Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

February 24, 2026 by 2 Comments

Greatest Hits: Templates with a Twist

In addition to my Olympics hangover, I haven’t slept properly in nearly a week, so my head is pretty fuzzy. Since we were recently talking about how to add photo spots to templates, I thought maybe I’d replay this one:

Did you know that you can combine two (or more) templates into a single layout? Are you shocked? Remember, templates are amazingly versatile tools. You don’t have to slavishly follow the design for them to help you create fabulous layouts. They’re intended as inspirational guides, with symbols as placeholders. With templates, your creativity is only limited by your imagination. I’m going to show you how to do a template mashup right here, right now. Let me begin by saying I probably wouldn’t have chosen this bundle for this technique, but the opportunity presented itself and I ran with it. To have the best results with your template mashup, you should choose two templates with clusters, photo spots, masks or combinations of those that you really like, with a good amount of white space, so you’ll have lots of options.

I used a JB Studios template shown below as my base template. I like the row of circles with the small cluster, and I really like the little word strip cluster in the corner. I made a mental note of what the file was named so I could find it later…

Then I chose this Tinci Designs template (SO sad to see her retire!) for my second one. I had 2 photos I wanted to use. Now, I could have resized the centre cluster, which would have actually worked beautifully, but I wanted my photos to be really visible.

I had to make room for the section of Tinci’s template that I was going to move onto the JBS template so I selected all the layers but the background and the little wordstrip cluster then moved them up almost to the top of the canvas.

See how that gave me a lot of room?

The next step is to go to my second template and select all the layers I want to add to the first one. If you don’t have the Bounding Box turned on, you might want to do that. It will help you move only the layers you want by including the shapes you’ve selected inside it. You can see my Bounding Box in the screenshot below.

Once you’ve selected only the layers you want to copy onto your other template, right click on the Layers panel to open the Layers menu. Then click on Duplicate Layers…

A new menu opens with everything you have in your Photo Bin included. Look down the list until you find your first template. If you can’t remember the file name, look for the .psd suffix. When you’ve found it, click on it.

Your dialog box will look like this. You can rename the group of layers if you want, but you don’t have to. When you’ve got the correct file selected, click OK.

PSE automatically centres everything on the canvas, so this is what the new mashed-up template looked like right after I added the Tinci pieces to the JBS base template. Time to fine-tune!

I moved all the Tinci pieces down so the JBS pieces peeked out above them.  Then I had to figure out what to do with that little word strip cluster that HAD to be in there.

Once I was happy with how it all looked, I could get my layout rolling. There were some layers from the original template that were completely concealed, so when I came to them in the Layers panel, I just deleted them. (I always work with copies of everything, never the original. That way I don’t have to worry about losing something I might want again later!)

If you decide to try this out, remember that you don’t HAVE to copy everything from one template onto the other. Choose the parts you LOVE. Forget about the rest. I could have copied just one of the photo clusters. I could have only copied the word strip cluster. It’s all about what you like most! Have fun!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, GingerBread Ladies, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

February 17, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: SURPRISE!

I’m not sure how many of you are like me, totally disoriented and not sure what day it is because you’ve been watching 18 hours of Olympics coverage daily… Yep, that’s me. Wait. It’s TUESDAY?? Well, have I got a surprise for you!

Ginger has given me permission to issue you all a Challenge. I want to know what moment(s) stand out for you about this year’s Winter Olympics, put together in layout form. You can find the details of this Challenge HERE.

Of course, next month YOUR layouts will be the focus of the Challenge Spotlight. Can’t wait to see your special moments!!

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Blog Challenge, Challenge Spotlight, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

February 10, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Templates Everywhere… But Not the One You Need

We’ve all been there. You have a selection of photos and a coordinating kit you really want to scrap, not a ton of time, and really want to use a template to speed things up. So you run a search for a suitable template, only to come up with… none that will work right out of the folder. Maybe you have too many photos for the spots on the template, an issue GingerScrapper Joleen ran into recently. Or you have too many spots on the template for the number of photos you want to use. Well, the too-many-spots-for-photos is an easy fix. Just delete the extra(s)! But wait! The too-many-photos-for-spots isn’t a difficult fix either! Let me show you four ways to do it without straining your brain.

