searching for photos to fill the frames sitting on our dresser
loving our new king size bed
needing a bedskirt for new bed
thinking it would be fun to make a bedskirt…maybe?
enjoying 80 degree temps this week
wanting january to be over
I’m ready for a little break from deadlines, a little bit more quiet, room to breath.
So I totally have this hate-hate relationship with writing. I hate it, and I hate that I hate it. I’ve been reading Tina’s (aka lifelovepaper) weekly Currents posts for quite awhile now. I love how she uses a list style approach to document her “right now” – random things like what she’s reading/eating/listening to – to pretty much anything that pops in your mind at that moment. It’s a simple, pressure-free approach to writing that really appeals to me.
You can see Tina’s Currents series HERE.
photo by Tina Azmus
Because you asked for them, this is the 4×6 edition.
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Each press card set includes the following:
- 4 – ready to print PDF files (no photoshop required – just open and print)
- 12 – 4×6 card designs provided as individual jpg files (these are ready to print also and can be used on digital layouts/digital project life)
and for those of you that want to customize your cards…
- 9 PNG files and 9 fully editable psd files so you can easily recolor the cards to fit your project needs.
All three sets are 20% off thru January 28th, 2011. Purchase all three together and save even more. And presslist subscribers get an additional 10% off – be on the lookout for the code in the newsletter that went out today! Not yet a subscriber? Sign-up HERE.
These cards were made with project life page protectors in mind, but I can easily think of other uses for these. Wouldn’t this make a cute cover for a 4×6 mini album?
december daily album. three more pages to go.
new press cards for release tomorrow. per your request, the next three sets are 4×6′s.
new floors going in. not at our place (i wish), but at my brother’s new house.
Happy Monday friends! It’s a holiday here today and I have lofty plans to get the most out of our day. First on the agenda is mattress shopping. Madeline is 2 and a half now and she’s still sleeping in her crib-converted-into-a-mini-daybed. She looks so gigantic in it, it’s almost ridiculous. It’s definitely high time that she get her very own big girl bed. I’m excited. This will be the first of many changes we will make in our home this year. I have a mile long list of home projects (like removing the popcorn ceiling!) and I am feeling optimistic about getting some of those things crossed off the list this year.
Now on to more exciting news. The winter CHA Trade show is coming up at the end of the month and the amazing Elizabeth Kartchner has a new line coming out with American Crafts. I’m a huge huge HUGE fan of her scrapbook layouts, her products, her diy projects, her fashion style (just to name a few things) so I’m just beyond thrilled to be able to participate in today’s blog hop and share a few sneak peeks of her latest collection.
Elizabeth Kartchner’s latest signature collection, Dear Lizzy Neapolitan, is fanciful & pretty, featuring candy-shop colors and a diffused watercolor effect that takes you into a daydream of hand-drawn Mason jars, ice cream cones and balloons.
Just wanted to pop in today to share my title page – not for 2012 though, but for 2011. Seems counter intuitive I suppose, but I usually save the titles and covers for last. It’s easier for me to create one this way. Once I have content to reference, I feel I can make a page that accurately reflects it. Usually, I pick a favorite photo (especially when I’m doing photobooks). For this album though, I just used a simple kraft envelope with “snapshots of twenty eleven” printed on a doily (purchased from joann’s) for the title page.
The title opens up to a year in review spread for 2011. I could have stuck this page at the end of the album but I like it as a opener, it kind of doubles as a table of contents.
The front side covers the months of January thru June. Every month includes a photo and next to it, a list style summary of things we did, places we went and milestones (birthdays, etc.) we celebrated.
The back side finishes out the rest of the year.
You know what I just noticed? The monthly summaries are much shorter at the beginning of the year and get progressively longer and more detailed near the end of the year. Starting from May especially, and that just happens to be the month that I started Project Life last year. Coincidence?? I think not. I feel like I’ve been doing a much better job of documenting since I started Project Life…and now I see the proof. Thank you Becky Higgins.
The photo protector I used is Design F – it has ten 3×4 slots + one 4×6 slot. I treated the 4×6 spot as two 3×4 slots so it works out to 12 slots total – perfect for year in review. Here’s a close up of the 4×6 slot.
Those of you that are wondering how to get two photos on a 4×6 canvas, Ali Edwards recently posted an excellent video tutorial that walks you through the process.
I use the same steps with just a few differences – I usually resize the photos after I’ve dragged them into the 4×6 canvas and I like to use clipping masks. There’s no wrong or right way, just what feels right for you. I print out 3×4 photos and stacked 2×3 photos pretty regularly so I created templates to make the process easier.
And another one that I don’t use very often, but Jessica posted a question about it on facebook, right as I happened to be packaging up these templates, so I included it.
These 4×6 photo collage templates are now available in my shop as a free download.
If you’re new to photoshop or aren’t familiar with how to use templates/clipping masks, see my introduction to layered templates tutorial HERE. On my list of things to do is a video tutorial on how to use clipping masks – that step can be a little tricky and is much easier to learn when you see it being done.
PRODUCTS I USED
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Project Life is a system created by Becky Higgins. Read more about it HERE. All of my project life entries can be found HERE.
