Here we are at another Friday my friends. I do hope you had an amazing week and have been enjoying the fun stuff in the November Buffet. You still have a couple of days to grab the Buffet deals.
Remember if you spend $10 in the store, you get this great kit free.
Let’s take a look at some of the new products in the store this week.
Have you gotten a start on those challenges? Complete any 10 challenges (there are over 30 to choose from) and get this great kit as a reward.
Redirecting Text on your Embellishments
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3DRkm8M
I’m never sure how complex I should go with tutorials that land on the first of a new month. There’s already so much going on and it’s easy to become overwhelmed with it all. So this month I went simple, but still very useful. Have you ever had an embellishment – think pocket card or fancy word strip – that you really wanted to use but it faces the wrong way to really work with the rest of the layout? You know flipping it won’t help because then the text would be backwards. And others notice that kind of thing… Well, here’s a fix!
My example will use a pocket card from CathyK Designs‘ Back to Nature kit. I want to put the card on the left of my photo and I want the deer looking AT the photo.
First, I’ll make a Copy Layer of the card. There are several ways to do this. You can click on the Layer tab at the top of the work space and select Duplicate Layer>OK. You can right-click on the layer in the Layers Panel and choose Duplicate Layer>OK. Or you can use a keyboard shortcut: CTRL/CMD>J. [Editor’s note: Keyboard shortcuts work with both Windows and Mac; Windows uses CTRL and Mac CMD.]
Now to flip the card so the deer is facing to the right. When using Photoshop CC you can flip single layers. In Photoshop Elements you can’t. So the easiest way to do it is to use the Move Tool, grab one of the “handles” on the side of the Bounding Box and drag it either vertically or horizontally. I get the flip process started this way, then I go to the dimensions box in the Tool Options toolkit and type in -100. For this one, the -100 went in the W(idth) box as shown. I do the same when I want to change the direction a spray of leaves or a ribbon is curving too.
The cards need to be stacked precisely with the backwards one on top of the original. Let your software do the work! Select both card layers (Click>Shift>Click).
Then go to the Align section of the Move Tool Options toolkit. Click on Left (side) and bingo, the top and bottom layers will be perfectly stacked.
Just like this!
Now, with only the top, backwards text layer active, I’ll add a Layer Mask to it by clicking on the icon at the top of the Layers Panel that looks like a blue sheet of paper with a white circle in the middle, as shown.
The Layer Mask sits to the right of the thumbnail on the Layers Panel. It’s simply a white box at this stage. You’ll know you’re working on the Mask and not the actual object when there’s a blue box outlining the Mask. Now I’ll activate my Eraser Tool.
Layer Masks are really useful when you’re removing parts of an object because it only makes the parts you’re removing invisible – they’re still there, just hidden. If you make a mistake – or the touchpad on your laptop is possessed and does its own thing – you can easily “paint” the part removed in error back in by switching foreground colours. Keep this mnemonic in mind: Black conceals, white reveals. What it’s referring to though is the layer UNDERNEATH! Black will hide the layer underneath, white will let it show. You’ll notice that your Color Picker is now set to black and white. While you’re removing parts of your object, you can toggle between removing and replacing by clicking the X key. Okay, on to removing the top line of text. My foreground colour is white and the layer underneath is temporarily turned off. I’ll turn it on and off to check my work a couple of times while I’m removing.
Here you can see that the lower layer is on, and the backwards text on the top line is gone. In its place is a line of text going the right way.
Now I’ve removed both lines of backwards text.
With both card layers you can see I’ve successfully turned the deer and birds around. To incorporate the Layer Mask with the top layer, right-click on the layer and choose Simplify Layer. This step isn’t completely necessary in this instance because when I Merge the two cards in the next step, the Layer Mask will automatically be Simplified. But if I wasn’t Merging layers, I would definitely want to Simplify that object layer.
To make it easy to use the modified card, I’ll select the two card layers (Click>Shift>Click) then right-click and choose Merge Layers. The keyboard shortcut is CTRL/CMD>E. And that’s it! You can’t even see where I’ve made the changes. (If you look closely though, you can see there’s a little nibble taken out of the bottom line of text at the lower swirly part of the N in Nature.)
I think this will give us some more options with our kits. I have some great ideas for upcoming tutorials that will be more complex than this one. Stay tuned!
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3DRkm8M
Well scrappers, here we are at November 1. Have you started your scrapping wish list for Christmas. It’s definitely time to start those plans.
Let’s start off this month with our Buffet Bundles. One easy click to add bundles of Buffet goodies to your cart.
The designers have given so many things to chose from with this color scheme. The topics are all over the place. Remember with the Buffet, all kits use the same colors so they can be mixed together to create your perfect kit.
