Fresh Baked Friday: July 11

July 11, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Hey there everyone! We’ve reached the halfway part of summer (or winter if you are in the southern hemisphere). Have you done anything special? A family vacation or getaway? Do you have one planned? Remember to take all the pictures so you can scrap them all when the weather gets cooler.

Remember if you spend $10 in the store, you get this great kit for free.

Ready for the new releases? There is a fun mix of topics this week.

How are your challenges going? If you complete any 10 challenges this month, you get this gorgeous collab (or a variety of other choices from previous challenge collabs) as a reward!

Filed Under: Digital Scrapbooking, Fresh Baked, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With: , ,

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

July 8, 2025 by 2 Comments

Greatest Hits: Abstract Meets Graphic Art

For this month’s Perfectly Paired Challenge, Dani wants to see your artsy side. That made me think of this tutorial from 2017. I think I might do exactly this as the basis for my Challenge layout. Then, of course, I’ll have to combine bits from two kits to fulfill the rest of the Challenge requirements. I’m sure I have some kits in my stash that have brushes, overlays, paint and other artsy elements in them that I can massage into a cohesive layout. Wanna give it a try? (If you’re impatient, by all means scroll down to the end to see the finished product. 😉 )

To begin, you’ll need a great photo with a relatively plain background, because the image will be extracted. This photo of a skateboarder from Pixabay was a great choice for my example since my inspiration for the tutorial came from an image of a skateboarder. I dropped it on a white paper for the initial steps to make extraction easier.

I used the Magic Wand tool to extract my image. This tutorial will provide a refresher for you if you’re still getting the hang of extracting images. You can duplicate your photo now, or wait until you’ve got your extraction complete or the line of marching ants in place. But you will need to duplicate your photo. Make your duplicate layer invisible.

Working on the extracted photo, I clicked on the Filter menu, selected Stylize and Find Edges as shown. Remember when I showed you how to do this?

Once the image has been filtered, some of the colour from the image is still visible. Right now, I don’t want that. It looks a bit odd.

So to remove that hint of colour, I chose Enhance>Adjust Color>Hue/Saturation (CTRL/CMD>U) and pulled the Saturation slider all the way to the left. That leaves only the sketch.

We didn’t do this in the Sketchy tutorial, but for this one it’s a vital step. Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Levels will take you to the menu shown. What this step does is dramatically darken the lines in the sketched image.

The histogram shown below is part of the adjustment menu. You can adjust both sections simply by pulling the sliders. Make sure you can see your image so you know when you’ve gone far enough. If you need to move the dialog box, click and hold the gray bar at the top of the box then drag it up, down or to one side so you can see what’s underneath it. I wanted my background area to stay bright white and my sketch to be darker and more detailed. The changes I made are shown in the dialog box.

Now I have what looks like a charcoal drawing of the skateboarder. I want to have some of the colour from the original image in there, so I selected the topmost layer and added an adjustment layer mask by ALT>clicking on the Layer Mask icon (the divided circle icon above the Layers panel). The image disappeared but was really still there. I just had to reveal it.

I used a medium-sized soft round brush from the default brushes PSE comes with to paint back the colour, working on the Layer Mask. By using a low opacity (20%) I was able to build up colour where it naturally would appear darker and keep other areas much lighter. When you hold down your mouse button as you paint, you can overlap your brush strokes and have no visible overlap. Once you release the mouse button, the tool resets and areas of overlap will be darker. You want to brush over the whole area in one step to avoid those overlap spots. Keep that in mind as you go so you don’t end up with streaks.

Once I had the colour the way I wanted it, I Simplified the layer. (Right-click on the layer in the Layers panel and select Simplify Layer.) That step merges the mask with the image and prevents me from messing it up.

Now for the really fun stuff! I added a new blank layer underneath the sketch layer then used a watercolour brush at 100% Opacity from my collection of free brushes. I had an idea what colours I wanted to use so I just played around with both colour and brush selection until I liked what it looked like. By putting each brush on its own layer I can resize it, reposition it, decrease the opacity of it, increase the opacity by duplicating the layer, position it above or below my sketch and photo layers and whatever whim enters my head.

I experimented with lots of different watercolour and grunge brushes, deleting the layers that just didn’t work.

