Potty Time (freebie and new stuff too)

LAYOUT: Potty Party

Before I get to this week's new releases, here is a page of a little party we had in Jamin's honor. The journaling pretty much tells the story.

Journaling reads, Trying to comfort Jamin after one of countless unsuccessful attempts to use the potty, I said off-hand, “Don’t worry, some day you’ll do it and we’ll party.” Jamin perked up instantly, “Party? balloons...birthday cake...friends,” he went on. I tried to explain that it was just an expression; we weren’t really having a party, but Jamin wouldn’t hear it and that very afternoon he used his potty chair for the first time. Of course he eagerly exclaimed ‘Party Time!’ I called Barron to have him pick up some cupcakes on his way home from work and blew up a couple of balloons I had left over from Jamin’s birthday party. That evening we had a family ‘cupcake party’ in honor of Jamin’s triumph over the potty chair.


Credits: Bohemian Peddler by Jessica Bolton, Scrapbookgraphics, Essential Pack Alpha by fotosusu, Treasures To Scrap, Fonts - Ephesis and Times New Roman

NEW RELEASES
Several readers asked about the kit used to create one of the quick pages I gave away a couple of week's ago. The quick page was made from miscellaneous items I had laying around, but I developed a kit based on the colors and feel of the quick page, so here is Smooth Sailing.



The papers and elements are also available separately.





Also, if you missed the quick page when it was available on the blog, there is a very similar one available in the coordinating quick page set.



I've added three more alpha to my Everyday Alphas Series. Please note these alphas have been previously available either here on the blog or as a posting bonus for one of the SBE challenges, so check to make sure you don't already own them before making a purchase.







FREE SAMPLE
No longer available. Here is a small sampler from my Smooth Sailing set. Enjoy!

Another Quick Freebie

A couple of people left comments asking how to find all the tutorials. There is a link to the tutorial index in the left sidebar (second paragraph), or you can just click here.

No longer available. Just a quick freebie post from me tonight. These frames coordinate with my Fabric Curls - Neutrals. Enjoy!

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.

FREE SAMPLE
No longer available. Here are a few metal word elements for your fall pages.

LO: Naptime?

I was reading the forums at DigiShopTalk today and came across this thread full of impressive layouts that involve blending photos into a background paper. Inspired by several of the examples shared I incorporated the technique into a page I scrapped this evening about one of Jamin's recent naps.

Journaling reads, 'A month after moving into our new home Jamin got a ‘big boy’ bed and moved from the crib into a twin bed. He loves his new bed complete with Thomas the Tank Engine sheets, head board with a little shelf for his tractors and the freedom to get up on his own. One afternoon I went up to check on him after what I thought was an unusually long nap, only to find him sitting on his bean bag horse reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Judging from all the books scattered about, I’m not sure how much napping took place.'


Credits: Smooth Sailing Page Set (available this Sunday) and Distressed White Alpha both by me

New Release - Construction Ahead, Quick Pages, Drop Shadows and Free Sample

I always have hard time designing for Halloween. I don't have much use for spooky stuff as Jamin looks about as scary as puppy in his Halloween costume. The traditional Halloween color palette doesn't really inspire me either. I did try though and look below to see what happened to my Halloween papers -



They turned into a construction set in honor of Jamin who has developed a fascination for all things construction related (trucks, tractors, Bob the Builder, Handy Manny, etc.). While I was working on this set, he had fun using my Wacom to 'drive' the trucks and tractors around the screen.



Of course if you need some papers for Halloween, you can always pick up just the paper pack.



My Summer's End set has been so popular, I decided to release a set of quick pages and the combo pack.



Here is an action that allows you to add a realistic, customizable drop shadow to your photos with the click of your mouse. You can certainly accomplish this effect on your own as I've outlined it in the Creating Realistic Drop Shadows tutorial, but I've found having this action available saves me a ton of time. There is also a professional use version available for designers, quick page makers and scrap-4-hire.



FREE SAMPLER
No longer available. Here is a small sampler from my Construction Ahead set. Enjoy!

Tour of the Bevel and Emboss Settings in PSCS2

One of the most frequent tutorial requests has been for guidance on layer styles such as drop shadows and beveling.

Today we start by looking at the Bevel and Emboss settings in the layer styles palette in PSCS2. I know many readers use PSE, however layer styles is one of the area in which Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are very different so it is difficult to write a single tutorial covering both. I will be on look out for layer style resources for PSE users and hope to have a related post soon.

Beveling adds depth, texture and dimension to objects. For the sake of example I've cut a flower shape out of a background to which I will be applying the layer style, but you can add bevels to create a wide variety of scrapping elements such as frames and alphabets.

To access the Bevel and Emboss layer style settings, click on the layer styles icon at the base of the layers palette. The layer styles icon is a circle with a script f. Select "Bevel and Emboss" from the pop up menu.