Remember any $10 spent in the store gets you this great collab. This would be a great one for those best friend photos. {we go together].
This Free With Purchase was created by: Just So Scrappy, Kristmess, Lisa Rosa Designs, and Miss Fish Templates.
It includes: 2 Alpha {Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers & Punctuation}, 62 Papers, and 94 Elements.
Are you ready for Thanksgiving (in the US)? {let the stuffing begin}
This Monthly Mix was created by: Aimee Harrison, Aprilisa Designs, CathyK Designs, Scrapbookcrazy Creations by Robyn, and Sweet Pea Designs.
This collab includes 1 Alpha {Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers & Punctuation}, 62 Papers, and 101 Elements.
Now to the October Daily Download Sneak Peek. This month’s Daily Download is from Polka Dot Chicks and Memory Mosaid! Make sure you are checking the blog every day to get all the pieces of this kit!
We are excited to have a new guest designer join us this month.
Bio:
Hi! I’m Adrienne and the face behind Adrienne Skelton Designs. You may know me under ACM Designs back in the mid 2000’s. I sold at Gotta Pixel and Divine Digital and DigiScrap Warehouse. I started designing back in the late 90’s when my kids were growing up. I could not afford to buy paper scrapbook items so I would design using Paint Shop Pro and then print them out to make my Scrapbook pages. Back then I didn’t know about digital scrapbooking. I had to quit designing in 2011 because of health reasons. Started back designing again last year in 2021.
A little bit more about me: I was born and raised here in Missouri. I have been married to my husband (Gordy) now since 2010. I have 3 Wonderful Boys: Ryan (31) Brendan (28) and Wil (25) 2 of which are out of the house with families of their own. 1 Still lives here with us, and a Grams to 1 boy (Landon) Almost 2 now. Also can’t forget to add my 3 Cats Smokey, Sammy, and Stormy!
I used to design a lot of commercial use items back in the day, but have now focused on more kits than Commercial Use, but my favorite things to design are grungy overlays, blended papers, page edges, brushes, stamps and more. I am an artist in my spare time and I love to put paint to canvas, oil, acrylic and watercolor including mixed media.
I have a club if anyone is interested in seeing when my New Releases are out and special sales or freebies. Please feel free to join Club Adrienne Skelton Designs
https://www.facebook.com/groups/346392190685784
I also have a Blog which I post on as well
https://adrienneskeltondesigns.blogspot.com/
Pinterest: https://pin.it/7mz2HaR
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adrienneskeltondesigns/
Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/91f3f328d4e6/keep…s-and-freebies
Are you ready for the November challenges? Remember any 10 completed challenges gets you this great kit.
This Challenge Reward was created by: JB Studio, Jumpstart Designs, Neia Scraps, Scraps N Pieces, and Dear Friends Designs.
This collab includes 1 Alpha {Uppercase Only}, 67 Papers, 82 Elements, and 4 12×12 Template {png, psd & tif file formats}.
Not only is it the 1st, but it’s also a Tuesday. That means the $2 Tuesday sale in the store.
Let’s take a look at some of the beautiful layouts from our store CT using the November Free with Purchase.
Goodness, it’s the last Friday in October. This month just flew by. Not always a good thing when one still has a bunch of things left to do for the month.
There is still a few days left to get this amazing Halloween kit. Spend just $10 in the store and get this free with your purchase.
There are a lot of fall and Halloween goodies new in the store this week.
Are you still working on those challenges. Any 10 completed challenges gets you this kit as a reward.
Quick Trick: Brighter Photos the Easy Way
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3DTBCdq
I know this is true. We ALL have photos that we like but would like better if… they were more vivid. But making adjustments to lighting and colour can be time-consuming and takes some practice. I’m going to show you how to take a nice photo to a NICE photo with just a couple of clicks. I’ve tried this trick on a lot of photos and am really impressed, as well as disappointed I didn’t know about it sooner! The photo I’m going to use as my demo is one taken by my friend Sandy and I’m using it with her permission.
Fall is all about colour. These leaves are pretty, but they’re just a little insipid.
I haven’t really shown you too much under the Quick Edit tab, and that’s my bad. There are some pretty useful options in here and I strongly recommend playing with them when you have a few minutes. Today we’ll focus on the Color tab.
Click on that Vibrance option. This menu will open up. Notice the blue box around the “Free” space in the tic-tac-toe array. That’s the unaltered image. You can use the slider to adjust the colour vibrance or just click on one of the boxes. You can see the adjustments without actually committing to one by rolling the cursor over the array. Going up decreases the vibrance, going down increases it.