Of course, the easiest way of solving this problem is to simply Copy a photo spot already on the template that will work with your extra photo, then find a likely place to put it. So I’m not going to show you that.

Now, I have literally hundreds of templates from several Designers. I’ve talked about how I organize my templates a few times before so we’re not going over that again. (You’re welcome!) For this exercise I purposely searched for templates that only had three photo spots. Then I reviewed them all, looking for those I wouldn’t have to make a gazillion adjustments to in order to make them work with the four photos I have pictured below.

I selected four templates and will show you how I’ve tinkered with them to accommodate all four photos. First is this one from Dear Friends Designs. The spots are in portrait orientation but that’s an easy fix.

Don’t forget that templates are tools. They’re blueprints, but unlike blueprints, they don’t require absolute slavish devotion to any part of them. There are no rules about adding, subtracting, moving, turning, flipping or substituting any part of them. You can even merge two templates into one layout! Every single element of a template is a SUGGESTION. Okay… three of my photos are in landscape orientation so it only makes sense to Image>Rotate>90° Right the whole template.

But. It’s still not really working for me. So this time I Image>Rotate>Flip Horizontal the whole template and it’ll work a lot better.

Can you see what I did to create a fourth photo spot? Yes! I used the journal block! Dear Friends Designs‘ templates come pre-shadowed, and the white border is a Stroke contained in the Layer Style. It was a simple matter to select any one of the actual photo spots then right-click>Copy Layer Style then go to the “new” photo spot, right-click>Paste Layer Style to add a white border and matching drop shadow. To complete a layout with this template, a few items will need rearranging. You can see that I’ve moved the journaling-block-photo-spot down and tucked it into the cluster at the bottom right, plus I Rotated and repositioned the banner. The rest will come together.

This grid-style template is from Magical Scraps Galore. It’s simple, the photo spots are more or less right for my purposes and there’s an easy way to add a fourth photo. Let’s review.

This was probably the easiest conversion I did. I replaced the title block at the bottom with one of my photos, moved the title up to the journaling block and resized the middle left elements. Easy peasy!

This template is from Tinci Designs. Might we take a moment to mourn the loss of such a prolific and generous talent? Retirement comes eventually for all of us, and we’re really going to miss her. Back to the task at hand. Here, I’ll need to do some photo spot resizing and a little tweaking, but it’ll definitely work.

But first it needed Image>Rotate>90° Right, then Image>Rotate>Flip Horizontal.

Again, I used the journal block as a photo space, which may or may not need a white border and drop shadow. The title can cover up that nasty fake snow in the top photo. The photo spots were all resized in one dimension or both, to suit the photos better. But doing so didn’t mess up the overall look. Tinci‘s templates are really easy to customize.

My fourth option is this template from Connie Prince. At first glance, it doesn’t look like it’ll work all that well. But I know that Connie‘s templates use a paper layer for the white border on her photo spots, and that’ll work perfectly for what I have in mind. I’m going to put my two longest landscape photos into that big photo spot!

And I can use that paper circle to hide a multitude of sins… Once I fit the photos into the spot edge-to-edge – I DID NOT Clip the photos to the spot – I created a gap between the bottom of one and the top of the other. I made sure the gray photo spot layer was the active layer. Then I used the Marquee Tool to outline that gap.

Then I Edit>Cut [CTRL/CMD>X] the gray bit out of that gap. The white paper creating the border around the spot remains untouched.

In this screenshot you can easily see the white strip! Another feature of Connie‘s templates is that she doesn’t pre-shadow, so I can decide how I want those two photos to look in the finished layout. I just moved some of the layers at the bottom up a bit to help hide the ugly fake snow bit. The smaller photo spots needed minor adjustments too, the left one tilted into landscape orientation and the right one downsized into a more square shape.

