did it in front of her friends(which really surprised met).
My son just turned 8 2 weeks ago and I think 8 is so much fun! He is so full of adventure and questions, it doesn’t hurt that he gives the best hugs and kisses
I have been loving all of your posts this week, very helpful. I would love to see if & how you do any editing or actions in pse.
I have a question about yesterdays post. I have gotten as far as adding the photos and recoloring the frame inside the photos. When I try to recolor the large frame and small text box I can’t seem to do it. The frame never shows up even though I am using a dark color.
A belated Happy Birthday to Simon! You got very lucky with some wonderful parents. I watched your mom’s video about the basketball game yesterday and just want to say, AWESOME job on hanging in there at the game when at first you wanted to go home. Super work! I think those stadiums can be really loud and scary sometimes.
Ali–loved this series and have made my first 10 or so digi pages since you started it and I’m hooked. Three things I would be interested in reading in the weekly feature: 1) You mentioned the pic in your video was 300dpi but 38 inches long or something like that. Could you give some guidelines on the resolution we need for best appearance on a 12×12 and how to control it please? 2) I bought some jpeg paper but when I put it on a layer it says “frame layer” with a plus sign in the corner. It won’t let me group it until I “simplify” it. I don’t have a clue if that’s the right thing to do, could you explain the frame/simplify/flattening stuff please? 3) Could you talk a little more about actions? I went to the totally rad site but ran into probs with the downloads. I’m just confused about exactly what actions are, what they are used for and if I’d like to pursue learning them right now.
Again thanks some much for your series. I’ve been so inspired…and I’ve also been over to DesignerDigitals and gotten some of your product
Happy Birthday Simon! It is so encouraging to see him grow and change! He is such a cool kid!!
What a great picture. It sounds like you had a wonderful time celebrating. Again, happy Birthday Simon.
I’m also interested in tips on making templates. I’m frustrated when I make a simple template (e.g., a 2×2 grid on 4×6 template) and the elements aren’t exactly what I had thought they’d be (i.e., not exactly 2×2 squares). Thanks for all you do!
Thanks for the mini-series on digi scrapping, Ali. When I went over to the dark side a couple of years ago [;-)], I remember that shadowing the various elements as I put them onto the layout seemed a very mysterious process. But in the end, the ability to create realistic shadows makes all the difference in whether a digi layout looks finished or not. So I would suggest that as a future topic!
I love it when you talk about Simon Ali. The way you describe him is so very much like Ella. It comforts me to know there other special kids out there just like her so in the future she will not feel alone. She’ll be 8 in July and, as you know is also on the spectrum. Managed to finish the rest of your interview this morning. It is what it is. I say that ALL the time.
I love it when you talk about Simon Ali. The way you describe him is so very much like Ella. It comforts me to know there other special kids out there just like her so in the future she will not feel alone. She’ll be 8 in July and, as you know is also on the spectrum. Managed to finish the rest of your interview this morning. It is what it is. I say that ALL the time.
Oh you so captured the sweet innocence of a child in that photo of Simon making his wish! Great job! thanks for the fun computer scrapping week Ali! (happy birthday Simon!!)
First, I want to thank you for doing this series. I have learned so much already. Thank you for including tips for those of us who do not have Photoshop, and use Word.
I do have one question. Is there a way to overlay the stamp (Captuing phrase) over a photo in Word? I would LOVE to be able to do something like that. What about in another program like Picasa?
BTW Happy Birthday Simon!! = )
Thanks for this priceless post.
Happy Birthday Sweet Simon! Thanks Ali for all you do! Hugs from Conroe, TX!
Thank you for doing this series and the freebies. I love your layered templates and other goodies at Designer Digitals.
Thank you for sharing Simon’s birthday. My son is also on the spectrum, 15 and just started high school. The years go by fast don’t they? He brings a perspective to life that is so magical. It is a glorious part of who he is.
Happy Birthday Simon!
Happy Birthday Simon!
Love that photo, Ali. Totally priceless.
Thank you sooo much for all of your amazing tips and tricks. I have really enjoyed your last series and am getting excited to try out some hybrid scrapbooking!
Love the story of Simon. My 21 yr-old still is the most enthusiastic at christmas, having been a life-long believer in magic, and is still the most loving, thankful person…Simon won’t lose it.
I, too, love your posts about your kids. I’m in a good place now with scrapbooking, and find myself longing for your family posts.
I love everything about this photo of Simon. From the look on his face, to the perfect lighting, to the composition as a whole. Absolutely gorgeous.
Happy Birthday to your wonderful son, Ali! Isn’t it fun to celebrate them.
