Happy Friday. The last Friday of the month. Just because the month is ending, it doesn’t mean that the fun has to stop. May is coming soon, and some great things are coming. But, before we get into May, the designers have some gorgeous goodies for this week!
Remember when you spend $10 in the store, you get a great new collab!
https://store.gingerscraps.net/GingerBread-Ladies-Collab-Renew.html
It’s the last weekend of April! Month 5 is upon us and next weekend is INSD! But before we get to May, we have some new releases debuting tomorrow!
From Neia Scraps
From Tinci
From JoCee
From Miss Fish
Have a great weekend!
I know some of you popped by the Blog to check out Tutorial Tuesday, and are disappointed to see there isn’t one. The power cord on my laptop broke a week ago and I’m still waiting for the new one to arrive. (Who knew I’d have to go to Amazon to get one?!) It’s supposed to arrive today, which is great, but it won’t give me enough time to pull a tutorial together in time. Stay tuned…
Instead, let’s talk about the amazing GingerScraps Challenges. One of the most attractive things about GingerScraps, at least for me, (after the list of fantastic designers and terrific sales that is…) are the inspiring challenges the GS designers host each month. (It doesn’t hurt that there’s a huge collab awarded to those who complete 10 challenges in any given month either.) If you’re a dedicated GingerScrapper, you know all of this, and probably have a huge stash of these collabs to play with. But let’s pretend today’s your first day at GS. What do you need to know?
I have my favourite challenges, and there are some I never participate in. But I’ve only NOT achieved 10 challenges in one month twice in the 4 years I’ve been a GingerScrapper. There truly is something for everyone in the Challenges. Let’s have a look at some of them.
April’s Brush Challenge revolves around a brush created by Neverland Scraps.
This is how Judy (aka chigirl) used the brush. It kinda looks like she used one of my tutorials for this one, doesn’t it?
Then there’s the Colour Challenge, hosted by Miss Mis Designs. She challenged us to use YELLOW and WHITE in our layouts.
Glee went this way with it.
April’s Daily Download Challenge, hosted by Trixie Scraps, takes advantage of the free kit Look Who’s Driving provided by Mag’sGraphics in March. (That’s how the DD Challenge works. The previous month’s kit will be in the spotlight.)
Debbie really was inspired by the kit!
One of my faves is the Mix It Up Challenge, hosted by CathyK Designs. There’s no specific theme for this challenge, which makes it all that much more fun! Cathy asked us to create to a layout using a themed kit where the layout is completely OFF-TOPIC. What this challenge shows is that most kits can be adapted to almost any topic without much difficulty.
Lisa (aka slfam) used a wintery kit from Ooh La La Scraps called In the Frosty Air (which is one of my favourite go-to kits of all time!) for a layout about swimming with stingrays.
The last one I’m going to show you is the April Template Challenge. Each month there are TWO templates provided by the GS designers for your use; one is posted at the beginning of the month, the second around the 15th. The first template this month was provided by Little Rad Trio and it looks like this:
I used it for this layout of my youngest grandson and his daddy.
The second template is from MissFish.
Breoni ran with it. (Pardon the pun.)
Did you notice how I slipped in a tutorial on participating in the GingerScraps Challenges? Pretty slick, wouldn’t you say?
There are at least another dozen challenges we haven’t looked at today. Best news?? There’s still time for you to get your 10 challenges finished before the month ends… but you can’t waste any time. Ready? Set! GO!!
Jan
Today is Earth Day; and would you know it, our designers here at GingerScraps have all you need to scrap your Earth Day too! So, what is Earth Day?
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22. Worldwide, various events are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, Earth Day events in more than 193 countries are now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network.
So without wasting paper, let us get our digital scrapbooking on, Earth Day style! There are so so so many items that you can use to scrap your Earth Day. Just about any kit will have some great foliage in it. Here are some kits geared directly for Earth Day though.
Previously available, Here Today Back Tomorrow is being true to it’s name. With a little rework it has been recycled and added back to Clever Monkey Graphic’s inventory of available kits!
Monthly Mix: One Planet: A collaboration from our GingerScraps designers. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The three “R’s” that we all know so well. Keeping our environment happy, and our Earth clean! The perfect kit for a day in the park, cleaning up litter somewhere, or even planting a garden!
Whether you hit the farmers market every week, grow your own veggies or just stock up on kale at the grocery store like it’s the kale-apocalypse – this kit will be perfect for show casing your green thumb and healthy foods!
This world is a beautiful place and these kids are helping keep it clean and special.
Love the Earth Mini Kit is perfect for scrapping all your outdoor and Earth Day photos and projects.
This collection is perfect for Earth Day projects, recycling pages, tree huggers and so much more!
I’m back with the second part of our Feature Designer post. This one with one-half of Dear Friends Designs, Trina. She finally slowed down enough to “chat” with me.
How did you get started in digital scrapbooking?