If you look closely you’ll see I’ve made a lot of changes by adding and subtracting, shifting and overlaying layers. You might also notice that the original photo colours are darker in this image. I duplicated the topmost simplified colour layer from the Layer Mask step then adjusted the opacity of that duplicate layer until I liked it.

To add a little more grunge and graphic feel I chose a gray colour and used a free graph paper brush that I duplicated and rotated. One layer is above the sketch and one is below it.

For the finishing touch I added some tiny gray splatters on top of all the layers and some below.  The process is one of playing with your stash and experimenting with things you never thought you could do.

I saved the finished image as a .png file for even more versatility. This is what it looks like with no paper behind it.

Now to find a good photo, decide on a theme and get to work!

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

Fresh Baked Friday: July 4

July 4, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Happy July 4th for those of you who celebrate.  You will find several patriotic kits in this weeks releases.

Remember if you spend $10 in the store, you get this great kit for free. I love these colors!

Let’s see what fun kits are new in the store this week.

Have you gotten started on your challeges? If you complete any 10 challenges this month, you get this gorgeous collab (or a variety of other choices from previous challenge collabs) as a reward! I love this one so much. Baseball is probably my favorite sport.

Filed Under: Digital Scrapbooking, Fresh Baked, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With: , ,

Designer Spotlight: July 2025

July 3, 2025 by 1 Comment

Designs by Lisa Minor

How is it even July already?? This month’s Designer in the Spotlight is Lisa Minor. Today, I’m going to share the tea Lisa and I spilt earlier. She’s recovering from a total knee replacement right now, so let’s make sure she feels the love!

J: Lisa, you must be so uncomfortable with that big surgery you just had. I hope you have someone who’s taking care of you, and a comfy chair to sit in between therapy appointments. Do you have a favorite comfort food that always makes you feel better?

L: Chicken and Dumplings. I have so many fond memories of eating it.

J: Ooh, I love that too! Last night I caught a few minutes of a cooking show where the guy was making chicken and dumplings noodles… without the dumplings. So of course I had to go online and find a recipe! I’d serve it with apple pie for dessert, unless it’s too hot, then I might go with ice cream. If you could BE ice cream, what flavour would you be?

L: Vanilla of course! Plain, simple and delicious!

J: Oh, and versatile too! Don’t tell anybody but I have a pint of Chapman’s Butter Tart ice cream hiding deep in the bottom of the freezer. If the guys don’t know about it, I don’t have to share. 😉 Like our Prime Minister, I like a good wink. 😉 What’s your most used emoji?

L: Anything with a “thumbs up”, LOL. I’m just not that “text” savvy.

J: Let’s talk business for a minute. What’s your favourite part of seeing others use your designs for their layouts?

L: I think it’s how they put it all together. It’s such a personal thing to share photos of yourself and your family and the love shows through.

J: That’s something that always appeals to me, the individual style that Scrappers have and how they can take an identical collection of papers and elements then turn them into something beautiful, unique and intensely personal. Can you share any sneak peeks of coming attractions?

L: Yep! Arriving mid-July, Enjoy the Waves.

J: That’s going to sell like hotcakes! We’re a long way from the ocean but our lake gets some pretty decent waves on windy days. I always snicker a little when I see someone asking on Reddit about how choppy it is. Interesting way of staying informed, I guess. The teasing is usually gentle, especially for Reddit, if you know what I mean. Have you ever done anything embarrassing in public?

L: When I was 8 months pregnant with our first, it was the “year of the cicada” in Ohio. One flew down my shirt and I just literally ripped the shirt off in the parking lot. Those things are “buggly ugly”.

J: Oof!! We don’t have cicadas this far north, but we do have junebugs. When my husband and I were dating we were zipping down the highway on his motorcycle when a junebug flew into him. He said it felt like he’d been shot. And there were guts everywhere. It was gross. Another time, again on his bike, a wasp ended up flying into my bra. Stings in that area really hurt! I’m actually having phantom pain there right now… Good thing I wasn’t allergic, but it could have been kinda funny. What’s the funniest thing you believed when you were a kid?

L: I believed I had an “extra” front tooth because my teeth were so crooked. Hey, my cousin told me so, and I totally fell for it.

J: That’s kids for you. I was catfished, before catfishing was a thing. I still hate that girl with the heat of a thousand suns. And she knows it. Same girl who bit me on my thirteenth birthday. The school principal came into the girls’ bathroom to check it out and disinfect the bite before he suspended her for the rest of the week. Oy. I wanted to be anywhere but there. If you could teleport to anywhere in the world, where would you go?

