Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

DIY Christmas Card Workshop

Woohoo! I’m on deadline today!! Things are looking up. Today’s tutorial isn’t necessarily scrapbooking-related, but it definitely uses digital scrapbooking supplies. It’s also not really in time for this year, but it can be a thought for next year. I’m going to show you how to make 2 personal Christmas cards from 1 sheet of cardstock. The resulting cards are 4 1/4 inches by 5 1/2 inches. You can get 50 envelopes that will hold these beauties at Michaels for $8 (Canadian, so about $5 in the US).

If I would have been thinking I could have skipped this step by putting the dimensions in reverse in the New Document screen. But I didn’t so I had to Rotate the canvas 90°.

Next I snapped a line across the centre of the page, and another from top to bottom. I used the Ruler and the Pencil Tool. To snap a straight line in a project, select the Pencil Tool and set the size of the line you want. I wanted these lines to be faint, so I went with 1 pixel. Line up the cursor with the halfway point along one side of your canvas. You can see a moving dashed line on the Ruler so you’ll know when you’re in the right place. Click once just barely inside the edge of your canvas. Then hold down the Shift key and move the cursor to the same spot on the opposite side and click again. It’s just that easy. Then do the same with the top-to-bottom centre point. These are guidelines for placement of elements and for cutting and scoring later.

Then I opened up the folder where I’d collected the objects I wanted to use. I have a photo taken several Christmases ago, a 3D snowflake from Lindsay Jane‘s Snowed Under kit and a mask from PrelestnayaP‘s December Wishes.

Working in the lower left corner of the canvas, I opened up the Shape Tool, chose the Rectangle, set a Fixed Size of 5.25 by 4 inches and chose a darkish green colour.

The resulting rectangle will fit inside the guidelines for one card. and by Simplifying the layer, I can make adjustments to it as needed because it’s now a Smart Object.

The next step is to add the mask. I resized it to fit inside the green rectangle completely.

The photo went on top of the mask and was resized to approximately the size I’d need. I want the deer and some of the illuminated snow visible later.

Clipping the photo to the mask is simple. Right click>Create Clipping Mask or CTRL/CMD>ALT>G for more recent versions of PSE or just CTRL/CMD>G for versions pre-15.

Final position tweaks included a little shifting and a little more shrinking.

I chose a gold colour from my photo to use for the sentiment. Here’s where all those amazing fonts you have in your stash will come in handy. You can make this text as personal as you want, even making it family- or person-specific. But it still looked like it needed something. So I CTRL/CMD>clicked on the green rectangle layer’s thumbnail to select the outer edges of the rectangle. Then Select>Modify>Contract.

I pondered for a nanosecond how much I should shrink my selection and settled on 25 pixels.

And then I added a Stroke to the new selection. Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection

I then used the same gold as for the text and added my Stroke. The position for this isn’t a make-or-break thing, so don’t obsess over it.

Yes, I think that’s what it needed.

The final step for this card is to add a trademark to the back. I went with the green for this.

Knowing that it’s on the BACK of the card and should be readable with the card right-side-up, I Rotated the text 180°.

I’m going for 100% honesty here… I saw a card like this second one on Pinterest so I’m not taking credit for the idea. (Ignore the typo on the screenshot please!) I added a new blank layer to the stack and Loaded some watercolour Brushes. These are from a set of 20 free brushes from Brusheezy. I chose 3 shades of wintery blue for the brush area.

I layered the brushes, each on its own layer so I can make adjustments to just one – or all – if I need to.

For a bit of contrast I chose an aqua for the topmost brush layer.

I added in the snowflake and sized it appropriately. But it wasn’t quite enough by itself. So I added a Layer Style from Ooh La La ScrapsIn the Frosty Air collection.

It still was missing something so I turned off the snowflake layer for a second and added a white paint splatter. That makes a big difference!

A few words and it’s pretty much what I was looking for.

A trademark on the back in the dark blue and it’s finished!

