Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

October 28, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: DSD Quote Challenge

Thank you all so much for being patient while I worked off my muscle relaxants! I truly do become quite um… incoherent and puddly when I have to take them. Good news is, I’m pretty much recovered, despite an eventful weekend in which my son experienced some very unpleasant medication side effects himself. And I’m back on track with my closet overhaul, even though I blew past my deadline completely. Now, back to our regularly-scheduled program.

This month I chose the Digital Scrapbooking Day Quote Challenge created by Diane, of ADB Designs. I love to use quotes and song lyrics on my layouts, partly because they make it easy, and partly because I can always find something that fits. Diane chose two quotes, with similar themes but with a definite difference – one is poetic and calm, the other is more whimsical. These are the quotes.

The autumn leaves
Are too heavy with color.
The slender trees
On the Vulcan Road
Are dressed in scarlet and gold
Like young courtesans
Waiting for their lovers.
– Langston Hughes

One sunny Autumn day
When I went out to play,
An Elf-man in a tree
Dropped colored leaves on me.
– Gertrude P. McBrown
​

There were ten layouts posted to the thread in the Forum and I was interested to see which of the options saw the most uptake. Before proceeding, make your prediction, then see how correct you are. Each layout is linked to its spot in the Gallery so you can take a closer look or leave some comments. Just click on the Scrapper’s Forum name and you’ll zip to the Gallery. 

First off the bat we have trinanne. She went with the elf quote and used photos of a charming little man busily raking leaves. I like the simplicity of her layout, and her clever use of the partially-nude tree element to reflect the theme of the layout.

Our next entry is from zotova (I think this is her first TT Spotlight!) and she’s also chosen the whimsical quote. Her layout is stellar on so many levels. That artsy background, her gorgeous cluster and the newsprint border frame her photo and draw the eye right to it.

KatL chose the more lyrical Hughes quote for her layout. The way her paper and element choices pull colour from her photo is perfection! She decided the photo was the star of the show and everything else plays a supporting role.

5grand also went with the Hughes quote. You really need to zoom in on this one! I love that the curled leaves look a lot like a bunch of carrots, and how the colour palette she chose coordinates seamlessly with her photos. That rabbit though!

Here’s some more whimsy. Celestine chose the perfect papers and elements for her photo. Her clever blending of plaid paper and her photo along with the denim-blue background provide a solid base for the branch.

I feel like Windswept‘s focal photo would have worked equally well with either of the quotes. But I also feel like she realllllly wanted to use the owl and the hedgehog elements and that dictated her choice.

I LOVE this one! Grace.‘s imagination and nature play well together. The drift of leaves draws the eye to the quote, but also to the little fox and bear elements. So pretty!

I have some photos of my son buried in leaves like these. They’re about 30 years old. 🙂 If you’re keeping score, the McBrown quote is in the lead. Katherine Woodin has created a lovely cluster of fall elements behind her photos.

Look at that fantastic font biche57 chose! It’s got all the elegance of Hughes’ quote and meshes well with the artsy border.

And last, we have this evocative layout from photocrazy. The watercolour paper she used provides a perfect backdrop to the fall cluster and the wildlife touches are sweet.

Did you guess correctly? I gave the edge to the playful quote before I started scrolling. It was a close one, six to four. Not as close as last night’s ballgame, and definitely not as um… drawn out. But a good competition nonetheless!

See you next week with the November Designer Spotlight. Can you guess who it is?

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

October 14, 2025 by 2 Comments

Jan’s Layout Salad Recipe

or… Taking the fear out of cohesively using parts of multiple kits to create a single layout.

Every time I post a layout with a lengthy credits list, I see several comments out how many kits I’ve used so successfully. I know most people are “kit Scrappers” using only what they find in a single kit. But boy, that’s too restrictive for me! It’s not that I CAN’T do that, I just like to mix things up. So how do I make it work? Grab a beverage and I’ll show you!

Before we get rolling, I should mention that the GingerScraps Buffet makes it really uncomplicated to mix and match kits. Each GingerBread Lady uses the same colour palette to design their contribution to the monthly Buffet, so you can easily grab papers from one Designer, elements from another and word art from a third Buffet kit and pull off a flawless layout. The following will give you a roadmap to making it work for you, whether you use some coordinating Buffet kits or pull from your whole stash.