I know some of you will have other methods of increasing your photo ops with templates. Please share them in the comments. I read them all, even if I don’t reply to them. I’d like to thank Sherry for her recommendation for PeaZip when I bemoaned the number of folders I had to unzip. I tried it out and it’s great! Just like this little community we’ve created here…

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, GingerBread Ladies, Tutorials Tagged With:

Designer Spotlight (February 2026)

February 3, 2026 by 2 Comments

Jumpstart Designs

This month’s Designer Spotlight is shining on Jen from J Conlon and Sons, and Sheri, also known as Jumpstart Designs. Jen hasn’t been in touch so I’m not sure if I’ll have a post highlighting her – but she IS hosting some Challenges and such, so I’ll drop that info at the end.

As you may remember, Sheri and I have known each other a long time. But she can still surprise me! We started out with the formalities, chatting about designing. What follows is a transcript of our conversation.

J: I think I know the answer to to this, but I’ll ask you anyway. What lights your design fire most?

S: Color! And sometimes I’ll get inspired by reviewing all the PINS I’ve saved on Pinterest over the years.

J: I KNEW you were going to say colour!! That’s one thing that’s always obvious when looking at your designs. There’s an indefinable quality to the way you use colour that’s very appealing. This one might take a little thought on your part. If you could only use THREE design tools for the rest of your career, what would they be?

S: CTRL-Z (undo) is my favorite Photoshop “tool” for sure! As for the other two…. CTRL-Z and CTRL-Z! LOL

J: <snort-laughs> My sister!! If you’ve read any of my tutorials, I mention CTRL/CMD>Z ALL the time! (I don’t discriminate – Mac commands are always included too.) I’ve found a bunch of other places it works, and use it with gusto. What does your design process look like?

S:    Remember, you asked!

  • I look around for inspiring ideas
  • Think of a kit name
  • Create my preview packaging with pretty title-work. Create files for every product (elements, add-ons, papers, wordart, etc.) so they are all ready to go.
  • Start on elements (usually florals first. I love them).
  • Add to previews as I go along.
  • After about a dozen elements, I change my mind and decide the preview packaging should be a different color, so I change them all.
  • Create more elements then tweak the colors more.
  • Go back and change the preview packaging again.
  • Work on more elements. Stare at them a bunch. Tweak them more.
  • Decide maybe I should go with a different style. Re-do everything.
  • Stare at them a bunch. Tweak them more. Change previews again.
  • Eventually work on papers and other elements.
  • Go back and tweak some more.
  • Tweak the previews more….
  • And on… and on… and on… LOL
  • And about the time I FINALLY get everything done and uploaded to the shop, I noticed I messed SOMETHING up and must go back and fix everything. LOL

J: That’s very… detailed. Almost like I wrote it! 😉 It’s interesting that you use the previews as your foundation. But it works, so don’t change anything!! So, knowing all that, what’s the most challenging part of digital designing? I mean, after all the false starts. ;D

S: The amount of time it takes me to complete a kit or collection. I’ve been told I’m too picky about little details, including how I do my previews. It’s shocking how much time I spend changing and tweaking things. I often wonder how other designers manage to put new designs out so frequently.

J: See above! Your attention to detail is a huge benefit for your fans, though. But yeah, it’s a mystery to me how some Designers are SO prolific. They have to have some kind of secret sauce or something! Wow, those noodles I ate for lunch are making me thirsty. But boy were they good! If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

S: Anything Mexican and cheesy!

J: So, are nachos your go-to comfort food, or is there some other yummy thing you love?

S: Funeral potatoes. WHAT????? (you say)? Yes, funeral potatoes are a thing here in Utah. If you ever want to know what they are, or get the recipe, let me know.

J: I know funeral potatoes! They don’t show up much at the funerals I attend – we lean on perogies… similar principle. My cousin always brings a big tub of soup. She’s half Ukrainian and she says, “Soup makes you strong like bull!” in a heavily accented, gruff voice that sounds just like my uncle. Yeah, we’re a little odd. What’s the funniest thing you believed when you were a kid?

S: As a young child around ten years old, I had heard of “carpools” but really had no idea what “carpooling” was. One day when riding with my mom in the car, we pulled up next to an El Camino and I pointed to it and said, “Look Mom! A Carpool!” (It made sense to me at the time.)