Each of the presets represents a 25% change in Vibrance. I’ll show you each of them.
With this laptop, I often struggle with getting the screenshots I want with the pop-up boxes open. Sometimes I luck out, sometimes I fail. Most times I fail – screenshots are captured by clicking CTRL>prt sc and as soon as I hit the CTRL key the pop-up disappears. SO frustrating!! Anyway, that’s what captions and text are for. This image is a 50% increase adjustment.
And on to 75%. Are you able to see the changes?
100% looks like this. Not only are the leaves brighter and more vivid, the fallen log under them has greater dimension and the whole image is just better. If you’ve gone to 100% and still think your image needs a boost, Save it with a new name then run the process again on the new version. When you’re happy with the way it looks, click on the Expert tab and you’re done, ready to use your bright, vivid photo on a layout! You can run through this process in the middle of a layout if you decide the photo needs some oomph. Moving between Expert and Quick won’t wreck anything, so give it a whirl!
Here are the original and the new-and-improved version. Impressive, right? And so easy…
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3DTBCdq
Happy Friday my friends. I do hope you have had a great week. It’s definitely fall in my area of the world. Temperatures a little cold for this time in October, but I’m glad for the heat being gone.
Remember any $10 spent in the store gets you this great collab. Get ready for those Halloween pictures.
Let’s see what is new in the store. I’m seeing a LOT of Halloween kits this week.
Have you picked up the October Monthly Mix. Those sunflowers and pumpkins are so cute.
How are those challenges going? Still some time left to get them finished and logged in. Complete any 10 challenges and you will get this great collab as a reward.
Challenge Spotlight: Minikit
Hey GingerScrappers! It’s time for another Challenge Spotlight. This month I’m going to take you through the October Minikit Challenge Gallery. This challenge is hosted by the Polka Dot Chicks, Tammy and Shelby. The Challenge revolves around a minikit they design and provide to participants at no cost. Participants can use all of the kit, or only part of it, and are allowed to use a template. Here’s a look at the October kit, which coordinates with this month’s Buffet colour palette.
Let’s have a look at the layouts that have been posted up to now. The layouts are in the order they were posted to the Gallery and are linked through the member’s user name so you can pop into the Gallery and leave them some praise, if you should so desire.
First up is sparky_mom with a special event announcement. She’d used the entire kit, tucking part of the wavy string under her photo strip and using the large circles on her background as journaling blanks. Congratulations, family!
NHSoxGirl went minimalist with her layout, using the paper with the huge circles as a border for her large-and-in-charge photo.
Alasandra has used the whole kit, with a large-circle paper divider and the paper with the triangles on it cut in triangles to repeat a theme.
MarilynZ has added a word cloud, a soccer ball flair and a silhouette to her minikit. She slightly recoloured the photostrip. Using the large-circle paper as her background compliments the soccer theme.
The big-circle paper is pretty popular! Branma has it in her background too. She’s created a sweet little cluster with the flower elements and anchored her photos with the brads. Cute pup!
AnnieA has a cute series of photos in her photo strip. She’s used everything, with the big-circle paper forming more of a border around the tiny-heart paper. The cluster in the centre ensures the eye goes right to the photos.
I LOVE dhariana‘s use of white space here. I can see she resized the papers, adding a border mask to the tiny-heart paper in the background. There’s only a single photo, and every piece of the kit is visible. Very pretty!
The only part of the kit fontaine didn’t use was the paper with the triangles on it. She recoloured the photo strips and used them as ephemera, using the Paint Bucket to fill her background with the russet colour from one of the big circles. And her photo is masked so it spills over onto the paper behind it.
I so admire people who can use bold prints like these with such great results. Big, bold prints scare me! But not willow… she’s used them very nicely here, and turned one of the circles into a frame for her title.
PixyGirl has used it all, cutting the sides of the photo strip off, recolouring them yellow and using them as paper strips to anchor her photos. The photo strip makes another appearance, but separated into three independent frames.
I’ve never seen this effect jenazs has created before. It looks as though she’s turned her elements into overlays, allowing the papers’ patterns to show through. She has recoloured some of the flower elements with colours pulled from the papers and her photos and turned the brads into flair. Very interesting.
There’s a good amount of white space in this layout by mum23ms. She’s added some ricrac (maybe created using one of our tutorials?) and some splotchy paint behind her photo cluster. She clipped the big-circle paper to the photo strip – it took me several looks at it to figure that out!
Last but not least, we have this very inventive layout from Tbear. She’s used the whole kit, but in some unusual ways. The triangle paper has been snipped into tiny triangles, and scattered like confetti with some super-shrunken brads. The twine has been turned into stems for the flowers. The tiny heart paper has been desaturated somewhat and the big spot paper has been made smaller, duplicated and laid end-to-end to create a border along the bottom. I think this is my favourite of them all.