My process is usually: open a new folder > choose a theme (for Challenges, for example) > find photo(s) > template > papers > embellishments > title. I add the tools to the folder as I go along. Once I’ve chosen a template, I open the preview thumbnail and enlarge it so I can see all the parts it contains. Then I can start pulling pieces to build my layout with. I start with the papers… count then up so I know how many I’m looking for.

In keeping with my theme, I’ll look at a few kits that fit, looking into the folders for the major parts of the template I’m using. For this layout, I chose Alexis Designs’ Ivory Pumpkins as my base kit.

Once I’ve decided on my base kit, I’ll Copy (CTRL/CMD>C) each paper and element I’ll use, then Paste (CTRL/CMD>V) them into the layout’s folder. This practice is very helpful later, as you’ll see, for assessing how well each item works with all the other items. So far, my folder holds a photo, a template, two papers, a button, some baby’s breath, two flowers and some leaves.

Sometimes I’ll go right to a kit I know will coordinate with my base kit and the theme of the layout. Here, I’ve opened Aimee Harrison’s Bonfire Nights and found a pretty paper I’ll use. I may find several suitable elements in the second kit, or I might just grab one thing.

I’ve selected the papers I want to use, but I feel like the edge of the background paper needs a little something. So I turned to the Search function in File Explorer. All of my GingerScraps kits are in a single super-folder so I’ve got that open as my primary search location. In the Search field at the top right of the screen, I typed in “edge” and let my computer do the work. It usually takes under a minute. As you can see, EVERYTHING with the keyword “edge” anywhere in the metadata shows up in the workspace. 🙂 I chose one and moved on.

There’s a string on the template, but no string in my base kit, so I ran a search for “string“. And got a gazillion results. 😀

I knew I wanted a red string, so I tightened the search parameter.

But I still had a paper problem. I needed a solid to Clip to the notepad paper on the template. So I searched for “solid paper“. I think you can see pretty well how this all works, so let’s move on!

Now I’ve selected all the things I want to use to create my layout and moved a Copy of each into my folder. I can see clearly whether they’re all going to play well together. I think it’ll work!

When I’m ready to upload my layout to the Gallery, I’ve got a complete alphabetical list of everything I used already prepared for me… I just have to transcribe it to the description box!

So let’s cast a critical eye at the final product. Did it hit the mark? Do the things I chose actually work with each other? You be the judge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Windows 11)

September 30, 2025 by 1 Comment

Quick Trick: File Details

And just like that, September is over. It’s been a bit of a gong show around my house today (as it has all over the place… 🙁 ), which is why I’m late (again) getting this out to you. Thankfully, the last Tuesday of the month is reserved for Quick Tricks. I have another Work Smart Not Hard little tip for you if you’re using Windows 11.

Remember I mentioned finding that folder labeled Downloads INSIDE MY DOWNLOAD FOLDER last week? Well, it had a bunch of free templates from the now-defunct A Love For Layout Templates Facebook group in it. And for most of them, the folder labels gave me no clue as to when I downloaded them. I NEED to know that so that when I use them I can credit them properly. So what could I do to sort that out? Well… I discovered a Windows 11 feature I’d been sleeping on. The Detail Pane.

The “old” way to look at details about files in Windows requires a right-click on a file or object inside a file. This is the Windows 11 box that opens up when you do that. It has a few options that aren’t there in previous Windows versions and I won’t dwell on them. That’s not the point of this screenshot. Down at the bottom of the list is Show More Options. So that’s the second step.

This is the More Options interface. It really isn’t all that helpful, but again, down at the bottom there’s a Properties button. Step Three!

Yet another dialog box opens up. (This is where the name Windows comes from! 😉 ) It’s the General Properties pane and is helpful in a few ways. Here, you can Change the application used to open files like this one by clicking on that Change button. It shows the Path your system used to find the file, and it shows the Date the file was created. AHA! Now I can tell when this minikit was put together. (Yeah. I had files in that subfolder that are more than 10 years old. Gah.)

 

If I wanted to know even more, I could take Step Four and click on the Details tab in this pane. Here, I found information about that creation date and what software was used to create it, as well as size and resolution. To make it get gone, I can X out of it.

I was starting to flag a bit after about 10 hours of sorting through files, and was getting ready to pack it in when I noticed this little button at the top right of the screen. It says Details. When I hovered my cursor over it, the pop-up said “Show or hide the details pane“.  So I clicked it!

