Digital scrapbook kit reviews

Rena Design – Summer

carinspixels — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:55:39 +0000

A 1 kit call at DST, and I was lucky enough to get picked by Rena Design. Her kit called Summer just perfectly fitted with pictures I took earlier that week so I was very fortunate to be able to play with this delightful kit.

The kit description in store:

Hmm sadly there’s non, only the size of the kit, the number of zipfiles *4* and some other info like 300 Dpi and 3600 x 3600. Nothing fancy and no catchy tacky story about the kit.

My own thinking of the kit:

With 16 papers and 114 elements there’s enough to keep the scrapping folls happy and playful. Theres some great garden elements to create wonderful sceneries with extractions and such, but there’s also plenty of elements to make a nice photo framed page. Lots of variety is truly possible with it. I love the sweet summery colors with the touch of fresh air in it and the elements are surely from high quality. Big and usefull.

I’ve created 2 layouts with this kit, to show the variety of possibilities and enjoyed working with it!

photo by me
font – Darcy Baldwin ElizabethK
template page curls – Natalie Design playing with papers
kit used – Rena Designs Summer

Esmee, when I want to take pictures of you guys, your the first to jump up and pose. You are not scared to do anything silly as long as the result is good. Your spontanious laugh and own ideas to go on the pictures make it a real joy to photograph you.

photo by me
kit used – Rena Designs Summer

Another 2 thumbs up for a new to me designer Rena Designs Summer kit. I’ve enjoyed working with this kit and as usuall, do you have a page with this kit as well, link us up and tell us what you liked or disliked about this kit!

Adeyeo – Chirpy little bird

carinspixels — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:54:03 +0000

Another change to work with a new to me designer at DST. I applied to Adeyeo’s 1 kit call for the kit called Chirpy Little Bird. Since I received the links through 4shared, I have no idea how fast or slow store downloads are. I assume they are allright.

The kit description in store:

Chirpy-chirpy Cheep-cheep… Hoot-hoots… the Chirpy Little Bird is here! This is a fun kit… with lots of birdie in it! Your layouts ought to be fun and cute when you put those little birds and that cool looking owl on it! Chirpy Little Bird kit comes with 110 elements and 9 papers. Enjoy and Happy Scrapping!!!
Personal Use!
S4H ok!

My own thinking of the kit:

Well the description sure is worth reading, after unzipping I was amazed of the amount of elements, some put together clustered, and others seperated leaves to create your own tree, wood, or forest. The birds are surely fun and all doodles are amazingly wonderful. The size of all elements are huge as well, so no tiny elements, but big and handy. you can downsize them easily,and you do not need to enlarge. I had a lot of fun making something out of my comfort zone. My page turned out pretty nice and allthough there are pictures of my boy in there, it does not feel as a girly girl page to me.

My son and his best friend Zorra our dog,

Adeyeo might be a new designer but she sure knows how to work a kit. 2 Thumbs up for Adeyeo, and if you like it enough go check out her Chirpy little bird kit at Scrapping Whispers or at Cool Scraps Digital, Adeyeo thank you for letting me play, I found your kit very refreshing and challenging!

1 kit template call Diana’s Creations

carinspixels — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:45:27 +0000

Diana is a kit designer who recently decided to do templates as well. Over at DST she had a 1 kit call for her first set of templates and after seeing the preview I just had to apply.

It might be the pretty pinkish colors she used or the stacking and layering, but well my own inspiration is still a bit off, and templates are an easy and fun way to get a great page going. I’ve decided the use the template on the right bottom for my page, and it turned out amazing:

I am always surprised that the beach and the sand have such a magical touch for you. You love to buld sandcastles, hold your hands in the foaming waves and collect seashells.
While you play, you talk entire stories about tresures, pirates, mermaids and boats.

It’s such a pleasure with you on the beach and I am very aware that this will be over in a couple of years. I cherish these moment of you being little.

alpha – Lily Designs Paint the Ocean
font – Darcy Baldwin Cindys
kit used Cali Designs Mysterious Sea
template – Diana’s Creations Templatepack nr 1

The templates are all easy arranged, have their own shadows on seperated layers so you can tweak them to your own needs, and also the elements have their own shadows on seperated layers. I really love how her first set of templates came out, and I hope you do to!