The first half of October has been unusually summery here in the Okanagan valley. But I see the forecast is showing a sudden descent into much chillier weather, bringing rain with it. I’m actually looking forward to it!
How many of last week’s fonts did you download? I picked up 14 of them! See you next week with a Quick Trick.
It is that time again. Time for the $1.00 Bake Sale at GingerScraps!! There are over 100 items for only $1.00 each. Whoop Whoop! Happy shopping.
Remember that with any purchase over $10.00 you will receive this months Free With Purchase Collab : Bootiful
Hello Scrappers! I hope you are enjoying your October! I’m loving all the fun Halloween/Fall festivities in my area. I’m taking lots of pictures to scrap too! I hope you are enjoying the spooky season so far.
Remember any $10 spent in the store gets you this great collab. Get ready for those Halloween pictures.
There are a lot of fall kits in this week’s Fresh Baked line up. Let’s see what’s new.
We are half way through the month, if you haven’t started on your challenges yet, you still have plenty of time! If you complete 10 challenges in October you will get this great kit as a reward!
October-y Fonts
PDF VERSION : https://bit.ly/3MB8f2u
The calendar says it’s fall, although where I am it’s still quite summery – I’m wearing shorts and flipflops, which is very much NOT October in Canada. The leaves are changing and the nights have a chill to them. So much inspiration for layouts, right? How about we look at some autumn-themed fonts for titles and journaling. And some dingbats too. All of them are free, from dafont.com and are linked so you can go right to them if you choose to grab them.
Autumn looks a lot like a vine, and is legible enough for journaling. It includes numerals and symbols as well as some alternate characters.
Autumn Pumkin is a more streamlined script that is also very versatile.
I like Autumn Leaves as a title font. It’s all upper-case, with a bunch of alternate characters and can be customized in so many ways.
Sketchy Autumn Dingbats can be incorporated into titles, filled with colour and turned into stickers or just resized and used much like a brush. The dingbats attached to the upper-case characters are different from the lower-case ones, so there are 52 sketchy little pics.
I like the simplicity of A Day in Autumn. It looks a little twiggy, a little leafy and is very legible so suitable for journaling. It has numerals and punctuation but no alternate characters.
LCR Autumn Harvest Dings is a limited collection of sketches. The characters A-P have dings attached. Don’t you love that scarecrow silhouette?
Falling is just a nice, curvy, script font; the only flaw is that it doesn’t include numerals.
KR Fabulous Fall is another 26-dingbat collection filled with leaves and other symbols of fall.
I think Harvest Fall would be ideal for subtitles, journaling and wordstrips. It has numerals, symbols and alternate characters galore!
WM Leaves 1 is another A-S dingbat font that includes a perfect Canadian-flag maple leaf. Yes please!
Tanaestal Doodle Leaves 01 looks like folk art. It includes 54 different shapes – upper- and lower-case and the period and comma keys have shapes attached.
Now, let’s do Hallowe’en! CF Halloween is up first. It’s an all-upper-case font with numerals but no punctuation.
I think Halloween Witches Script it my favourite, even though it doesn’t include the witch’s hat, spider or ghosts. It’s elegant and can (obviously) be combined with dingbats to make really fun text…
Dingbats like these! Freaky Halloween has it all.
Freaky Story is both creepy and refined. It’s another all-caps font, with the special characters hiding in the lower-case keys. It includes numerals and punctuation too.
Halloween is another fabulous assortment of dingbats you could use to customize your other fonts. What’s neat with this one is that the B, C and P keys give you the word “Halloween” plus some ghosts, bats, spiders and drippy blood. And it’s the only dingbat set I’ve seen that also has images attached to the number keys. Check it out!
Halloween Bell has 26 more themed dingbats.
I can see Spooky Halloween as a title font, can’t you? Unlike the other fancy fonts, this one DOES come with the fancy characters and you don’t even have to hunt for them. Numerals only though, no punctuation.
Halloween Rules doesn’t include those funky little skulls. I think it’s a cute-but-creepy, legible option.
I like Tricky Night for titles or subtitles. But don’t exclude it from journaling – it has numerals, punctuation and a bunch of alternate characters.
Last but not least, Spooky Webbie is cute, but still Halloween-y. It’s also the full package so you can use it for whatever your little heart desires.
Did you see anything that inspires you? I hope so!! Next week is Challenge Spotlight time, so I’ll be doing a Gallery crawl as soon as I recover from Canadian Thanksgiving…
PDF VERSION : https://bit.ly/3MB8f2u
