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Archive for the ‘Tutorials’ Category

Aug
12

Keeping in touch card

Posted by DeAnna

Here’s a quick card I made up and I’ve entered it into the Hero Arts challenge this month of keeping in touch, back to school or stationery sets.

DSC_7581

I stamped the background flourish in Versamark Dazzle on the kraft cardstock base, and set it aside to dry. I then die cut white cardstock with my Tim Holtz Alterations Ornamental Sizzix die, then heat embossed the background flourish in white (or maybe clear, I can’t remember) embossing powder, then inked it with Ranger Faded Jeans and Rusty Hinge distress inks. I trimmed two sides to fit it into the bottom corner. Then I tied a couple of Bo Bunny buttons together with embroidery floss in a colour similar to the Rusty Hinge ink. I trimmed a white piece of cardstock and inked the edges with Rusty Hinge, then stamped hello from the Hero Arts Essential Messages set. Then I set to work on making the paper roses.

1.  I cut three squares from Basic Grey Capella paper (the 6×6 paper pad). I cut one square slightly larger than the other two. I rounded the corners and then traced a spiral on the back side of the paper which I then cut out.

2.  Next I crumpled the paper to break it up and make it more pliable.  I straightened it out and started with the outside edge and started curling the paper inwards.  The middle of the spiral that we drew will become the base for the rose to hold it all together.  You can use a quilling tool, or just use your hands, either way works.  I picked up a cheap quilling tool at Michael’s for about $3.00. At this point I can also trim some of the paper if I think some of the edges are a little high and don’t look the way I want.

3.  As I’m curling the paper around I’m trying to be sure to keep the bottom of the paper tight together so it almost becomes a cone (tight at the bottom and loose at the top), and I’m trying to keep it fairly tight at the bottom.

4.  When I get to the middle of the spiral I loosen the rose slightly and get it into the shape I like.  Then I put a glue dot on the base of the rose and tuck the middle part of the spiral onto the bottom of the rose.    And there you have it, you’re done!  Now you can do whatever you like with it.  You can curl some of the edges with a bone folder or a tooth pick or skewer if you like as well.

Here’s a photo tutorial so you can visualize ;D

DSC_7583 DSC_7585 DSC_7588 DSC_7587 DSC_7590 DSC_7595 DSC_7593

DeAnna

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General Scrapbooking, Tutorials, card making
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Jun
29

Matthew’s birthday party

Posted by DeAnna

Well, Matthew is a year old now and I’ve finally gotten around to getting my photos looked at and uploading some of them to my Flickr gallery. I was so happy with how the cake turned out. Matthew’s birthday party was a baseball theme and started with the invitations:

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I used my Silhouette to cut out the circle card base on kraft cardstock. It was an image that had other designs being cut for the front of the card, so I ungrouped them, then removed the parts I didn’t need. Then I chose the baseball. I resized it to fit on the card base. I ungrouped that too and copied the stitches to another document. I left the stitches in the original baseball and regrouped it so I could copy and paste it with the stitches into a new document numerous times on the same page. If I am mass producing cards such as invitations or thank you cards I will place as many of them on a sheet as I can by using the copy and paste feature. I also created a document in Photoshop with the text of the invitation for the inside of the card. I saved it as a .bmp document and pulled it onto a document in the Silhouette software. I copied the outside of the baseball and pasted it on top of the text document and moved it until it was over the text I wanted to be cut out. I printed it on lightweight plain cardstock (from Staples I think) and then ran it through my Silhouette – voila! My own print and cut ;D Assembly was super easy once I had everything cut out, and I inked with Ancient Page Sandalwood around the outside of the card, inside text, and over the stitching and the edges of the baseball. I really wanted the baseballs to look like gamers, not pearls (in baseball talk, a gamer is a rubbed up game ball, and a pearl is a brand new unused ball).

Then I got to work on the cake using my Silhouette again! Here are the pictures:

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I was so happy with the results! My husband commented that the bases are too far back in the running path, but other than that he was very excited about the cake :D   I used the baseball field image on the Silhouette, and used the negative space in the template to mask off the running path.  I sprinkled green crystal sugar to make the grass and the infield, then piped by hand the bases and the fair/foul lines. I piped a bit more chocolate icing for the pitching mound and a small strip of white for the pitching rubber.    Not too shabby, eh?

Lastly, the thank you cards. Super easy using more craft cardstock, the same white and red cardstock from the invitations and some of my baseball paper stash (I think it was Karen Foster but I can’t find it on her website – I’ve had it a few years now). The thank you stamp is Basic Grey.  The baseball border stamp is TPC Studio.  I stamped the thank you in green Memento ink, and the baseball border in red Memento ink, and coloured in the baseballs with a white watercolour pencil.

DSC_5377

Next I’ll show you the invitations for Kyle’s birthday party – but you can get a sneak peek if you check out my Flickr gallery here.

See you soon!

DeAnna

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General Scrapbooking, Scrapbooking, Tutorials, card making
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Nov
21

A quick Silhouette tutorial!!

Posted by DeAnna

I am loving Holidays In Hand so far.  One of the downloads Jessica Sprague has included is some word dates to go with our albums that match the daily prompts.  I love them, but I’m going to be doing a hybrid of digital and paper for my album.  I wanted to make some of them into paper but I didn’t want to print it out and then take the time to cut some intricate stuff.  So, instead, I’m going to use my Silhouette!  Yes, you can do that!!!  Oh, and then I can use whatever colour I want too!  ;D

It’s pretty easy actually – I know you’re like huh?? Easy??