J: It makes perfect sense to me! What else would you do with that? It would be hilarious to see one filled with water and pool floaties, inflatable palm trees  and flamingos around the edges. I can see it now! 😀 Are you a prankster? Have you ever pulled off the perfect prank?

S: Several years ago, I worked for an aerospace company and one of the Engineers that worked there was a huge fan of Twinkies. He always had several boxes of them in his office, and everyone was always teasing him about it. One day me and another co-worker “kidnapped” all of them and held them for ransom. Not a monetary ransom, but just for silly things. He didn’t know which of the several people in the office did it, and it was hilarious watching him try to find out. Nearly every day we would leave him another “ransom note” with different clues or silly demands. It provided daily entertainment and laughter for almost two months before we gave in.

J: OMG! That would have been priceless! I used to work with a very… um… particular… doctor who NEVER had a pen with him. (I mean, come on! How do you write orders in a paper chart without a pen, Laurance?) One day, I waited patiently for him to ask if he could borrow my pen – then handed him a hot pink one with a gigantic blinking eyeball, complete with lashes, on the end. The silence from all the others on rounds was deafening, but I could tell everybody was trying so hard not to laugh. I’d like to say that was the last time he borrowed a pen from me, but no. I can’t. I kinda miss that chaos. Wish I could just pop in once in awhile, just to see my team. Oh well. If you could teleport anywhere in the world, where would it be?

S: WEIRD ANSWER ALERT! I’d teleport to Bali, and here’s why:

I was watching a Netflix series called THE WORLD’S MOST AMAZING VACATION RENTALS. Season 1, Episode 1 is called “The Best of Bali”. The first half of the episode shows the most adorable authentic bamboo hut, surrounded by tropical gardens. It is the coolest thing ever! If I could be anywhere right now… it would be there.

J: I can just see you examining the walls to make sure they used real bamboo. A lot of your designs have a distinct tropical flavour, so I don’t think this is a weird answer at all. Now I think I need to get down to business. Have a fabulous Spotlight month, Sheri!

You’re here on the GingerScraps Blog, so I know you’re aware of the Daily Downloads. This is Sheri‘s sneak peek.

Isn’t that cute?! She’s host of one Designer Spotlight Challenge this month, and her regular Jumpstart Your Layouts Challenge, which includes this free (not exactly) mini-kit:

Jen‘s Designer Spotlight Challenge joins her regular Template Challenge and there’s a sneak peek for her Daily Download in her Designer Spotlight thread. Be sure to check them out!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Daily Download, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Feature Designer, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

January 27, 2026 by 1 Comment

Quick Trick: Curses… That Cursor!

Today’s Quick Trick is a touch self-serving, but I can’t be the only one who has old eyes… My mom turned 90 on Sunday and I wanted to surprise her with my favourite black-and-white photo of her, taken in 1963. But it was COVERED in dust specks, and I couldn’t leave it like that! So I opened it up in PSE to fix it. Well. The Spot Healing Brush cursor has become completely invisible to my rapidly declining eyes when the background is any shade of gray and I soon had a headache from trying to see it. There’s a little trick that can help locate it – using the space bar to change the cursor momentarily to the Hand Tool – but it’s very momentary, and if you try to move it, POOF! I needed a better solution, so I did a web search. The results weren’t encouraging… there’s no way to change the colour of the cursor, which would have been perfect. So I tried some of the suggestions people offered. Changing the “pointer” settings in Windows didn’t do anything useful, but I did find something that worked, sort of. I’ll show you what I settled on.

Oy, these screenshots don’t show well here. So I’ll narrate. I clicked Edit>Preferences>Display & Cursors… to access the cursor settings.

These were the settings I was working with for the Painting Cursor, which is what Elements classifies both the Spot Healing Brush and the Clone Stamp. These settings were Normal Brush Tip and Show Crosshair in Brush Tip. That setting appears as a circle with crosshairs inside it. It shows up well on white – it turns black and pops nicely – and black, because it’s white. But any shade of gray and it’s totally invisible to me.