Back in early 2007 (yikes, can’t believe that was 10 years ago!) I was pregnant with my second child and making a wedding slideshow for my SIL of her old photos and her hubby to be’s old photos. Was having fun, then started searching for ways to make it fancier and stumbled upon digital scrapbooking! I used to sell Creative Memories, and was only about 4 pages in PAPER scrapbook for my oldest. I was instantly hooked, shortly after sold my paper supplies and never looked back!
What made you decide to design?
It has always intrigued me, I’ve dabbled with different types of designing, and never seemed to be able to leave a template alone and just use it. Got to the point where Colleen & I were both just making our own templates, so we hemmed and hawed and eventually bit the bullet and asked Ginger what she thought – she was so encouraging and excited for us, now its been 2 years! I so wish we started sooner!!
What do you use to create your designs (program, additional tools, etc.)?
I use Adobe Creative Cloud. I have been addicted to Photoshop since high school when I learned to use it for yearbook! I create EVERYTHING in Photoshop, fliers, applications, etc., I mean everything!
Describe your design workplace.
Wherever my laptop happens to be!! When we travel in the car, I make hubby drive so I can design and/or scrap. Sometimes in the chair or on the couch. When my back was bad before surgery I’d be laying on the living room floor! Now most often its on a desk right in my living room.
What is your favorite thing about designing?
That its work, that doesn’t feel like work, and I still get to scrapbook! Getting to know other awesome designers, and working with some pretty amazing CT! Also seeing what others create using our templates is motivation to do more! I love hearing back from our customers about how much they love our templates and how they’re perfect for them and easy to use!!
What is your favorite kit currently in your GS store and why?
Oooh – always tough to choose just one…hmmm….one of my favorites is still our Nifty 50 series! They were so fun to create (and so much work too) but I love all the LOs we get from them. As far as a regular template pack goes – a more recent one would be “My Happy Place” because the name makes me smile, and I love all the banners and different sized photo places!
What was your first job?
Um, good question! Babysitting if that counts, then I worked at a Pet Store, and an Espresso & Eatery, and a cashier at a grocery store, and then in the meat dept of the same grocery store – but I’m not entirely sure on the order of those! heehee!
How many languages do you speak? What are they?
I speak English, and “toddler-ese” (haha, but I’m usually pretty good at deciphering young kid talk!) I know a tiny bit of Spanish, and a tiny bit of sign-language. Wish I could say more!!
What’s your favorite holiday?
All of them! Any time that I can spend time with my family!
What is your favorite family holiday tradition?
Not sure we have too many traditions, we’re almost always in different locations for each holiday, so hard to make traditions…
What three things do you think of most each day?
My 4 kids and everything they need for the day.
My never ending to-do list
What my “photo of the day” is!
If you had a warning label, what would yours say?
Warning: Hates Mornings!
Is there anything you wished would came back into fashion?
Nothing I can think of off the top of my head – not sure I really follow any fashion things anyway – I wouldn’t say I’m trendy like that – I just like to be comfortable! hahaha!
Do you collect anything?
Not really, I have a little collection of rocks from my younger days, oh but I do collect photos! haha! Of my kids and of bugs and wildlife (those are my 3 fave things to photograph!)
If you were a super-hero, what powers would you have?
Teleporting, flying & wiggling my nose to get the house to clean itself!
Aside from necessities, what one thing could you not go a day without?
My family? Losing them would be horrible!
How would your friends describe you?
Depends on who you ask! IDK – ask Colleen?!
If you were a fruit or vegetable, which one would you be?
I’d like to think I’m sweet like fruit, but also pretty hardy like a vegetable. Ugh – IDK! Tough choice!
What would you prefer as a second home: Mountain cabin, beach house, or big city condo?
Mountain Cabin – with a lake haha!
What would you do on your dream date?
Funny – we were just talking about this – and I couldn’t come up with one! Depends on the day, week, month, season! I like to dress up and go out “fancy” but also like to take it easy, or rough it and camp, or go hiking, biking or geocaching, so really depends on the time of the year and my mood! haha!
Thanks Trina!!
Make sure to check out Dear Friends Designs GS Store, FB Page, and FB Group!
They have a sale running in their store until the 30th.
And make sure you are grabbing the daily download from this blog to get the special kit they have put together with Neverland Scraps.
Happy Friday. April is nearly over already! What happened to the month? The designers aren’t letting time get by them, though! They’re designing up a storm and have some gorgeous things out for you this week!
Remember when you spend $10 in the store, you get a great new collab!
https://store.gingerscraps.net/GingerBread-Ladies-Collab-Renew.html
Happy Thursday! There has been a ton of new releases the Ct was able to play with this week!
From Aimee Harrison
From Mags Graphics
From Ponytails
From Amy Stoffel
From Key Lime Digi Designs
From Tinci
From Neia Scraps
From Craft-tastrophic
From Miss Fish
Have a Wonderful Weekend!
It’s Wednesday and time for a few sneak peeks from our designers. Looks like summer and vacation planning are in full force with these sneek peeks.