Diana, 2 thumbs up for your wonderful templates, thank you for letting me play with them.

Rolercoaster ride in live

carinspixels — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:11:42 +0000

Oh wow, you know I’ve dissapeared for a while and it was totally not ment to. So much things happened. I didnt even finish my project 365 and I’m truly bummed. I made it SO far…..I’ve let the designer I ct for really down. And got kicked out of a few without any notification. I know I didnt let myself be heared there, but a ‘hey are you okay email’ would have been nice before kicking me out. Well I know I didnt post anything either but live has just been a bummer for a while. We’ve had a few birthdays from the kids, and offcourse sinterklaas and christmas. On Christmas day my mom told me she was going to move to the other side of the Netherlands, bam just like that. She lived just a few minutes away from me, so this was a real shock. She said she didnt have anything to stay here for, so she moved. The 8th of january was her final day, and I helped her pack and move, being a bit upset that she thought me and my family where no reason to stay here. But I kept my own honor by helping her. Allthough it didnt feel better or something…. We also lost Tessa, our beloved little dog. She had a stroke the end of october, heart failure the middle of november and 30 december she scared from fireworks so badly, that her heart almost gave up. We decided to put her down with much pain, but with the idea that it would be totally better for her. And if it couldnt get any worse, both the hamsters of the girls died. Great granny age 96 got sick again, she did get better again as well, but it brought ome stress to the family as you can imagine. And 12 days ago, my brave girl Fenja, gave birth to a new litter of kittens, what a joy and how fast they grow, they are doing awesome and Fenja is the best momcat we can wish for, so with everything behind me, i’m finally able to scrap a little again, allthough I didnt take pictures lately…I better get moving and get some great kid smiles on the camera to scrap with!

Ikscrap aka Ingeborg – Dreamy Island

carinspixels — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:37:38 +0000

A 1 kit call review, finally after summer it is time to scrap and play again and truly who can resist this 1 kit call? A Dreamy Island from ikscrap * Ingeborg* . I have no clue how store downloads are, because I received the files through 4 shared. It’s a 3 files kit and no extra mess is added to the zipfiles.

The kit discription in store:

I created a fun little world with floating islands, flying houses and lots more. Great to make a fantasy layout, but also great for other kind of layouts. I already made several clusters to make your scrapping more easy, have fun.

Included are:

6 papers

33 elements:

1 berries, 1 cap, 4 flowers, 1 flower/wire, 2 frames, 1 map, 1 mat, 1 moon, 1 floweroverlay, 1 red leaf, 1 ribbon, toadstoolcluster, 1 treetrunk, 1 wings, 1 wire, 1 fantasy butterfly, 1 chain, 1 flying home, housecluster, 1 islands with and without houses, 1 seed, 2 snails, 4 toadstools and 1 wire cluster

My own thinking of the kit:

The preview is sweet and pretty and so is the kit. It is wonderful for blending pages and the mushroos inside this kit are amazing. Outdoor pictures, forest walks, tree huggers they will all love this kit, it is perfect for outdoors or creating fantasy. I love the watercolor look of the elements, allthough they are not truly ‘my style’ I just cant resist using them and falling in love with this kit!

Here’s my layout with the kit:

Oh such a lovely nature page, the photos are Vanessa’s girl they where to perfect not to use for this page!

Ingeborg what a great kit, your quality is perfect and I love the colorcombination you inserted here. If you happen to like Ingeborgs work you can visit her shops here and here.

Cali Designs – Treasures of the Souk

carinspixels — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:53:30 +0000

Another fantastic 1 kit call from Cali, Treasures of the Souk. The preview looks amazing, so I had to try. I have no idea how download in the store goes, since I got the files through 4shared from Cali.

The kit description in store:

Only the kit details itself, like the filsize and amount of papers and elements. There’s 25 papers and 93 elements.

