24 Apr

Member Spotlight

Written by The Lilypad. Posted in Blog, Member Spotlight

Hey all, Polly Jewelle here! I am excited to bring you another TLP member spotlight! I had the opportunity to chat with sarahbhb this week. Sarah is a hybrid master! Recently she has been making a ton of gorgeous hybrid layouts and posting in her gallery. You should check them out! Enough of my rambling, lets sit back and take some time to get to know sarahbhb a little better!

Jewelle: Name & User Name
sarahbhb: Sarah – sarahbhb

Jewelle: Could you provide a picture of yourself so we can see who you are?
sarahbhb: So, funny story, I asked my daughter to take a photo of me yesterday since I didn’t have anything recent that I was at all happy with. After she snapped a few photos, she looked at me and exclaimed “Stop it!”. Confused, I asked her “Stop what?”. She replied, “Looking so bad!”. I could’ve died laughing. Luckily after a few more tries, she got a photo she was happy with.

J: Where do you call home?
S: We are currently living in Missouri (very close to where I grew up in Arkansas!). It’s wonderful to be so close to family again.

J: Digital or Hybrid? Both?
S: I still do digital art journaling, but my big love right now is definitely hybrid. I started off as a paper scrapbooker and then moved to digital, but the whole time I was printing papers and embellishments and creating cards, minibooks and other projects.

J: How long have you been scrapping?
S: In college I kept an old fashioned, stick everything in with a glue stick scrapbook, where I put all my newspaper clippings, playbills (I was a Theatre major), greeting cards, etc. I began a more creative scrapbooking approach just after my daughter turned one, when I decided to create a baby’s first year scrapbook for my parents and inlaws. In 2009 I began digital scrapbooking, and in 2012 I began pocket scrapbooking (I’m still working on my 2012 Project Life album alongside my 2013 and 2014 albums). In the past few months or so I’ve moved almost entirely away from digital scrapbooking and have been creating hybrid 8×8 and 12×12 layouts in additon to my pocket scrapbooking.

J: What is the starting point for your pages – photos, the story, products?
S: The starting point differs. Sometimes it’s a photo that just speaks to me, quite often it’s products that I’m using for creative team work, and sometimes I’m just reminded of a story that I want to tell. I will say that no matter the starting point, the story is what it is all about for me. Whether the story is told through a single photo, a page full of journaling or the fantastic artwork of the amazing designers in digiland the end result is a story that I get to revisit in years to come and share with my family and friends, and that’s the most important part to me.

J: How would you describe your style?
S: I guess I would consider myself a fairly eclectic scrapbooker. One minute I’m clean and simple, the next I’m grungy and then then next I’m layering up tons of papers. I love to dabble in everything and love that I have all sorts of amazing product available to me so that I can explore whichever artistic side is calling to me on any particular day.

J: Any must-have items or techniques on all of your pages?
S: Honestly, paper is the only thing I have to have. I have pages without any words, pages without any photos, and pages without any embellishments. The only true constant on all of my pages is paper.

J: Could you share a favorite tip or trick?
S: This is simple, but take time to peruse the galleries. I love looking at all the amazing artwork that other scrapbookers create, and I’m always bursting with ideas for my own albums after spending some time with other people’s pages.

J: Do you listen to music while you scrap? What kind?
S: Rarely, I really love the quiet when I’m working on a page.

J: What’s your favorite snack (if any) while you scrap?
S: I usually don’t snack while I scrap, but I almost always have either coffee or water handy.

J: What time of day do you feel most creative?
S: In the morning or late at night. I actually take advantage of this and set aside an hour or so at each end of the day to work on scrapping projects.

J: Can you share a picture of your workspace?
S: As much as it drives me crazy, I tend to be a bit of a chaotic scrapbooker. I usually have bits and pieces from my last few projects hanging out on my workspace. I thought about tidying my space up before snapping this picture but I decided that this gives everyone a really good idea of how I work, including a work in progress just hanging out there. I created a standing desk by tearing up an old IKEA coffee table and creating a riser on a desk that my parent’s gave us. The desk holds all of my silhouette goodies and my cardstock for printing. The rolling cart next to the desk holds mostly embellishments and patterned papers, with a bin on top for journaling cards. On the shelf next to that I have my stickers and washi and printed hybrid goodies. I love that everything is within arm’s reach for me.

J: Share with us your top 3 layouts that you’ve created.
S: Digital Art Journaling

S: Pocket Scrapbooking

S:Hybrid Layout

S: I’m not typically a rule breaker, but I wanted to include one more. This year I’ve started a small Snap! Album to play around with art journaling/mixed media in a pocket format, and I’m loving the process. Here is a page that I created for this album.

Thank you Sarah for letting us learn more about you!

Be sure and pop over to Sarah’s TLP gallery to see more of her amazing work! Do you want to be spotlighted on the TLP blog? Keep posting your layouts in the gallery and you may be next!

Continue Reading No Comments

22 Apr

Dear Polly: Filters and Shadows

Written by The Lilypad. Posted in Blog, Dear Polly

Happy Spring, Lilypad Peeps! I sure do hope it’s getting warm in your neck of the woods these days. The sun is shinin’ and the birds are chirpin’ around here. It is lovely! There were a couple of questions posted in the forums for me this month, so I asked for a little help (again) and my Pollys came through (again).

1. I tend to forget to use filters in PS. What is your favorite filter and how do you use it? (sandy)

This answer from the lovely Polly Farrah tickled me. She says “I use the liquify tool a lot to take a few pounds off my fat *ss….does that count?” My, oh my, dearest Farrah… I’m blushing. (But totally gonna try that trick, hehe)

Peppermint uses this trick as well… “I use the liquify tool to make my arms look thinner. I’ve also been known to give myself a breast reduction with it depending on what I’m wearing. I love the liquify tool.” Again… I’m TOTALLY trying this :).

“The puppet warp works well too, especially for the upper body.”

There are a couple of tutorials in the Learning Pad that use filters… that section of the forum is new and growing!

Also, there are a TON of super fun filters you can use just to spice up photos. I love Radlab but it is an extra PS/PS/LR plug-in that is a bit pricey. There are, of course, others out there as well and your program has more included in it than you could ever use.

Here are a couple of filter tutorials and suggestions from around the web that may help.

Tutorial9 | Echo Enduring | My Janee | Photo for Beginners

And for PSE:

Digital Photography School | Adobe

Hope that helps to get you started learning a bit more about these fabulous tools.

2. What are some tips you can share for shadowing stitches and nearly-flat items? (Danielle) and along these same lines… And washi tape? It always looks like it’s floating when I try to shadow it. But it looks too flat without anything. (bestcee)

Anne says “I use Gaussian blur for shadows, and the distort> polar coordinates to take a line of clusters or ivy or ribbon and make into a circle…”

Rachel says “For shadowing washi tape and stitches – i start with Peppermints styles. Make sure the angle of the shadow is ~90 degrees and play with the opacity. I also adjust the distance if it looks like they are floating.”