I saved the file as a .png so the printer wouldn’t need to add a white background to everything. To turn this into cards, I’ll load up my printer with white cardstock and print several copies. Using my guillotine cutter I’ll cut the cards apart on the top-to-bottom guideline and score then fold along the side-to-side guideline. I choose to print my sentiments for the inside of the card on resume paper (it’s a bit fancier than regular printer paper) and trim to fit the inside of the folded card. Word art would be perfect for this! Another option is to use a sentiment stamp and ink in a colour to match the front of the card. All that’s left is to sign them, pop them into their envelopes and mail them!

Whew… two weeks until Christmas Eve! Better get on that!

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Hybrid Pillow Box

Have you ever wished you could customize your gift boxes and make them really personal for the intended recipient? Well, have I got a treat for you! And once again, the credit goes to calgirl (Steph). She found a printable template online for a pillow box and thought I could bring you a great seasonal tutorial for doing it digi. I thought it would be a lot more complicated than it ended up being, and I even managed to come up with a layered template for your crafting pleasure. You can grab it here: Dropbox

The template is on a letter-sized canvas so it can be printed on standard (inexpensive) cardstock. You can easily resize it a bit bigger or a lot smaller, and really make it your own. When you’re ready to print it you can either turn off the top (instruction) layer or delete it altogether.

So, go to your stash and decide what you’re going to use for your special pillow box… papers and embellishments for the occasion. I used Aimee Harrison’s A Rustic Christmas kit. Turn off that top instruction layer for now, or go ahead and delete. You’ll know what to do without it.

Drop your paper on top of the bottom layer. You’ll still be able to see the guidelines.

Then Clip (right-click>Create Clipping Mask or CTRL/CMD>ALT>G) your paper to the template.

Using the guidelines, add in your embellishments. If you’ve added a tag or a label, pick a pretty font and type in your sentiment. What could be better than NOT to need a tag or label? Once you’ve got your clusters and what-have-you in place, add in your shadows. All that’s left is to print it, cut it out from the cardstock, score it and fold it up. A little dab of glue along the very top edge to hold it together and you’re DONE! You can use a bone folder, or a stylus or a totally dead ballpoint pen to do your scoring. If you’re worried about the guidelines showing on your finished box, you can decrease the Opacity of that layer down to barely visible. Or… If you want, you can put the guidelines on the back simply by flipping over the paper and running it through the printer again. Just turn the rest of the layers off and everything will line up perfectly.

I make jewelry for gifts, and I think this would be a perfect way to present them. In a custom box with my signature on it! How many ways can you think of to make this work for you??

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

Numbers-Go-Round

I almost didn’t think there would be a tutorial this week. I spent a huge chunk of time going through the paper clutter in my dining room sorting what needs to be kept and what could go to the shredder and at the end of it I was mentally exhausted. So I figured I’d do something fun; we’re redecorating and I want one of those huge farmhouse style clocks to go in the dining room. Bargain shopper that I am and not thrilled with the retail prices on these clocks, I took my $50 Lowe’s gift card and bought an 18″ chunk of stain-ready pine then started looking at examples on Pinterest. I knew I wanted Roman numerals on my clock so those are the ones I concentrated on. But how to get those numerals onto my slice of pine… PSE to the rescue. I thought.

I wasn’t anticipating the number of times I’d have to undo it all and start over. So I thought, “Maybe someone else could learn from my mistakes!” I had already decided I would use the Warp text tool and had to figure out how to bend it to my will.

I tried a couple of options from the menu before settling on the Arc warp. It gives a beautiful curve but doesn’t distort the text too much.

To give myself something to gauge the curve against, I used the Custom Shape Tool to pull out a nice perfect circle. The sliders do some crazy things to text! I went all the way over to the right with the Bend slider, but felt it didn’t leave quite enough space between the 8 and 9 or the 2 and 3. So I adjusted back to 94%

Then I typed out the rest of the numerals and warped them. But something doesn’t look right. I went back to my example on Pinterest and yep… it’s not right. The numerals on the bottom half are backwards.

So I deleted that text layer but while I was trying to figure out how to turn the numerals on the bottom half around, I pulled in some Guide lines to make positioning the 12, 3, 6 and 9 easier.

And I tried it again.

And failed. Again. So I thought, what if I flip the numerals horizontally?

Think it worked? As you can see, the bottom arc is a LOT bigger than the top one, which I did nothing to other than warp it.