I tested some other options and didn’t like the ones that use an eye-dropper icon. When I switched to Precise and left the Crosshair box ticked. the cursor changed from that faint circle with the crosshairs to just a plus sign, but it was infinitely more visible even against most shades of gray. The one drawback is that the SIZE of the Brush Tip isn’t obvious with this setting. The Shield will appear when you click the Brush over a spot, and you’ll have an idea of size that way. I can live with that.

I will be writing a Lasso-vs-Magic Wand Selection post for you, but I’ve discovered I’ll need more time to prepare it than I expected. Since my husband’s eye surgery I’ve been doing all of our son’s care and transfers in addition to all of my own usual tasks, so I haven’t had a ton of spare time. He has another follow-up with the ophthalmologist on Thursday and hopefully will be cleared to get back to normal. Watch this space!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Wednesday (Individual Style)

January 21, 2026 by 2 Comments

Challenge Spotlight: Mini Kit

Wow, you GingerScrappers have been busy this month! As of 1:20 pm PST, there have been 654 individual layouts uploaded to the 2026 Challenge Galleries. That’s phenomenal… and I think I should track the totals for the year to see just how prolific we are.

I’ve spoken before about what makes a Challenge ideal for an Individual Style Blog post, but I’ll go over it again. Of course, the participants for every Challenge are given identical criteria for each Challenge. Some Challenges can be met in a really wide variety of ways, while others are more narrowly defined. For example the Color Challenge provides participants with 2, 3 or 4 colors that must be used for their layouts. But there are a multitude of kits in the Shop that will fit the criteria. So narrow, but not. On the other hand, the Use It All Challenge provides a mini kit with maybe 10-12 items in it, all of which must be visible on the layouts. Narrow! These narrower Challenges are best suited for an Individual Style analysis. How does the Scrapper USE IT ALL? Can the viewer identify that Scrapper‘s style? What sets them apart? So with that in mind. this month the Challenge I selected is the Mini Kit, hosted by Lisa Rosa Designs. This is the kit: 5 papers, 3 flowers, some foliage, a film strip and 4 word art bits. It coordinates with Lisa‘s Between Then & Next collection, and participants are welcome to use it to enhance their layouts. Let’s look at how it’s been used.

Before I get rolling, I’m going to add some of my periodic reminders about the Challenge Spotlight posts, which may also apply to other posts too. Every layout I post here will be linked to the Gallery so that you can get a closer look, and maybe leave a comment. The link will be attached to the Scrapper’s user name. It will be in coloured, bold, underlined text. Any time you see some coloured, bold, underlined texts in any of my posts, you can safely assume they’re hyperlinks in disguise. Try it out! One other thing about this series of posts is that when I choose a Challenge to examine, I may not be able to post EVERY layout that has been completed for the month, due to the sheer volume of them! (That’s a good thing!!!) To be completely fair in that situation I’ll select all the odd- or even- numbered layouts, or I’ll use a Random.Org randomizer. That way, it’s not me personally choosing which layouts to post, and I’ll always explain how the layouts were arrived at. This month, I selected the odd-numbered layouts.

Layout #1 belongs to nimble4u. She has used all but the word art bits for her layout. She extended the filmstrip to accommodate the photos she wanted to include.

For her layout, photocrazy used all but the mustard patterned paper – which I feel was the right call – and split the filmstrip into two pieces. Using them as background elements rather than to frame smaller photos allows her sunset photo to stand out. Note how the colours in the sky are picked up by the papers, almost as an extension of her photo. Her choice of word art bits is spot-on. Well done!

Here, dhariana chose not to use the large ivory-backed floral paper and used clipping shapes for her paper accents. She chose a spare, white-space style for her version, and added some stitching as an anchor for her cluster. The simple word art title completes the layout.

SandraJ has used the entire mini kit here. The floral background paper draws the eye in, the single photo stretched the entire width of the film strip and the creative use of the word art bits keep the eye moving.

Nice ‘do, beccasue! She’s used the film strip as a clipping mask for the blue-gray paper, tucking a greatly reduced-size scrap of the striped paper in behind her floral cluster. She has also recoloured some of her flowers. The soft pink background and word art title suggest she really feels transformed.

