Probably not... eeeks! *lol* But DH has his first vacation in a year, and so therefore I need to put the computer on the back burner till next Sunday. Don't know how I'll stand it--gee, I might even have to read! (That's all I ever did before I discovered computers). Oh, but I have still the Illustrator Wow! book to read... hehehe =)
Have fun, you guys!
Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Getting Creative With the Supplies At Hand
I guess that's basically what a challenge is all about, and I just LOVE challenges, because I always learn something, almost always try something new, and definitely have fun. Here's something I made with a quickpage freebie from my friend Julie K. in Taiwan:
Credits: Paper by Dana Zarling (Designer Digitals, Golden Splendor) and pinned tag by Katie Pertiet (DD, Pinned Sentiments). Font: Euphorigenic.
Oh, the challenge part? Well, Julie's quickpage was 4x6, and I don't usually scrap that size, plus, it was totally outside of my color range. But I resized it, overlapped the circles somewhat randomly, and then Dana Zarling's paper just jumped out at me from my trusty Picasa organizer (I later realized that besides the color, the stripes ran the opposite way and that made a cool contrast). I'm really pleased I was able to do Julie's quickpage justice!
Credits: Paper by Dana Zarling (Designer Digitals, Golden Splendor) and pinned tag by Katie Pertiet (DD, Pinned Sentiments). Font: Euphorigenic.
Oh, the challenge part? Well, Julie's quickpage was 4x6, and I don't usually scrap that size, plus, it was totally outside of my color range. But I resized it, overlapped the circles somewhat randomly, and then Dana Zarling's paper just jumped out at me from my trusty Picasa organizer (I later realized that besides the color, the stripes ran the opposite way and that made a cool contrast). I'm really pleased I was able to do Julie's quickpage justice!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Digital Cards? and Birdies
Wow, I've never made a digital card before. That was fun! And, it was a great way to use one of the birdies I've been working on lately--these guys are sooooooooo cute! I don't know quite how to package them, but I'm sure I'll figure out some nifty way to do that... By the way, this card was *totally* inspired by Geninne's awesome series of birds.
Credits: Bird and branch by Heather Taylor. Postcard from a photo by slafko at Stock Exchange. Papers: Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals, Web Challenge 7/9/06). Overlay: Cherie Mask (2Peas, Museum Papers). Background stamp: Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals, LetterBox Clusters 2). Font: 1550.
Credits: Bird and branch by Heather Taylor. Postcard from a photo by slafko at Stock Exchange. Papers: Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals, Web Challenge 7/9/06). Overlay: Cherie Mask (2Peas, Museum Papers). Background stamp: Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals, LetterBox Clusters 2). Font: 1550.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Freebie: Flourished Love (+ Alpha in the shop!)
I developed this font when I first got my Font Creator software, and I'm only now getting around to doing something with it. Better late than never! Anyway, the alpha was for sale in the store:
And here's a much smaller version of the word art that I'm offering as a freebie: [no longer available, sorry]
And here's a much smaller version of the word art that I'm offering as a freebie: [no longer available, sorry]
New Stuff Inna Shop: Herbal Tease
Just a little 5-pack of herbal stickers mixed with some tomatoes and peppers (in case you were hungry!)... Only $1.00! I'm a little nervous about lowering the prices, as Paypal eats 30 cents out of every transaction, on top of the 2.9% they charge, so hopefully reducing my prices won't end up being an even worse choice. I just hope I don't get nickeled and dimed to death!
Hope you like 'em!
Hope you like 'em!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Random Small Tips
Wow, I like my new computer! Apart from losing a few things (including my 2-week long initial back-up to mozy.com, bleh), having this super-duper new computer has *seriously* lowered my stress level, and increased my productivity (no more having to reboot every hour! Yay!). So I've been able to scrap more! Here are a few layouts:
The small tip about this one is something I learned from Cassie Jones at Designer Digitals during one of her chats: on the layer whose shape you want to copy, press ctrl then click on the *thumbnail* of that layer. Shazam! The marching ants go directly around the main figure! This is great when you have all those swirlies that you want to "cut" out of the photo, then scoot over a few nudges to offset them! Once you have your marching ants, then just go to the photo layer, press delete, and voilà, the shape is now cut out! I use this more times than I can remember, I think.
The following layout is pretty simple technically--but I did make a conscious effort to use the type as part of the design (here, the repetition of the word "blue" going on and on and up and out of the page, just like the waves in the poem). I love using words (if you couldn't tell ;) and they are often just as much a part of my layouts as any other embellishment. I do this with my cards, too--very often a calligraphy stamp is just the thing I want for "finishing" a card.
I'm going to be writing an article on "Digital Alphabet Soup" for SN&R this month, too--all about how many ways you can incorporate type into your layouts!
