Pick Of The Patch

Glimmer mist on layouts ...

"How do I use glimmer mist on a layout?"  This is a question we hear quite often at the store.  For those of you that know me, you know I am a glimmer mist addict ... I use it on cards and altered items all of the time and I also use it on the occasional layout.  I use it because its quick, it adds colour and glimmer, which adds a very subtle additional dimension to a page, and I do love adding dimension.    Here are three layouts that I have done, two very recently and one about a year ago ... they each show a different use of glimmer mist on a layout. I love using Bazzill "kraft" cardstock ... but on this layout it just looked a little dull ... and as i was going for a circus feel, I simply sprayed ramdon bits of the kraft cardstock with glimmer mist.  See how it adds a bit of sheen to the cardstorck?  I didnt need to spray a lot, just 4 or 5 randomly placed spurts and it completely livend up this layout.  This layout also used the yummy Collage Press "Knave of Hearts" paper and diecuts.

On this layout I used the glimmer mist in two ways.  I sprayed the grungeboard wings with two different pink colours .... I allowed time to dry and kept layering the spray until i got the effect I wanted.   I wanted to add some dimension to the raised clouds which were cut from the same "Knave of Hearts" paper as the background.  So i simply sprayed some glimmer mist onto my kraft sheet, and then dipped a brush into the pool of glimmer mist and painted the edges of the clouds.  It is a very quick and very easy technique.

On this layout I used the glimmer mist to colour the corners of the patterned paper and used the mist and glimmer stencil to colour and create the butterfly on the patterned paper.  Again, a quick and easy technique that  brings and added sheen, dimension and design to the layout.

I am sure that there are literally hundreds of ways to use glimmer mist on layouts ... these are just a few that I have tried.  I encourage you all to get out there and play with your mist, and do use it on layouts ... it is a lot of fun!

Facing your fears ...

... but only fears as they pertain to Scrapbooking ... So here are 3 "fears" that i hear quite often from other scrappers... 1) I can't do tone on tone, 2) whitespace!!!  I can't leave white space!!!  and 3)  I can never use flowers because i only have men/boys in my family.

Tone on tone or monochromatic pages do scare some people ... and sometimes they can look overdone.  When I am using this technique, i tend to use it on the majority of the page instead of the entire page.  That way the intention is clear, but the page does not convey the message of being only one colour.  In the layout below I used white on white, and white over the majority of the page.  It makes it look clean, it makes the other coloured accents and papers pop and it doesnt look overdone.  This works well with all kinds of colour combos ... it's very versatile and again, the photo and accents will be highly visible.

Whitespace ... another toughie ... when i first started scrapping I would literally cover almost every inch of the background paper ... blank corner, toss in a large photo corner ... blank space, toss in a quote printed on velum, or flowers or something chipboard.  Now I am embracing "whitespace" ... which can really be any colour ... and/or pattern .... but essentially it is those wide open spaces on your layout.   I fist started using "whitespace" when I saw that it allowed the viewer's eye to focus on the important part of the layout ... which primarily is the photos. 

Flowers ..... what can I say, I adore flowers in all forms as embellishments ... and yes, you can use flowers on almost any layout, even when you are scrapping your guys. The first thing I do is look for photo opportunities that lend itself to a possible floral theme ... in this case, my Dad, standing in front of a floral banner.  Try photographing your guys in natural surroundings, like green forests, tropical plants, in front of flowering trees & shrubs ... you can add white flowers to snowflakes for a floral winter scene, flowers in orange tones for those shots of walks in the park in the autumn ... so, yes you can use those flowers, just dont adorn their baseball photos with flowers and you will be fine.

Have fun trying some of these techniques, as always, come show us your creations, we would love to see what you have been up to.  If you have any techninques or issues you would like to see covered on the blog, let us know ... we are happy to help you create!!!

all patterned paper and clear embellishments are from the New Basic Grey line "June Bug"

Two under $2.00 Redux!

Did you get a chance to try  two cards for under $2.00 using one piece of patterned paper? I have played with it more and I am having a blast with it.  Today I wanted to show you how to make an inexpensive hostess gift.  I used 5 sheets of patterned paper, all with the My Minds Eye French Flea Market Paper.  I made note cards from the first 4 sheets of paper, and I altered a chipboard jewellery box with the 5th sheet of paper and remaining pieces of the "card" paper.    From my own stash i used ribbon that i had left over from a large project and a couple of stick pins from my stash.  I also used paper punch's, a stamp, ink, glue and 9 little gems.  My little gems were from the Basic Grey bling line ... there are 80 in a pack so using 5 cost me maybe .15 cents.  I also used 4 small scrap pieces of cardstock for the center's of 4 of the note cards.
The big expense for this project, was the paper, 5 sheets at $1.15 for a total of $5.75, and the ribbon at $1.75.  From this I produced 8 note cards, in a gift box.  It was fun, it was fast and it is an inexpensive project, perfect for a hostess gift!  Imagine how cool they would look with a Monogram stamp instead of the flower I used.  If you do try this technique, please share with us, we would love to see what you come up with.

