Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

November 16, 2021 by

Holiday Memories Start with Photos – a Review

It seems like we’ve all been through so much the last couple of years. Last Thanksgiving in the United States, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging, a lot of families opted to cancel their usual big gatherings to protect each other from the virus. Others went ahead with their traditions, then wished they hadn’t. Then there were the lucky ones with the best of both worlds. Quite a few things have changed for this year, access to a safe, effective vaccine being a big one. So maybe this year, traditions can be upheld without as much angst, although modifications might still be needed. Our layouts have gradually shifted to more hopeful thoughts, and the pandemic has been interwoven as a part of life as we know it. This run-up to Christmas and then the New Year may take a bit more planning than before, and planning how we’re going to memorialize our celebrations should be a priority too. We’ve played with a lot of techniques for editing our photos to make them worthy of scrapping, but why not skip a step (or ten)? Let’s review some tips for taking better photos. I know we’ve already talked about that before, but a few reminders probably won’t go amiss. Whether your photos are caught with a point-and-shoot, a high-end DSLR or a cell phone, there are some things you can do to get great photos.

  • Right now, right this minute, make sure your camera battery is fully charged. If they’re replaceable batteries, put fresh ones in your camera NOW!
  • Make sure you have an empty memory card (fully formatted, of course!) in your camera and a couple of spares so you won’t run out of space. If you’re using your phone, you should move some photos from your internal storage to your computer so you’ll have room for the new ones.
  • Think about how your typical holiday events usually evolve. There will be some traditions that are carried out no matter whose house you’re having the celebrations at, so plan ahead to capture those moments. Make a list, if you need to.
  • If you haven’t done it lately, review the manual that came with your camera. Review the settings and modes you’re most likely to use for your shots and remind yourself what each is doing while you’re shooting. I use the metadata from my most successful bokeh and full moon shots to set my camera up ahead of time so I don’t miss the shot.
  • Practice a few creative techniques that you can memorize so that when you’re ready to take photos of the candles on your dinner table or that gloriously brown turkey, you won’t have to fumble.
  • Refamiliarize yourself with your tripod, if you use one. I have two – an aluminum ball-head one that allows infinite adjustments but takes a lot of room and needs to be set up ahead of time and a Platypod Max, which looks like a little travel iron but is actually a very clever and sturdy tripod that can be set up in minutes on any surface. Why use a tripod? It lets you take longer exposures while keeping the images tack-sharp and it lets you be in the photo! Use the built-in timer and get in FRONT of the lens for a change.
  • Keep an eye on the lighting. Natural light from a big window is fantastic, as long as it’s not backlighting your subject. This is especially important for those group shots we all love. You want everyone’s face to be evenly lit, without harsh shadows everywhere. So maybe turn on some lamps so your flash won’t be so startling. Shoot a couple of test shots so you can see what needs to be tweaked.
  • Get in close to your subject! This “rule is even more valuable when that subject is a child. Get down on their level whenever possible so you capture their best smiles. Shooting from above should be reserved for those special-effect shots, not photos of kids having fun. For the most natural photos of people though, you can use a telephoto lens and shoot them from some distance. (As long as the light is right!) Some of the most memorable photos are those taken when the subject is unaware they’re being snapped. They’re relaxed, and acting naturally; smiles are genuine and emotion is often quite palpable.
  • Don’t insist on smiles. You know what I mean… those cheesy grins aren’t going to be your favourite images. Rather than having everybody say “cheese” for your group shots, have them say “family” or “money” or “gotcha”. You could go with a made-up phrase, such as “moldy mozzarella”. Another trick is to tell everyone you’re going to shoot on “3”, then count, “1… 2… (shoot) WHOOPS 3!” then shoot a second shot right after that. You’ll get some natural smiles that way.
  • When taking photos of food, again, get in close and vary the angles. Show the flaky texture of that piecrust, the glisten of the done-to-perfection skin on your turkey, the creaminess of your mashed potatoes, the detail of the frosting on your cupcakes. (That reminds me, I need to get some baking done!)
  • Do you take photos of your Christmas decor? If you’re getting harsh shadows and lots of glare, you can drastically reduce the odds of that occurring by using a big sheet of white cardboard as a reflector. (Dollar store foam core board is perfect for this.) It’ll bounce and soften the light in your space to produce much more even lighting and much more interesting images. Hold it at an angle to the source of your light (windows, lamps, even your flash) so the light is reflected at an angle too. If you’re using a flash and find it too harsh, you can wrap a tissue around it or in front of it and diffuse the light that way. Here’s where test shots are really time-savers.
  • Composition is key for any photo. Remember the rule of thirds, but don’t be a slave to it. Decide what your focal point will be and compose your photo to make it so – use leading lines where possible and don’t forget white space. Crop your photos in the viewfinder – so much less work later! And don’t forget the background. Is there anything growing out of someone’s head? Take a step to one side or the other and recompose.
  • Take LOTS of photos. Take several of each subject from different angles and distances so you have a choice of which one is best. More is definitely better!
  • This just popped into my head… Instead of an Ugly Christmas Sweater event, maybe this year you could do Ugly Christmas Masks. We’re still masking indoors in public here, with a government mandate. It’s such a small thing, but with such great potential for safer interactions.
  • We should take a moment to talk about safety. If you’re taking photos of weather phenomena (like the “atmospheric river” that just devastated the Pacific Northwest), landscapes or nature, do it safely!! People have died trying to take that one spectacular photo. I don’t want it to be you!
  • Last but not least, have FUN!

Next week I’ll be compiling a Challenge Spotlight post. Maybe one of your layouts will find its way onto the GingerScraps Blog.

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3FXyoDW

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

November 9, 2021 by

Pleated Paper? Maybe…

The other day I got a private message from Ginger, whose working title is Dandelion Dust Designs. “I’ve had some customers and CT members fall in love with this LO in the GS Gallery and would love a tutorial on how to do that amazing layered/shadow work on the left side of the page, if and when you have time as a future tutorial! Thank you!!” The layout she’s talking about is this one, wvsandy‘s Use It All challenge layout, and it’s FABULOUS! (I’ve linked it there so you can visit the Gallery and leave her some love.)