Don’t forget to head over to the store on Friday to grab these and more.
Get in SHAPE, Girl!
So, I was having a chat online with Lisa (slfam) about the April GingerScraps challenges. She wanted to take part in the Scraplift Challenge but didn’t know how to make rounded rectangles. This beautiful layout sort of demands them… if you’re like me and want to stick as close to the original as possible.
Looking at the layouts posted in the thread told me that Lisa wasn’t alone in wondering how to get those curvy corners. So I decided to work a tutorial out for y’all.
Let’s start out with a 12×12 canvas. Select the Custom Shape tool, which may look a bit like an amoeba on your desktop. The top right icon in the Tool Options section takes you to the menu for rounded rectangles. Because the example layout uses a square shape, I set the Geometry Options to Square.
The amount of curve on your corners will be determined by the Radius you set for them. You can type in any number you want and do a test run to see what it looks like.
I started at 150 px, and just kept click-dragging out squares until I got to a radius of 400 and was satisfied with the amount of rounding. See the little Simplify button down there? You can WSNH by using it, or you can do it the other way. But you DO want to simplify your shape once you like it, because that makes your background transparent.
This is the long way… See what the thumbnail looks like? You want the background to be transparent for a later step.
Now that I’ve got the shape with the curvy corners I was looking for, I can resize it – bigger or smaller – and still keep the corners at the same radius.
You can also change the proportions from square to rectangle, but when you do you also change the radius of the corner from a perfectly round one to a more elliptical one.
Here’s why I wanted you to Simplify your shape. After going to all that trouble (well… playing with the radius can be tedious!) you might want to save your shape as a clipping mask for future use. You can use the same mask over and over and over and over! (If you want to use it multiple times in one layout, just CTRL/CMD>J it as many times as you want.)
In the Save As menu, select where you want to put it so you can find it later. (I have a folder labeled Jan’s Elements where I’ve saved quite a few things I’ve created over the years.) Name it something simple you can remember and select PNG as the format. That’s how you preserve your transparent background.
Now let’s take this little lesson a step further. We’re going to make a template for a banner. With the Custom Shape tool selected, click on the icon in the middle of the second row of the Tool Options section. That opens up the Polygon shape tool. You can make an equilateral (all sides the same length) shape with as many sides as you want. Let’s make a triangle.
For my banner, I don’t really want an equilateral triangle. I’m looking for more of an isosceles triangle. (Am I causing you flashbacks to junior high math class? Sorry!)
After I Simplified my shape, I changed the dimensions. Once I had the shape right, I could change the size to something more useful.
To make the string/rope that your banners will hang from, the next step is to draw out a nice elliptical shape using the Elliptical Marquee tool. A gentle curve will work beautifully.
I made 5 copies of my little flag before I moved on to this step. For now they’re all still in a stack. Once the ellipse is drawn out and looks good, apply a white Stroke to the outside of the marching ants. Edit>Stoke (Outline) Selection…
I chose 20px for this stroke. I wanted the rope to be strong! (At this point your rope will just look like a line. Giving it the appearance of rope or twine is an advanced technique we’ll have to explore another time.)
Once the stroke has been applied, Crop the whole shebang down to a manageable size.
Then you can start moving your flags along your line. Spread them out. Tip them so they’re attached to your line at both corners of the short side. Don’t worry too much about eyeballing for a perfect spacing.
Once you’ve got them all lined up, select each of the little flag layers. In the Tool Options section of the Move tool, select Distribute>Middle and voilà! They’re all perfectly spaced. Too easy!
Move the string layer to the bottom and you’re done! Now you can clip papers to each of the flags, mixing and matching colours, patterns, stripes… whatever your little heart desires! And you’ll have a custom banner that’s a perfect match to the kit you’re using.
The final step is to Save As… Only this time you’re going to save it as a PSD file, which will let you change up your papers every time.
I just know you can think of a gazillion ways to use this lesson. If you like to add lots of tabs to your layouts, you can make your own clipping masks in the shapes you like best. There are so many things you can do with this you might never work without clipping masks again!
Remember, if you’ve used a technique from these tutorials, post your finished layout in the GingerScraps Facebook Tutorial Tuesday Challenge Gallery for an opportunity to have YOUR chance to challenge me. If you’re not a Facebooker, you can post a link to the layout you’ve created with the tutorial you used in the comments section here on the Blog. I’ll get a notification and will then enter you into the draw. The first week of each month I’ll have a random draw of all entries and the winner will be announced at the end of the first tutorial of that month.
Until next week, friends! Ellen‘s challenge is going to be a big one… as soon as I figure out how to show what I’m doing while I do it. Michelle is still deciding on her topic. Stay tuned!
Easter is tomorrow; and I hope you plan on capturing all the memories! Today we are going to take a look at just a glimpse at what the store has to offer to scrap all those Easter memories. There is an entire section in the store dedicated to this holiday. If you do not see something that grabs your fancy on today’s post, you probably will find it there! There are pages-and-pages of Easter goodies.
