Digital Delights Winner: Michelle Nist

It’s time for another Digital Delights winner! Michelle Nist is from Hartland, Michigan and she is a HUGE Studio J fan. If you want to learn more about Studio J, how to use it, neat tricks, etc. then read on to hear from Michelle!

Q:  What do you love most about Studio J? 
A: There are two things I LOVE about Studio J (Sorry! I can’t narrow it to just one!). The first is the ease and speed with which I can create pages.  I have four children and when I want to share an event or memory with all of them, I do the layout on Studio J and then make four copies. What a time saver! That gives me time to do more individual pages for my children. I also love how with Studio J you can drag the photos onto the page, and then scale them up so that you can use just a portion of that shot. Since I started using Studio J, my family thinks I am a MUCH better photographer because I always have the perfect shot in the perfect size for my pages. 

Q: What do you do with your layouts after you’ve created them? Do you put them in albums, frame them, share them digitally, give them as gifts, etc.?
A: Right now I place the Studio J layouts right into my children’s albums, alongside the traditional pages that I do for them. I love the idea of using them for gifts or framing them, but I haven’t done that yet.  

Q: What are some specific tips and tricks that you have learned in Studio J? 
A: My customers teach me all kinds of things when we get together to work on Studio J!  Piecing together My Stickease to make other things, forming my own borders, and layering papers on a layout for backgrounds or matting are some tricks I tend to do over and over.  My advice is just to start PLAYING.  

Text wells to photo wells. This is one of my favorite layouts because it showcases the large photos so well.  I also added a photo into the title box along the top and placed the text in complimentary positions on top of that. 

Complimentary colors. This kit and My Stickease were perfect for preserving my daughter's first horse ride. With her pink shirt, I LOVED being able to adjust the colors of this kit to those that complemented the photos so well.  

Create your own My Stickease. On this page, I wanted to show you how I turned the My Stickease from a Halloween kit into owls for my daughter's "Night owl" slumber party.  The owls are pumpkins, their ears are parts of leaves, and the feet are part of a candy piece.   

Make your own paper. This final favorite layout was one I did with guided directions during a Close To My Heart event.  I love that they continue to teach us and show us better ways to use the Studio J program. On this layout, we made our own title and argyle paper. I adore the way we can match the colors of any kit to our photos. Who wouldn't love this page?

Q: How do you get your customers interested in Studio J? 
A: Really, it only takes one layout for a customer or Consultant to see the value of Studio J. I make sure I set aside time in my business to give everyone a chance to experience this wonderful time saver! I do a ton of ten-minute mini-sessions at crops, workshops, or over the phone to help people with this new “technique.” Every month I host a free six-hour digital crop. Ladies from my ‘Digital Divas’ group attend each month and we have a great time sharing ideas and having a delicious dinner that my sweet husband cooks! (Truly, I think they come for the food ... shout out to Scott!)  The ladies work toward earning points for free layouts and everyone does a great job inspiring each other and sharing their artwork. Our motto is “...Watch the cord!” 

Those were great ideas, Michelle! Thanks so much for being a Digital Delights winner and for sharing your Studio J knowledge with all of us. If you would like to learn more about Michelle, visit her website at www.michellenist.com or contact her by email.

Digital Delights Winner: Kathleen Manges

Here is another Digital Delights winner spotlight! Last week I highlighted Tonya Sheridan for being one of the top five Studio J sellers and this week Kathleen Manges deserves the spotlight. Kathleen is from Saint Clair, Illinois and she shared some of her best tips and insights into Studio J. Let’s take a look at her responses!

 

Q: What do you love most about Studio J?  
A: I personally love to drag, drop and then be DONE with my layouts! I have little children and am super busy, so being able to literally “open and close” my workspace and have everything cleaned up in an instant is delightful to me (and safe for my children), but getting my layouts done is my top priority! With Studio J I have been able to keep up with preserving my family’s most important memories. 

Q: What are some specific tips and tricks that you have learned in Studio J?
A: My favorite Studio J features that I love and want to make sure others are using are these:

Rotating the photo image! Never a crooked photo again with Studio J! In this layout, my father-in-law let me scan our family photos that were already black and white. Unfortunately, with the scanning process the photos did not come out perfectly straight, but with Studio J I was able to select the “Rotate” photo option to straighten them up in the layout.

MATS! This is my favorite feature and I put a perfect mat around every single photo I use in Studio J.  To highlight my main photo in this layout, I used a ¼" mat, for the three medium-sized photos I used a 1/8" mat, and for the six very small photos, I used a 1/16" mat. I even chose different colors for each of the mats to help bring out that “carnival-fun” effect.  