Two under $2.00

Scrapping on a dime?  How does two cards for under $2.00 sound?  Here’s my challenge to you.  Take one piece of double sided paper and make two standard sized cards (5 ½ x 4 ¼), and use most of that piece of 12 x 12 paper.

I used:

1 piece of MME French Flea Market Paper – Sophie     $1.15

Scraps of ribbon from my stash. approx  $.50

Small amounts of adhesive and ink  approx  $.25

A corrugated coffee holder   free

Two completed cards $1.90

 

Variations:  Embellish with your left over flowers, buttons, brads, etc from your stash.  Or make flowers or shapes punched from scrap paper.  Stamp a message on a scrap piece of paper.  Doodle a border; use a piece of wrap white cardstock or the back side of patterned paper to insert in the center to record your message.  Use a border punch on edge of the paper strip.  The variations are endless.  Use your scraps, use your stash, use your imagination and see what you can come up with for two under $2.00

Tips, techniques & classes

One of my favourite classes to teach so far this year was "Chipboard 101".  The participants of this class walked away with loads of samples and a worksheet that presented chipboard in 5 different ways, added over 60 different techniques for well over 250 different results... And, if they applied more than one technique, there outcomes would be ... well, huge!!!  Chipboard is absolutely one of my favourite things to use in scrapbooking card making, and home decor.  It is highly versatile, and there are literally hundreds of products made with chipboard.  Starting next week, look for this column each wednesday for not only a list of current classes, workshops and events at the Pick of the Patch, but also a chipboard techniques.

Oddly enough, I didnt photograph anything from the "Chipboard 101" class, so I will leave you with a very plain cupcake shaped piece of chipboard that was all dressed up for Valentines day  (I really must learn to photograph stuff)

UPCOMING CLASSES!

June Card Class

Jo has outdone herself again! These cards are absolutely gorgeous! The card samples are in the store.

 

  

 

Date: Tuesday, June 9th

Time: 11am - 1pm

Cost: $18.00

 

Date: Thursday, 18th

Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm

Cost: $18.00

 

 

 

 

Pam's Patch Project

 

Join Pam in June to create a Mini Travel Album. 

Date: Wednesday, June 17th

Time: Drop in between 11am and 1pm

Cost: $5

 

This is a drop in session, but please call the store to pre-register so we have enough product for everyone.

How do you do that?
This months techique is stitching ... on layouts, on cards, on elements on just about anything!  And as always, there's always more to this technique than meets the eye, so come and play!

Date:  June 25th
Time:  6:30 pm
Cost   $5

REMINDER

Register now for our all Day fun crop on Saturday, June 13th ... there will be fun, there will be goodie bags, there will be surprises!!!  Call now to reserved your spot!

Creating a Photo Collage in Photoshop

I'm sure there are several ways to do this but this is what I do and what I have found works best and easiest for me. I've never done a PS tutorial before so I hope my instructions make sense and it's easy to follow. I use Photoshop CS and have never used PSE so I'm hoping you will still be able to figure out these instructions for PSE or any other versions of PS.

For this example, I am going to create a 4"x6" collage using 2 horizontal photos like this:

1. Open a new document (File -> New). A window will open that will give you a chance to create the size of photo collage that you want. For this example, I'm going to start with a 4"x6" canvas. So beside the width column, there will be a drop down box where you can choose inches. It may come up as inches or pixels or cm, etc. For this sample, we will use inches. Type 4 under the width and 6 under the height.

Make sure the resolution is set to 300 pixels/inch and the colour mode is RGB 8 bit. It doesn't matter what the background colour is as we will be covering it up but mine is usually white.

(click for larger view)

2. Click OK and you will see your canvas show up.

3. Open the photos you want to use. I opened 2 horizontal photos.

4. Do any colour adjustments to your photos that you want right now (turn them to black & white, sepia, boost the colour, etc.)

5. On the left hand side of your screen, there is a toolbar with a whole bunch of tools on it. Select the crop tool (it looks like a tilted diamond with a line through it). At the top of the screen, you will see some boxes appear.

(click for larger view)

One says "width", one says "height" and one says "resolution". Since we are using 2 horizontal photos, we will be cropping them to 4"x3" so enter 4 as your width, 3 as your height and 300 pixels/inch as your resolution. This sets your crop tool to only crop photos to that size and resolution.

You could easily create a 4"x6' photo collage with four photos and have them all as different sizes, you just have to do the math to figure out what sizes you want them to be and what will fit on the canvas size you select.

So now that you've got your crop tool selected and set to the size you want, select one of your photos.

Click, hold and drag your mouse across the photo. You will see a box appear as you drag that is set to the proportion size you set earlier. Drag your mouse across the photo until you have the portion of the photo you want selected.

Once you let go of your mouse, the box will stay and you can set your mouse inside of the box to move it to whatever portion of the photo you want. Once you know what part of the photo you want to crop, on the top bar of your screen you will see a checkmark (and a circle with a line through it). If you are happy with the crop, select the checkmark (or double click your mouse or hit enter). If you are unhappy with the crop, select the circle with the line through it and re-crop your photo.