We have our first adding-to-the-mini layout from justpennys. She’s used items from the mini, such as the flowers and foliage, she’s clipped papers to the tags, blended the mustard coloured mini kit paper with one from the collection and used some of the word art from both to form her title and subtitle. Then she’s added a plethora of elements and papers from the full collection. Nice!

The ivory floral background makes a reappearance with trinanne. It’s the only paper she used, other than a sliver of the pink for a journaling block. She kept the focus on the film strip of smiling faces.

Glori2 chose to document growth in a little person learning new skills. That narrow strip of striped paper divides the layout neatly across the middle, with paired film strips providing the proof. There’s not a shred of pink to be seen. 😉

Are you laughing our loud right now? I LOVE the humour in makeyesup‘s layout. It’s true – dogs have masters, cats have staff. 🙂 I like the narrow yellow paper borders overlying the striped paper in the background and the blue-gray paper in the foreground.

For her layout, kabrak1207 has used almost everything from the mini and added some bits from the Between Then & Next. It’s interesting that the way she’s arranged the papers in her stack makes that blue-gray paper look more green. The spray of elements along the edge of her photo adds the perfect touch to bring all the attention to the little girl’s eyes.

I hope I haven’t made any glaring typos! I never realized how much I use my left ring finger before. The splint is doing the job and I might be able to leave it off in a day or so. And I really should analyze how I injured it so I can prevent a recurrence. Anyway, how would you all like me to learn the difference between the Lasso Tool and the Magic Wand Tool and share it with you?

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Challenge Spotlight, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, GingerBread Ladies, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday – Postponed

January 20, 2026 by 2 Comments

Hey GingerScrappers!

Things chez ObiJan have been a bit of a dumpster fire the last few days (I’ve sprained a finger again on top of it) so I’m running behind. I’ll have a Challenge Spotlight for you tomorrow. Thanks for your understanding!

Filed Under: Digital Scrapbooking

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

January 13, 2026 by 5 Comments

Greatest Hits: Decluttering Isn’t Just for Homes

It’s January. It’s bone-chillingly cold in some parts of the world (although oddly enough, we’re having a very mild winter) and unseasonably warm in others. The holidays are over, and winter stretches out in front of us like a long and bumpy road. There’re no truly exciting events on the horizon, so what’s a girl to do? Well, the flyers are filled with supplies for organizing our stuff… But for Digi-Scrappers, we don’t need to buy anything. It’s all right in front of us! I think now is a good time to talk about organizing our stuff, and maybe actually making some effort to get ‘er done. This is how I do it, but I know y’all have your own way of doing things, The important part is to DO it!

It’s not as important where we start as that we actually DO start. For me, the place to begin will be with all the new kits I’ve amassed but haven’t unzipped. This is actually my New Year’s Resolution, to unzip and relocate my supplies as soon as I download them. I was keeping up just fine for awhile, don’t even ask me how it fell apart this time. I have a backlog, and I WILL attend to it. Eventually. I was using an unzip app but when I moved to my current laptop, I found the newest version to be.. unhelpful. So I went back to the labour-intensive single-folder method. It’s a tiny bit easier with Windows 11, but still laborious. I find it’s less work to create a new folder for those kits with multiple downloads, so they are all in one place when it’s time to ditch the stuff I’m never going to use. Then I don’t have to go back and search all the download folders to find the ones I’ve unzipped. I go through each of the subfolders, deleting all the duplicate previews and things I know I’m not going to use (like alpha sheets!). If the kit is templates, I delete the PNG files and the TIFF files, and I add to the name of the previews to include single or double and the number of photo spots the template includes. That lets me put a keyword like “single4” in the search bar and Windows will find all the previews with 4 photo spots. Once I’ve arranged my folders the way I like them, I move them en bloc to my digikit folder for the store or designer as appropriate. Then my download folder should be empty. Until I fill it up again!

The way I sort my digikits is primarily by store or by designer’s creative team, My GingerScraps folder is ENORMOUS!  With Tinci Designs‘ retirement, I’ll be moving all her folders to a peripheral drive and my main GS folder will be much thinner. 🙁 I rename each kit’s folder: DesignerNameKitName, unless it’s a Buffet kit, then it’s MonthYearBufDesignerNameKitName. That makes it easier when I’m doing a store challenge.

