A fun way to work with digital paper is to use it to create a page border. You can use solid or patterned paper. One or more papers can be layered together to create an interesting page border.Determine which paper you would like to use. Do you want a tone on tone look (same color) or do you want a contrasting border? Do you want it to be subdued colors/patterns or would you like something solid or maybe bold? There are so many ways to go with this.For my sample page, I chose a paper I loved as soon as I saw it. This paper with the scallop doodle on it by Little Butterfly Wings (SummerScape kit) caught my eye and fit in with the neutral page border I wanted to create. I knew the main portion of my page was going to be colorful so I wanted to keep the border low key, not distracting from the main focus but enhancing it. I dragged the paper onto my page and selected a wide strip … [Read more...]
Creating a Chalk Sketch in Photoshop
Hello all my artsy friends! I am dropping in today with a quick and fun technique for creating chalk sketched effects in Photoshop. In January, I posted an article about digitizing sketches to make them more versatile for use on digital pages. If you missed it, you can find it HERE. Today, I am going to show you how to convert those digitized sketches into chalk drawings. You can see the technique in action on this page: I used one of the amazing chalkboard backgrounds from THIS set by Paula Kesselring, and added my sketch to it. (Click on layout for full credits.) To achieve the chalked look, all you have to do is invert the sketch and then blend it with the Screen and Lighten blending modes. I started with a photo of the sketch (it was not extracted) and sized it to fit within the chalkboard element. Then I inverted the image … [Read more...]
Photo Pops
Hello all my artsy friends! I'm just dropping in today with a quick tip for making your photos pop on your digital pages by adding a colored border that coordinates with the page's color palette. Here is an example of the technique in action: Notice how the edges of the three frames are colored to match the other elements on the page? I used journaling cards in lieu of photos on my page to illustrate the "Caged by My Thoughts" theme, but the design trick is the same. The colored borders draw the viewer's attention to that area, more so than no border at all or a traditional Polaroid white border. My page was created with a fabulous new template set by Fiddle-Dee-Dee Designs that has the borders on a separate layer so it was super easy for me to recolor the white borders. I just added a solid color adjustment/fill layer and clipped … [Read more...]
Word Art Fixes
Hello all my artsy friends! I hope everyone is enjoying this Month of Challenges and getting some inspiration for your January scrapping. I'm just dropping in today with a couple of quick tips on adjusting digital word art to fit in with your page design. For example, take a look at the word art I used on this page: I grabbed the quote from Paulo Coelho at the top of the page from Lynne-Marie's Muse Word Art set, but it didn't quite fit in the space where I wanted to place it, so I had to make some quick adjustments. Basically, the spacing in the word art made it too long for the space, so cut it up and moved the sections to delete some of the extra space between phrases. I could have simply made the entire quote smaller, but I like the font size in the original piece of word art. Here is what the word art looked like before and after the … [Read more...]
Creating and Using Lightroom Smart Collections
Hello pad scrappers!!With the new year comes lots of organizing and planning for a new year of pocket scrapbooking for me. One of the things that I absolutely must do before I can begin another year of pocket scrapbooking is creating smart collections in Lightroom.I have been creating weekly pocket "project life" style scrapbook layouts to document my life since 2012 and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I love it for the way I can so easily document the big and little moments in my family's life.Creating a smart collection in Lightroom for each week of the year at the beginning of the year helps immensely with this project and today I am going to describe the steps to doing that.First off, I'm sure you're wondering exactly what I mean by "smart collections". There are two types of collections that can be created in Lightroom, regular collections and smart … [Read more...]
Digitizing Sketches
Hello all my artsy friends, and congratulations on making it through the first week of MOC 7! If you haven't started on the daily challenges yet, no need to fret - you still have the rest of the month to complete them. :) I hosted an Inspiration Board Challenge this weekend that included a sketch and I thought I would show you how to digitize hand-sketched works to include on digital pages by sharing two techniques with you. This is my sample page for the Inspiration Board Challenge: The sketches in the frames are just photos of the sketches (you could also scan your sketch if you want to). The larger sketch is blended into the background paper with the Multiply Blend Mode. It worked perfectly with the background paper on this page. You can find the blend mode menu at the top of the layers palette in Photoshop. My suggestion is to play around … [Read more...]
Christmas Cards
Creating your own Christmas cards is fun and easy. Using digital elements makes it even easier, you select the piece you wish to use, recolor/resize if needed (in whichever editing softwear you use) and then print it out. I like to add multiple elements onto an 8.5 x 11 document created in Photoshop, leaving some clean space around each element to ensure that cutting out can be done without overlapping onto another piece. Then all you have to do is cut them out and attach to your card base and you have created your own personalized greeting card.I start with a folded 4.25 x 5.5 card (sometimes I create 5.5x5.5). I like to add at least one other piece of cardstock to the card front to give it some bulk and weight. Then I add my printed and cut-out pieces. I try to be cost effective (using a minimal amount of ink as my printer is an ink hog and it's pricey to keep buying new ink … [Read more...]
Selective Recoloring Tips in Photoshop
Hello all my artsy friends! I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday weekend. I'm just dropping in today with a quick recoloring tip to help match your photos to your digital scrapbooking page - and a fun idea for your winter cocoa drinks. :) I used the recoloring tip I am sharing today on this layout: The hot chocolate cup was a bright red before I recolored it and didn't match the beautiful digital kit very well. (BTW, both the kit and the template I used are available in this week's new releases. Click on the layout for full credits.) Here is what the photo looked like before and after re-coloring the cup: Recoloring TechniqueStep 1: Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to the photo. You can do this in Photoshop by clicking on the fill/adjustment layer icon (a half-filled circle) at the … [Read more...]
Mixed Media Page Borders
Hi everyone. I'm going to show you a few ways I use some of the Mixed Media products to create page borders. Mixed Media products are, of course, superb for any art journal type pages you want to create but you might not know that they are fabulous products for any style of scrapbooking.Mixed Media paper can have some amazing patterns and textures. Let me show you how you might use part of a paper blended with a base paper and create a page border.I started with a lightly textured base paper from Monthly Mixed Media August 2018 collection. Then I added a patterned paper from the collection, moving it into position over the first paper to place the doodled paint area of the paper along the bottom of the scrapbook page. I chose the paint bucket tool (in Photoshop) and clicked the foreground color box to open up the color picker selector. I choose a color that closely matched the … [Read more...]
Painted Photos
Hello all my artsy friends! I'm dropping in with a quick tip on making artsy pages with what appear to be more traditional digital scrapbooking templates. I don't know about you, but I love it when I find ways to extend my digi-stash and use one template to create a number of different designs. For example, take a look at this page that I created (mainly with kits and templates available in today's SOSN sale): Do you recognize is as coming from this fabulous template by Fiddle-Dee-Dee Designs (from Pumpkin Party {Dressed Up})? The only parts that I removed from the template are the photo spots and the scatters. What you cannot see from the photo above is the gorgeous paint element beneath all of the elements. Paint elements in templates are fabulous because they can used as a placeholder for paints from a digital kit, … [Read more...]