My own thinking of the kit:

After counting the elements and papers since that is the only thing I can really verify with the kit depscription I’m happy to say they are the same. But there’s so much more to tell about this kit. The arabic, eastern patterned papers, the desert paper, the dry mud paper they are so pretty. The gold paper is pretty, but i’m not certain how to use that 1 and yes some papers are recolored bot they do not bother me. The basic colors are easy to combine specially for layouts with loads of paperstrips. And the elements, wow, I wish I had so much imagination and the designing skills to make it. Finally something a little different for a change. Offcourse there’s some eastern inspired lights we’ve seen in a zillion fantasy kits, and offcourse some leaves. But the desert trees are just amazing, and so are the teapots, the pots and plates, the pillows and waterpipes. and I truly adore the tiled arcade. WOW!

Here’s my page with the kit:

Little DD Aranka in her belly dance outfits and her crocs, she actually adores those things and wears them everywhere at anytime.

Cali did great creating something different for a change and I love the eastern influence she used as inspiration. I love the colors and elements in this kit and have to give her a big huge 2 thumbs up for Treasures of the Souk.

Katrins Design – Hand in Hand, Through the Sand

carinspixels — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:43:27 +0000

Another amazing new designer that I was lucky to try out is Katrins Design. Katrin is german and fairly new to the designer world and sells at scrap-dreams.com. The shop is standard in german, but has a switch to english, which makes it easy to navigate for all. Her previews are surely worth looking at, and they look amazingly pretty.

Checkout and download in the shop went very smooth and fast, and heres the preview of Hand in Hand, Through the Sand

The kit description in store:

With my new kit “Hand in Hand, through the sand”
comming beach-holiday feelings.
24 different Paper
- included 5 3D Paper
- 3600×3600
- all in jpg
- 300 dpi
128 elements
- 36 elements with shadow
- 92 elements without shadow
It´s S4F friendly

And then a list of the details of the elements.

This is my own thinking of the kit:

Well my first respons was, wow that preview looks amazing and I love the beach. I was caught by the fresh colors, and the amazing seagulls. The 3D papers are perfect for scenes and depth, and the elements are versatile and colorful. The photomasks are perfect for blend in photos or to use with the awesome frames inside the kit. ome frames are pre-decorated but not over the top and surely very subtle and pretty. I love the green leaves and plants in this kit, and it is surely perfect for those beach and water pages.

Here’s my layout with the kit:

My DS Jeroen at the beach in Spain 2 years ago.

Katrins Design really took lots of effort to create an outstanding beachkit and she succeeded very well. I can totally recommend this kit for anyone who has beach photos to scrap. A big 2 thumbs up for Katrin and her Hand in Hand, Through the Sand kit!

Till the next review, Carin

Cali Designs – Lagoon

carinspixels — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:25:58 +0000

A 1 kit call from Cali Designs called Lagoon that I was chosen for. She had only parts of the preview up like a sneak peek, but I instantly knew I would have pictures for this kit. Since we have a waterrat in our household.

Download went through 4 shared, so I have no clue how the shop downloads work. Here is a preview of the kit:

There is no description of the kit, only the content is written down, but I do not find it intresting to copy that list. The kit consist of 15 papers and 82 elements.

My own thinking of the kit: The preview does not do the kit justice, truly I’ve seen better previes for worse kits. The kit contains enough elements to make wonderful water and beach scenes allthough the papers suggest a more nature and outdoor look, theres no beach paper inside. The papers are versatile, some outdoor, pebbles and natural colors that look truly fantastic. The versatile realistic animals in this kit make it perfect for zoo layouts, outdoor layouts and watery scenes. There’s a great balance between flowers, frames, natural elements like leaves and animals but also a great staircase and a wonderful curtain. The line between fantasy and outdoors can easily be set in this kit. I wanted to show of the versatile elements in my layout and tried using some of the outdoor and some of the more whimsy elements. I especially adore the bottle in this kit!