What follows is part of a literal scraplift of wvsandy‘s layout. As I was putting it together, I learned a few things about how layers work that I hadn’t known before, and so the screenshots are a bit muddled. I’ve tried to work around that to give you the most concise instructions and fewest extra steps that I can. Please tell me if you try this and come up with a better method! First off, I started with a blank 12×12 canvas on my workspace. (Obviously, you can make it whatever size you want. I just like 12×12!)

For best results this technique wants a light-coloured neutral background – otherwise the shadows that make it so awesome will be diminished. I’m using Jumpstart Designs‘ Good Friends Gather Here for my layout. (Sheri gave me a shout-out in her newsletter! Did you see it?)

Essentially, I’m creating a template for the paper strips/pleats in these next few steps. Looking at the inspiration layout, the paper strips along the left of the page don’t reach to the centre and there are 12 of them. So using the Custom Shape Tool, with the Rectangle shape selected, I set a Fixed Size of 5 inches wide, 1 inch tall for my “cookie cutter”. The foreground colour isn’t important for this but should be something that contrasts with the background. This Tool creates a “Smart Object” which can’t be altered in its original form and must be Simplified. In later versions of Elements, there’s a Simplify button right there in the Tool Options panel. If your version doesn’t have that, right-click on the layer and choose Simplify Layer from the dropdown menu.

Next step is to make a bunch of Copies of that paper strip template. The quickest and easiest way to do that is to click CTRL/CMD>J as many times as you need copies. Or you can right-click, Duplicate Layer>Ok for each copy.

All the Copies will be stacked up on top of the original paper strip and will need to be moved up or down the stack to create the column of strips.

Because I screenshot as I work my way through the techniques I show you, if I discover I’ve taken the LONG way to get where I’m going, the images won’t sync well with the text. And of course, I figured out after I’d gotten more than halfway through that I wasn’t taking the most sensible route to my destination. (GPS anyone?) Please read the text on the images and the text for each step to see where I’ve messed up. (It’ll be in red here…) I’m going to show you how to quickly and easily Align the edges of all those strips and Distribute them the length of the page. For the shadowing to work best, the strip layer at the BOTTOM of the layer stack goes to the TOP corner of the page. So move that layer into place. 

Now, rather than what the image shows, you’ll move the strip at the TOP of the stack to the BOTTOM corner of the page. The rest of the strips will need to be moved up and down the stack later, but for now they can stay piled on top of each other.

To Align all the left edges of the strips with the left edge of the page, first we have to Select all the pertinent layers. Click on either the top or the bottom layer then hold down the SHIFT key and click on the one at the other end of the pile.

With the Move Tool active, look for the Tool Options at the lower left of the workspace. Click on the Align Left button and Elements will move all the strips so their left edges are aligned. With all the layers still Selected, click on Distribute Center as shown. Elements will move each strip so they’re evenly spaced down the page. If there’s a slight gap in the column, it could be that 3600 pixels isn’t exactly 12 inches. Just close the gap.

Then you can start Clipping papers to your strip templates. I’ll do three strips from each of four papers for mine, but you do you! Drag a paper on top of the first paper strip layer then right-click and choose Create Clipping Mask or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>G for Elements versions 13 and lower, CTRL/CMD>ALT>G for versions more recent. You’ll need to move the various layers up or down the Layers Panel to have them in the correct order.  You can drag them up or down or use the CTRL/CMD>[ key to move down, CTRL/CMD>] to move up.

You can shift each paper layer around while it’s just Clipped to the strip template so that the results are pleasing to your eye.

Before going any further, make one more Copy of the original paper strip template. It’s going to be the basis for the custom shadow layers we’ll be creating next.

Some template designers use black for shadows, some designers like a warmer, softer brown colour. Click on the foreground colour and make your choice.

The quickest way to change the colour of the shadow layer strip is to CTRL/CMD>click inside the Layer Thumbnail and use the Paint Bucket. Just click anywhere on the canvas. Or you can click Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color>Use Previous Layer as Clipping Mask.

Before going on, to minimize confusion I suggest Merging each paper to its strip template. Select both layers by CTRL/CMD>clicking on each layer (not the thumbnail though!) then right-click and choose Merge Layers, or simply click CTRL/CMD>E.

Now Move that shadow layer so that it’s underneath the layer at the top corner of the page.

To turn a black rectangle into a realistic shadow, it needs to peek out from under the paper and give the impression there’s space between the paper and whatever is underneath it. You can nudge the shadow layer down and to the right using your arrow keys, but to get a truly interesting shadow, let’s go a bit further. Image>Transform>Distort.

Grab the “handle” at the lower right corner of the shadow layer and click>drag it a bit to the right and down. Don’t go too far! If you did that in the default Move Tool Options, and that Constrain Proportions box is ticked, the shape of the strip won’t be changed, it’ll just be bigger…

To further refine the shadow, let’s play with the Smudge Tool! The icon is a gloved finger. This tool is really versatile, but it’s easy to overdo it and sometimes the preview of it lags a bit behind its action. So a gentle touch is essential. I like to use a large diameter brush for creating a bit of a curve along an edge, then a much smaller one to pull a corner or tip out and over. Think of it like moving a pile of flour on the counter. If you use a glass and push it, you’ll get a curve. If you use a knife to pull it, you’ll get a tail. That’s how this tool works.

So now we have a very sharp, harsh shadow. Ew. Let’s hit it with a Filter! Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

The slider adjusts the degree of blur applied to the image.

Achieving realistic shadows also requires a change to the Blend Mode. Why? Well, you want to be able to see what’s underneath the shadow, but you still want it to have good saturation. Leaving it “Normal” means it’s opaque and completely conceals what’s below. Linear Burn and Color Burn both give the layer transparency so pick the one you like.

But it’s still harsh. So I’m going to lower the Opacity of the layer to 45%.

See how the edge of the paper layer below the shadow is visible? That’s the goal!