Even after I resized and rotated the two halves to a more correct position, it still was wrong. Even after several more tries to get it right, I still didn’t have it.

So I took a break. I went to work, spent the day recertifying my special competencies and writing two exams. I put it out of my mind altogether. Then after I got home and had a nice glass of pino grigio to forget the stress of my math exam, I had a EUREKA moment! Maybe I needed to put the characters in reverse order then spin them around 180°.

Did it work?

YES!! With some caveats.

I adjusted the space between some of the numerals and rotated everything a smidge.

WooHOO! Now I can print it out in the size I want – even if I have to put it on four sheets – and trace them with carbon paper onto my clock. I’m so excited to see it all finished!

So there’s another way to add some originality to your text!

Be Pinspired – Christmas Advent Calendar

For those who celebrate, Christmas is right around the corner. I know that for here in the states, we have already been Christmastized since November 1st. That doesn’t mean (for me at least) that we cannot enjoy counting down until Christmas!

That is what we are going to talk about today. Christmas Advent Calendar. What is that?

An Advent calendar is a special calendar used to count or celebrate the days in anticipation of Christmas.

I am going to show you some great examples from Pinterest on making your own Advent calendar. Then I will follow up with some great Christmas goodies from the store. Digital scrapbooking doesn’t have to stay digital, you know! Print those items out and get to gluing!

 

 

 

 

 


Here are a few Christmas items from the store. Images are linked!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be Pinspired – Back to School

Earlier we talked about some great back to school items from the store along with some inspirational layouts from the gallery. Today we are going to take a look over at Pinterest to get some more inspirational ideas for back to school. (images are linked!)

Most all of these seem to be done the traditional way, glue and paper. You can take most any craft and put a digital scrapbooking twist on it. All you need is a bit of inspiration, your imagination, and a printer! I chose all these ideas with that in mind! They could all easily be turned to a digital scrapbooking craft.


 

Think about all those lovely papers you have in your digital scrapbooking stash! Think about how standout and amazing this hand-print flower would be with those papers!

 

This is more of just and idea for a photo. You know, so you can scrap it! I love love love this idea!!

 

This one is my favorite of today’s pins. You can do every single bit of the paperwork on this via digital scrapbooking. You just need to pick your size, decorate, print and laminate. My son loves to read and loves finding fun bookmarks. This is on my to-do list!

 

These are super cute and look like they would be pretty easy as well. Especially since you can do most of the paper-working via digital scrapbooking!

 

Here is another great idea for the 1st day of school photo. That sheet would be super easy to make in photoshop with your lovely digital scrapbooking goodies as well!

I know this isn’t the longest blog post ever. I hope you got some ideas from it and found some inspiration for your back to school projects!

Be Pinspired – Summer Crafts

Summer is in full swing here in the states. I don’t know about you, but I am ready for school to start back. With that in mind, we are going to get some inspiration from Pinterest today. Today’s post isn’t strictly about digital scrapbooking. However, I think you could use just about any of these ideas with your digital scrapbooking stash.

So let us get started! All images are linked. To start out with we are going to take a look at a fun list of scrapbook layout titles. I am awful at titling a page. Here are some great examples to help out!

 

To go right along with these titles, here are some fun fonts to use on your digital scrapbooking layouts about summer (or any layout really!) The “Sunshine” using the Janda Stylish font is awesome and totally going to be on one of my next layouts!

In my search for fun summer time craft and scrapbook ideas, I found this really cool traditional layout with movie ticket stubs! How cool is that? I got to thinking how that could be taken and turned into a digital scrapbooking layout. Here is the pin that got those ideas flowing.

To round things up, here are some fun paper, paint and glue crafts for the summer. Put your gray matter to work and see how you can flip these to digital scrapbooking crafts. I would love to see how you do it!!

 

 

Now, get to scrapping and crafting!

Let’s Get Crafty – Combining DigiScrap and Crochet

Happy Tuesday everyone. I’m here today with a new twist on our blog posts. How many of you have another craft you do? Beading, vinyl, quilting, crochet, knitting? If you do have another hobby, do you ever use your projects in your digiscrap layouts?