The Details pane slides open from the right hand side of the screen. Holy cow… with ONE click, I can see the creation date and dimensions! If I want more info, I can click on the Properties button.

And it’s identical to the dialog box from Step FOUR above! Two clicks instead of four!!!

To close the Details pane, I just clicked on the Details button up there at the top right again and it went away. And that’s it! But before I close this up and post it, I wanted to share just one more little Quickie… Down there in the bottom right corner there are two little icons. The one on the left is a stack of lines and the other looks a bit like a flatscreen TV. You can toggle between a list of files in the folder – the stack of lines, and thumbnail images of all the files in the folder – the flatscreen! The “old way” has more steps…

I’ll be back in the next few days with Designer Spotlights for October. First up will be Joy and Memory Mosaic. Then I’ll chat with a newish GingerBread Lady, Cyndi, who is also known as Wetfish Designs. October’s Daily Downloads are going to be amazing!

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Theres An App For That, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

September 23, 2025 by 2 Comments

Guided Edit: Old Fashioned Photo

You probably already know this about me… if I’m going to scrap lift a layout, I’m going to make it as close to a twin as possible, but putting my own touch on it. And this month’s Scrap Lift Challenge is going to be no different. The layout Alexis has chosen is this one by AmaneseFe.

I have a huge folder of photos of children I’ve selected from Pixabay, so choosing which ones to use wasn’t too big a problem. The first hurdle to cross is to recreate the creamy, not-quite-sepia look Amanese has given her photos. So I played around a bit… This is the first photo I chose to edit. Isn’t he just so handsome?

I could have used an Action, but then I couldn’t share a method with you for getting there without one, so I went to the Guided Edits and looked at the For Fun edits. The Old Fashioned Photo looked promising.

I tried all three of the Options, Newspaper, Urban and Vivid, and decided I liked Vivid best. This was the result of one click on the button. It’s a good black-and-white image, but it doesn’t have that creamy taupe effect.

So I clicked on the bar that says Add Hue/Saturation. And this happened. It’s TOO BROWN! But I can fix that! The dialog box shows the defaults the Edit uses. There’s room to make adjustments. (I could pretty much have chosen ANY colour, not just brown, by moving that top slider in either direction.) The labels are H = Hue, S = Saturation and L =Lightness. Let’s see where I end up.

All I did was drop the Saturation down from 25 to 7. Now there’s a lovely hint of brown, but not too much. I’ve gone as far as I can with the Guided Edit, so I went down to the bottom right of the workspace and clicked on Next. (I cropped too much out of the screenshot… so I added the content of that lower right corner onto this one.) Reminder: If you accidentally click on Cancel, you’ll be right back at Square One.

This interface opens, offering you choices. You can Save, Save As (for creating an edited copy, rather than Saving over top of your original), Continue Editing in Quick (a menu of simple automated edits) or Expert. We’re going to Continue Editing in Expert because I know what tweaks are needed. So I clicked that button, then Done, down at the bottom right.

You’ll see immediately that Elements has created an Edit layer in the Layers Panel above the original photo. I’ve turned the visibility of the original off, since I don’t intend to use that layer for anything. All the remaining adjustments will be on the topmost layer. I clicked Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Shadows/Highlights.

The default for this tool is to dramatically decrease the Shadows but leaving the Highlights and Contrast alone. Oy, that screenshot looks better at full size… Default settings are Lighten Shadows 35%, Darken Highlights 0% and Midtone Contrast 0%. I further Lightened Shadows to 39%, made no changes to Darken Highlights and brought up the Midtone Contrast to 12%. It’s coming along!

Next, I clicked Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Brightness/Contrast.

Oh, that’s better! Here, the defaults are Brightness 0 and Contrast 0. I pushed the Brightness to 20 and the Contrast to 5. That blows out the highlights a bit, as seen with Amanese‘s photos, while making his eyes brighter.

Last tweak, I promise! Again Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Levels. This is the only keyboard shortcut I have for you today, 😉 CTRL/CMD>L.

The defaults for this tool are Input Levels 0, 1.00 and 255. Output Levels are 0 and 255. I adjusted the Input top end to 241 and tweaked both ends of the Output, to 18 and 238. Now the image is soft, creamy, dreamy and very similar to those on the original layout.