Now that we’ve made a nice shadow layer, let’s make a bunch of Copies! Same process as for the paper strip template layers. One for each paper strip. CTRL/CMD>J times x.

And just like all those paper strip templates, the shadow layers are piled up. Move them as you did the paper strips so that there’s a shadow layer under each paper strip and nudge it into place.

Again, let’s minimize confusion. If you turn the visibility of all the shadow layers but the one you’re working with off, it’ll make it easier to see what’s happening with it.

Here’s another option for moving layers around in the stack.

Here’s the almost-there arrangement of paper and shadow. It looks good!

Once each layer is shadowed, you might want to further tweak the shadows so it doesn’t look too perfect. Nudge some of them down a tiny bit more. Pull out your Smudger again. But make your changes subtle!

My finished scraplift will be my Inspiration challenge layout. I used some word art from Jumpstart’s Gracious Heart Graced Life (the not-so-secret add-on part!) and used a Gradient Fill layer to make it work better with my photo and papers. I love it!

See you all next week!!

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/32PvjYw

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Review)

November 2, 2021 by

Navigating the Wide World of GingerScraps Digital Scrapbooking

Greetings GingerScrappers! I know you were all waiting patiently for a new tutorial today, but I’m sorry to report the tutorial technique I was creating for you didn’t work! I’ve been playing with it for 2 solid days, can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong and have run out of ideas for getting the thing to run properly. I hate when that happens! Rather than leaving y’all hanging. I thought I’d revisit a previous tutorial about navigating the world of digital scrapbooking websites for our ever-growing family of new members. It’s from May 2018, so it may be a bit dated…

Pickymom is a new member of the GingerScraps family (well, she WAS, in May 2018! She’s a pro now!). She posted a request for help with navigating the various features in the Forum in the Help!! thread and when I read it, I was immediately thrown back nearly a decade to my first feeble attempts at establishing my own online digiscrapping presence. I remembered how it seemed like I was never going to understand how to do things in online forums, despite having been a moderator of an online community for several years already. So, with her permission, I decided it might be a good use of this space to help the new members of our family get their feet wet and start reaping the benefits of our amazing site.

You’ll want to have at least two browser tabs open to GingerScraps so you can move between them as we work through the lesson.

My Profile has a series of options for telling others who you are, and it’s pretty straight-forward so I’m going to skip that part. First I’d like to show you the quickest, easiest and least taxing method of adding a photo to your profile. Since I already have a profile photo, the steps show how to change the photo, but they’re exactly the same for getting one out there for the first time, there just won’t be an image there for you to change. Make sure you’re on the Forum page and click on the Settings button.

On the left side of the Settings page is the menu that allows you to customize to your heart’s content.

Under the My Profile heading, click on the Edit Profile Picture button.

I’m going to pretend that the photos you’re seeing are recent. (They’re REALLY not. 🙁 ) As I said, I already had a profile photo so I changed it to allow you to see how easy it is. You can use photos from a website by using the first box, labeled Option 1. So if you have a photo you like posted to Flickr, (or Facebook, Instagram etc) for example, you could copy the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) where the photo is and paste it into that first box. To do that you would open a browser tab to the place where your photo is, highlight the text in the address box at the top of your browser screen then right-click and select Copy (CTRL/CMD>C); then go back to the tab with your Settings menu open, put the cursor in the first box (If you have a photo online…), right-click and select Paste (CTRL/CMD>V). Alternatively, if you have a photo on your computer that you’d like to use, then you’d use Option 2. Click on Choose File next to that second box (If you’re uploading a photo…), then find the photo on your computer.

I’m giving you a peek into my cluttered mind and messy desktop here. Yep, I have LOTS of browser tabs open, all the time, and I have a long list of links on my Toolbar. I’ve found the folder with my photo in it, then chose the photo I want to use. As the screenshot says, SIZE MATTERS. For profile photos, which are the ones people will see when they look at your PROFILE, not your Forum posts, your photo must be no larger than 300 x 300 pixels or 976.6 kilobytes, whichever is smaller. You can hover your cursor over the image in your folder to see the dimensions of your photo so you won’t make the mistake of choosing a photo that will be rejected.

After you’ve clicked on the thumbnail image of your photo, click on Open.

Once you’ve opened your photo you can see how it’ll appear on your profile. I decided I didn’t like this one after all. But if I had liked it, I would have clicked on Save Changes and carried on.

I just followed that first step again to choose a different photo, Opened it and Saved the Changes.

Yes, that’s what I like!

Now we can work on the photo people see in the Forum when you post questions, comments or layouts. This photo is called an Avatar. It doesn’t have to be a photo of you, it can be anything you want it to be. I’m rather partial to Bitmojis myself.

In the same Settings menu, click on Edit Avatar. Here again, you can use an online image, say from Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. The steps to do this are exactly the same as for the Profile Picture… with one significant difference.

As you can see in the screenshot, I have photos of me, flowers from my garden and memes I found online and saved for later. The photo I chose to use for my Avatar for this lesson is one that was taken at a wedding in Jamaica 3 years ago. I checked to make sure it would work as an avatar by hovering my cursor over it.

Here’s where that significant difference comes in. The MAXIMUM size for avatars is 150 x 150 pixels, or 1.91 megabytes, whichever is smaller. Since I’d already checked that out, I knew this photo would be fine and I clicked Save Changes.

Let’s do a Signature now. A while back I wrote a tut about creating original signatures for the Forum; you can find it here. I always save my signature files as .pngs so if I have rounded corners, elements extending out from the main part of the siggie or I want a transparent background, it’ll look the way I want it to when I use it. I also save them slightly smaller than the maximum size allowed because I want it to be a footnote, not the focus! For this feature, you will need to post your signature image to the Gallery, where you’ll get the image location data to put it into your profile. Have that Gallery tab open to your siggie. The screenshot below shows the existing signature and the Editor.

I like my signature to be centered at the bottom of my posts, so I click on the icon shown below. To remove my old siggie from March’s Signature Challenge, I clicked on the image that is now blue in the screenshot. Then I hit the Delete button on my keyboard and it went away.

