Responses to Your Comments and Freebie

Fran98765 asked how to "...to make an element or alpha into a sticker".

Check out the Making Stickers tutorial to see if it is what you are looking for.

Adria wrote, "I think I just need some advice more than a tutorial. I think I do ok when I buy a kit cause then all the papers and elements match anyway, but I got some of your basic pages, flower, rub-on borders, etc. and now I need to figure out how to best use them. I bought what I liked, although none of it was kits, but now I need some help putting it together. When you create a layout or kit how do you decide the mix of colors? Do you eyeball it, or use the color wheel. (I've tried understanding that thing, but haven't been very successful at it.) Do you have some advice for mixing and matching colors? Could you share some insight into the process you use to determine colors for a layout?"

I'm pretty much free form when I choose colors for a layout. Often I will choose a kit and stick to it for the layout. If I want to use an element not in the kit, I'll throw it on the page and recolor it until it looks right to me.

I'm more deliberate when choosing colors for a kit. Often I will start with one or two colors I want to function as the primary colors for the set, then I'll choose several related or complimentary colors for accents and blending. Once I've created a few papers in the color scheme I do a test print to make sure they are working together the way I expect them to (and to assure my monitor is still calibrated). Sometimes I can choose the colors on my own and other times I use a tool like kuler to help me develop a color scheme. Other times I intentional choose colors that theoretically shouldn't work together and try to see if I can something interesting with them. Sometime it works, some times it doesn't.

Sophie wrote, "How do you blend a photo into a background so you can't see the edges of the photo, and it looks like the photo is actually part of the background?"

Sophie, take a look at this tutorial and see if it gets you started in the right direction (you'll need to scroll down a little to get the tutorial).

Jill wrote, "Hope you're feeling well these days - when is that little peanut due?? :)"

Hi Jill! I'm doing great. Everything is going smoothly with the pregnancy and we are expecting our new little blessing sometime during the first half of December. The due date is December 14th, but I'll be scheduling a c-section before the due date. Jamin was born via c-section after a long labor. I'm going to take the shortcut this time and go right to the c-section.

I've been so focused on raising Jamin and the changes he has been going through (new home, moving from a crib to a twin bed, potty training, etc.) that time has been flying by. I need to refocus on getting the baby's room ready or she will be sleeping in a crib with football sheets, wearing blue onesies and wrapped in blankets with cars on them.

Grambie asked if I had any plans to make a PSE compatible version of my Photo Drop Shadow Action.

The action makes use of the warp tool which, to my understanding is only available in the full version of Photoshop. I'm afraid I don't have plans to have a PSE version ready anytime soon.

As a side note to you, thanks for all the wonderful comments you always leave on my blog. You are so full of life and I say a prayer for you and your health every time I read one of your gracious comments.

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