Nothing too special for this one:
Just a reminder that an easy way to get all those fiddly squares exactly the right size is easy if you set your crop tool to the dimension you want (here, .75"x.75"x300dpi). I also mixed in a couple of photos with all those swatches of patterned paper--the top one of wood, and the final product of the rose.
I was just reminded today that it's been a ways since my initial frustrations with the use of patterned paper--now, instead of trying for great big swathes of it, I really try to pare it down and group it around the photo. Seems to work for me!
And lastly, a layout I put together last night (also for an article in SN&R), all with Jofia Devoe's kit "In My Mommy's Dream" from thedigichick.com:
I've never worked with such realistic elements before--it does take some fiddling to resize elements so they don't completely overpower the photo, and so that they're relatively the same size--though I did leave some incongruities, for example, the buttons versus the ribbon. Oh, and the ribbon has the under/over trick going on, so that it appears to be woven under the frame in one part. Just duplicate your ribbon layer, put one under the frame and one over the frame, then erase the little part of ribbon that's over the frame where you want it to look like it's going under (confused yet? *lol*), and there you go!
Oh, and Aussie Scrapbooking is now live--you should go check them out (and get my freebie kit, too, heh ;)
The small tip about this one is something I learned from Cassie Jones at Designer Digitals during one of her chats: on the layer whose shape you want to copy, press ctrl then click on the *thumbnail* of that layer. Shazam! The marching ants go directly around the main figure! This is great when you have all those swirlies that you want to "cut" out of the photo, then scoot over a few nudges to offset them! Once you have your marching ants, then just go to the photo layer, press delete, and voilà, the shape is now cut out! I use this more times than I can remember, I think.
The following layout is pretty simple technically--but I did make a conscious effort to use the type as part of the design (here, the repetition of the word "blue" going on and on and up and out of the page, just like the waves in the poem). I love using words (if you couldn't tell ;) and they are often just as much a part of my layouts as any other embellishment. I do this with my cards, too--very often a calligraphy stamp is just the thing I want for "finishing" a card.
I'm going to be writing an article on "Digital Alphabet Soup" for SN&R this month, too--all about how many ways you can incorporate type into your layouts!
Nothing too special for this one:
Just a reminder that an easy way to get all those fiddly squares exactly the right size is easy if you set your crop tool to the dimension you want (here, .75"x.75"x300dpi). I also mixed in a couple of photos with all those swatches of patterned paper--the top one of wood, and the final product of the rose.
I was just reminded today that it's been a ways since my initial frustrations with the use of patterned paper--now, instead of trying for great big swathes of it, I really try to pare it down and group it around the photo. Seems to work for me!
And lastly, a layout I put together last night (also for an article in SN&R), all with Jofia Devoe's kit "In My Mommy's Dream" from thedigichick.com:
I've never worked with such realistic elements before--it does take some fiddling to resize elements so they don't completely overpower the photo, and so that they're relatively the same size--though I did leave some incongruities, for example, the buttons versus the ribbon. Oh, and the ribbon has the under/over trick going on, so that it appears to be woven under the frame in one part. Just duplicate your ribbon layer, put one under the frame and one over the frame, then erase the little part of ribbon that's over the frame where you want it to look like it's going under (confused yet? *lol*), and there you go!
Oh, and Aussie Scrapbooking is now live--you should go check them out (and get my freebie kit, too, heh ;)
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Five, and Digital Coloring
This template of Patti Knox's at Designer Digitals was the perfect excuse to use an element from my little Candle Wordart Kit...
I love doing digital coloring--it's about the only time I ever manage to color inside the lines. For this kind of thing, you use the magic wand set to 1 pixel tolerance, anti-aliased, and contiguous. On the layer where you have the black and transparent .png, highlight the areas you want to color the same color. Then, create a new layer, move it under the .png, and fill with the paint bucket. You can either fill with gradients, or a flat color, onto which you can then brush varying levels of shadow. Just remember to keep your selection till you're done coloring. You can create a different color layer for each section, too, and that lets you use your hue/color adjustment slider later on to fine-tweak the colors. It's a lot of fun!
I love doing digital coloring--it's about the only time I ever manage to color inside the lines. For this kind of thing, you use the magic wand set to 1 pixel tolerance, anti-aliased, and contiguous. On the layer where you have the black and transparent .png, highlight the areas you want to color the same color. Then, create a new layer, move it under the .png, and fill with the paint bucket. You can either fill with gradients, or a flat color, onto which you can then brush varying levels of shadow. Just remember to keep your selection till you're done coloring. You can create a different color layer for each section, too, and that lets you use your hue/color adjustment slider later on to fine-tweak the colors. It's a lot of fun!
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