Then I went to my Gallery tab and right-clicked on my May Signature Challenge signature itself. This option box opened up, where I chose Copy Image Address.

Moving back to the Settings menu browser tab, I clicked on the Insert Image link as I’m showing you below.

Then I pasted the data I copied from my Gallery image into the box and clicked OK.

In the screenshot, you can see both the old siggie and the new one. You have the choice of Previewing it or just Saving it.

Here’s a Forum post with both my new Avatar and my new Signature on it.

These methods work identically when you want to post a layout to a Challenge thread in the Forum. I highly recommend having two GingerScraps tabs open in your browser and simply moving back and forth between them, Working Smart, Not Hard. Go to your layout in the Gallery, right-click the image, Copy Image Address then navigate back to the Challenge thread. Select that Insert Image icon, paste the Image Address into the box and click OK. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the first page of a thread or the last, you can compose your post at the bottom of the screen and the site will automatically move it to the end of the thread.

These Tutorial Tuesday Blog posts are all tagged with Tutorial Tuesday. If you don’t want to bookmark them (or aren’t sure how) for future reference, you can always just type Tutorial Tuesday into the search bar up in the right corner of the main Blog screen and the site will find them all for you, in reverse order. If you know a key word that appeared somewhere in the post, you can also use that to find the post again. As with everything else in life, the more you do a task, the easier it becomes and the less thought you have to put into it. But… update for late 2021… Ginger has been converting each new tutorial into PDF files that can be downloaded and saved to your computer for posterity! Those of us who’ve been here for a long time sometimes forget how lost we felt in the beginning; as Pickymom said in her initial post, technology is still a challenge for people who grew up without it. But the best part of the GingerScraps community is that help is always a couple of clicks away!

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3k7B9dn

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

Designer Spotlight (November 2021)

November 2, 2021 by

Jumpstart Designs!

How the heck is it November already? Before we know it, Christmas will be here… and Jan won’t be ready. Given! New month, new Designer Spotlight. This month I’m chatting with Sheri, the creative mind behind Jumpstart Designs. Sheri is a relative newcomer to GingerScraps, but I’ve known her for years and was so happy when she joined our little digi-family. (She might not remember, but once upon a time I was on her creative team.) Our chat went sort of like this…

J: Sheri, let’s get the business part of this out of the way first. Tell me how long you’ve been designing.

S: Ten years this last July!

J: Wow, you’ve done a TON of designing in that time. Your (amazing) portfolio is HUGE! Where do you do your best work?

S: Our main family room is kind of long so I use one end of it for my office because I have windows on two sides that keeps this beautiful fall sunshine coming in. I have a desk with three large monitors because I’ve always got Photoshop, Illustrator, multiple folders, and several different browsers and tabs open all the time. I generally have music or television streaming in the background. I just recently purchased a new PC system and a stand-alone disk station. My “techie” son keeps my system in optimal working order, and I have no idea how I would do this without his help because it seems like something is always needing to be fixed or tweaked. I also have a tablet and just recently got an iPad so I can play around in Procreate. I keep my work area very organized because my brain is already in chaos mode, and I need all the structure I can get. Oh look! A shining thing! Or in my case… another email, memo, new event to add to the design calendar, or another deadline I’m running close to. I’m a great planner, but not nearly as good about keeping on top of it.

J: I think you do a brilliant job of keeping all those balls in the air. We’ve got the where, now let’s talk about the why. What inspires and motivates you?

S: Color, and spending time on Pinterest and similar sites. I always have a bunch of ideas of what I’d like to design and do differently but finding the extra time to play around with new ideas doesn’t seem to happen very often.

J: The way you use colour has always drawn me to your designs… which explains why I have a gigantic folder of your stuff. I won’t get into the whole Pinterest rabbit hole! Which of your current collections is your favourite and why?

S: EARLY AUTUMN WHISPERS. Fall is my favorite time of year and I wish it could stay autumn all year long! I try to enjoy every minute of this season before the cold and snow sets in.

J: Ooh, that’s a beautiful one! Oh look… it’s in my Downloads folder. How did that get there? 😉 Tell me, what one word would your family and friends use to describe you?

S: Probably “smart ass”. LOL (oops, that’s two words)

J: Right… okay! So what would you do if you won the lottery?

S: Probably buy just enough property in the mountains to build a few little homes so my kids and grandkids could all live with me forever. If I had my way, they’d be with me no matter how old they get! Oh yeah…. And I guess saving for retirement might also be good idea so I don’t have earn a living until my last dying breath.

J: We did something like that after my mother-in-law passed away. Except that our grandkids don’t live anywhere nearby and we haven’t seen them in a long time. But we have the mountains! And we’re both retired, so there’s that. Next up, a really odd question that I found on a human resources website: Are you more likely to sing, or to dance, in the shower?

S: Neither! I’d probably trip and fall over the edge of the tub, and God help anyone who’d have to hear my voice! That’s one talent I did NOT inherit from my parents. They were both musical and had a country-western band for many years. They were even good enough to play for President Ronald Reagan when he came through town back in the day, but it’s better for everyone if I don’t attempt singing myself! LOL

J: Wow! How cool is that? I love country music. But can you play a musical instrument?

S: I played the piano for many years but haven’t touched one in a long time. I also bang on our bongo drums now and then and have always thought it would be fun to be a drummer.

J: A minute ago you mentioned your parents and your grandkids. Speaking of both previous and succeeding generations, if you could travel through time, would you go forward, or back? Why?

S: BACK IN TIME for sure! I’m not too thrilled with society these days. I think we’ve lost our collective minds and I fear for how things will be for my children and grandchildren. I miss the good old days when most people valued self-reliance, integrity, and knew how to be respectful of others.

J: I hear you. We’ve really lost the best part of our society, where we all looked out for each other. There was a lot to be said for how much more respectful the world was a few decades ago. What has been the best compliment you’ve ever received?

S: That I must be a good mother because my children are awesome! Some days I question my parenting, but I’ll take that compliment any day!

J: Yes! I ‘ve always said our jobs as parents is to raise responsible, independent and genuine adults, with a good helping of courtesy and caring for others. What would your dream car be?