For those of you that are still working on documenting your holidays, I’ve got the perfect digital kit for you. Oh Joy was first made available exclusively to students enrolled in Tiffany Tillman’s Holiday Templates 2011 class. Now that the class is over, I’m happy to announce that the kit is now available for purchase in my shop! And it’s 20% OFF thru Sunday, January 15th.
inspiration from the creative team
A lot of you have written in asking if it’s possible to change the colors of press cards files. Yes, it is most definitely possible and ridiculously easy to do too! recoloring just takes a few simple (even if you’re a photoshop newbie) steps. There are a couple of different ways you can go about recoloring a layer in photoshop, I’m going to walk you through one of them. (Note: the steps and screenshots are written for CS5 but can easily be adapted to earlier versions of photoshop, including photoshop elements.)
STEP ONE – Open one of your press cards PNG (not pdf) files. I’m using presscardno1-1.png in this tutorial.
STEP TWO – Click on layer style button at the bottom of the LAYERS PALETTE. (layer > layer style
STEP THREE – Select COLOR OVERLAY. (layer > layer style > color overlay)
STEP FOUR – The LAYER STYLE window will come up. Click on the color swatch box (next to BLEND MODE) to bring up the color palette.
This window will pop up. You can select your new color by clicking on the color spectrum or manually entering the RGB values.
You can also pick a color form the swatches palette (located at top right).
STEP FIVE – Once you’ve picked your new color, click OK on the SELECT OVERLAY COLOR window, then click OK on the LAYER STYLE window and there you have it. Now you’re ready to print your newly recolored cards!
If you want to recolor a specific part of the file, like the word “PLACES” for instance, you’ll have to first isolate that object before applying the color overlay. Read on.
STEP SIX – Select the MARQUEE TOOL. We’ll be using the tool to select “PLACES”
STEP SEVEN – Place the mouse where you want to begin your selection (I start at the top left), then holding down the LEFT mouse button, drag the mouse to make your selection, then release the mouse button. You should now see a dotted outline around your selection.
STEP EIGHT – Right click on your mouse and select LAYER VIA CUT
STEP NINE – Because “PLACES” is in its own layer (layer 1) you can change the color without affecting the rest of the file.
STEP TEN – Follow Steps 1 – 5 to recolor PLACES (layer 1)
You can also do the reverse – apply a color overlay to LAYER 0. Or apply color overlays to BOTH layers. Or isolate more objects (RIGHT NOW, THIS WEEK, etc.) from the file. Now that you know how to separate things out into its own layer you’ve opened up so many customization options! Have fun.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT YOUR PRESS CARDS FILES
In the process of writing this tutorial I ended up making layered psd files where the TEXT and the LABELS reside in its own layer. Now you can easily recolor one or the other (or both layers!). A few of you mentioned that you liked the look of the red labels paired with black text so the PSD file is formatted this way but you can easily change the colors of either layers by following Steps 1 – 5 in the tutorial above. Hope you find this update helpful!
To access the updated files, just go back to the original download links that were sent to you when you purchased the kit(s).
december daily-ing. dusted off the dymo labeler. experimented with glitter.
night out with girlfriends. a meal without toddlers at the table. I’d forgotten what it was like to be able to converse and eat at a leisurely pace. need to do this more often.
santouka at mitsuwa marketplace in torrance. grocery shopping is so much more fun when the supermarket has an awesome food court.
and because you asked. I’m finishing up a tutorial on how to recolor your press cards files. Stay tuned.
Hope you had a great weekend.
Hello folks! I’m so very thrilled to share with you a new collaboration project I worked on with two fellow Oscraps designers, Peppermint of One Little Bird and Traci Murphy.
The kit is on sale – 20% off thru January 10, 2012. PressList and Cage Liner subscribers get an additional 10% savings – the discount code is in our latest newsletters. Not yet a subscriber? Sign up for Presslist and/or sign up for the Cage Liner.
inspiration from the creative team
Today I’m working on december daily and project life pages. And a new set of stamps for purple onion designs.
Hoping to finish up my december daily album by the end of the week. It’s coming together much faster than I expected, once I picked the album format that is. Remember I couldn’t decide between doing a photobook or going with the mini album? I was leaning towards the photobook because I’m familiar with the format and there’s a better chance that I’ll actually finish the album. Finishing is good. The mini album was appealing though, I wanted to do something tactile but the chances that I wouldn’t finish the album are pretty high.
Call me a risk taker, I chose the mini album route. Can’t wait to share when it’s done. In the meantime, these are the materials I gathered for the album. Keeping things simple.
The binder is 7×9 (purchased from ormolu) and the page inserts will be 6×8. I chose this size purely for economical reasons. Costco offers a 8×12 print size so I can print 2 full photo pages for $1.49. The paper shown below is the stardream quartz from paper source. I love love love this paper. You can’t really tell in the photo but it has a beautiful pearlescent shimmer to it. The only thing about this paper is you can only run it through a laserjet printer. I bought it anyways. It was too pretty to pass up.
This glitter paper by american crafts is insane.
Here’s a closer look at everything.
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shop news
Super excited about this new collaboration kit coming out tomorrow!