Then I used all the same steps to edit the second photo. The lighting for the original is a bit different than Photo 1, so the results aren’t quite identical. That’s not a big deal, because I know I can get it there. Stay tuned for my Scrap Lift layout!

Over the weekend I went right over a cliff when I found a Downloads folder IN MY DOWNLOADS FOLDER! It was crammed full of zipped folders and photos. Overflowingly full! So I spent many hours going through it, finding all the GingerScraps folders, unzipping and organizing them. It was like Christmas! Sort of literally…. there were lots of Christmas kits in there. So now I have all these “new” kits to play with… and I’m looking forward to it! We’ll see how well I keep up with my downloads going forward. I know me, it’s going to be a challenge.

 

 

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Potpourri)

September 9, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Greatest Hits: Work Smart, Not Hard!

Today’s Tutorial first appeared in April 2017 and was the thirtieth tutorial I’d written for GingerScraps. I’m a firm believer in working smart, not hard, so I put together a whole post filled with tricks and tips to make scrapping easier and more efficient. If I’ve missed anything that I’ve come up with since, I’ll add them in!

Here are all my Work Smart Not Hard tips and tricks in one place. We all have busy lives and could use a little help to streamline our workflow. So we can scrap more layouts, right? Can I get an AMEN??

  • Use a template if you’re short on time. They take out the drudgery without eliminating creativity. If you’re like me and have a gazillion templates in your stash, it can be more time-consuming to find the one you want to use than it would be to wing it and build your layout from scratch. I’ve developed a way of expediting my search by relabeling the previews with some key words my File Explorer search menu can track down. It was a gargantuan job to go through all of the ones I already had but it was so worth it! What do I do, you ask? I had to decide what system I wanted to use first. To do that I had to think about how I select them in the first place. I usually choose photos first, so my labeling system needed to reflect that. And although I rarely make 2-page spreads, I thought it might be easier to find what I’m looking for by putting that in the label too. My main categories then are “single#” and “double#”. Then I thought about some other factors that relate to templates and started adding labels like “large” to templates with large photo spots, “circle” and “square” for those predominating shapes, “blend” for templates with blended photos, and “mask” for those with masks. Your labels should reflect how YOU work, so don’t feel like you need to duplicate what I do, just because it works well for me. Do what works for YOU. If you start with the new ones you download and do it as you’re unpacking your zip files, then gradually work your way through your existing collection, it’ll save you a lot of time in the long run.

This is what a search for a “single3” template in my GingerScraps stash looks like:

With the extra-large view, I can scroll through the whole list in a matter of a couple of minutes and choose the one that fits my desired photo(s) and kit(s) selections. Right-clicking on the preview image and selecting Open File Location takes me to the folder where the template lives. And away we go! (P.S… keyboard shortcuts to follow in a single list.)

