Tips&Tricks - Digi sprinkles & scatters tips: Adding a magic touch - July 22

Discussion in 'Christmas in July 2020' started by bellbird, Jul 19, 2020.

  1. bellbird

    bellbird Pollywog

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    Hi there! Hope you are getting some of your merry memories scrapped during this event! I'm popping in with some tips and tricks today. These work for Christmas, winter and more!

    1. Using premade scatter and moving individual pieces.
    Whatever the occasion, premade scatter with a dozen sequins or handful of beads in one convenient PNG layer is awesome, (much easier than having 50 layers of individually placed confetti bits!) but... sometimes there's a few pieces that just aren't in the right spot for my page. For example, confetti on a birthday page that covers part of the birthday girl's face or on my page right now, a red sequin covering part of my tree topper star element.

    Here's how you move that piece!

    I'm using Photoshop (CS6). I've selected the Lasoo Tool and then, making sure I'm on the Confetti layer of the Layers palette, this one is called Sequin Spill3 (from Bella Gypsy's Happy HoHoHo Collection which has some great sequin clusters), I draw around the piece of confetti with the mouse. It doesn't have to be perfect but I make sure to get the whole little piece and anything attached (like all of a small group of beads in a larger bead spill PNG; because if a tiny speck is still there, when you add a shadow later, it will look like you've got a grey smudge across your photo for no reason and if you're like me, you won't remember doing this step, have a hundred layers in the Layers Palette and you won't be able to figure out why there's a smudge there!).
    So once it has marching ants (those moving dashed lines around it), you can just hit the 'delete' key to erase it completely or if you want to just move it somewhere else, just drag it, you're cursor will become a black arrow with a pair of scissors and , it's as easy as that.

    sparkle-screen1.jpg

    I'm going one step further, I've decided I want the red sequin to be underneath the string; so after I lasoo the red sequin, I use the cut command (Ctrl X) add a new layer below the string in the Layers Palette and paste (Ctrl V) the red sequin there on it's own layer. Add shadows as desired and done!
    sparkle-screen2.jpg
    I went ahead and used the same steps to move the other little group of sequins to underneath the string too.


    2. Adding a magic touch with a white sparkle PNG, brush or trail.
    Think sparkly diamonds in a jewellery/jewelry catalogue/catalog! This is one of my favourite tricks to add magic and sparkle. Christmas, snow, holidays, Disney pages - there are lots of themes that this trick is great for! It can give glitter, sequins, gems, gold, silver, bubbles, anything shiny really that little something extra!

    Here's how you add the magic!

    Again, I'm in Photoshop CS6 and going to use Mommyish's Sparkly Styles & Brushes brush set. So the first step is to load brushes.

    So I've opened the brush palette and clicked the top right icon that has the triangle pointing down and some lines next to it. Select Load Brushes and navigate to where your brush set is unzipped.
    sparkle-screen3loadbrushes.jpg

    Set your foreground colour to white-ish, that is what will draw the eye, and select a brush. I'm going to add some extra sparkle to the Glitter Strip by Lynn Grieveson that I have running horizontally linking my clusters. So I create a new layer above the glitter strip & sequins in the layers Palette and using one click, stamp the sparkle near white highlights of the glitter.
    sparkle-screen4.jpg sparkle-screen5.jpg

    If it looks a bit blurry or there's a few sparkles sort of overlapping, try increasing the distance where it says Spacing in the Brush Presets. Similarly if you want a trail of sparkles, maybe to show movement of a fairy or parade or snowman, experiment with the different Shape Dynamics sliders, like Angle Jitter and the Scattering in the Brush Presets and then you can hold down the left mouse button and swipe the mouse across the screen to create a magical trail!


    **If your program doesn't support brushes, don't worry, there are PNG's of the sparkles in this pack by Mommyish, and I know there are similar packs by other designers our store, and that the Project Mouse kits often include sparkle PNGs, (I've used the ones in Project Mouse (Fantasy) a zillion times!)
    Just drag the PNG in and position the sparkle the same way, near the highlights. If it's a group of sparkles, you can separate them like we did with the Lasoo in the above Moving Individual Parts. Rotate the sparkles a little or resize them until you feel the magic!

    How much sparkle you add is a matter of personal choice, as is whether you add a bit of shadowing behind the white sparkles.
    To me for this Christmas page, I'm thinking the more, the merrier so here's my finished page. I've stamped a few more along the glitter strips near some of the sequins and the date in the tree trunk.
    [​IMG]
    credits: Bella Gypsy | Happy Ho Ho Ho collection; Forever Joy | Plaid Tidings kit + LetterBoard wordart; Scrapping with Liz | Advent template (cut up and modified); Lynn Grieveson | Glitter Strips; Mommyish | Sparkly Styles and Brushes.

    And these are some of my non-Christmas pages with sparkly trails and extra sparkles for other ideas.
    [​IMG][​IMG]

    If you are adding some sparkle to any of your Christmas in July pages, I'd love to see. Add them to the thread here. I'll be back with a Scrap Challenge in a few days that you might use some sparkles on!
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jul 22, 2020
    Ferdy, cfile, Angela Toucan and 2 others like this.
  2. norton94

    norton94 Thank goodness I'm still a Well-Known Member

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    I love this Justine!! Definitely going to try!
     
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  3. bellbird

    bellbird Pollywog

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    Ooh I saw this page in the gallery by @Ana_Santos and had to pop it in here - see how much a single sparkle can add! Look at that sky and how special it makes this architecture!
    [​IMG]
     
  4. cfile

    cfile My bags are packed for Platform 9 3/4

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    This technique is awesome Justine, and I like duplicating what I lasso'd too!!!
     
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  5. flowersgal

    flowersgal I have big ears and wide arms

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    So, I'm confused. Is this the challenge for today -- to make a layout using scatters and/or sparkles?
     
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  6. Angela Toucan

    Angela Toucan I keep looking for THAT wardrobe

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    no - not a challenge, just hints & tips and a place to link up if you try the technique. Justine did hint that she'll be back with a challenge in a few days that we could use sparkles on.
     
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  7. Ana_Santos

    Ana_Santos Well-Known Member

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    what a cool technique!! I see you loved the sparkle!!
     
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  8. jang

    jang Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

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    I tought the sparkles would be a cute way to highlight my items in the moving truck so I made a layout because I am documenting our move. I'll do another for your challenge but here is mine for now. Kristin Aagard has sparkles in her Christmas Lights kit and I saw I also had some by Sahin Designs.
    [​IMG]
     
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  9. bellbird

    bellbird Pollywog

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    Yes exactly what Angela said :)
     
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  10. wvsandy

    wvsandy Grinning Granny

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    Thanks for reminding me about this wonderful set of styles & brushes! I made a two page LO.
    [​IMG][​IMG]
     
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  11. mcurtt

    mcurtt give me all the paleo brownies

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    @bellbird Well, I made a page, TN for my Disney 1996 trip, and believe it or not I scattered some sparkles on the page. But they are miniscule, I've got to remember fixing that for future attempts. And if I had more time, I might have been able to substitute a snow globe for the two ornaments you see at the top. That isn't going to happen, but I wanted you to know that I at least tried to be sparkly. :-)

    [​IMG]
     
  12. bellbird

    bellbird Pollywog

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    Lol I'll put you on the nice list regardless ; -)
     

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