S: I’m an SUV sort of gal but ultimately I’d just like one that’s paid for, haha.

J: Hahaha! No car payment is a good place to be. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

S: Homemade tacos! Actually, anything Mexican with lots of cheese!

J: YUM!! Too bad I took pork chops out for supper tonight. Now, if you could have one superpower which one would you choose?

S: Being able to make time stand still.

J: Just think how much more we could get done in a day! (Or not. I’d probably just curl up with a book!) Aside from necessities, what one thing could you not go a day without?

S: Hugs from my grandkids!

J: I adore kids. All kids. If you came with a warning label, what would it say? Mine would say “Harmless old woman who WILL talk to your children in the grocery store”.

S: WARNING: Subject prone to sarcasm!

J: Maybe that’s why we get along! Last question, maybe the most difficult. Who would you want to play you in a movie about your life?

S: No clue but several years ago I was told that I looked like Jaime Pressly so many times that I finally had to watch that sitcom called “My Name Is Earl” just to see who she was. I think the only resemblance was in the “dumb blonde ponytail” I did sometimes. LOL

I don’t know anything about her, but I’d love to have her figure!

J: I can see the resemblance! I love the role she plays in “Mom“.

So ladies, Sheri’s entire store will be 50% off for the month, on top of her free Daily Download and Jumpstart Your Layout Challenge kit (and I can’t wait for them!!), maybe with some minor adjustments around Black Friday. She has given me permission to share a bunch of links with you, too. She has a highly-talented creative team, and you can see their work in Sheri’s Gallery. [Remember, whenever you see coloured text in my posts and it’s not someone’s name, there’s a hyperlink attached – just click and go!]

Newsletter

Facebook (and TWO freebies!! Here and here.)

Instagram

Pinterest

Thanks for chatting with me, Sheri! Enjoy your time in the Spotlight!!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

October 26, 2021 by

Use It All! Challenge Spotlight

The response to my Jumpstart Your Layout Challenge post showcasing YOUR layouts and YOUR individual style was so good, I’m going to choose one Challenge each month and shine a Spotlight on it. It’ll be the last post of the month and I think it’ll be really a lot of fun! This month I’ve chosen another Challenge that includes a FREE mini-kit, the Use It All Challenge with Karen Schulz.

Each month Karen provides a mini kit – shown above – but for this Challenge, ALL the items in the mini MUST be included in your layout. Karen’s Challenge minis are add-ons to larger kits she has in her store, so if you like the mini you’ll LOVE the full collection! (Find Trick or Treat here!) [Pssst… Karen has a little surprise in the download, but I’m not going to include it in the upcoming layout showcase. Only those layouts using the 6 papers, 5 elements and 1 word art in the preview are shown.] Let’s have a look at how YOU have been inspired by this mini!!

In this layout, willow has given us a layout that isn’t about Hallowe’en. I had to really look to see how she blended the arty background paper with the much brighter orange-and-plaid paper, so skillfully was it done. Her beaded flower clusters frame her masked photo and the graffiti piece grounds it.

Sweetpea2020 has used a variety of paper shapes to mat her photos. The pops of orange draw the eye and the curly ribbon provides a frame for them.

Here, Flighty-188 has also blended the arty paper with the brighter orange-plaid paper but in reverse, and she’s given the graffiti the look of an actual piece of screen. Add in the raffia bow in the upper left corner of her photo and the cluster in the opposite corner, and she’s made great use of a visual triangle to create movement around the layout.

AlyciaIN‘s layout made me smile. Her little Hermione looks like she’s levitating! The basics of her layout are similar to Flighty-188‘s but with the paper borders’ straight edges, it looks quite different. Can you see a visual triangle here?

This simple layout isn’t as simple as it looks! khoskins has stacked the papers in a pleasing arrangement, and turned the graffiti into a pretty anchor for her photos. I like how she framed her photos with black paper to bring them into focus. She also created her own custom tag using the brighter orange paper and word art very creatively.

By clipping the lighter-coloured paper to a mask on a black background, KatL has cleverly drawn the eye right to that grinning Jack. Placing the beaded flower off-centre on the raffia bow adds interest to the cluster and tilting the word art is a nice, informal touch.

 

The way galaviktor has spread out the sheets of paper form a pattern that frames her photos nicely. Creating a brushed border for the word art, she’s pulled the colour variations from the arty paper into focus.

Isn’t Zelda just the cutest girl on four legs? For all its simplicity, NHSoxGirl‘s layout is very eye-catching, and the heart paper behind the word art has a lot to do with it.

The interlocking paper-strip squares AJRandom has created here both ground and highlight her photos. I like how she’s tucked the ribbon between the photos and then anchored them with the beaded flowers. I just noticed that she’s positioned the paper with all the eyes on it so that only one set of eyes is peeking at us. LOVE it!!

What can I say about greenfiend27‘s layout? It’s genius! Her paper borders are shadowed beautifully to give the appearance of papers overlying each other. Blending the graffiti into the paper behind it and using it to anchor her cluster shows her creativity. Having the ribbon dangle adds focus to her cat’s beautiful eyes and her clever alterations to the word art is just the right whimsical touch. A+!

Can you believe that October will be over the next time we meet? There’s snow on the mountains already but none here in the valley yet. It’s crazy how quickly time flies. Considering how awful this year has been for so many people, I’m thinking the sooner 2021 is in the rearview mirror, the better.

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/2ZZoWAO

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (GingerScraps)

October 19, 2021 by

Giving Credit where Credit is Due

Or: Editing your Gallery images

Hi again ladies! Today I want to talk about something a bit more serious than usual. I’m going to do a Featured Challenge post next week, and have been perusing the Gallery to check out the layouts I want to include. I noticed that there are quite a few layouts that don’t include any credits; whether it’s an oversight or intentional, I don’t know. But I do know this. The Terms of Service at pretty much EVERY digiscrapping website that hosts a Gallery, and the Terms of Use included  by every designer in every kit include a requirement for providing proper credit to the designer(s) of the content the scrapper uses. I know that when I see a layout that’s exquisitely created, I’m going to look at credits to see which kit(s) the scrapper used so I can go shopping! If we think about it, giving credit to someone whose products inspire us and help us improve our skills should be automatic, as a courtesy if nothing else. And really, who wants to be accused of theft of intellectual property? Those who are new to our hobby may not realize they’re missing a step. And then there’s the well-known GingerScraps Gallery glitch that deletes some of the things we add to the first Upload screen that’s easy to overlook. (I think that might have been fixed, it hasn’t happened to me in a while.) But what can you do if your layout posts to the Gallery without that important information? Let me show you!