  • When working with templates, once you’ve added an item onto your canvas and moved it into position over/under the place-holder template symbol, look for all similar items. Duplicate the one you’ve just added and move it up or down the Layers panel until it’s just above or just below the symbol. Then nudge it into position on the layout over/under the place-holder symbol. **If you’re working with a pre-shadowed template, copy the symbol’s Layer Style and apply it to your element BEFORE duplicating, so you don’t have to do each layer individually.** Do this with each element of your template and all that will be left is to create a title and do your journaling. If you’re not using a pre-shadowed template, you can select all similar layers and shadow them with your Drop Shadow Styles (either default ones that came with your software, or those you’ve purchased) all at the same time. Trust me, this will save you a LOT of time! [Editor’s note: IF you’re doing your own thing – no template – and you’ve created a cluster or other assemblage of objects you’d like to Copy to position somewhere else on your layout, you can Select all of those objects by clicking on the first layer, holding down the Shift key and clicking on the last layer, then use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD>J to Duplicate all of them in one set of moves!]
  • Speaking of shadows… remember that whatever you’ve typed should never look like it’s floating. Journaling, sub-titles and date labels – anything you use a FONT for – should sit directly ON the paper below it. No shadows. NO shadows. The exception to this rule is if you’ve turned your font into a sticker; then you can apply a very slight shadow to it to show that it’s a sticker.
  • And speaking of text… If you’re going to use more than one font, remember to Simplify your text layers as you go along to prevent the software from changing the font on ALL your text layers. This is more than annoying!
  • I like to create my titles on a separate canvas. That lets me see what I’m doing without any distractions. I have a general idea how I want it to look in terms of shape and size, so I’ll select a canvas size big enough for me to move things around and see it all clearly. I like to use alphas with or without a font, and it’s nice to see what I’ve got going on without trying to take everything else into consideration. Once I think I have it right, I Merge the individual alphas for each word together then Link all the layers together so that when I move the title onto my layout, everything goes, but I still have some flexibility to adjust placement in order to fit it better into the layout.
  • Don’t be afraid to turn off the Visibility of other layers if you’re trying to stitch a ribbon down, apply a staple or brad, or for any reason. Stitches and staples, just like text, should be on the layer immediately above whatever they’re securing. (If you want to turn on or off Visibility for a lot of layers, hold down the left-click mouse button as you move the cursor over those creepy little eyeballs.) Once you’re happy, you can turn all the other layers back on.
  • Make good use of Layer Masks to add more realism to your layouts. The advantage of the Layer Mask is that it’s easy to correct over-zealous erasing by simple toggling the white foreground colour to the background, the black background colour to the foreground and painting back whatever you oopsed on. With this nifty trick you can dangle a charm from a string or a ribbon, make a paper clip look like it’s really holding two sheets of paper together, twine a ribbon or a vine around some flowers and twigs, tuck a flower into a pocket… really, anything your imagination can conjure.
  • If your Panel Options aren’t set to give you a full-sized thumbnail in the Layers panel, you may want to rename your layers as you go along so you know what’s where. Don’t know how to change the layer name? Double-click on the label PSE has given the layer in the Layers panel and type in whatever you want. Want to change your thumbnail size? Click on the little icon that looks like a stack of papers at the upper right corner of the Layers panel right next to the trash can icon. Then select Panel Options>Thumbnail Size>Jumbo. Also make sure Thumbnail Contents>Layer Bounds is selected, otherwise what you’ll see in the Layers panel is a tiny little image in the area where it’s located on your layout inside the thumbnail box. I tried that and hated it!
  • Learn some basic keyboard shortcuts. There are a lot of them, but you’ll probably only use about a dozen with any regularity. Once you’ve incorporated them into your workflow, you’ll wonder how you ever got anything done without them. I find that my fingers just do it automatically. Below is a list of the ones I use most often, roughly in order of use. Windows users will use the CTRL and ALT keys, Mac users CMD and OPT.

If you want to save this to your computer just right-click on the image and Save Image As… and then name it something you’ll be able to find later.

A few other keyboard shortcuts I’ve incorporated into my workflow are:

CTRL/CMD>G = Create Clipping Mask (attach paper or photo to shape, mask etc) for PSE 14 and earlier

CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>G = Create Clipping Mask (attach paper or photo to shape, mask etc) for PSE 15 and more recent

CTRL/CMD>SHIFT>N = New Layer

CTRL/CMD>V = Move

CTRL/CMD>K = Fill (Paint Bucket Tool)

CTRL/CMD>F = Last Filter Used

CTRL/CMD>R = Smudge Tool

CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>Z = Haze Remover Tool

CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>B = Convert to Black and White

CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>S = Select Subject

If you have any WSNH tips I’ve missed, or haven’t discovered yet, please share them in the Comments below!

 

Filed Under: Be Inspired, Behind the Scrapbook, Creative Style, Digital Scrapbooking, Theres An App For That, Tutorials Tagged With:

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

August 26, 2025 by 4 Comments

Quick Trick: Caps Lock ISN’T ON, PSE!!

Have you ever been working away on a layout, right at the point where you’re ready to journal, and EVERYTHING is in upper case, no matter what you do? You check the caps lock, it’s not on. You save your layout, close out of PSE completely, go get a cold drink, come back and get started again, only to find it’s STILL messed up. So you reset all your Type Preferences, and that fails too. You’ve tried different fonts, you’ve cursed under your breath, gotten another cold drink, taken a walk around the block and are so frustrated you could scream. You’ve done a Google search, but the answer you need is either paywalled or requires a subscription. That was me the other day. You might want to bookmark this post so you can find it again…

There’s no discernable reason why this happens randomly when everything had been completely normal before. But it can give you an ulcer. The fix is stunningly easy.

  1. Activate your Text Tool.
  2. Choose your font.
  3. Set your cursor where you’re planning to put text.
  4. Before you put anything in your text box, click CTRL/CMD>SHIFT>Y.
  5. Voilà!! It’s fixed!