I try to organize my photos as I take them, so the job isn’t too daunting. I don’t care for the Organizer that comes with Photoshop Elements so I don’t use it. But it can be very useful for both organizing and retrieving your photos. The Help menu can give you some ideas about how to maximize your efficiency. The way I file my photos is in folders… what else? I create a new folder for the current year, and a subfolder for each month. (I used to religiously rename my photos for easier retrieval, but have gotten lazy lately. Sigh. Another task on the To Do List.) Photos go into the folder for the month and year they were taken so I have some frame of reference later. I have a folder for the photos my friend Sandy takes and graciously allows me to ‘steal’ and one for the photos I download from Pixabay. My Pixabay folder is broken down into subfolders by topic: Kids, Insects/Flowers, Animals, Portraits, Scenic and such. This method of filing makes it a lot faster to find what I’m looking for.

I also organize my layouts. I have folders for each month’s challenges, with subfolders for the challenges themselves. When the year is over, they all collectively are filed in a folder for the whole year. Then again, I have some folders that have copies of the finished layouts for my daughters’ weddings, my grandkids’ first years, all of my Ireland layouts and for the creative teams I’m on. It’s all about finding things later!

I (once again) haven’t taken the time to go through my 1400+ fonts and retag them for MainType. I lost a bunch of fonts when I set up this laptop, and have had to either track them down and download again, or just let them go. I really do need to get on with it! It’s a daunting task, but you know what they say. Focus on the first step. I know the time I spend on it now will decrease the time it takes me to find the one font I’m looking for later. The best part of MainType is that I decide what my tags are, based on MY workflow – how I search for things. And like everything else, if I work at it as I add new fonts, the amount of time I spend on it will go way down. My husband had eye surgery yesterday and we’re still working out how to navigate his limitations; I don’t know if I’ll have free time to actually start anything, never mind anything that requires focus and concentration. But just writing about it is giving me a rash, so let’s move on!

One caveat. If you’re going to delete duplicate files, make sure you only delete the ones you’re not going to want to search for later. I made the mistake of using a Windows utility and chose the wrong metric so it removed a LOT of my original templates and left me with the PSD files for the last layout I used them for. Retrieving the original template takes a lot of time but is necessary when I use the search feature to find previews for my desired number of photos. Oh, and maybe now’s a good time to BACK UP all your stuff.

I’m interested to hear how YOU organize your stuff. So please, share your secrets!

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:

Designer Spotlight (January 2026)

January 6, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Neia Scraps

Welcome to the first Designer Spotlight of 2026! Up first this year is the Über-productive and highly-sought-after Edneia aka Neia Scraps. Now, Neia and I have had a number of chats, and this time we’ve come up with some great new schtick… she has a great sense of humour and we get along like a house on fire. Wanna know what I’ve learned about her lately? Read on!

J: I’m so happy you’re here again! We must be doing something right, you keep coming back for more. I told you last time we talked how much I love the small changes you’ve made to the spirit of your designs. Bet you didn’t know I bought about a dozen of your collections not long after that chat. 😉 Before we really get into it, let’s remind everybody how you got into digital design in the first place.

N: It started very naturally. I was drawn to the creative freedom — being able to tell stories visually without strict rules. Over time, it became my main creative language.

J: Ah, creative freedom! That’s something we all enjoy. What’s the main source of your inspiration when designing a new collection?

N: Usually a feeling first, not an object. I like starting with a mood and letting the elements grow from there.

J: That explains the subtle shift in your work. It’s definitely more sensitive and passionate. How would you describe your work?

N: Artistic, emotional, and organic.

J: Totally! I’ve noticed that your collections have expanded and become very inclusive. Do you prefer designing papers or elements?

N: Elements. They feel more organic to me — like little characters that can live in many different stories.

J: That’s a great way to describe them. I love elements that are truly versatile. Because, well… my credit lists are the stuff of legend. 😀 I often take one element from each of a dozen kits and bring them all together into one layout. It’s fun! What do you enjoy most about seeing others use your designs?