I was wondering if you could put a little section on the side of your blog, similar to the way you did with the December Daily. I really want to have the chance to go through this week’s posts with time to pay attention to what I am reading and doing, and during the week, that just isn’t possible.
Thanks for all you inspiration and sharing your life with us.
That is such a wonderful picture! Happy Birthday to Simon, and I too hope he keeps that wonder and belief in the magic of life!
Hi Debra – it’s over on the side under “Projects” and listed as “Scrapbooking With Your Computer.” Here’s a direct link: /getting-started-with-digi.html
such a precious picture, and your post along with it brought tears to my eyes. I, too, hope that I can convince my kids to believe in Magic forever.
What a neat story about Chris taking Simon through the house to be surprised by his cake.
And Hooray! I am so excited for the next installments of Scrapbooking with your computer.
Happy Birthday Simon!
Anna is blessed to have a wonderful big brother like you!
Hugs from California
Michelle
Earlier this week you mentioned you were pondering about doing a 365 type project this year, what are you thoughts? I am looking into doing this, but just not quite sure about 365 and keeping up with it, the structure or organization I want to do with it and the overlap of 365 and december daily.
happy birthday Simon! big hugs from the Baer family in Germany! Iara and the kids Maisa, Theo and Anna Carolina
Hi! I am doing it and will be posting about it next week
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIMON!! It is great when they are eight. My son is eight now and I love to read your stories about Simon. It’s like it was a wonderful birthday.
Happy birthday Simon. It’s also my son’s birthday today. He is 14 and it makes my heart hurt. Isn’t is wonderful that we have this awesome hobby? I can now go back and see all the photos and pages of when my son was little. My scrapbooks are priceless treasures to me. Thanks for the daily encouragement, Ali. You always brighten my day.
one word to describe the photo and your memory of the day: tear-jerkingly-awesome….
*I know that is more than one word, but you get what I’m saying.
I’m in love with the fact that he still believes in magic. Soooo cute!
ps – I don’t have kids and probably won’t… but I do wish to be a parent like Ali and Chris if I ever had kids. Even if I adopt or have “bonus” (I like this better than “step”) kids, you are my role models.
That’s a great picture of Simon!
Thanks again for your posts this week. The video tutorials are extremely helpful!! I’ll look forward to more of those.
The photo is so sweet. He’s getting to be quite a big boy now. I loved your topic this week and I would love to see what you do next week. I love your blog!
Hi Ali–
I know the majority of people start off as traditional, paper-based scrappers and for them transitioning to the computer is a big leap, but I’m in the opposite camp. As you cover the hybrid pages, I’d love it if you’d touch on why you’ve picked a certain digital element versus its physical equivalent and/or vice versa. Or, if you use something digital for which there is a physical equivalent, I’d love it if you could just verbalize what the parallel is. Perhaps not everyone needs this kind of dot connecting, but it’s very hard for me to see traditional vs. digital scrapbooking as not being all one or the other, but the potential for a balance in between.
Ali, thank you for the tutorials, especially the videos, actually ‘seeing’ things done helps. I have never done a hybrid page let alone all digital page but am loving learning and am tempted to try. For My December Daily 08 album I printed out one of your overlays on cardstock and changed the colour, that really was huge for me and took forever. I then tried printing the overlay on a photo and couldn’t! As you have guessed I am not computer savvy so thank you again.
Would love to see some simple photo editing videos and any help on using actions. I’d love to try but don’t have a clue.
What a wonderful picture of Simon! I have been watching him grow from your pictures and layouts in Ck from the beginning. What a cute little guy.
Thank you so much for this weeks tutorial. I appreciate that you take the time to blog. I look forward to reading it everyday.
You take such awesome pictures. I love how you pay close attention to the details, like being sure to get the chair logo and number in the picture of Simon at the game. I never think of things like that until after the fact and then it’s to late. You’re such an inspiration to me.
Happy Birthday, Simon! I’m not sure if I posted in the wrong place last time, and I’m new at commenting so I apologize if I’m repetitive…but I love the convenience of printing 4×6 photos at Costco to put in my Project 365 album and I often need to fit several photos on one 4×6 as the POTD – I’ve been using Picasa but since my hubby bought me a macbook last year, I’ve been having to import all the photos into Picasa to make a collage (and I think I’m wasting major memory space). I bought Elements late last year and have been using this FANTASTIC series to start to learn…but I still haven’t figured out how to do a photo collage in Elements…any ideas? Thank you so much again for all your time and helpful hints – we appreciate you helping us along and sharing your time!