Google-Trolling

Looking for my name... do you *know* just how many Heather Taylor's, Heather T.'s, etc. there are out there? Not to mention the Heather T's in medium, large, and extra-large... *sigh*

Of course, there were all of Julie K's pretties (here's one:)



Anyway, found Scrappassie in the Netherlands, and Brigitte van Tienhoven who used the Clearly Cinnamon freebie:



Another use of the frame by LyndaMarie:


I just love how that frame comes out over a photo!

Oh, and here's one with the less distinctive paper by Terri over at Jessica Sprague's site:



Hmm. That took a phenomenal amount of time. Heh. Hey, if you use my stuff, how 'bout leaving a link in the comments? Sure would save me some time. =)

New Stamp Plate: Japanese Gardens 4

Here's a little preview of the new stamp sheet (at Art Neko by the beginning of next week?):



And heck, I might as well try my hand at a Japanese-themed mini-kit as well! So here's the first paper I've come up with (I'm tentatively calling the mini-kit "Asian Mists"):

In Honor of Soccer

Well, first the layout (I used the clone brush to clone out DH in the middle photo -- sorry honey! and again in the first photo to clone out the woman in grey sweats):



By the way, notice how the title type is all jammed up against itself (I used Dream Orphans as the font for this, btw)? While in Type Tool mode, place your cursor in front of the letter you want to modify, then press alt+right/left arrow key to make that particular letter shift forward or backward a couple of scooches. You can also highlight a group of letters and do that, or a whole word, or even modify the spacing between words--this is really useful when you don't want a word to break/hyphenate at the end of a paragraph or something (you should never have just one word dangling onto the next line, either--so sayeth the typography ghods!).

I also applied the "reticulation" filter to the rasterized type, which I'd never played with before. I think it's under the Sketch filter group, and it gave the title a nice texture. Stroked it, gave it an inside red shadow (base font color was cone orange), and set it to color dodge, which allowed the middle picture to not be so obscured. I'm still not entirely pleased about the arrangement of the journaling, but I have corrected the typo. =)

And then Allen and I were goofing around today, and here's our second installment of Crocodile the Worm (wherein our hero learns that using your head is not always all it's cracked up to be):

Little Red Plane Freebie

Well, after *days* of trying to figure out how to include a subfolder in a zip file, I am finally victorious. Phew. Anyway, if you want a little red plane, you're welcome to have it. I also made a frame, a cloud alpha, a Happy Birthday banner, and a little zoomy trail. This is the layout I made with the zoomy trail one:



And here's the freebie ETA: The Little Red Plane has been taken out of circulation until I can find a shop to sell in; thanks for looking!:

My Three Wishes

My friend Brenda Marks was just musing today on what she could really use in terms of her art, and asked what other people's wishes were... so here are mine:

1) A new computer. Before this one crashes.

2) A mentor/teacher of whom I could ask design & computer questions. It just takes so much darned time stumbling around in the dark, yanno?

3) Like Brenda, I wish I could have easy access to gazillions of art classes. I just can't ever see learning enough!

I'd love to know what your wishes are too... leave me a link!

Recoloring With the Clone Tool

Is this too simple a tip? Please forgive me if this is really obvious...

Don't forget that items can be recolored in non-uniform colors, too! You can clip them to a patterned paper, of course, by placing the paper in a layer above your item, then pressing ctrl+alt+g (in PS CS2). But you can also use some unusual functions of the clone tool (the one that looks like a little old-fashioned rubber stamp) to add texture and color to otherwise "flat" items, and tie them in with your layout as well.

The unusual functions are 1) the non-aligned function (unclick the little check mark next to "aligned" in the tool options bar at the top), and 2) Sample all layers (click the check mark on that one).

1) The non-aligned function will allow you to pick up the photo in such a fashion that you'll clone just as usual starting where you alt-clicked on your source, BUT, when you lift your pen/mouse and put it down again, you'll return to that same first source instead of staying a measured distance from it. This allows you to introduce some randomness into the cloning.

2) If you're trying to recolor an item using this method, you're in a bit of a quandary if your source is on one layer, and your item to be recolored is on another. That's where the "sample all layers" comes into play very nicely, allowing you to alt-click to set the source on any layer you please, then clone into the layer of your choice. This is helpful if you're not quite sure of the placement of your recolored item yet--having it on a separate layer allows you much more freedom than if you had already merged it with the source layer!

Oh, and I almost forgot: remember to restrict the painting of the cloned image to just your item by cntrl-clicking the thumbnail of the layer you want to be working on. This will select just the colored elements of that layer, allowing you to work without fear of messing up the edges or something!

The next two layouts show how I used this. In the first one, I used the sunset picture to recolor the frame. It's kind of interesting how the frame seemed to take on a metallic sheen! I also used both these methods to recolor the squares and word "Forever" in the second layer. It really looks much better than just a "flat" color, and repeating the bit of ocean in the upper right hand photo kind of ties the layout together in terms of "water".

Please click on the thumbnails for larger versions and credits:

Homeschool Silliness

Our newest venture: comic strips. Featuring Crocodile the Worm. Heh.



In more serious news, I'm working on another stamp plate, with a *gorgeous* plum blossom arrangement. Well, I think it is, anyway. =)