Welcome to the first Friday in October. Did you all enjoy DSD? Did you find some great deals in the store and enjoy the fun and games in the forum? We hope so.
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.
Have you started on your challenges? There are so many to chose from and when you complete 10 you will get this great kit as a reward.
Wimpychompers!
I had intended to bring you this transcript of my visit with Christina, aka Wimpychompers yesterday but life had other plans. Now, before I forget the important details, let’s get after it!
C: I admired the digital signatures people were using and wanted to learn how to make them. I started writing tutorials and learning Paint Shop Pro (I later switched to Photoshop). Eventually I found digital scrapbooking and moved to that!
J: I think most of us have been drawn to digi-scrapping by seeing what others have done and a desire to be just like them. What do you use to create your designs?
C: Photoshop with different actions and add-ons such as Alien Skin.
J: [Editor’s note: I’d never heard of Alien Skin and had to look it up. It’s called Exposure now and it looks crazy good! Standalone photo editor or PS/LR plug-in, free trial… might be worth a look!] Who or what motivates and inspires you as a designer? I’ve noticed many of your designs have a childlike influence.
C: Holidays, color palettes on Pinterest, clothing, inspiration is everywhere…
J: Oh, I know what you mean! When I’m shopping for kits, my mind is always sorting through my photos and significant events, and often layouts are creating themselves in my imagination. My family calls me The Brain that Never Sleeps. What one word would your friends and family use to describe you?
C: Pay off my house and loans (of course) as well as those of family members. My kids would have college paid for and we would save it until they are older of course.
J: Financial freedom is pretty sweet. But then your family would need to call you passionately generous! This next question is one I’ve give, a lot of thought. If time travel was possible, would you go back in time or ahead? Why?
C: Back to visit my kids when they were babies
J: So far, nobody I’ve asked that has chosen to visit the future. I wonder what that means. As an armchair genealogist, I have some ancestors I’d love to spend time with… I have questions!!!!!! If you could have a super power, what would you like it to be?
C: Time travel would be pretty awesome… or speedy travel so I could get to my parents faster (they moved away two years ago).
J: So would you be a Quantum-Leaper, going back and righting wrongs? Or just a curious visitor? Oops, forget I asked that! I think teleportation would be SO handy! Can you play a musical instrument?
C: I played flute all through school.
J: Did you see the You Tube video of Lizzo playing James Madison‘s crystal flute? That woman has mad skills!! And she’s 100% comfortable in her skin. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
C: I get social anxiety and I hate it!
J: No kidding! It’s such a hard thing to manage when you HAVE to be in certain social situations. I’m finding it really amps me up when I have to be out in public these days, because people have stopped thinking about COVID and I have a family member who could die from it. Knowing I’m going to dread going out makes me want to go out less and less. But that’s enough doom-and-gloom. Let’s end on a high note! What did you want to be when you were small?
I’m starting to think WordPress has it in for me… the formatting curse is REAL!!
Next month we have TWO Designers in the Spotlight. You’re not going to want to miss them! See you then. [Read more…]
Curvy Lines/Borders Method #2
PDF VERSION : https://bit.ly/3gdizBK
Hey ladies! I’m running behind today after being awake half the night, so this might break a bit late. I’ll be trying my darnedest to get it out on time. Today I’m going to show you another method for curved lines/borders using Photoshop Elements. This one is pretty easy, but there are a few steps.
Open up a new canvas on your workspace. Then choose the Custom Shapes Tool. The border I’ll make will have 4 layers, all created with the exact same Shape but looking quite different. [Editor’s note: Jan started out using Arrow 17 but didn’t like how it was turning out. The tutorial uses Arrow 14.]
To make a bit less work for us, I set a Fixed Size for the arrow Shape. I went with 12 in for the Width and 4 in for the Height. The easiest way to make sure the Shape ends up actually ON the canvas is to click along the left edge. Note that heavy outline on the Shape; that signifies that the Shape is a Smart Object. To do any of the following steps with it, it needs to be Simplified. If you’re working with Version 15 or newer, you’ll have a Simplify button right there with the Tool Options.
If you don’t see that button, right-click on the layer in the Layers Panel and choose Simplify Layer from the dropdown menu.
Now to dispense with the pointy part. Drag out a box around it with the Rectangular Marquee Tool.