L: Ireland! It’s on my bucket list.

J: Great choice! I’ve been there twice and hope to get back one more time before I get too old to travel by myself. It’s truly a magical place. Last time I was there, the strap on my purse broke and wasn’t fixable, so I went to a discount store near my hotel and bought a new one. I bet the hotel cleaning crew wondered about all the weird things I threw away when I switched them out. What’s the most unusual thing you carry in your bag or pocket?

L: I actually carry a small bag full of things like single use toothbrushes, Tylenol, antibacterial wipes, band aids, eyeglass wipes, etc. You can NEVER be too prepared.

J: I like the way you think! I do the same. Well, maybe not the toothbrushes, but I have some flossers! And a screwdriver. Like you say, be prepared for ANYTHING. One last question, then I’ll let you get some rest. Do you have a guilty pleasure? I mean, one that you can share with our readers? 😉

L: True Crime. I’m obsessed.

J: ME TOO!! Particularly the ones that use forensic genetic genealogy. The things real people do are so much more twisted than any fiction writer could dream up. So fascinating! Well, I promised to keep this short so you’re not wiped out. Go put your feet up and have a nice cup of tea while I finish up here.

In addition to her usual monthly Pinterest Challenge, Lisa is also hosting the Designer Spotlight Challenge. And she’s providing our July Daily Download kit here on the Blog. It’s called Listen to the Music and I can’t wait to see the whole collection. But that’s not all… she has a coupon code 7sdlm20off …ON TOP of the already 50% off discount this month you can take an ADDITIONAL 20% off a single purchase of $5 or more. What a deal!! (It’s a single-use code, so make sure you fill your cart with ALL the goodies before you use it.) See you all next week for another Tutorial Tuesday.

 

 

 

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (CANADA DAY!)

July 1, 2025 by 2 Comments

Happy Canada Day Eh!

Okay, so technically, this isn’t a tutorial. But it does show the power of using a search bar when you’re in the Shop… I just typed “Canada” into the box and got 9 pages of results.

Today is the 158th anniversary of the Confederation of Canada, and we Canucks are very proud of our country. But we don’t typically express it with over-the-top celebrations and rah-rah patriotism. That doesn’t mean we’re not patriotic, we’re just quieter and more intentional about it. The events of the last 6 months have brought out a fierce, determined pride in us and we’re growing into our love of country in a way we’re starting to become very comfortable with. We still won’t be throwing monster family picnics or parading down every small-town main street on July 1st, but we’ll definitely celebrating. If you’re a Canadian and you’re celebrating today, here are some GingerScraps collections to help you commemorate us.

What I love about this kit from Kristmess is that it recognizes our First Nations history and culture, which has never been more intrinsic to Canada’s identity. You can find it here.

Adrienne Skelton has included word art all the provinces, but I don’t see the three Territories, Nunavut, Yukon and Northwest Territories. (Sometimes I think they’re like Puerto Rico, Guam and USVI, out of sight and mind.) Anyway, she’s also named some of our major cities, got the hockey skates, stick and puck in there and lots of maple leaves. It’s here.

My son-in-law is a Mountie so I love that Scrappy Kat has them and their Stetson in her kit. I spy some maple syrup too. For a closer look: here.

Well, it definitely looks like Canada has a colour palette… Robyn‘s got the cutest moose so far! Find it here.

Heather Z has a bunch of little Canucks in her kit.

Magical Scraps Galore has also given a little nod to our Indigenous peoples with the snowshoes and totem pole in her kit. I think this is the first one with a snowflake in it. 🙂

Wetfish Designs has some lovely frame clusters that you can see here.

Connie Prince is the first to mention fireworks… Yes, Canadians celebrate their birthday with fireworks; the display over Parliament Hill in Ottawa is usually televised and is quite spectacular. Here in Kelowna, our fireworks are launched out over the lake to minimize our ever-present fire risk. We can see them from our deck, so we can avoid those crowds that I hate so much. 😉 Find it here.

Connie additionally has this older kit, part of her Travelogue series. I like the flairs she created with some map sections; they make the kit truly Canadian. Her Travelogue series also includes kits for three of the ten provinces, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.