Repeat the above step for your second photo.

Now you want to move these two photos to your 4"x6" canvas.

Once again on the side toolbar, select the move tool. It looks like four arrows pointing in different directions.

Now, make sure you have your two photos and your 4"x6" canvas open.

Move your canvas over to the side a bit so that you can see part of the photo and your canvas at the same time.

Click on one of the cropped photos and hold. Drag it over to the canvas. Do the same for the other photo as well.

Now, here's a little trick I learned that has helped me immensely with creating perfectly lined up collages.

Under the View menu on the toolbar, go to "show" and select "grid". This creates a grid over your photos.

Again, go to the View menu but this time select "snap to" and "guides". This makes it so that when you select your photos to drag them, they will automatically 'snap' to the grid lines, which make it easy to perfectly line up your photos. Sometimes it looks like your photos are perfectly lined up but when you get them printed, there is a tiny white space between the photos and it's not a perfectly lined-up collage. The "snap to grid" tool eliminates this happening.

Continue to drag your photos (by selecting the different layers in your layers palette on the bottom right hand side) until they are lined up exactly where you want them.

Now you can turn the grid off by going back to the View menu, "show" and clicking on "grid" again.

If you think you might want to make changes to this canvas in the future, you will want to save your canvas now. It will be saved as a .psd file with each layer open so that you can edit it again if you want.

However, before printed, you will need to flatten your image, so under the Layer menu, click on "flatten image".  Now you can go ahead and save this as a .jpeg image for printing.

When you go to close your photos, make sure you DO NOT save them as you have adjusted the dimensions of your photos and you still want to save the photo as it was originally.

You can easily create collages of other sizes by following the same steps but using different dimensions. I frequently do this with 8"x10" photos as well as it saves a lot of money when printing photos.

I hope this tutorial was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions or need help figuring things out.

There are so many great tutorials online that you can easily find by googling. I highly recommend checking out Jessica Sprague's Photoshop Friday Tutorials. They are full of fabulous, easy-to-understand information.

Decorate your album

My favourite album to store my layouts is the American Crafts Modern Album. Unlike traditional postbound albums, the 3-ring binder allows me to add pages easily without having to remove other pages or completely disassemble my album. This album is sturdy, holds a ton of pages and best of all, you can easily alter it! The covers are like a blank canvas just waiting for your creative ideas.

Here are 2 of my 12 x 12 altered albums. The design on both covers are similar, yet they each have a different look. First I selected patterned papers that match the cloth border of the albums. And because the covers are larger than 12x12, I cut the papers horizontally, glued them on the album, then added diecut borders or ribbons over the “naked” spots. For the glue, I used clear acrylic matte gel but you could use Mod Podge or other decoupage medium. Then once the paper is glued down, I rolled a brayer over the cover to smooth out any bubbles and bumps.

On this album, I used papers and embellishments from Basic Grey’s Boxer line. I love the rich colours and elegant patterns of this collection.

Then on this album, I used papers from American Crafts from the July 2007 POTP kit and chose embellishments that gave the album a more modern and playful look.

If you don’t have one of these wonderful albums yet, be sure to check them out at the POTP store. They are so much fun!

Photography Tip: Outdoor Photos

With summer in full swing, I'm sure everyone has been outside taking lots of photos. Sometimes getting great outdoor shots can be quite challenging. It often meals dealing with harsh, direct, bright light which can create shadows and squinting, especially if your photos are taken in the middle of the day.

The best times to take photos are early in the morning or later in the evening when the sun is setting, however, reality is that with kids, family get togethers, playing outside, that is often impossible. So the next best thing to do is to find some shade! Whether it's a big tree, a covered patio, the shade from a house, you'll get more even lighting which means less squinting, shadowing and better photos!

Stamping Fun: Heat Embossing

Heat embossing is one of the classic techniques used in stamping and scrapbooking. It adds so much depth and definition on a stamped image. You can create your own embellishments and backgrounds in many ways using this technique.

In this card, I used a butterfly stamp set from Fontwerks, stamped on black cardstock with Versamark ink, then applied white embossing powder over the image. I briefly ran the heat gun to emboss and when the image was a bit dry, I lightly applied brown Staz-on ink (on a piece of foam) over the image. This created a slightly distressed look. Once dried, I handcut the butterflies, folded them slightly to create a 3d effect and glued them over my card.

Today I challenge you to try this technique if you haven't already done so. It's a bit messy with all the embossing powder you need to sprinkle and clean up, but the results are definitely worth the effort!

Happy stamping!

Sunday Sketch

Happy Sunday, everyone! Hope you're enjoying this lovely day!

Today's sketch utilizes two large photos. Start with a piece of cardstock, one die-cut paper and two 5x7 photographs. Add a few large flowers or leaves and a title. Adhering several stickers or rub-ons to the title adds a fun, playful look to the layout.

Click here for a closer look.

Happy Scrapping!