Now, Edit>Cut or CTRL (Windows)/CMD (Mac)>X.
If you’re making waves and not a side border, you can skip this part.
These steps that follow are all subject to interpretation – they’re examples that show you HOW to make alterations, not orders!! Here I’ve Resized the curvy shape and Constrained Proportions so it looked exactly the same as before, only it extends from top edge to bottom edge.
If you want to make your curvy shape into a Clipping Mask, it may be necessary to fill in one side of the curvy part. Drag out a box with the Rectangular Marquee Tool, making sure the edge on the side you want to keep curvy doesn’t extend too far. Otherwise those nice swoops will get squared off.
Then just dump the Paint Bucket into the space!
To get rid of the box outline, Select>Deselect or CTRL/CMD>D.
This is just housekeeping.
The preceding steps will be repeated for each of the variations to follow. Turn off the finished layer’s Visiblity, change colours and let’s make another curve. I changed the Height to 5 in for this one. the curves come out a little tighter.
Rather than just Resizing it, I’m going to use the Image>Transform>Skew menu. In this option, only the corner ‘handles’ are active. You can move them horizontally or vertically.
Like this…
Then I stretched it top-to-bottom (NOT Constrained) so the left edge runs the full 12 in. This also changes the curve a bit.
Here’s how the first two layers look together.
Same shape, slightly different dimensions, very different look!
After beheading the arrow, I stretched the curve across the canvas. But it’s not different enough from the previous two, so…
I made a Copy layer: right-click>Duplicate Layer>OK or CTRL/CMD>J.
I moved one Copy so that it overlapped and aligned with the other Copy. Then the two layers need to be combined into one by Merging. Either activate both layers by click>SHIFT>clicking on them, right-click>Merge Layers… or CTRL/CMD>E. The Merged curvy shape extends off the canvas, but I’ll show you something that’ll help with that.
To see the whole extended curvy shape, Image>Resize>Reveal All. Boom!
Here you can see that my extended curvy shape is about 18 1/4 inches long.
Now let’s change the way the curves look. This time let’s use Image>Transform>Distort.
Distort has a lot more opportunities for weird. Each of the handles is active and can be moved horizontally, vertically and laterally until you see something you like.
All three shapes are visible now and I can move them around until I have a chartreuse curve I like. Once I’d made my choice, I went to the Crop Tool, set the size to 12×12 and Cropped the canvas.
Last one.
And again, I made a Copy, aligned and Merged.
There! Four curved border Clipping Masks, all ready to go. And they all came from the same source Shape.
In case you wanted to see them in action, I Clipped some papers from this month’s Buffet kits to them and hit them with Drop Shadows.
I’ll be back tomorrow to introduce the October Designer Spotlight superstar…
PDF VERSION : https://bit.ly/3gdizBK
Hello October. If you remember last month, I was loving on pumpkin spice and fall. I think the designers were listening because there is a ton of fall kits. But first!!! Are you participating in DSD? There is so much going on in both the forum and the store. Head over to the forum and check out the fun and games.
Now let’s look at the Buffet. We’ll start off with our Buffet Bundles. One easy click to add bundles of Buffet goodies to your cart.
Again, I’m loving the fall vibe here. And the designers have given so many things to chose from. 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. Great kit for those Halloween pictures.
This Free With Purchase was created by HeartMade Scrapbook, Heather Z Scraps, LDragDesigns, and Wimpychompers.
The collab includes: 1 Alpha {Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers & Punctuation}, 47 Papers and 84 Elements.
I LOVE this Monthly Mix. It’s a {pumpkin palooza}!
The Monthly Mix was created by CarolW Designs, Chere Kaye Designs, Dagilicious, and Laurie’s Scraps.
The collab includes 1 Alpha {Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers & Punctuation}, 50 Papers, 75 Elements.
Now to the October Daily Download Sneak Peek. This month’s Daily Download is from Wimpychompers! Make sure you are checking the blog every day to get all the pieces of this kit!
We are excited to announce that Cindy Ritter Designs is permanently joining the GingerScraps family.
Take a look at the new challenge reward kit. If you complete any 10 challenges this month, you get this gorgeous collab as a reward!