Auto-sizing! I take approximately 4,000 to 5,000 regular photos a year and add another 500 – 1,000 if we take a major trip. I use many of the Studio J layouts that feature 10 – 16 photos and Studio J has the ability to auto-size (in this case “shrink down” ) the photos to fit in the small photos wells.  You cannot get this effect with classic scrapbooking because the entire image is shrunk down, not just cropped to 1" x 1". This is one of my all-time favorite layouts because this was our family’s first ever trip to Disney World. I took lots of photos of the Magic Kingdom Castle during the evening laser show and wanted to capture all those photos in 1 layout! Using Studio J, this 16 photo well layout “shrunk-down” the photos for me, so I could see all the variations of the Castle together. 

Adding more photo wells! Did you know that you can convert an original title or journal well on a Studio J layout to a photo well? This helps me get even more photos on a layout and then I can just “drag and drop” a new journaling or title well to the page. My youngest son loves his stuffed animals and trains and decided to hide a train and his stuffed bunny under a huge pile-up of other stuffed animals one day! I captured the “unveiling” with vertically positioned photos and used this cute layout to show the play by play action. The bottom horizontal photo is actually the title and journal wells converted to two photo wells with the same photo placed into both slots. Then, I carefully aligned them to create one final photo image.

Numerous paper packets! One of the things I love about Studio J is that it is chock full of great surprises and unique paper designs for every occasion! When my father-in-law came to visit over Columbus Day, he and my husband (both veterans) put up our flag. I found “flag” paper in one of the kits in Studio J which totally complimented our family event!  If you have a special event and need a special or unique paper design, scroll through the Studio J paper kits and I’m sure you will find just the right paper design to add that “wow” factor to your layout!

Q: How do you get your customers interested in Studio J?
A: I have a “3-B” approach to sharing Studio J: babies, buddies, and busy people.

Babies
I recently had a customer who had her seventh child. She is part of my monthly Card Club and does classic scrapbooking. For her baby gift, I volunteered my time to make Studio J layouts of her newborn.  This was her first experience with Studio J. I created all the layouts for her with the photos dropped in and then she went back and was able to modify the layouts and add journaling. This helped her get through the initial learning curve . . . next time, she can create her own layouts, but I took the “Let me show you how” approach, so that she could see the final product faster! 

Buddies
Whenever I have a customer order a set of Studio J layouts, I like to ask them if they have a “buddy” or friend/family member/classmate, etc. who might also like a set.  After helping one of my customer’s with her Disney trip, she shared that her sister’s camera broke the first day of their trip.  I suggested that she could order the Studio J layouts for her sister as well . . . which she did! This was a great “bonus” or upsell opportunity with no additional work required on my part as the consultant!

Busy People
I have a dear friend who I used to scrapbook with, but she works extensively now and just doesn’t have any free time. But she’d told me on numerous occasions that she wanted to catch up on her scrapbooking and she had a specific scrapbook project she wanted to get done to give as a gift.  I suggested that she consider trying Studio J, since her laptop was always with her.  Initially, I completed a number of layouts for her, so she could see what the Studio J layouts looked like with photos in them and she loved it!  If you have a close friend or family member who appreciates scrapbooking, you might volunteer your time to complete an initial project for them via Studio J, to help them through the learning curve.   They can go in and make final adjustments, but with your help, their project gets done and they can use Studio J (with a little less help) for their next project, too!  

Thanks, Kathleen, for the great Studio J tips! Congratulations on being a Digital Delights winner and I hope you enjoy your $100 of products. Check Facebook for more tips and insights from Kathleen or visit her website.

Digital Delights Winner Spotlight: Tonya Sheridan

Congratulations to the five Digital Delights winners who sold the most Studio J layouts from February 1 to March 15! For the next five weeks I will spotlight one of the winners a week to give you the scoop on why they each love Studio J.

This week’s spotlight is Tonya Sheridan! She’s an Executive Manager from Luray, Virginia and a big fan of Studio J. Read Tonya’s answers to these interview questions to learn her tips and tricks for using this online design software.

Q: What do you love most about Studio J?
A: The simplicity!  Or the complexity!  And having the ability to choose which better fits my needs at that particular moment!  I am a mom of three children—ages 5, 6 and 8 and they keep me jumping all the time.  I adore preserving their memories, their moments of shining, and even those everyday moments and Studio J gives me the freedom to do just that!  I encourage my customers to keep a journal of the moments they want to remember, the quirky little things that were said, as well as details when they take their photographs so that when they actually sit down to scrapbook those photographs a month from now, or 6 years from now, they will remember what was so meaningful.  I have done this with my own scrapbooking since I started.  With Studio J, I can journal these right away!  I can attend a baseball game, come home tuck the children in bed and sit right down and scrapbook in the moment—no need to gather materials, etc. just curl up with my laptop and create!  Love, love, love it!  I most definitely still scrapbook traditionally but this addition gives me the freedom to take my time on the traditional layouts and not feel rushed with a weight overhead that I have so much to get caught up on.