Click on the small arrow to the right of the words 'Inner Bevel' to show the Style drop down menu. There are 5 styles to choose from, the most common in digital scrapping being the Inner Bevel and Outer Bevel. An Inner Bevel will place the bevel contouring along the inside of the layer, while the Outer Bevel will place the contouring along the outside edge of the layer. The best way to learn the various effects is to try each of them and observe the results. Make sure the box titled 'Preview' in the left side of the dialogue box is checked to assure you can see your changes as you make them.



The technique box drop down menu allows you to choose the effect of the bevel. Choose 'smooth' for a smooth curve and 'chisel hard' or 'chisel soft' for a more chiseled effect. In general, I use the smooth setting to create soft items such as fabric, paper, puffy plastic, etc. and use the chiseled settings when created/shaping wood and stone items.



The depth slider allows you to control the magnitude of the bevel. The lower the number, the more subtle the effect.



The size slider allows you to control how large the bevel is. The larger the number the larger the space used for the bevel.

The soften slider allows you to further refine the severity of the beveling curve. The larger the number, the softer the bevel.

The angle settings are used to set the location of the shadow and highlights of the beveling. The most common setting for digital scrapping is an angle of 120 degrees.

Finally the Highlight and Shadow modes control the intensity of the shadows and highlights of the beveling. The defaults are 75%, but I often lower both to decrease the intensity of the effect. Lower the highlights slider more when beveling darker objects and the shadows slider when working with lighter objects.

I realize this overview might be frustrating to those who like concrete settings, but I find each application requires slightly different settings and I've been better served by having a general understanding of the various options and then playing with the settings to get a specific effect.

See the two items below for a couple of examples of beveling.

You'll notice scroll work embedded in the hinge. I don't have the exact settings saved, but to give you a general idea, the scroll work was created by creating the scroll shapes and then adding an inner bevel, smooth technique setting, 100% depth, direction down, low size setting, no softening, lowered highlights setting.

The quilted effect in the heart was created using an inner bevel at the smooth technique setting, but the depth was lower, the direction up, high size setting, maximum softening (16px) and the highlights and shadowing both decreased a little from their default settings.

Freebie Word Art

No longer available. Just a quick freebie today - here is a piece of word art I made using my notepaper alpha. Enjoy!

Featured Element - Frames

Back by request, the Featured Element column in which I choose a general element category and find various layouts and products that provide ideas for incorporating the element in layouts. Frames appear to be latest element of choice among scrappers and designers. Frame clusters, bent frames and ribbon-wrapped frames have become standard offerings in most digital scrapping stores.

Here are 7 ideas for incorporating various styles of frames into your pages. Click on any layout to see the page in a gallery with credits or any product to go to that product in the store.

1) Use frames to facilitate photo clusters. Photo clusters are a popular way to arrange multiple photos on a page, such as this page by CathyRose.



Nancy Comelab's Photoclusters are a great option for easily arranging photos in clustered frames. Her sets come with realistic touches such as curled corners and custom shadowing. For other photo arranging frame aids, check out Christine Nash's Slice It templates, my Framed products or Ztampf's Naked Frames.

2) Add grunge edges to a photo. Grungy frames works great for boy pages and are an excellent way to accent a photo without using a formal frame. The grunge frame in Robyn's Waiting for Daddy adds emphasis to the photo and provides a great visual contrast to the white.



Robyn used elements from her kit For the Blokes and Grunge Me Brushes to achieve the grunge in this layout. For other grunge framing options you can take a look at Rina's Shabby Inked Frames, or Frame It! Grunge by Vera Lim.

3) Use a frame to define a space. Frame don't always have to go around photos. I love the way Laura used a simple black frame to create a subspace on her page that she filled with photos and a few other elements.



4) Filmstrip elements are a great way to display multiple photos as done is this beautiful page by marnel.



5) It doesn't have to be a frame to function as one. A frame is anything that provides a border or helps define a space. In Miles and Miles of Smiles I used a heart element to frame one of my photos.



6) Wrap your frame in string, ribbon or anything else you can image. Frames with such trappings are very popular right now and you can find them everywhere. I really like these String-Alongs recently released by Betty Jo Martin.



Other great wrapped frame products include; Christina Renee's Skinny Minis (not frames, but designed to be wrapped around any frame or object) and Victoria Feemster's Banded Paper Frames.

Also, Ikeagoddess has a great tutorial on her blog for those who would like to try their own ribbon wrapping.

7) Incorporate words, swirls and other design elements in your framing. This can be easily accomplished by simply writing a word or journaling along one edge of your frame. Lisa Habisreutinger has taken the concept one step further with her two-toned frames.




I hope this column has provided a bit of inspiration. Have a great day everyone.

New Releases and Free Sampler

Several readers asked what kit was used to create the quick page I gave away last week. The tag and ribbon came from Allegiance (ribbon was slightly recolored) and the background paper was one I had laying around in an unfinished kit. Judging from the response to the quick page, there might be interest in a full kit along these lines, so I'll work on it over the next couple of weeks.