This collab was created by Designs by Lisa Minor, Ilonkas Designs, Key Lime Digi Design, and Scrappin’ Serenity.
This collab includes: 1 Alpha {Lowercase Only}, 55 Papers, 86 Elements.
Hold onto your computer mice my friends, we’re going to have some fun. Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day (week)! A week because we can’t just celebrate something like this on one day (or weekend).
There are a lot of new items from the designers in this post, but please make sure to check out the store for even more goodies.
One of the great things about a celebration at GingerScraps is the Free with Purchase Mega. Spend $20 in the store and get this fabulous kit. I’m ready to {relax & rejuvenate}.
This great kits is a free with any purchase over $10 today.
This is just a sampling of the new and fun kits, grab bags, and sales in the store.
You still have time to get your September challenges in. Complete 10 challenges and get this kit as a reward.
UNZIP Me Dahling! Updated
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3dRjg2U
It’s been a bit of a gong show at our house recently (my parents and 2 of my siblings have been down with COVID) and I’m running about 3 days behind. So rather than give you a nothing-burger tutorial, I’m going to update an older one that might come in handy in the very near future.
I don’t know about you but I will never have too many digikits!! But being a digikit hoarder has its downside… All those kits have to be unzipped and organized. Who has time for that? And then there’s Digital Scrapbooking Day (well, more like DSWeek!) coming up in no time, with all the fantastic new products it brings with it. That you’re going to want to play with right away. What to do, what to do?
I’ll be the first to admit that my downloads folder is a mess.
I’m trying to develop some better work habits, and keeping on top of unzipping is one thing that would really make a difference. So I’m going to show you a terrific app I found that lets me unzip multiple files with only a few keystrokes. It’s called Extract Now (clickable link) and it’s FREE! I work in Windows, but there’s a Mac version too. I’m guessing it’s similar in layout and behaviour, but I can’t say that for sure. I’ve tried a few others, one of which carried a virus… and this is the one I liked best for its ease of use. It’s on my taskbar now for ease of access. The menu looks like the image below. (For newer readers, WSNH is code for Work Smart, Not Hard!)
There are several ways you can customize the performance of the app. I don’t use a lot of them, but the ones I do use include letting it check for its own updates and turning off the sounds. I’m surrounded by noise all day every day (if you’ve ever lived in a housing development under construction, you’ll know what I mean), so I don’t want a bunch of added noise in my environment if I can turn it off.
In the Process tab, you can tell it what to do with the zip folders after they’ve been extracted. At first I had the app delete them as soon as they were extracted, but I had to retrieve some stuff and now I manually delete them.
This is where Extract Now really shines. You can designate exactly where your unzipped files are sent by using the Destination tab. I had it set up to extract everything into a Downloads subfolder, but found I left things in there forever and eventually forgot about them. The Help button is really useful at showing you how to customize the app for your purposes.
I create a new folder for each kit I’ve downloaded. If you’re into keyboard shortcuts, hit CTRL/CMD>Shift>N and you’ll have a new folder you can call whatever you want.
Over the years I’ve refined how I manage my digikits. They all go into their own folder, which later becomes a subfolder within my store folders. I name them all with the same format, designer’s name and kit name spelled out in full. That makes it so much easier to find what I’m looking for later, and it helps too with credits when I post my layouts to various galleries.
I select all the zipped folders for each kit by clicking on the first one on the list, CTRL/CMD>clicking on the last one and voilà!! Then I can open up Extract Now and drag them onto the menu.
When I click on Extract, a submenu opens asking me where I want the files to go. This is when I find the new folder I’ve created for the kit in my Downloads folder and click on it.
Click on OK to All and the app goes to work.
You can watch the progress as your files are extracted. When all the files are successfully unzipped, you’ll see green check-marks next to each one and there’s a new button activated at the bottom right. Click on Clear and all the files are removed from your app workspace. I can extract several dozen files in a matter of a couple of minutes with this useful tool.
Like I said, I choose to manually delete the zipped folders from my kit folder, which is super-simple because they’re all still selected. After I minimize or close Extract Now, I only have to right-click on the selected files and choose Delete from the menu.
We all have much better things to do with our time than extract one file at a time, right?! Give it a try and see what you think. (You can always remove the app if it doesn’t work out for you.) October 1 will be here before we know it. Now go get your scrap on!
