{"id":43654,"date":"2022-02-08T17:00:57","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T01:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/?p=43654"},"modified":"2022-02-21T11:28:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T19:28:34","slug":"tutorial-tuesday-mixing-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2022\/02\/tutorial-tuesday-mixing-it-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Tuesday (Mixing It Up)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perfectly Paired, with Diamond Dust Designs<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After last week’s marathon tutorial I needed some downtime, so I took a look at the February Challenges<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. (I know, it sounds like the opposite of relaxing, right?) But to me, Challenges<\/strong> are a way of turning off and tuning out a bit. I mean, come on… they tell you what to do, all you have to do is do it! Lots of room for creativity, but less thought required. Ha!! Did you look at the Perfectly Paired Challenge<\/strong><\/a><\/span>?<\/p>\n

“…you must use two different kits from two different GS Designers<\/strong> and select an equal number of papers and an equal number of elements from each kit that go well together. Then pick a favorite template from a GS Designer<\/strong> and create your LO, showing how you perfectly paired the two kits together. List both kits and their designer and the template designer in your credits<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Sure, Ginger<\/strong><\/span><\/a> laid it all out about how to meet the requirements of the Challenge<\/strong>, but many of us are single-kit scrappers. So that got me thinking about a tutorial I wrote quite some time back about how to use multiple kits without losing our minds, and it seemed a good idea to replay it this week so more of you might be tempted to give it a try. The original tutorial is Windows<\/strong>-based, so if you’re using a different operating system there will be some adjustments to the search piece needed. Let’s have a look.<\/p>\n

Caveat: This is my workflow and you might have a method that will work better for you.<\/p>\n

I like to use templates, not gonna lie. They make scrapping so much easier. And I like to use folders. For me, they too make scrapping easier. For mixing kits, folders are a HUGE<\/strong> help. I have folders for each store I frequent, each of the kits I\u2019ve added to my stash and I have folders for every layout I\u2019ve created. It helps keep me organized. I\u2019ve read posts from people who go through all of their kits and individually tag EVERYTHING. That\u2019s a ton of work, and for the most part, it\u2019s unnecessary. Designers usually label everything in a kit in some way, so why duplicate their efforts? W<\/strong>ork S<\/strong>mart, N<\/strong>ot H<\/strong>ard!<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s talk about folders. At the beginning of every month, I create a Challenges folder<\/strong>. And in this folder I add subfolders for all my favourite challenges. Into those folders, I copy<\/strong><\/em> my photo(s), template, papers and elements. After I\u2019m happy with the layout, have ensured I have no bloopers and the layout is posted, I empty the folder of everything but the PSD<\/strong> of the layout and 2 JPEGs<\/strong>. That keeps the space taken up by the layout to a minimum but lets me find them later. The image below shows some of my folders in the list to the left. My first step is to select a template to use. In the tutorial on organizing your stash, I talked about labeling template previews in some fashion so it\u2019s easier to find what you\u2019re looking for later. My system, borrowed from someone else but modified to suit my workflow, is to label with whether the template is for a single or double spread, the number of photo spots and sometimes the shape\/mask\/blend the photo spots assume. The screenshot below shows a Windows File Explorer search<\/strong> for a single spread with 1 photo. (The icon for this utility is the file folder\u2026 super simple!) I had chosen a cute photo to build my layout around, so I opened my GingerScraps<\/strong><\/span> digikit folder then in the search box shown on the upper right, I typed in \u201csingle1<\/strong>\u201c. After a few minutes, Windows<\/strong> had found all the template previews so labeled and showed them to me. (The actual search time will depend on the size of the folder you\u2019re searching and the number of like objects to be found. It may only take seconds.) Now I could look at them and pick a template that would work for my layout.<\/p>\n

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Now, how did I find the actual template, you ask, since all that\u2019s displayed are the preview thumbnails? I right-clicked on the preview<\/strong> and selected Open file location<\/strong> from the menu window. That takes me right to the folder that holds the template. Then I copied the template file into my challenge folder. For other searches this step won\u2019t be necessary, because you can just copy the objects right from the search pane.<\/p>\n

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Next, I opened the template preview<\/strong> thumbnail in a photo viewer<\/strong> so I could see what supplies I needed to find next. I counted up the different papers the template employs and went on to my next search.<\/p>\n

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For this search, I put \u201cpaper blue<\/strong><\/em>\u201d in the search box, as I\u2019ve shown below. And Windows found all the papers labeled with those two words. Results will show both folders and individual images, which makes it easy to see just what you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

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I copied each of the blue papers I might want to use into my GingerScraps Challenges> September 2017>Colour SHADES OF BLUE<\/strong> folder so I could see them all in one place. That helped me determine if they\u2019d work together or not. They look pretty good!<\/p>\n

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I worked my way through the different items used for the template one at a time to find things I wanted to include. There was a circular element I decided must be a flair, so I did a \u201cflair<\/strong><\/em>\u201d search.<\/p>\n

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Remembering that templates don\u2019t necessarily have to be duplicated exactly, I chose to add some string to it. The search showed me a blue string right near the top that would work beautifully!<\/p>\n

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Once I had chosen all the things I thought I might use (substituting flowers for the stars) I could see everything in one place and knew they\u2019d all work well together. I had pieces from FOURTEEN kits!<\/p>\n

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Once I was ready to build my layout, I opened Photoshop Elements<\/strong> and went to the Colour SHADES OF BLUE folder<\/strong> and opened all the items onto my workspace. From there it was zip, zip, zip!<\/p>\n

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And this is where I ended up. (Once I post my challenge layout, I add a hyphen to the beginning of the folder name so I know it\u2019s done.)<\/p>\n

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Another way this method is useful is for speed scraps. You can have Windows<\/strong> searching for things while you work on the previous steps. That\u2019s sort of where I came up with my system. I used to partake of monthly speed scraps at another site that is no longer around and I wanted to be sure I was finished my layout with time to spare in order to win the prize.<\/p>\n

This screenshot shows how CathyK<\/strong><\/a><\/span> has labelled the items in her kit Aviator<\/strong><\/a><\/span>. This is for GingerScrapper Karen<\/strong> who had some questions about metadata.<\/p>\n

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Please feel free to adapt this however it will work for you! Now I’m going to collect my papers and elements to take on this Challenge<\/strong>. See you next wee, when we’ll be looking at Individual Style <\/strong>– Challenge Spotlight<\/strong> time! (It might even be this one…)<\/p>\n

PDF Version : https:\/\/bit.ly\/3t0uMfT<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perfectly Paired, with Diamond Dust Designs After last week’s marathon tutorial I needed some downtime, so I took a look at the February Challenges. (I know, it sounds like the opposite of relaxing, right?) But to me, Challenges are a way of turning off and tuning out a bit. I mean, come on… they tell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[229,102,284,92,62],"tags":[373],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 14:54:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"private","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43794,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43654\/revisions\/43794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}