Resources

Business Tools 
I’ve been asked many times over the years, what are some of the services that I use in my business, and I’m more than happy to share them with you.

Name Hero* – This is an amazing web hosting company and is who I use to host this website. They are very responsive to any request I’ve ever made, from PHP updates and custom Emails, to WordPress updates, migrating websites and so much more. 

Creative Market* – An amazing website, filled with all things creative. When I work with clients who are interested in making their brand look more professional through websites, newsletters, social media, etc., this is the very first place I go. The actual photography you see on pages of this website, I purchased from Creative Market. 

MailChimp* – MailChimp is wonderful to build your email list. It is who I use to send out our monthly email and it is free for up to 2,000 subscribers. They have lots of pre-built templates you can customize, or you can begin from scratch and build your own newsletter exactly how you want it be. 

Trello* – I use Trello for all of my project management for each client project as well as for each Dandelion Dust Designs collection designed. You create boards, and then cards for each board. Think of it like a bulletin board on the wall, with index cards in a row. When creating collections for Dandelion Dust Designs, I have three main boards for each year: A Design Board, a Marketing Board, and a Launch Day Board. I can of course access Trello from my laptop, however they also have an app which I have installed on my iPhone and iPad, so my project management schedule is with me no matter where I am.

Color Inspiration
As a graphic designer, every collection that I design or project that I begin, always starts with a color palette. Here are the top resources that I use to come up with colors for designs and projects.  

Adobe Color CC – Since I mainly work in Photoshop CC, I love Adobe Color CC. It lets you upload an image and in seconds, it creates a color palette for you. It even lets you change the color mood for a variety of color combinations from one photo. 

Colour Lovers – I especially spend a great deal of time in the palettes section of this website. 

Design Seeds – Another website where I find lots of color inspiration and can spend hours perusing the Collections Section.

For The Love Of Color – Color palettes all ready to go, based upon stunning photos. 

LOL Colors – Color palettes ready to go in LOL teardrop shapes.

Pinterest – I have built some pretty terrific boards on Pinterest that I look at everyday for colors, textures, patterns, etc. 

Stylify Me – I could spend hours on this website. Have you ever run across a website you just love. With Stylify Me, you simply put in the website address, and it pulls the colors being used on that website for an instant color palette. 

Free Stock Photography
If you are a blogger, creative team member, scrapbook guru, social media marketer or website designer, you are likely always in search of high quality and outstanding photos to use in your projects. If you are looking for a specific style or theme of photo, here are some of my very favorite free stock photography websites. Please be sure to check their licensing terms, in case they have changed since this list was compiled.  

Death To Stock – Just submit your email address and enjoy a new batch of photos delivered to your inbox every month.

Free Range Stock – If you are running a blog or a business website, you will really love this resource. Gorgeous photos to use for blogs, websites, advertising, etc.

Gratisography – If you are looking for some fun, whimsical and a little outside the box photos, Gratisography likely has what you are looking for.

ISO Republic – If you are a blogger or social media marketer, this is a wonderful website for you to visit. 

Kaboompics – This is one of my favorite websites. I can and have spent hours there.

Life Of Pix – Amazing photos are available here with more added all the time.

Negative Space – Pages and pages of beautiful photos and all categorized, so it is very easy to find what you are looking for. 

Pexels – A great website that I frequent at least weekly. 

PicJumbo – Another favorite of mine that I visit all the time.

Pixabay – This is one of my go-to resources almost daily.

SplitShire – Stunning photography for both personal and commercial use. Need a photo to go along with your blog post – you’ll find it here.

Stock Snap – You will find a wide variety of photos to choose from as well as lots of themes. 

Unsplash – They have thousands of wonderful photos to choose from.

Scrapbook Resources
A couple of the most asked questions that I receive, I’ve added to this section to help you as a digital scrapbooker. I will continue to add more cool tools here for you.  

Adobe Photoshop CC – When I first start as a digital scrapbooker and then designer, I used Photoshop Elements for several years. As the business grew, I transitioned to Adobe Photoshop CC and I never looked back. I subscribe to their Photography Package which is $9.99 per month and it is really all that I need for this business, and it has taken things to a whole new level in my graphic design work. It is so worth the investment to create the best looking digital scrapbook pages. 

Adobe Photoshop CC Free Online Training – Even though I’ve been working in Adobe Photoshop CC for a few years, I recently ran across this amazing training that they offer for free. You will find both Beginner and Experienced User tutorials. I can’t begin to tell you all the things I have learned so far in these tutorials. I highly recommend you take time to go through them, as most are less than 20 minutes, so imagine how your skills will grow if you do just one per day. 

FontBase –  If you are looking for your first or even a new Font Manager and Organizer, look no further than FontBase. Super easy to use, automatically tracks any font folders you wish, allows you to activate fonts you use all the time and keep less used fonts deactivated, but available with just the click of your mouse and it has a version for both PC and MAC.

Resize For Web Action by Paislee Press – This is my very favorite action of all time! Since I create all of the collection previews and my scrapbook pages in 12″ x 12″ or 3600 pixels x 3600 pixels, that size is much too large for the web. With just a few clicks of this magic action, the kit previews and my scrapbook pages, are resized and ready for the web.  

Shadow Like Me by One Little Bird – This is my go-to set of Shadowing Styles that you see being used on all the collection previews, as well as the pages that I scrap. I have the CU (Commercial Use) version, however a PU (Personal Use) version is also available.