Most of the collections I’ve shown you here have add-on packs of papers, word art or clusters too. If you want to see them, just do the “Canada” search. 😉 Elbows up!!

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

GingerScraps: New FREE with Purchase Collab, New Monthly Mix, New Buffet & More!!

July 1, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Hello scrapping friends — welcome to July and the second half 0f 2026!
We’re kicking off the month with all the fresh goodies you love at GingerScraps:
*A brand new Free With Purchase collab
*A gorgeous new Monthly Mix
*A colorful new Buffet that has all the summer vibes
…and so much more!

Don’t forget to check out the Buffet Bundles. One easy click to add bundles of Buffet goodies to your cart.

The buffet this month has a fun mid-summer mix of colors!

Remember any $10 spent in the store gets you this great collab. I love those blues and yellows!

Let your memories sparkle with Shine Bright, a sunny and serene collection by The GingerBread Ladies. Bursting with cheerful blues and yellows, this beachy collab features sunshine, lemons, sailboats, seashells, and starfish—everything you need to scrap joyful summer days and radiant seaside moments. Whether you’re capturing a stroll on the sand, a splash in the waves, or just a bright day filled with smiles, this kit will help your creativity shine!

This collab includes: 1 Alpha {Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers & Punctuation}, 71 Papers, and 87 Elements.

This Free With Purchase was created by Cindy Ritter Designs, Ilonkas Designs, LDragDesigns, and Let Me Scrapbook.

Escape to a paradise of color and calm with Tropical Love Land, a vibrant, tropical-inspired collab by The GingerBread Ladies. Bursting with bright summer hues and lush tropical vibes, this kit features exotic birds, flamingos, seashells, sunset skies, and flowers galore. Perfect for beach getaways, hammock lounging, or scrapping your own island daydreams, Tropical Love Land brings the magic of summer love to every layout.

This kit includes: 3 Alphas {Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers & Punctuation}, 48 Papers, and 84 Elements.

This Monthly Mix was created by Aimee Harrison, CarolW Designs, Connie Prince, and Scrapbookcrazy Creations by Robyn.

July’s Daily Download is provided by Designs by Lisa Minor. Collect new pieces daily on the GingerScraps Blog.

Take a look at the new challenge reward kit. If you complete any 10 challenges this month, you get this gorgeous collab (or a variety of other choices from previous challenge collabs) as a reward!

Step up to the plate with Baseball Fever — a sporty and spirited digital scrapbooking collab by The GingerBread Ladies! Whether you’re documenting little league triumphs, cheering from the stands, or celebrating a grand slam moment, this kit has all the bases covered. Packed with classic baseball elements like bats, balls, gloves, scorecards, and caps, along with bold reds, blues, and neutral tones, it’s a must-have for any baseball fan. Batter up and play ball!

This kit includes: 1 Alpha {Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers & Punctuation}, 71 Papers, 96 Elements, and 4 12×12 Template {png, psd file formats}.

This Challenge Reward was created by Craft-tastrophic, Cutie Pie Scraps, Designs by Lisa Minor, and Moore Blessings Digital Design.

Here are a few layouts from our store creative team. These were made using the Daily Download.

Filed Under: Buffet, Digital Scrapbooking, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With: , ,

Fresh Baked: June 27

June 27, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Hey everyone. Welcome to another Friday and almost the end of June. I can’t believe we are already halfway through 2025. Time to get to work on that list it items I wanted to get done this year.

Remember if you spend $10 in the store, you get this great collab as a gift.

Let’s see what is new in the shop this week.

Just a few more days to get those challenges finished and logged. If you complete any 10 challenges this month, you get this gorgeous collab (or a variety of other choices from previous challenge collabs) as a reward!

Filed Under: Digital Scrapbooking, Fresh Baked, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With: , ,

Tutorial Tuesday (Windows)

June 24, 2025 by 6 Comments

Quick Trick: Install that Font!

Hidee-ho, Scrappers! Today’s Quick Trick is so simple it doesn’t need any screenshots. I know, right? But I’m going to give you some anyway… I downloaded a new font so I could show you that this Trick works.

Did you know that you don’t have to unzip font folders? Nope, you don’t! You can just double-click on the folder, which will open and you can see all the fonts within. (Sorry for the blurry image.) You can tell in Windows 11 that the folder isn’t unzipped: the Extract All button has appeared. On the far left you can see the font icons. I prefer to install Open Type files so that’s what I’ll do. Double-click on the desired font.