Here’s the layout I created for the Jumpstart Your Layout Challenge this month. At the bottom of the layout inside the red oval, the only detail that appears is the title I gave my layout. OOPS!

A quick word about titles… if you use a special character like a # or a @ or a ? for example, the Gallery uploader will lose everything you’ve typed AFTER the first of those characters. It’s going to mess up your Member Gallery but if you know ahead of time that will happen you can remember to follow these steps to fix it. Other things that may need to be changed in your layout’s details could be typos, omitted information, or an error on the layout itself that you’ve corrected already but the image you’re seeing is still the one with the mistake. When you click on My Photos and then choose the layout you need to fix, scroll down past the image until you see your avatar on the left, as shown. In that User Options box, click on Edit Photo.

When you upload a Challenge layout, if you want it to count for the Challenge Reward, it must be posted in the current month’s (and year’s!) Challenge Gallery. The website’s uploader default is to place uploaded images in the Member Gallery, which is fine, but not for being rewarded! (It’ll also sometimes default to the last Gallery you chose, or some other random Gallery, so check and see where it’s going!) This first change I’m making is to put my layout in the Jumpstart Your Layouts October 2021 album.

This next (optional) step is especially useful for people who create for designers on their Creative Teams. The layout can be Copied to other Galleries just by making a selection in the second dropdown. There’s also another advantage to using this Edit part of the uploader. If you put your layout into multiple albums when you first upload them, EACH of those copies will count as one of your 8 permitted daily uploads, but if you Copy them with the Edit feature, they only count once! Yeah, it’s an extra step and it’s a bit of a drag, but it’s a lot better than getting told you’ve already used up all your uploads for the day on only 2 or 3 layouts.

Okay, so let’s pretend you spotted a glaring typo in your title – maybe I spelled my title OTCBREO because I was tired, in a hurry and wanted to get my layout into the Gallery so I could go to bed. I get up this morning to several comments on my layout, all of them politely ignoring OTCBREO, but I’m still upset with myself that I didn’t notice it. So I open up my saved PSD version of my layout, fix my title, save it with a slightly different file name (more about that in a second) and now I want to post the corrected version instead of the trashed one. I can click on the Choose File button and select the corrected version to replace the other one. [If I didn’t Save my corrected layout with a slightly different file name, the uploader won’t know the image has been changed, and it’ll use the original one. So if you end up having to do this kind of big correction, add a number to the end of your file name and the uploader won’t be confused.] I can also fix the title if I notice it’s missing some special characters, or if in my addled, sleep-deprived state, I used the mis-spelled title here too. I also have the ability to add my credits here too, in the Photo Description section. Last, if I’ve changed my mind and don’t want to share my layout with the world after all, I can Delete it. It and everything I’ve typed about it will disappear forever. There’s no way to UNDO this step, so be really sure you can’t Edit it before you take this drastic step. When all the needed adjustments have been made, Submit changes.

Now everybody can see which kit and template I’ve used for my layout. The only time it’s not necessary to include credits is if you’re using Commercial Use products. Oh darn… I just realized I forgot one very important credit! Back to the Edit screen…

I neglected to give credit to my dear friend Sandy, the photographer who rescued Beau so that Beau could rescue her. She has graciously given me permission to use her photos for scrapping and deserves to be recognized for her talents too!

Now, which of this month’s Challenges should I Feature next week?

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3xD8rqw

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Fonts)

October 5, 2021 by

Fun Fonts for Layouts about Kids

It’s been a while since I did a post about fonts. I didn’t really think there were that many more “types” of fonts to explore but Ellen (gmae) pointed out to me that there are categories I’ve overlooked. I have to tell you about this because it blew my mind totally. Ellen has created a spreadsheet of ALL the tutorials I’ve posted here – all 240-some – and made it sortable by a bunch of different terms. The amount of work she put in just boggles my mind! An unintended result of all her work is that she’s made some very important suggestions about where I could take you all next. One of those suggestions was to explore some fonts specifically suited to layouts about children. So I spent some time at dafont.com, looking at hundreds of fonts and selected this baker’s dozen along with five sets of dingbats I think you’ll like. (And while I was there, I came up with some new categories to share later!) Okay so let’s get a look at what I like. PS… each font name is linked to the website for one-click access. And they’re all FREE!

First up is Cookie Dough. What kid doesn’t love cookies (other than my second daughter)? This would be a great choice for a title or for some custom word art.

Eye Monsta made me think of my two grandsons right away, especially A-boy. J-man is more cerebral and a bit less inclined toward monster-like behaviour. It’s another title-suitable font but is legible enough that it could be used for both subtitles and journaling too.

I like how solid Childhood is. It looks like it’s been filled in by a child and has a bit of grubby awesomeness too. Multi-use fonts are worth the download.

Space Out comes in two different styles. It’s another good title/word art font, don’t you think?

This font, Crayon Kids, looks like an older child was the writer. It can be fun for journaling and subtitles. It would also be a good choice for word art, when combined by a more fancy font.

I LOVE Calvin and Hobbes!! Did you see the cross-over to Bloom County? An adult Calvin (click to view) is tracked down by Opus and it’s perfect!

This cute font would make a good title, but is also legible enough for journaling. Helloo Kidos will be joining my collection.

Tiny Friends is like Eye Monsta… very child-oriented and fun. And it has so much potential for creative alterations!

I think Childhood Memories looks like it was hand=printed by an older child/teen. Great choice for journaling.

I like Amateur Comic for journaling too. It’s a bit less organized than Childhood Memories, but still easily read.