I know!! It’s ridiculous, but it works!

See you next week when I’m back with the Designer Spotlight. We’ve all met this Designer before, so we’re going to have some fun.

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

August 19, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: That’s Entertainment

It’s that time again when the GingerScraps Blog celebrates YOU… the reason we’re here… by shining the spotlight on your creativity. And boy howdy, are you all being creative! With Scrap-a-Thon going this month, the Gallery is literally hopping with layouts. Choosing a Challenge to feature was a challenge in itself. Enter Boomers Girl’s That’s Entertainment. The prompt Lori gave us is as follows: “For the month’s challenge, let’s talk about commercials. I know, most aren’t widely entertaining, but there are some that are. I’d love to see you create a layout with the title being a slogan for a product used in a commercial.” What a fantastic prompt! Let’s see how it’s been put in play.

Layouts will appear in the order they were uploaded. As usual, each layout is linked to the Gallery so you can get a better look, and maybe leave a comment on the ones you really like. Just click on the Scrapper‘s name and you’ll zip to it.

First up is a layout from photocrazy. That background paper adds a sense of explosive movement that plays well with the Red Bull tag line.

To be totally honest, I had to look this one up – I didn’t recall it at all until I heard the music. But let me tell you, ktmoonblue has used the PERFECT textured paper for her title. It looks good enough to eat! The cookie elements are pretty darned realistic, too.

Formby Girl went super-simple for her MasterCard layout. Who could resist that face? (I’m kinda cracking up over the very feminine little girl holding a Batman umbrella, but that’s just my terrible sense of humour.)

I haven’t worn make-up in what feels like a lifetime, but I can recognize a great product when I see one. These artificial lashes and this mascara! Keeping the glamour aspect front-and-centre, dj_w reinforces it with her great photos.

Okay, who hasn’t got a favourite McDonalds jingle? My 42-year old son still likes a Happy Meal! I think dkane‘s layout could easily be a print ad.

KAPOH typically doesn’t “scrap” in the traditional way. I love that she took Clara Peller’s Burger King slogan from the 70s and created a little farm vignette.

So, imafishtank has gone quite obscure for her layout. I don’t recognize an advertising slogan here at all. Her journaling helped me make sense of the photo series.

Overachiever msbrad used two different, more recent product taglines, Energizer and Burger King. I love how she’s blended her focal photo and embellished with fun, summer elements.

Katherine Woodin is another over-achiever. She used both the tagline from a British cooking show and an older Burger King jingle for her memoir.

This was the main McDonalds message back in the day when I worked for them. (We won’t mention how long ago that was…) The photo stater used looks like a much nicer break that the ones I took in the basement of the Duluth (Minnesota) McDonalds back in the day.

Connie – Gerbera is of the same vintage as me, and she too liked the 70s McDonalds jingle. Her photo sets the tone for the patterned papers she chose to layer behind it, and she’s created a lovely memory.

I used to love the Kool-Aid man! (Sometimes I feel like I married him… my husband is about the clumsiest human I know.) I like how beccasue incorporated a photo of a partially-demolished wall as a nod to the ad.

Last, but not least, Briannasscrapper went with that golden oldie, Campbell’s Soup. She’s also got their signature red, gold and white colour scheme in there!

Now my brain is just humming with ideas for this Challenge! If I can find the photo I’m seeing in my mind’s eye, I’ll be back!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Fonts)

August 12, 2025 by 1 Comment

Back-to-School

If you live anywhere in North America, you can’t escape the back-to-school frenzy, even if you have nobody in your life who’s in school. It worked out well for us though… our son’s backpack came home from his day program last week with a totally fubar zipper. Walmart had a wide variety of options and I grabbed him one that holds everything he needs on a day-to-day basis. Score one for Jan!! I managed NOT to buy any pens, paper and paint this year, so that’s another point for me. So how did we end up looking at back-to-school fonts, you’re thinking. Well, when my mom came to see me on my birthday back in May, she brought me a bag full of things she found when cleaning her house after my dad died. They were all things I’d saved from high school. I KNOW, right?! Looking through them was a real walk down memory lane. One thing that really struck me is how much my handwriting has changed over the course of my life. That bag had half a dozen different variations! So that led me to thinking about how much it bothers me that schools aren’t teaching kids cursive writing any more and how that will severely hobble them in the future. But I digress. I’ve rounded up a baker’s dozen of schoolish fonts, from learning basic printing to more “sophisticated” teenage girl script. (I don’t have to describe that one, do I?) 😀 They’re all from dafont.com and 100% free for personal use. Just click on the font’s name and you’ll go right to the download screen. Oh, yeah… they’re not in any particular order. You’ll see.