This window opens. Just click on the Install button and the font’s ready to use. You can now choose to Save the folder in case you lose your fonts, or delete it. I Copy the font into a Fancy Fonts folder so I can always find it again/transfer it to a new system. This too works without unzipping the folder.

One extra tip: For Windows 11 users, you no longer have to exit Photoshop Elements and re-enter to access those new fonts. It’s magical!! Want a new scripty font for an elegant layout and none of the ones you already have is doing it for you? Find one online that you love, install it as shown and proceed! That new font will be ready to go without any additional steps. Ta-dah!!

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

Fresh Baked: June 20

June 20, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Hey there scrappy friends. I hope you have had a wonderful week and made some memories to scrap. We’ve got a few things for you today.

• June Free with Purchase collab – {summer party}

• New Fresh Baked releases

• June Monthly Mix collab – {summer reflections}

• June Challege Reward collab – {summer time}

All of the GingerBread Ladies collabs this month are about summer.

Remember is you spend $10 in the store, you get this great collab as a gift.

Let’s see the new items available in the shop this week.

Have you picked up the June Montly Mix? It’s beautiful.

How are your challenges going? If you complete any 10 challenges this month, you get this gorgeous collab (or a variety of other choices from previous challenge collabs) as a reward!

Filed Under: Digital Scrapbooking, Fresh Baked, GingerBread Ladies Tagged With: , ,

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

June 17, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight June 2025

This month I’ve chosen CathyK‘s Quote Challenge. I’ve often looked for a quote to express my thoughts or feelings in better words than I could come up with in the moment. In fact, I have an entire album of memes on my phone – the lazy woman’s communication strategy. 😉 I’ll admit I haven’t really been all that creative lately; my son’s knee injury has turned into a whole thing, which has eaten up so much of my mental bandwidth, so mindless activities are filling my inactive moments. But I know YOU, dear GingerScrappers, have NOT been idle! I’m going to share the layouts that have been uploaded to the Challenge Gallery for this month’s Challenge, with some comments on how they meet the terms of said Challenge. Each layout is directly linked to the Gallery so you can take a closer look, or leave your own comments. Just click on the Scrapper‘s name and you’ll zoom right there. But first, let’s look at the quote Cathy chose for this month.

“Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life”  – John Muir

Each of us will interpret those words slightly – or completely! – differently. It’s not a requirement that the quote itself appears on a layout, but the theme of the quote should be readily identifiable. Are trees a metaphor here for some sort of portal? What exactly does a new way of life mean? Let’s see!

Karen Diamond leads the way. Her photo shows us an idyllic spot surrounded by nature. Yep, there are trees in there! Her word art says “wander often, wonder always,” “finding my way” and “a beautiful path”. To me, this speaks to the struggle many of us face in figuring out how to be our best selves. But in a beautiful, meaningful way.

The message I perceive in glee‘s layout is one of trusting the universe to lead us in the right direction, as evidenced by the hiker and the panoramic view of a gorgeous vista.

Pixel Palette has created a true masterpiece here. The metaphor of trees-as-portals is demonstrated in her blended imagery. To me, the bearded gentleman is contemplating his life: Has it been what I wanted it to be? What can I do to make it more?

Paths and frontiers have informed pbhill‘s interpretation, and she’s even used an arrow to point the way. To me it says, there are no limits to your world but those you yourself impose.

FormbyGirl also used trees to represent the theme of the quote… literally! I love the perspective in her photos that illustrates the enormity of our world and how our places within it must be intentional.

For her layout, jenmoody23 chose a large photo of a prairie leading to the Grand Tetons. It says to me that there’s no one “best” place to be in life, that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. It also could suggest that trying new things – like moving from the prairies into the mountains – might be what we’re meant to do.

Trees do appear on msbrad‘s layout but they’re not the focus. Michi is filling her see-the-world bucket list and documenting as she goes. Her layout shows something very different from her usual surroundings, and it tells me she found something very compelling about that difference. But could she live on a tiny, rocky island in the middle of Lake Superior, or in the tiny town at the farthest point on the Sibley Peninsula? A Lake Superior winter would indeed be a “new way of life” for a Southern belle!

How would you interpret the quote? I have an idea of how I’d meet this Challenge and I might even be inspired to follow through! Winner, winner!! Pizza dinner!

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