N: Seeing how personal their pages become. The designs are mine, but the stories are theirs — and that’s the best part.

J: It must be so satisfying! Now, since colour is a huge part of designing, if you could BE a colour, which one would you choose?

N: A soft neutral. Calm on the surface, but very flexible and expressive when combined with other colors.

J: I love it! Colour Ninja! So how do you unwind after a long design-superhero day?

N: A quiet moment with coffee or tea. I like letting my mind wander — that’s usually when new ideas show up.

J: I like a nice snuggle with one of my dogs. (Lately, not the one that keeps peeing on the hallway runner. She’s on the bad-dog list. :D) If you could have any animal, real or imaginary, as a pet, what would you have?

N: A dragon. I’d love to fly on its back. And if that sounds a little Fourth Wing–inspired… that’s definitely not a coincidence.

J: Nothing wrong with a little flight-of-fancy! Would you teleport if you could?

N: I’d go somewhere cold and calm. Snow, trees, a cozy place… the kind of place where ideas slow down and settle.

J: Canada fits that bill! Right now, where I live, we don’t actually have any snow – which is NOT usual, but it’s making a lot of people happy. What one thing always makes you smile?

N: When someone uses my designs in a way I never imagined. That’s always a nice surprise.

J: Aha! You’ve thrown down a gauntlet there. Hear that everybody? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a completely unique and unexpected way to use Neia Scraps designs for a layout. Even better? She’s hosting TWO Challenges this month!! Of course, she’d hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge, as well as her usual My Memories Challenge. (They’re linked up for you, just click on them.) And if that’s not enough for you… This month, everything in her store is 45% off—or even more on bundles! And here’s a little bonus: spend $20 or more and get an extra 10% off at checkout. Use the coupon: NEIA-SL202610

Aaaaaand… the Daily Download, here on the Blog is yours, free, for the taking.

Well, what are you waiting for? GO!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Daily Download, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Feature Designer, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

December 30, 2025 by 1 Comment

Quick Trick: Instant Clusters

While I was working on a layout the other night, it occurred to me that I had the perfect topic for a Quick Trick, something that I just do automatically, that really streamlines my scrapping. Let’s be honest… we’re all busy. So we can all use some shortcuts, right? Now, those of you who are more experienced with digital scrapping might already have this trick in your arsenal, so this is more for the still-getting-comfortable-with-the-process people. You’ll see!

Did you know that you can Duplicate entire clusters with only a couple of clicks? It’s true! Rather than Copying each item in a cluster individually, you can do the whole shebang all at once! Start by finding the various components of your cluster in the Layers Panel. Select each by clicking CTRL/CMD>click until all of them are showing as active in the Layers Panel. If all the things are in a single pile rather than spread out through the stack, you can instead use Shift>click on the first item and then Shift>click on the last item in the cluster to Select all of them in fewer steps. In my sample below. I’m only Duplicating the two leaf elements, which are stacked together.

Once you have the whole cluster Selected, click CTRL/CMD>J and ALL the items will be duped, dropped right on top of the original *cluster*! If you leave the dupes Selected/active, you can move the entire pile up or down the Layers Panel, then relocate them to the appropriate spot on the layout. Those of you who use a lot of Tinci Designs‘ templates will see the usefulness of this! Krisztina often creates her template clusters from five or six elements, which she Duplicates in two or three other locations around the layout, with some items in slightly different orientations. This makes it so quick! The keyboard shortcut for moving layers up is CTRL/CMD>[ and the one for moving them down (handy if you overshoot!) is CTRL/CMD>].

My leaf elements started out at the top centre of the layout, pointing up and slightly left, and ended up at the bottom centre-left, pointing slightly down and to the right. If you’ve got several objects in your cluster and would like to shift them around so they don’t look too matchy-matchy, but still giving you a cohesive layout, go for it!

Can you believe this is the LAST Tuesday of 2025? The next time we’re together will be for a Designer Spotlight. It’s somebody we all know and love; will there be some surprises? Maybe……. Happy New Year, everybody!

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Tutorials Tagged With:
Next Page »