Another good font for journaling and subtitles is Gilles’ Comic Handwriting. It’s a nice blend of careful and a bit rushed.

Who doesn’t adore Lego? Toys comes with four different versions and has a lot of potential.

I think the name of this last font is totally appropriate. It’s Kindergarten!

Now I’ve got some dingbat collections for you. What are dingbats? They’re accessed as fonts, but instead of letters, each character is a drawing. They’re really a lot of fun and have a multitude of possibilities. The first set is called Seaside Things. The drawings are child-like, but not necessarily childish.

When my own kids were small, they all loved the Mr Men books. We had a box full of them and when I saw this set of dingbats, I was transported back to bedtime stories.

We can’t leave the girls out. Little Miss is a companion set to the Mr Men books and the dingbats too!

DT Rachel’s Toys is a bit more of a detailed set. I think there are a lot of ways these can be used.

And our last dingbat collection is MTF Sweet Dings. They’re all so cute!!

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the incredible choices you can find at dafont.com. There are other sources for free fonts too, if you’re interested. Next week I’m going to use two of the fonts and one of the dingbats to show you how to create your own word art. See if you can guess which ones. [Hint: I’m going to use it as a title for a layout featuring my granddaughter.] See you soon!

PDF Tutorial: https://bit.ly/3iBte7w

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

Designer Spotlight October 2021

October 3, 2021 by

Have You Met Christie (Scrappin’ Serenity)?

I’d like to introduce you all to Christie Dawn, whose wonderful designs are sold at GingerScraps under the Scrappin’ Serenity banner. We had a nice chat so I could know what to tell you about her. Here’s a transcript of our chat for your perusal.

J: Christie! So nice to see you! Let’s get comfy and get to know each other. First, tell me, how long have you been designing?

C: I started dabbling in 2009 and opened my first store in 2010! Wow…hard to believe it’s been 11 years!

J: Hey, that’s about the same time I started learning about digital scrapbooking. When I look at those first layouts, I cringe. I know why I wanted to start digiscrapping – saving money, not having to clean up, and being able to use kits over and over and over. What made you decide to design?

C: I was a stay at home mom, and I just needed an outlet.  I loved Scrapbooking, so I figured I might as well try it.

J: I didn’t actually start paper scrapping until 2005, long after my kiddos were grown up. When they were little I did things like counted cross-stitch and crochet. If digiscrapping would have been a thing then, I’d have been all over it! What do you use to create your designs?

C: I mostly design in Photoshop Elements 13, I should probably upgrade, but it still works, so why change!?

J: No kidding! If it ain’t broke… I do all of my digital stuff on a Dell laptop, sitting in a wing chair in my living room. Would you mind describing your design workplace?

C: Most of the time I work at home, downstairs, on my desktop.  But I do have a laptop I bring when we go camping and have worked from the RV many times.

J: My “other” creative space is a work-in-progress; I have so many boxes I haven’t even opened after our move… 17 months ago. Organizing it all is a big job! But back to you. Which of your current kits in the GS shop is your favourite? What makes it so?

C: Currently my Favorite Kit is – Gamer Girl.  We are big time gamers in my family!

J: My husband is a big gamer too. I’m not. Words with Friends is enough for me! Do you sing, or dance in the shower? I’ve been known to dance in mine a time or two…

C: Definitely Sing!  If I were to dance in the shower it would probably lead to a visit to the ER. lol.

J: I can relate – it didn’t end up in the ER but I discovered the shower base needed some no-skid strips that way. Here’s another odd-ball question: If time travel was possible, would you go back in time or ahead? Why?

C: I would go back in time and spend more time with my Granma.  Miss that lady so much!

J: I’d love to spend a few hours with my mom’s paternal grandmother. Maybe then I’d know more about her than just her name… Do you have a favourite colour? Are there any colours you really DON’T like?

C: Purple, Pink, Teal or Black are my favorite colors.  I tend to dislike oranges, yellows, and reds.

J: We’re kindred spirits! What would your dream car be?

C: A 1967 Mustang! We actually found one on FB market place and bought it about a year ago…but it still needs a lot of work!

J: How awesome is that?! Will you paint it purple? You don’t have to answer that. Last nosy question. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

C: Love me some Sushi!!

J: You can have ALL of mine. Thanks for letting us peek into your world. Now I should spend some time outside before it gets too cold. Enjoy your month in the Spotlight!

Faithful readers, Christie is hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge this month and is providing all of us with her Daily Download kit. And… she has this little gift for everybody. Check it out!!

Well. 2021 is 3/4 over already! I know most of us will be happy to have this year in the rear view mirror. See you again soon!

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Tips and Tricks)

September 28, 2021 by

It’s Almost DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING DAY!!

Hey all you GingerScrappers! Digital Scrapbooking Day is coming up fast!! It’s on Saturday, October 2 and it’s going to be a blast. But don’t let “Day” throw you off. It’s not just a day, it’s a week-long celebration of our hobby and it’s always epic. This year’s theme is just perfect. Ginger has given me the go-ahead to share this sneak peak with you. Drum roll please!

All the digital scrapbooking stores around the worldwide web have special events and sales. Here at GingerScraps, there are a bunch of grab bags specifically designed for DSD, special challenges, another scavenger hunt, and a free-with-$20-purchase MEGA collab. (I’ve seen the MEGA collab… you’re going to love it!!!! It has about 100 papers… and the palette is beautiful.) Other stores will have designer blog hops and special events on their sites too…

So start with a PLAN! Don’t just jump into the deep end. Check out the forums at your favourite stores to see what they have going on. Then make yourself a calendar of events. Set some reminders so you don’t miss the entry deadlines, speed scraps or chats. If you’ve ever missed out on something amazing by a matter of an hour, you’ll understand the need for some nudges.

Make sure you have hard drive space for your purchases and freebies. Or invest in some thumb drives or an EHD to transfer some of your older stuff to so you have lots of room for your downloads. That MEGA is going to need a bunch of room. Label this extra storage right away so you don’t forget what you’ve put on it. Forgetting to label them could mean you lose track of all the awesome kits you’ve moved and you don’t want that! I have a brand new 6TB EHD just waiting for me to fill it up.

