http://www.penscrappers.com/2008/09/12/only-a-whisper-away-carol-gilmour/

Wacom's Penscrappers.com site, a community for digital scrapbooking artists, was launched this past summer and 314 entries were submitted to the scrapbooking contest ending in September. Participants then voted on the entries, and when the dust cleared, one grand prize winner and ten runners-up were chosen. One of these ten runners-up was Australia's very own Carol Gilmour, whose scrapbooking page "Only a Whisper Away" touched other Penscrappers.com members with its sincerity. Carol's prize is a black Bamboo Fun medium pen tablet from Wacom Australia. We congratulate Carol for her achievement, and thank her for her passionate responses to our interview.

Wacom is the world's leading manufacturer of pen tablets and pen displays. Wacom recommends its Bamboo Fun tablets, part of its Bamboo line of tablets for consumers, for those who are interested in digital art, drawing, painting, photo-retouching and digital scrapbooking among other activities. Wacom also produces its Intuos tablets and Cintiq pen displays used by professional graphic artists and photographers around the world.

Wacom's Penscrappers.com is a U.S.-based international community of scrapbooking enthusiasts and holds regular design competitions allowing artists to show off their work and receive comments from their peers. The next contest begins December 1st with a Winter theme. Other winners from the contest ending Sept. 30 can be viewed here: http://www.penscrappers.com/winners.

1. When did you start scrapbooking? Digital scrapbooking?
I have never paper scrapbooked, never got into it, it was all too messy for me. I did try, one page and then gave up! As for digital scrapbooking I stumbled onto that early 2007. I've never known a craft that can fulfill me like this. Of course I make the fun pages and pages of our every day life, but I also want our stories to be kept which is my driving force now. My dad died on Christmas Day last year and I didn't want his stories to die with him. I needed to make sure he mattered, that people would remember him, in fact remember all of us when our time comes, and not just look at a bunch of old photos found in a shoebox stuffed under the bed of ancestors we have no idea who they are, but to be able to look at photos beautifully presented in albums, see the faces in them, read their stories, know the people and find out what makes them tick. It's become a passion of mine. Actually my husband would probably say more like an obsession!

2. What hardware do you use? What software do you use?
As of right now I am using an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+. (I hope that means something to you because I have no idea, my husband is the computer whiz here !!) I also have a Benq 22" flat widescreen. I can honestly say bigger really is better when it comes to screens. When I say "right now" in regard to my computer I literally mean that. We had a lightening strike last Thursday which blew my old computer up and this one is brand spanking new. The software I use for my scrapbooking is Photoshop CS2.

3. Do you use a pen tablet? What kind? And how do you use it?
Oh I wish! No I have never used a pen tablet. I have wanted a Bamboo tablet for so long and it's been on numerous birthday and Christmas lists of mine, but every time we got some money together to get one, something happened. We had three family deaths (plus funerals to help pay for) within 12 months over 2007-2008 with my grandmother, my father and my mother-in-law all passing away. So to be a runner up in this contest is just amazing for me, hence the many tears I shed when receiving the good news. I am very much looking forward to receiving the Bamboo so I can have fun using it.

4. Where do you generally find the materials (designs) for your digital scrapbook page?
Designs sometimes come from inspiration in looking through the many digital scrapbooking galleries on the web. Or often I would look at a photograph, start a blank document and go from there. The page, the elements, the colours used, all just often evolve from the photograph. I am fortunate in being on a creative team with twolittlepixels and my favourite designers there are [ksharonkdesigns], vintagecharm and creashens to name a few. The ladies on the creative team inspire each other and it's a wonderful environment to be part of. I also enjoy using the materials from Designer Digitals and count Lynn Grieveson, Katie Pertiet, Pattie Knox and Anna Aspnes as my favourite designers from that site. All the designers create such beautiful digital scrapbooking goodies that it makes it easy to sit back and make pages to be proud of.

5. About "Only a Whisper Away", it was a very inspiring piece, with a good combination of photo images. Did you have difficulty combining the foreground photograph with the rainbow, sky and (we assume) your father's photo?
Yes it is my father's photo and I wanted an ethereal look to it, I was able to erase the background of the photograph, play with the blending mode and opacity levels to get the look I wanted. Likewise I was able to blend the beach in with the sky. The inspiration for the piece was that since dad has died my mum has been doing it hard emotionally. She has this anonymous poetry "Only a Whisper Away" sitting on her bedside table and reads it every night when she says goodnight and sweet dreams to my dad's photo, and that touches my heart. I wanted to create a page with both mum in it and dad looking down on her, because I know he's with her every single day. She's not seen this page yet as it's part of a surprise family album I am making her for Christmas this year -- stories about our family, good times, bad times and all the times in between. I used -- The Beautiful Day Kit by JoFia Designs, Diamond Rain by JoFia Designs and the Fonts -- Carpenter and Mom's Typewriter. As soon as I saw these kits by JoFia Designs I knew that they were what I had to use on this design for a page that was floating about in my head. In fact the relief I felt afterwards in getting the page finished and I was so proud of it, I actually emailed JoFia through the shop website to be passed on to her to thank her, that her beautiful ethereal creations gave me the strength to scrap the page I had wanted to scrap for some time.

6. Do you generally print out scrapbook pages created digitally?
I have had printed and framed a couple of pages for gifts, but I don't usually print the pages out individually. Instead I have had a couple of books printed through Shutterfly. They have turned out beautifully and I've been thrilled with the results. I am really looking forward to finally sending this family history book away for printing so I can see "Only a Whisper Away" in print.

7. Any words of encouragement for beginning scrappers?
Scrap your memories. Scrap the every day, the funny, the sad, the emotional. Scrap it all. This is your life that you'll be able to leave for future generations to know you. Be proud of what you do. Get involved in a digital scrapbooking community/forum that inspires you and will help with questions you may have. I learnt all that I know on Photoshop by using the Help button and reading online tutorials and playing. Don't pay attention to "rules", just do what makes you feel good and be proud of it.

8. Can you suggest a few digital scrapbooking communities?
There are so many digital scrapbooking communities/forums popping up all round the world, just google "digital scrapbooking" and you'll be amazed. The forums/galleries I enjoy are Designer Digitals (www.designerdigitals.com), an American site, and of course I enjoy our Australian based site pickleberrypop (www.pickleberrypop.com). Each have galleries that you can wander through and be inspired, each have forums that you can sign up with and ask questions about your scrapbooking, photography, different techniques, as well as every day "chatting" and both are not so huge that you are an anonymous number, but you can make real friendships. For inspiration I would head to twolittlepixels (www.twolittlepixels.com) and wander through that beautiful gallery also.

Also beginners can blog hop. You'll find quite a number of blogs out there in relation to digital scrapbooking and a lot of designers, both established and up and coming are generous with "freebies". My favourite to start off with is Ikea Goddess (www.ikeagoddess.blogspot.com). Every day she links up all the freebies she can find so you can visit individual blogs and download their freebies. A great idea for those starting off, so they can have a play without any expense of purchasing kits. But even if buying kits from stores, the beauty of it over paper scrapbooking, is that you can use the same papers/elements time and time again!! They never run out.

The only thing to remember -- digital scrapbooking takes a LOT of space on your hard drive and it's worthwhile investing in an external hard drive to store all the goodies and your pages.

Many thanks once again to Penscrappers.com and Wacom. Sometimes we wonder about our pages, I'm sure. They satisfy me, but to know that the wider community also voted that they liked my page really warms my heart and makes me proud and grateful.