First one up is KG Perfect Penmanship. Many of you already know Kim Geswein‘s fonts… she’s a machine! This one is the most perfect example of grade-school printing ever. You’ll see a couple more of Kim‘s fonts in a minute.

This isn’t one of them. 😉 Learning Curve BV is exactly how I remember being taught cursive writing. Very controlled, perfectly shaped and spaced letters, easily legible.

Kindergarten looks a lot like a real child trying very hard to make every letter perfectly. I love it!

Makes You Stronger is Kim‘s controlled middle-school cursive. My handwriting looked a lot like this when I as about 12.

I liked Second Son School for the notebook lining. Doesn’t it bring back memories?

I feel like English Essay is an evolution of a typical girly cursive hand from the basic to beginning to add some personality. Remember writing big, loopy, widely-spaced letters to fill up the page faster? 😉

Why do I think this could be a serial killer’s first printing? Just kidding. The Writer is definitely a beginner’s hand.

Very Simple Chalk is exactly that. It’s an all-caps font, with two sizes to represent upper and lower case characters. It includes numerals and a wide range of punctuation, as well as multilingual characters.

When I saw this, I HAD to share it with you. The crayon shape is part of the character map and you can point the business end in either direction. To point to the left, use the { and } at each end of your word. To point right, use the [ and ]. Each of the letters in Crayonized has the lines above and below, so they all connect up. It’s pretty cool!

Then, if you want your journaling to look like you wrote it with a wax crayon… Crayon Hand.

Ooh, teenage boy time! Most of the guys I’ve ever known mix printing and cursive, with small letters – Random Handwritten. My husband’s writing is so tiny and tight it’s hard to read; it’s like he has to pay for the ink. And he likes superfine pens, to make it worse.

Here’s another must-conform-avoid-attention-and-meet-expectations-at-all-costs late middle-school girly hand. Ironic name, though: The Only Exception.

And last… the tween girl who wants to assert some individuality but still craves the approval of her teachers……. Simplify Notation Single Line is tidy, controlled but has little circle tittles. How many of us dotted our I’s with hearts at some time in our lives? 😉

Did you see one that you might use for the Journaling Challenge this month? I hope so!

 

 

 

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)

July 29, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Quick Trick: Twisted Template 

What do you do when you really want to create a layout, can see it in your head, want to use a template but don’t have one that matches the layout you see in your mind’s eye? You alter one to give you what you want! Let me show you.

I had a vision of how I wanted to use some seaside photos I took on my first trip to Ireland. I wanted a blended/masked area for the lighthouse and two horizontal photo spots for the other photos I wanted to include. I went through my templates, using the keyword search technique I shared with you many tutorials ago. But alas, I didn’t have anything in the dozens and dozens I looked at that would work. But I DID find one that could be twisted to my purposes, so I went with it.

This is what I chose. It’s from JB Studios’ JDoubleU V.29. It doesn’t have a blended/masked area, but it does have potential white space where I could add one. And the photo spots are vertical, but that’s fixable too!

The first thing I did was to decide how I wanted the page to be oriented, then made some decisions about how to get there. I clicked on Image>Rotate>Flip Vertical. (I know… still not horizontal, but give me a minute!)

Here’s how I got them oriented correctly. Image>Rotate>90° Left. There’s still no white space for my masked photo, but don’t worry! It’s coming!

But first, I had to put the clusters toward the centre of the page, not the left edge. So I clicked Image>Rotate>Flip Horizontal. Getting close now!

I decided there were some elements there that I wasn’t going to use, so I just made them invisible. Now I can get things sorted.

I wanted to move that entire centre block of photos and elements over to the left of the page. I could do it one item at a time, but that’s not my schtick! So I Selected all the layers I want to shift by holding down the CTRL/CMD key and clicking on each layer, one at a time. It sounds time-consuming but it takes little more than a minute or two. I kept one eye on the Bounding Box so I could avoid including things I didn’t want in there. Once I had all the desired layers Selected, I just… moved them over!