This week I hope to bring more substantial scrap-related content back to the blog, so look for a new featured element column tomorrow and a tutorial later in the week. Meanwhile, here is the Monday new-release announcement.

My latest page set is Gypsy Flair. It was while working on this set that I created the paper I used as a sample in the Reader Sound Off: Bold Patterns post. I took the advice of many readers and included the bolder paper in the set as a bonus paper, but the set still contains 8 other solid and more subtly patterned papers.



Here is a closer look at the elements ...



and papers ...



and quick pages.



I also released two Photo Pocket element sets. Each set contains 4 embellished pockets prestuffed with frames just waiting for your photos and 4 unembellished versions of the same pockets. The first set is geared toward more boyish pages while the second set has more feminine touches.




FREE SAMPLE
No longer available. Here is a small sampler from my Gypsy Flair set. Enjoy!

Thanks and Freebie

Thanks to everyone who submitted tutorial ideas and questions. I'll try to address or write tutorials on a couple of the questions in the coming week.

No longer available. Meanwhile, here is a quick page I put together for anyone interested. Enjoy!

Bloggers Block

I've been at a loss for things to write about this week. I'd like to add some tutorials to the tut's section. If you have a request or idea, feel free to leave it as a comment to this post and maybe I'll write a tutorial based on your request. For reasons I outline in this post, I prefer to write tutorials about scrapping techniques rather than how make digisupplies, but most of all I want to hear about what readers would like to learn about. Thanks in advance.

Layout - Grandpa

I've been trying to get caught up with my scrapping and finally scrapped these photos of my dad and Jamin taken earlier this spring. Jamin has several playmates his age, but Grandpa is his favorite playmate.



Each page closer up:




Credits: Papers and elements from Ocean View and Shabby Sunroom by Misty Cato and Curiosities by Kelly Shults, Stamped Alpha from Kelly Shults all available at Scrapbook-Elements

New Releases and Freebie

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Here are the new products released on Sunday. The first is my latest kit, Autumn Romance. Paper, Elements and Quick Pages are available separately or bundled for added savings.







I also put together a set of curled fabric edges in various colors and a set of neutrals.





FREE SAMPLE
No longer available. Here is a small sampler from the Autumn Romance line of products. Enjoy!

Reader Layout: Sweetest of Smiles

By way of inspiration I thought I'd share a page sent in by a reader. As I posted in the bold paper discussion, I have trouble figuring out how to use large patterns in my scrapping. Suggestions from readers including cutting the papers into smaller elements such as mats and frames, using bold patterns for cards and crafts or using them to draw attention to darker photos. Sweetest of Smiles by Michelle is a great example of effective use of pattern. The red and yellow tones in the paper are a wonderful compliment to the red-headed darling in the photo and the black paper behind the photo assures the busy-ness of the pattern doesn't detract from the photo. Thanks so much for sharing Michelle.


Please click on photo to see the layout in the DST gallery with full credits.

Bold Patterns, Layout and Freebie

Great discussion on the use of bold patterns following the last post. I appreciate the feedback and also got some ideas for using bold patterns in my own scrapping. If anyone made a layout with the paper that you are willing to share, leave a link in the comments and I'll try to post some of the pages in a future wrap-up column.

Unrelated to the bold pattern discussion - here is a page I did of Jamin with photos I took at our church's Memorial Day Picnic (yes, I'm just getting to scrapping them). He spent the whole afternoon trying all the different sports he saw the 'big kids' playing. He couldn't figure out how to use the pedals on the bike and the baseball and bat never really connected, but he sure looks like a natural with that football.


Credits: That's My Boy and Misty's Templates - Rounded Corners both by Misty Cato, Scrapbook-Elements

FREE SAMPLE
No longer available. Here is a trio of brass flowers. Enjoy!

Reader Sound-Off: Bold Pattern Papers

I'm looking for reader opinions as to whether or not you like to see kits that include large and/or bold patterned papers. From an artistic perspective they are fun to make, but whenever I scrap I usually stick with solid and subdued patterned papers so as not to overwhelm my photos. As a result I end up eliminating big, bold pattern papers from my kits.

Case in point, here is a paper I made as I was working on a kit. While I think it might make cool wrapping paper, I wouldn't have a clue how to scrap with it, so it has been relegated to my rejects folder.



I'd love to hear reader thoughts on bold pattern papers - love 'em? like 'em? leave 'em out?

New Releases - Treasured Ones and Templates

Here is the first set inspired by my little-miss-on-the-way; Treasures Ones - dedicated to my coming little girl and my precious son who is going to make a wonderful big brother.



There is also a quick page album created from the page set with a few extra embellishments and an alpha for customizing the pages. Each pair of pages coordinates for a two-page spread.



Here is a closer view of a pair of pages.


Finally there is a new set of 4 templates. Each of these compositions is based on photos with rounded corners.



FREE SAMPLE
No longer available. Here is a small sampler from the Treasured Ones line of products. Enjoy!