Set a BUDGET! It’s way too easy to overspend when you’re surrounded by smokin’ hot deals, and PayPal makes it painless… until later. Figure out how much you have to spend, and stick with it. I usually save a bit of money so I can spend $20-25 per favourite digishop (I have 3 that I like a lot) without feeling guilty. (With the slightly stronger Canadian dollar this week, I might be able to make my money go a bit farther. As long as there isn’t some catastrophe here that causes our currency to tank. ‘Cause that’s never happened before….. 😉 )

Don’t feel obligated to participate in anything that isn’t going to make you happy. If you don’t have time to join in on the games in the Forum, don’t worry about it! If you aren’t into speed scraps, that’s great! Extra challenges might be fun, but if you have better things to do, you have better things to do. Freebies take up a lot of space, both on your computer and in your head; if you don’t think you’ll ever use what the designer is giving away, you don’t have to take it. This is especially true of blog hop freebies; the topic and palette may be really exciting, but there will be some designers’ contributions that don’t fit into your style of scrapping, so don’t download them. Believe me, you won’t miss them.

While you’re waiting for the festivities to begin, go through your photos and choose some for those challenges you just won’t be able to resist. Let your family know when you’re going to need some uninterrupted time and don’t stay up too late! Because there’s still Black Friday next month – we have to pace ourselves!

Sharing our stories is important, both for us now and for those who come after us. The last 18 months have had quite an impact on all of us in one way or another. Some of us have lost loved ones, some of us have been sick ourselves, some of us have worked harder than ever before to help others and some of us have channeled our energies in new directions. But we all have learned what matters and what doesn’t. Let’s celebrate ourselves!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, Lets Celebrate, Party/ Event, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

September 21, 2021 by

Jumpstart Your Layouts!

So how many of you are Challenge fans? If you aren’t, you should be!! The GingerBread Ladies designers are incredibly generous with their talents both through their participation in the GingerBread Ladies‘ collaborations: Monthly Mix, Free-with-Purchase and Challenge rewards, and within the Challenges themselves. Did you know there are freebies included in several Challenges EVERY month? Brushes, templates, word art, mini kits, add-ons – so many gifts!! Sheri, whose design handle is Jumpstart Designs, provides a mini kit every month in the Jumpstart Your Layouts Challenge (although these minis are the same size as some designers’ full kits…) and they’re amazing. I posted my JSYL Challenge layout to the thread in the Forum and couldn’t help but notice how every scrapper’s layout – using the identical collection of supplies – looked SO different. So I thought we could talk a bit about how we all have such individual approaches to creativity.

This is the preview for the Jumpstart Your Layout Challenge. Like all of Sheri‘s kits, the colour palette is versatile, it’s a bit grungy, a bit pretty, a bit sophisticated and 100% awesome.

A-M chose to use only the cream and brown parts of the kit. Her layout is simple, but eye-catching. Having a black-and-white photo as the centerpiece was genius.

Breoni too chose mainly the neutrals, but added a couple of aqua pops… which are the perfect accompaniments for her photo. Her positioning of the metal tag and ribbon element frames her face and really leads the eye to her photo.

In keeping with the mostly cream background, next up is this beauty. What makes this layout by nimble4u truly stunning is the way she’s used her photo. She embellished with restraint and the sentimental feel of the photo is the star of the show.

Roxana has added a bit more of the aqua to her layout. The large word art is perfectly displayed against the aqua paper and the photo she chose adds a bit of whimsy. I think she’s used every single item in the kit as well, even though it’s not a requirement.

Kristal’s background is also mainly cream, but with some taupe details that adds to the seaside impact of her photos. Masking the boat photo with some aqua behind it makes it look like the water continues outside the photo. Genius!

Maskyra used the papers with such panache! The grungy, rubbed, torn and splattered background is a masterpiece! Her layout is a bit of a segué from mostly neutral/cream background into more colour detail.

This layout by beckturn moves us to an aqua background with a beautiful tear revealing the shades-of-brown striped paper behind it. I love the way she repeated her heritage photo with a tighter crop on the girls’ faces.

What immediately caught my eye about jcfdelaware‘s layout is the undulating anchor behind her photos. With aqua paint behind all the brown paper hexagons, it moves the eye across the page. and the large word art tucks into the lower left corner so neatly.

LisaCampbell‘s layout doesn’t really use a lot of aqua elements, but it “reads” as an aqua background, thanks to the curved paper cuts and aqua paint wrapping around her photos. (

Alasandra‘s layout just screams HAPPY to me! The aqua elements pop right off the paper.

I love how Pippin has turned her photo to sepia and makes it look like it grew out of the paper behind it. The dark brown border draws the eye, the bokeh leads it to the photo and the clusters keep it moving.

This layout is so perfect in every respect! It’s from the creative mind of kabrak1207 and is gently shifting us toward a darker brown palette. Her use of the scalloped borders is clever, and really frames the focal photo perfectly.

MomDoc_99 went monochromatic with the browns and it works very well. The scatters echo the circles on the background paper  and by framing the photos inside a circular paper mat and creating a similar frame for her title, her repeating shapes create a pleasing layout.

Here, DebraB has given us a grid-style layout on a deep brown background that makes the photos stand out. The border along the left draws attention to her journaling. I love how she used only part of the word art on a paper strip to customize her look.

And last… this layout by galavictor is completely different! She’s changed the Blend Mode on the striped paper and the floral aqua paper to accent the orange in her photo, created a bokeh effect with the scatters while also making brilliant use of masking to blend papers together and fade the photo into them. She applied some Layer Styles to the word art too. So much creativity!!

There you have it, fifteen unique layouts using a single kit. (You can see my own vision for this kit here. And yes, my granddaughter does eat non-stop.) What might YOU do with this FRE-E-E-E-E-E-E kit?

 

PS… What do you think about a Challenge spotlight post every once in awhile?

PDF Version: https://bit.ly/2ZeFvb3

 

 

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