Here’s my layout:

Cali walked a fine line here between fantasy and realistic and if you want to try a fantasy layout but are to challenged by the real fantasy kits this truly is a treasure to have in yuor stash. You can easily build great outdoor pages and add that little twist, or leave the twist out and just make great outdoor pages! Yeah Cali, you know I love your goodies and I cant wait to see what comes next…:)

Untill the next review, Carin

Magical Reality Designs – By The Lily Pond

carinspixels — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:37:05 +0000

This review is a request from a reader *cool we actually have some readers*. This reader pointed me to these kits and asked if I had any of them and give my review on them. We are talking about the work of MagicalReality Designs, her kit previews look whimsy and wonderful and perfect for fantasy layouts and scenery. It fits my taste and I allready had some on my wihslist so with NSD I took 2 kits to try, in hope that it was money well spend. I like a good bargain and to try new things so this was perfect.

For this review I used By The Lily Pond

Download in the store went fast, even though I downloaded it during NSD, so that went totally smooth.

The Description of the kit in store:

Enter the world of MagicalReality, where every childs imagination becomes a magical creation! This lovely kit has 28 backgrounds -some scenery -some recolored. and 54 unique elements. Kit contians bird cages, bridge, bubbles, butterflies, dragonflies, cluster frames, frames, doodle, overlays, drops, falling rain drops, falling flowers, leafs, flowers, plants, ribbons, fountain, rainbow, rainbow rays, boat paddle, peacock, wings and best of all 3 ready made LILY PONDS! 1 day_pond, 1 night_pond both decorated with water lilies, and 1 plain pond just with rocks and grass. Not all shown in preview.

This is my own thinking of the kit:

The preview is very sweet and subtle, the colors are soft and the preview looks almost magical. The variety of papers is good, different colors, other sceneries and details it sure doesnt look like a standard paper recolored 10 times and that makes me happy! The 3 ready made lily ponds are fun for sure, allthough I havent used them yet. The glitter overlays, dragonflies and tiny butterflies are very pretty and of good quality, as are the leaves, frames and flowers inside this kit. The colorscheme is perfect for girly outdoor layouts, fantasy and non fantasy related actually. The only downside is that I missed some frogs.

Here’s my layout with this kit:

it’s my oldest DD Esmee in her mermaid suite grandma took home from Scotland in 2002.

Katherine of MagicalReality Designs truly puts efford in her extractions and the ideas of her kits. This kit is very well color coördinated and theres not a single stray pixel to find. I give at least 2 thumbs up for MagicalReality Designs, a great designer to try if your looking for something new with good quality!

Joelle Designs – Where Faeries Grow

carinspixels — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:56:53 +0000

I’m so honored to write a review another kit from Joelle Designs. I’ve done her wonderland kit and she asked me if I would love to do where faeries grow as well. Since I love fantasy, and allready noticed in her last kit that Joelle is a fast learning and growing designer I could not pass this offer.

I got the kit Where faeries grow through Megaupload, so I can not tell you how the store downloads go, but I assume that they will be without problems.

This is the description in the store:

I so loved design this kit.
Everyone knowing me, knows I simply adore that beautyfull, magical fairy LO’s.
You can create alot of different LO’s with this full scrapkit with:
17 papers
72 Elements
all created 300DPI
Welcome in my fantasy world……..
PU/S4H Ok

This is my own thinking of the kit:

Amazing preview, very catchy and beautiful. I love the first fact that it is not totally pink, green, blue or red. It has a diversity of nature colors in it, maing it easy to mix it up with everything in your stash. The papers are versatile, and the ewlements ‘handy’. There’s some nature elements like mushrooms, treestumps, but also some flowers, some lantarns and that amazing unicorn! I can see myself making fantasy layouts with the little mice, but I can also see some perfeclt outdoor pages, with the treestumps, mushrooms and leaves. It does not limit to 1 page for sure. It must be easy to make a variety of pages with this kit, without getting it all to look the same.

And here’s my sample layout:

Joelle is a fast growing designer, her skills are getting better with each kit and I see a bright designer future for her, which is cool cause that way we can all enjoy her wonderful work for a long time! I raise 2 thumbs for Joelle’s kit Where Faeries Grow and can not wait to see what she comes out with next. And for all those fantasy/ whimsical lovers, this is a kit you can not go without, I know this will be a great treasure to my stash.