Inspiration by Gwyneth - January 2017 - Digital But Different!

I Know! - Long Time No Blog!

On top of my usual health, and disabling conditions issues, I managed to catch a nasty virus around Christmas Time and spent a while around the New Year with no voice and no energy whatsoever.  It's taken me this long to improve a little bit and get enough energy to get on my laptop to work on my Design Team inspiration pieces for Dragons Lair Designs.

I should have posted my inspiration piece for the Dragons Lair Designs Inspiration Blog at the begining of the month some time, and posted my inspiration piece for the Dragons Lair Designs Challenge Blog - January Challenge the 1st Friday of the month.  But here I am at the 20th without doing either.  So I've decided to make a combined, "digital", creation for this month, and hope I've improved quite a bit more by next month to make up for my lack of crafting inspiration lately.

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Here's a bit about the challenge blog, with links -

Each ”Dragons Lair Designs Challenge” goes live the first Friday of the month with a new theme each time. The winner will get picked by “Random” so that it is fair for all levels of crafters. The winner gets a prize, as well as a badge for their blog, and the winning entry will also be highlighted on the challenge blog the following month. Although we’d love to see Dragons Lair Designs items on your creation, you may ENTER the challenge using ANY MATERIAL you wish as long as you clearly follow the set theme. You may enter the challenge with ONE entry per month. So why not consider joining in with us this month – go to the challenge blog and have a look at the rules and the inspiration created by my fellow Design Team members.

The theme for January 2017 is "New Beginnings"

This can be ANY ONE project interpreting the theme NEW BEGINNINGS in whatever way you are inspired! While the image gives the impression of a baby card the theme is more open and can be any new beginning.

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As I said earlier that I was going digital this month I'm guessing that most of you are thinking I've gone for digital scrapbooking - but no, I've gone down a new route this time.

As well as new babies, "New Beginnings" can also bring to mind New Year's Resolutions.  But I'm not big on them.  So my inspiration project isn't strictly about New Year's Resolutions either.

What I decided to do was use the skills and software I usually use to create digital scrapbooking pages to create a new background for my laptop desktop to remind myself to rest often while on the laptop.  I don't know about you but when I am feeling reasonable I tend to keep going for far longer than I should and then pay for it with worse health for days afterwords, so by making a layout to replace the choice of half a dozen generic backgrounds that come with Windows I hope to remind myself as the laptop goes on that I need to take breaks.

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CREATION:

I started by finding the resolution of my laptop desktop area (right click, graphics properties, then display gave me what I wanted on my laptop).

I then opened my software and drew out an area in the same proportions on my working area.

Dragons Lair Designs Item:

    Artistic Expressions

Equipment:

    My Craft Studio Elite software

Method:

I like to have my program icons placed in separate areas on my screen for different types of software and software I use most often, so as well as making a panel with my reminder using items from the Artistic Expressions collection I also used other items from the collection to make zones on my working area.

Having played around for a bit I was happy with my layout and saved it as a .jpg file.

I then went into the "Personalise" area in windows (Right click on an empty bit of the desktop and select "Personalize" on my laptop).  Then I "Browsed" to the location I'd saved my file and selected it.

And this is the result.

I think I need to change the position of a few things a little bit, but as a 1st attempt I'm quite pleased with my new desktop layout.

I know that any image on a laptop or computer can be set as a desktop background, but I think that having a play with creating a new digital layout, that could of course be a "digital scrapbook" style layout with photos and captions if you want, can make the experience of looking at a computer when it is turned on a bit different.  And of course you could have a "new begining" however often you wanted by creating a new layout with a new photo or caption.

Please do pop over to the Challenge Blog to have a look at what my fellow Design Team Members have created to inspire you, and then have a go at entering the challenge.  Remember, "New Beginnings" could be beginning a new craft, moving to a new home, starting a new job, having a new baby, ....  The possibilities are endless for the challenge this month.

Till next time - Have Fun Crafting!

Gwyneth

Dragons Lair Designs Inspiration Blog Design Team Leader

(And if you are wondering "who's Gwyneth?" - then you'll find an "About Me and My Blog!" piece on my blog.)

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Now that you have had a look at this inspiration blog post why don't you visit some of the other areas in the Dragons Lair Designs family of sites:

• Dragons Lair Designs Store - A fantastic range of digital downloads
• Dragons Lair Designs Inspiration Blog - Bookmark us and come back regularly for inspiration
• Dragons Lair Designs Challenge Blog - Challenges starting the 1st Friday of every month with different themes, please come along and take part
• Dragons Lair Designs Fan Group - Even more inspiration, challenges, freebies and fun activities
• Dragons Lair Designs Facebook Page - Please do pop over and "Like" our page
• Dragons Lair Designs Etsy Store  - Another location to get hold of our range of digital downloads
• Janette Padley's Creations on craftsUprint - Yet another location to get hold of our digital downloads
• Dragons Lair Designs Crafts Group - selling buttons and bits and bobs

We'd love to have you join us in our Fan Group and post up some pictures of any creations you make using any DLD items.

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