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3dRjg2U
Welcome to another Friday. How has your week gone? Mine has been busy. I’ll be glad for the weekend.
Remember, if you spend $10 in the store, you get this great collab for free.
Let’s see what is new in the store this week.
Have you grabbed the September Monthly Mix? Only a few more days to grab this great collab at a great price.
And how are those challenges going? One more week to get them done. Any 10 completed challenges gets you this collab as a reward.
Spotlight Challenge: Recipe
Have you ever taken part in the Recipe Challenge? It’s a lot of fun! Hosted by Sweet Pea Designs‘ Penny, the basic objective is to take the Ingredients List and create a layout. Sometimes, there are additional Directions – for example, “Place one of your photos in the top left quadrant of the layout” – that are required to meet the Challenge goals. Participants can add to the Recipe if they want to, but MUST follow the basic Ingredients List. Let’s take a closer look. Here’s the September Recipe.
There have been quite a few layouts posted for this Challenge. We’ll check them out and see how each GingerScrapper has met the requirements. Each layout is in the order it was uploaded and is linked to the Challenge Gallery so you can see them in greater detail and leave some praise, if you’re so inclined. Just click on the GingerScrapper‘s user name.
First up is Windswept. Her first-day-of-school layout has each of the required ingredients, and she’s added an extra journal card.
This layout from alexandergirl68 ticks all the boxes, and then some. I needed to take a good look to see the ‘bling’ – gold lettering on the large flair. Very subtle!
KatherineWoodin‘s layout seems to be missing the pocket card. Do you see one? I love the visual impact of her arrangement.
I had to look for the bling on jenazs‘ layout too; it’s a subtle glitter spray behind her clusters. The pocket card is the size of a postage stamp, so it’s there but not center-stage. That crocheted border though!!
I LOVE this one from ElkFan! The kit she chose coordinates perfectly with her photo. The glittery paint, the little fishes, the lacy border… just beautiful!
Jill‘s layout just jumps out of the Gallery. The bright colour palette against that dark background is stunning.
The beach photo that inspired khoskins‘ layout really pops and is beautifully supported by her tiny clusters. The very narrow white border around the photo was the right choice. Simple elegance.
Could this layout be any cuter? I’m not sure I see a flair, but kristal has all the other goodies in there.
Using a paint swatch as a pocket card, as basketladyaudrey has done, is genius! And her interpretation of bling, a pearl dangle, is also brilliant.
Lisa Campbell chose to pull colours from her photos, then supplement them with themed elements. Love the sparkly crown that suggests the Magic Kingdom.
Daydreamer understood the assignment. Such a cheerful, colourful layout is an attention-grabber. Glitter paper… YES!
The woodgrain and plaid papers and hinges play to all the fallen leaves in the background of robinoes66‘s photo. Is there a hidden pocket card somewhere?
And last but not least, curio has created a simple but eye-catching layout. I like how she’s used the offset purple frame to draw the eye to the focal point of her photo. And the paper lanterns are amazing!
Have you been playing along with the monthly Challenges? Which one is your favourite? Maybe we’ll feature it next month!
Happy Friday! We’re already halfway through September. How is the month going so fast?
Remember, if you spend $10 in the store, you get this great collab for free.
Let’s look at all the new goodies in the store this week.
And along with all the great new kits in the store this week, we also have the Bake Sale going on. Each of these great kits are just $1 each.
Realistic Folded Paper Shapes
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3qGmUPF
I got a message from one of my most faithful readers, Karen Hampton, the other day. She had downloaded the Sweetheart template freebie that went out in Neia’s newsletter and was disappointed to find that although there’s a cute folded-paper heart on the layout, clipping a paper to the layer didn’t also recreate the folded-paper effect. She said she thought she could do it herself, but was very unhappy with the results. She was on the right track, but may have missed a couple of nuances. She asked if I’d do a tut, and here we are!
My example will start out showing a newsprint background paper that disappears a few steps in. You’ll probably figure out for yourself why that happened. 😉
Open up a canvas. Mine’s 12×12, as usual. Drag and drop a background if you want. Or don’t. We’ll start out with the Custom Shape Tool, aka the Cookie Cutter Tool. Pick a foreground colour that you can easily see. I’m going with the absolute most simple options here but if you want to, use the Tool Options to get a perfect shape. I’ll use the heart, since the template has a heart, but this’ll work with other shapes too. To more easily see the changes made with each step I’m going to use a plain, solid red paper. The technique works just as well on patterned paper too.
