Posts from — November 2009

Curious about how to create custom shadows on digi layouts?

Creative team member Leah shares her tips on adding dimension and depth to create realistic and visually stimulating digital layouts, using Photoshop Elements 6.0.

“Start by creating a new layout, and adding a background paper. I chose to use the Elanor2 paper from the new Elegance kit.

“Next add your photo or element that you’d like to shadow. I chose to tilt my photo a bit for this particular layout.”

“With your photo layer highlighted and your move tool selected, hold the control key and click inside the layer thumbnail. This will create a selection out of the layer and it’ll be surrounded by ‘marching ants’.”

“With your photo layer still highlighted in the layer palette, hold the control key and click on the new layer button. This will bring in a layer underneath your highlighted layer (in this case, your photo).”

“With your new layer highlighted, choose the paint bucket tool, and make sure your foreground color is set to black. Click inside the selection you created around the photo on your layout. It should fill in that selection on the new layer. Then go to “Select” in your top menu bar, and choose “Deselect.”

“With your new layer still highlighted in your layer palette, select your move tool and click on the small squares in the corner. They’re called transform handles, and if yours don’t appear with the move tool selected, just press control + t and they’ll pop up.

 ”Once you’ve clicked on them, you can use the arrows on your keyboard to make slight movements up or down.  In our case, we’re going to move two to the left, and two down.”

“As you can see, we’ve just created our shadow. Now, let’s make it a bit more realistic. Shadows don’t usually have hard edges, they’re softer. To make the edges softer, we’ll use a filter. In the top menu bar, select “filter” > “blur” > “Gaussin blur.”

“In the dialog box that appears, we’ll choose a radius of 3.4 pixels and click okay. Next, reduce the opacity to something around 50%, andyou’ve created a custom shadow!”

“Now for the final touch, we’ll make our photo look as though it’s lifting slightly off the page. Select your move tool again, and hover over your top left transform handle. Remember, if they’re not showing up, hold control + t.

“ Now, click on your top left transform handle, then hold the control key. This will cause your shadow to bend and warp in whichever direction you pull. In my case, I pulled slightly down and to the left. You can make other adjustments to the other corners until you achieve the effect you’d like.”

And this is the finished product…gorgeous!

Thanks so much, Leah, for sharing your tips on creating custom shadows!

Today we look at scrapbooking your older Christmas photos. Some may be torn, tattered, faded or just plain “yuk!” But we’ve got a few tips to help turn them from drab to fab!

Our first layout is from Rona, “1992″. We love her unique circle feature and lollipop flowers.

Here are a few tips from Rona about scrapping your older Christmas photos:

“I scanned all my older photos into my computer and made them sepia, the papers I used also suited the photos better.Although the photos are not perfect, the memory is still preserved because now the photo is scrapped and not still sitting in the shoe box.”

Layout by Rona Bailey: Dear Santa papers, Kaiser craft chipboard alphas, Dear Santa Inks, Dear Santa Stamps, Dear Santa Die cuts, Dear Santa Rub Ons, Making Memories Mini Alphas, Wooden Buttons, Calico,embriodery thread, puff paint.

And next it Christine”s layout – featuring a photo from an era gone by.

A few tips from Christine:

“Photos from the past are not always the best quality, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother scrapping them.  This photo of my two oldest sisters sitting on Santa’s knee is very special to me, despite Santa having his eyes closed, the fading colours and the scratches across the left side of the photo.  I could have fixed up the scratches and converted the colour to black and white in a photo editing program, but I decided that I preferred the “well loved” look, scratches and all, and that the colour should stay because they depict the colour of kids clothing in the early 1970′s. I chose a simple layout design to keep the focus on the photo and made the date a prominent feature.”

Layout by Christine Rumley: Dear Santa paper collection, die-cut tag, colour rub-on, alpha stickers and chipboard alpha; Other: embroidery thread, staple.

Have you scrapped some of your older photos? How have you done it? We’d love to seem them!

Just a quick layout from our in-house designer, Dani Krivan using the freebies from the Kaisercraft magazine.

Here she’s paired them with Belle patterned papers, chipboard alphas and rhinestones to create a stunning layout!

Belle  Layout  by Dani Krivan: Belle Collection, “freebies” from Kaisercraft magazine, Inks, Clear Stamps. Chipboard Alphabet #1, Champagne rhinestones.  Black pen, Dimensional Magic.

Rona believes “no album rings should remain naked”.

Here’s a few tips from Rona, on how to make your album rings look amazing!

* Using ribbon, lace or a french knitted tube, cover your album rings for an extra special finish to every project you create. I have used velvet ribbon doubled over and sewn along the open edge to create a tube to be threaded onto an album ring.

* You can also thread beads and small charms onto the album rings for a different look.

* With crocheted lace just thread onto the album ring through the holes in the lace, make sure you sew a small hem along the cut edge of the lace to finish off.

Feel like bringing some Elegance into your life? We certainly do…and that’s why we think think this versatile range is perfect for all kinds of photos, ranging from young boys and teenagers to family snaps and special moments with friends.

We’ve already decided this collection has HUGE potential, and once again our digital creative team has proved us right (we love it when that happens!) by creating four intricately textured layouts that convey equally atmospheric moods…we can’t work out whether it’s the leaf transparencies, the flourishes or the autumnal reds, oranges and browns, but there’s something about these layouts that gave us a moment of melancholy and wistfulness.

Firstly, we have Katharyn’s “Sisters” layout,  a seemingly simple but extremely well-executed piece that shows how journaling should be used.

Katharyn explained how she employed different techniques to create her not-so-straighforward layout:

“I improved the photo quality by adding screen and overlay layers at various opacities, until the image colour and saturation looked better,” she said.

“I cut my patterned papers to fit my design and let my photo run off the edge of the cut circle orange paper. I added journalling, but when I couldn’t see it clearly with the background paper, I reduced the opacity of the paper immediately beneath my journalling, creating a “vellum” type look.

“I added a title and sub-title and inserted realistic drop-shadows on all the papers and photo and title letters, to improve the layout’s dimension.”

We think the photo works is just right for the colors in Elegance, and we’re so impressed by the classy elements, simple wording and circular themes – Katharyn, we salute you!

We also think Kathleen’s Elegance layout is also a bit special – it features photos taken at a fashion parade and is called “Fall Fashion Show”.

“To add more interest, I used one of the colored brushes at the bottom of the page which balances out the branch/leaf combo from the patterned paper that’s in the upper left corner,” Kathleen said.

“For a customized title like I have here, in a separate file create a word with a favorite font by typing each letter on a separate layer and placing them close together to ‘connect’ them, merge the layers, then use the “stroke” function to add a white border around the word.”

And finally, we have Sandra’s charming layout, featuring her gorgeous daughter, Laura.

“As soon as I saw the colors and the patterns I knew which picture to use – the one with my two-year-old daughter, Laura,” Sandra said.

“I took this picture during a walk in the woods, while she was sitting on a fallen tree, staring and dreaming like she often does.

“I chose to work from a sketch from the Q2 magazine and without even knowing it – I saw that later. I had used the last Saturday sketch!”

Right now, we’re loving Elegance and its warm, soothing colors – here in Oz, we’re in our last week of spring and are enjoying this little reminder of cooler weather!