I LOVE to dabble in so many things. My husband just rolls his eyes and shakes his head when I jump into another craft because when I jump, I go all the way in. But I seem to have stuck with crocheting the longest. When I started digi-scrapping, I was finding I didn’t have a lot of recent pictures to scrap. My kids absolutely hate having their pictures taken, so those are few and far between. I have a bunch of older photos (both digi and printed that I can scan) but I wanted something more recent, so I started using pictures of crochet projects.

I love to find a pattern that I want to try and then do the project – mostly afghans. Problem there is, we only have so much room and only need so many afghans. So I started doing them to just give away. Below are some of the layouts I’ve done with my projects.

I can definitely see how my scrapping style has changed in the last few years.

Now it’s your turn! Do YOU have a hobby you have used as the focus of a layout. Post the link in the comments. I would LOVE to see what you’ve done.

Enjoy your week!!

 

Summer Bucket List

Today we are going to talk Summer Bucket Lists. That is exactly like it sounds. A list of fun stuff to do before the summer ends. Did you know you could scrap those lists?! You can! I am going to show you some great inspiration from Pinterest to get those Summer Bucket Lists started. Even if you don’t scrap it, it will be fun to do! (images linked to their pin.)

 

 

 

Here are a few examples of some Summer Bucket Lists that have the digital scrapbooking twist to them.

 

 

 

I am totally going to make one of these this year! Now, you can use any digital scrapbooking supplies you want to make these. (Or none at all!). I personally would use a great summer kit. Since we are going to look at those summer items later in the week, I am not going to show them to you today. You can always find those here.

I am going to show you two great kits that I found in the store that are geared towards Summer Bucket Lists. How cool is that? Everything you need in a kit! Images are linked.

 

Be Pinspired | Winter Crafts

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Hello scrappers! Welcome back from the maintenance downtime. I don’t know about you but I felt a little lost! I check GingerScraps at least once a day. However, during my down time I was looking around Pinterest. Because…duh! 🙂 With the past snow the east side of the states got last weekend, I thought some winter craft ideas would be a good idea! It isn’t just for scrapping. Get out that glue and paper and get ready to be inspired….or Pinspired! 🙂 (Images are linked)

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

From paper stain-glass crafts to the simplest of finger painting. Are these not some of the cutest winter crafts? If you are looking strictly  looking for some digital scrapbooking ideas, look no further than the gallery and store. If you are looking for some winter supplies, make sure you look back to our celebrating winter post!

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Be Pinspired | Christmas Crafts

It’s here!! If you celebrate, the Christmas will be here before you know it. 11 Day away. I know everyone is busy doing their Christmas thing. Spending time with family, decorating, baking, buying, crafting, and more!

Today we are going to take a look around pinterest and see what fun crafts we can find that we can put our digital scrapbooking twist on! We have such great designs and goodies at our fingertips. Sometimes all it takes to get a craft going is a little nudge in the right direction and some printed digital scrapbooking goodies. I did the looking around for you! (images liked to their pin).

Just imagine some of your favorite digital scrapbooking papers printed. Then you cut out your tags & use that paper. I can just see it now in my mind. I think our designers have some of the most creative and pretty paper around! Print, cut, & glue. Volia! All you need to do for the following items is the same! Print, cut & glue. Of course there is a few more steps in between. Take a look at all of these items & then think about your favorite holiday digital scrapbooking paper.

 

 

 

This last one my mom did for me for last Christmas. Except mine has my son’s photos on them. These would make great stocking stuffers! You don’t even have to use your holiday digital scrapbooking supplies. Think of those really fun themed kits that are Princess themed or something from space!

 


You don’t even have to buy new kits to do this. Just use your favorite you have in your digital scrapbooking stash. That being said, GingerScraps has a great collection of all things digital scrapbooking! Just like I’ve mentioned in the past, there is a section dedicated just to Thanksgiving. You can find that HERE and here is a small glimpse into that category. Go take a look! Rather wait? I will be back later this month with our “Let’s Celebrate Christmas” post. Where I take all the hard work out of looking for kits for you!

 

 

 

 

There you go. Just a small look at what GingerScraps has to offer. I hope you found some inspiration from Be Pinspired | Christmas Crafts! If you have gotten your digital scrapbooking & crafting on, link us up! We love to see what you are making with GingerScraps supplies! Happy crafting!