I dragged out a good-sized heart using the Custom Shape Tool. Note the solid line around the edge of the heart. That is one clue that the heart is a Smart Object. Another clue is that there’s a little icon in the lower right corner of the Layer Thumbnail that doesn’t show up on layers containing dumb objects. Before we can manipulate anything about that shape other than to resize it, it must be Simplified. In more recent versions of Elements, there’s actually a Simplify button in the Tool Options.
If your version doesn’t have that, you can accomplish the same thing by right-clicking on the layer to activate it and choosing Simplify Layer from the drop-down menu.
Here’s my red paper. To Clip it to the shape, right-click on the paper layer and choose Create Clipping Mask. If you’d rather use a keyboard shortcut, CTRL/CMD>G works with versions Elements 14 and previous. If you’re using Elements 15 or newer, that shortcut Groups Layers – which could be useful but doesn’t do what’s needed here. For you, the keyboard shortcut is CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>G.
Once the paper is Clipped to the shape, the two layers can be Linked by clicking on the little grayed-out symbol on the left edge of the layers, which keeps the layers together if one is moved or resized. I prefer to Merge them into a single layer so I don’t leave part behind or do a bunch or work on the wrong layer. Click>SHIFT>click on the layers to activate them then right-click and choose Merge Layers or CTRL/CMD>E.
To create the appearance of a fold, we’ll use the Burn Tool. The icon looks like an “OK” hand signal (or half of Heidi Klum‘s opera glasses, for those of you who watch America’s Got Talent). Select a small hard round brush from the Brush Picker. 20 pixels is a good size. Set the Range to Shadows and the Exposure to 100%. What this Tool does is darken whatever it covers, but keeps the underlying colour.
This is a hot tip: When using the Dodge and Burn Tools, to get the smoothest transitions, start your action OUTSIDE the object you’re altering. The effect will only be applied to the actual object on the active layer – it won’t touch anything underneath it! And to create a straight line, click>HOLD THE SHIFT>click. So I started my shadowy fold line by clicking off the red paper at the centre-top V on the heart (the upper + sign), held the SHIFT key down while I moved the cursor to below and outside the pointed end of the heart and clicked again (the bottom + sign). As long as you keep the SHIFT key pressed, Elements will know it’s drawing a line between clicks.
Still working with the Burn Tool set to Shadows, change the Brush to a BIG soft brush. You can resize your Brush two different ways. One is to use the slider in the Tool Options. The other is to use the keyboard. [ makes the brush smaller, ] makes it larger. Choose a brush size that covers about 2/3 of one side of the heart.
I like to have the utmost control over everything (Type A/OCD/ADHD??) so for this step I’ve turned on the Grid. View>Grid or CTRL/CMD>’ This way I can be sure the shading is oriented properly and that I’m starting and stopping in a straight line.
This screenshot expands on what I was saying about starting the Burn OUTSIDE the heart. I have my big, soft brush overlapping the fold by a bit (I think it looks more realistic, but you can line up the Burn with the fold if you want). I’ve shifted the left edge over 2 spaces past the fold. Click>HOLD THE SHIFT DOWN>click and there’s a nice shadow there.
If 100% isn’t quite as shadowed as you’d like, simply KEEP THE SHIFT KEY DOWN, move the cursor back to the first position and click again. If you click without holding down the SHIFT key you’ll be starting a new path and will be making work for yourself. Does that make sense?
To make the right side of the heart look a bit curved, change to the Dodge Tool – the one that looks like that paddle the optometrist uses to cover one eye. Keep your big soft brush but make it about 25% smaller than your Burn brush was; set the Range to Highlights and the Exposure to about 20%. Repeat the same steps you used to create the shaded part. One pass should be enough. Can you see the curve?
Once you’ve figured out your light source you can position your heart and add a nice cast shadow. And that’s it!
Let me know how this works for you. I’m always open to questions and suggestions through Private Messages. [User name ObiJanKenobi] See you next week!
PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3qGmUPF