I also nudged it up a bit. The cluster in the upper left corner could stay there, but I don’t think that’s what I want. I’d like to have a cluster in the lower RIGHT corner!

So I used the same process to Select all the layers there, and moved it too. There was one random little flower left out in the field, so I moved it down. Now to create a layout…

I used a mask from Prelestnaya-P, who was a GingerScraps designer once upon a time but isn’t currently. You might notice that the lower of the two horizontal photos has been made a bit wider; I wanted more of the waterfront in there. I’m quite pleased with the result. It looks nothing like the original template, and it was easy to achieve!

The next time you hear from me, it’ll be Designer Spotlight time again! August’s a two-fer and you’re going to love what I learned about these two ladies. See you later!

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

Tutorial Tuesday (Individual Style)

July 22, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Challenge Spotlight: Daily Download

GingerScrappers, you’ve really been crushing the Challenges this month! When I was touring the Gallery looking for a likely Challenge to Spotlight today, I was quickly inundated with layouts. And the Challenges that make the best Individual Style posts were very well-represented. There were so many, in fact, that no matter which one I chose, I could never include ALL the Challenge layouts in a post that didn’t run on for days. So I decided to try something a little different. I decided to go with the Daily Download Challenge, which has two Designers‘ kits this month, You’re a Peach from Aimee Harrison and Cleaning Day from Twin Mom Scraps.

There were THIRTY layouts in the Challenge Gallery so I had to decide how to proceed in the fairest possible way. I opted to use Random.org to decide for me! I numbered each of the layouts, then entered all the numbers that were created with Aimee‘s kit into the randomizer. Then I chose the top 5 on the list.

Then I did the same with the layouts using Twin Mom‘s kit.

Now that I’ve explained the process for choosing which layouts to feature, I’ll remind you that each layout is linked to the Gallery so you can get a closer look, and so you can leave some comments, should you choose to do so. Just click on the Scrapper’s name. Let’s get started!

VariaMoon chose the bold plaid and patterned papers from Aimee‘s kit. Placing the paper pieces behind the photos on an angle emphasizes the geometry of the plaid. I like that she used colour cues from her photos to choose the papers she used to mat them with.

Here, imafishtank used mainly warm colours with the cool colours as accents to feature photos of a very pretty child and proud mama. She has such a variety of papers framing them and made a statement with her title.

Using just a few bits of the kit, domino44 created a bold celebration layout, framing her photo with a warm, peachy cluster.

Ooh, this looks like another celebration! Maybe a 4-generation celebration? The clusters pbhill created help draw the eye to her photo, while the warm palette coordinates beautifully with the colours in the photo. That butterfly seems to be quite popular. 😉

I can almost taste that pie… photocrazy stayed on theme for her layout. I like that she has a good amount of white space here, so the ribbons, rickrack and banner serve as tractor beams to draw the eye to the pie.

Now let’s look at Twin Mom’s kit. First up is greenfiend27. I like everything about her layout! The elements she chose not only play nice with her image colour-wise, but they’re also representative. Those bead scatters are so perfect.

I’m always impressed by no-photo layouts like this one from dhariana. Her focus on creating calm in her layout led to blending papers, sticking to a very neutral palette and the creation of a single, cohesive cluster.

5grand had a similar idea. I love the humour in her layout! Her choice of paint splatters behind the cluster replicates water all over the floor int he photo. Very clever! And the banner made me laugh out loud. She’s so right… housework isn’t fun! That’s why I pay to have someone do it for me. 😉

GrannyNKy put the emphasis on her photos. I, too, really wish I could have a clothesline – there’s no better smell in the world than line-dried laundry.

This poignant layout from ranchcreations made me a little misty. She kept the layout very clean and simple, to keep the focus on emotion. Her clusters are understated but achingly beautiful. My mom will soon be 90, so this will be in my foreseeable future. I hope I’m as dignified.

Hubby and I have been diligently cleaning our garage now that our big dining room set has sold and we have room to move. The peaches are starting to ripen on the trees here, and I’m so looking forward to slurping a bunch down soon. We’ve had a LOT of rain in the last week, and the cherries still on the trees are being threatened with splitting. I have photos of the cherry dryer to scrap and I’m seeing layouts in my head for both these kits! See you next week!

 

 

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