Basically you can take any image (.jpg, .png, .pdf, .psd, etc.) and save it as a bitmap image (.bmp) using Photoshop or whatever program you use.  A vector shape from Illustrator, or a .png would probably work the best as they are usually cleaner and higher quality, with smoother edges.  The better the quality of the image you want to convert to your Silhouette, the better the results will be.

When you open a document in your Silhouette, you will have a large green square on the top menu bar on the far right of your window.  You will want to open a blank document (this image was taken after I had converted my words to be cut out – oops!)

HIH-numbers-Silhouette copy

If you click on that icon, it opens TWAIN, which will allow you to open an image that you have saved as a bitmap (File, Load Image, then navigate to the folder where you saved your .bmp image), and then click on the Convert to Outline button.

TWAIN-window-Silhouette

Once you’ve converted to outline this is what you will see:

TWAIN-convert_to_outline-Silhouette

You can then edit or choose the Paste then Exit button and it inserts your image onto your blank Silhouette document ready to be cut out as usual!  What did I tell you – EASY!!!  Now I just need to figure out how to do my own print and cut ;-p

Go try it.  Now.  Yes, you – go!!

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Sep
14

A quick tip from Silhouette

Posted by DeAnna

Okay, so I finally got my new MacBook Pro!  Yay.  It’s beautiful and easy to use, and I can see the screen!  Woo Hoo!  It’s been a slow process moving all my stuff over to this new computer though, considering the least little movement with my old laptop and I can’t see anything, and then it takes 10 minutes just to get back to the login screen, grrr.  But we’re almost there, and I’ve been busy doing some of the Jessica Sprague classes I signed up for but wasn’t able to complete because of the computer.

Now, on to the Silhouette.  I made a card for my mother’s birthday late last month.  I used a word art design I purchased for my Silhouette, which is a square block birthday design.  I love the look of it, and I thought it would come out of the machine all in one piece.  Boy was I wrong!!  It took an hour to pull out all the pieces, run them through my Xyron machine, and position them on the card.  Yikes!  Here’s a photo of the finished card.

birthday-card-with-word-art

So, I was looking at the Quickutz website for some tips, and found this:

“How can I cut letters best to easily apply adhesive once they’re cut?

Some of our designers have mentioned they like to cut their letters out backwards so they can apply adhesive onto the backs of the letters after they’re cut and then simply pull them off the cutting mat and have them ready to place on their layout or card.

To do this, after you have placed your desired text onto your screen, right-click on your text and select “Mirror” and then “Horizontal Mirror”. This will flip your text to a mirror image and cut your letters out backwards. After the text has been cut out, take your preferred adhesive (prior to pulling the cut letters off the mat) and apply as desired. You may now take your letters that already have adhesive applied on the back and transfer them from the cutting mat directly onto your project.

When using this tip with textured cardstock, you may wish to place your cardstock textured side down onto the cutting mat prior to cutting so that your letters have the textured side on their fronts. Please note that this tip is only for papers or cardstocks that do not already have their own adhesive backing.”

I would have never thought of that, but I’m sure going to do that for any word art designs, and any thing that contains small pieces (like the little baby feet – each toe is separate).

Anyway, I thought I would share since it’s such a great and easy tip!  I love my Silhouette and I don’t think I could live without it.  I even had to install VMware Fusion so I could run Vista on my Mac just so I could still use it!  Awesome! Aren’t Macs great? ;-P

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Apr
01

Family photo re-do

Posted by DeAnna

I showed you this family photo in a previous post.   My youngest brother Ryan’s former girlfriend is standing next to the bride.  Ryan and his girlfriend have since broken up and he asked if I could work some magic and remove her from the photo for the album I’ve been working on for Brandon and Eden.  I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I thought I would give it a try.  Here’s the original:

full_family.jpg

Here’s the after:

family_photo_web.jpg

Not bad, if I do say so myself.  Not perfect though.  I basically created a copy of the original photo on a new layer (ctrl + J), removed the right half of the copy (the top layer), and moved it over so Ryan was closer to Eden (the bride).  On the bottom layer, I removed the left half of the photo from about where Ryan was standing so I didn’t have any overlap at the left edge.  

Then I started erasing Ryan’s ex-girlfriend so that you could see Eden again, using a soft rounded brush.  The detail work was hard since Ryan is turned so sharply, and the left half of his body was covered by his girlfriend. 

I used the colour picker and changed the opacity of the brushes here and there to match the colour of Ryan suit, and using a combination of hard and soft rounded brushes I painted his suit back in.  Considering that I’ve removed an entire person from the photo, I don’t think it looks half bad!

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Digital Photography, General Scrapbooking, Photoshop, Tutorials
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Nov
02

So you’ve downloaded a Photoshop template. Now what?

Posted by DeAnna

 

downloadabletemplate.jpg Click here to download.

Now that you’ve downloaded a cool template, you might not be sure what to do with it.  Templates are really quite easy to work with, and are a great tool if you’re in a time crunch, or when you just want to get a layout done. 

Step 1:  When you first open a Photoshop template, you will see many layers in the layers palette.  Each layer relates to a specific element in the layout.  The name for each layer should correspond to the element it represents.

In my template, I have space for 15 photos.  Each block represents where an individual photo will be, and has to be on a separate layer so that you can clip your photo to the block.  Essentially, the block is being used as a clipping mask, and becomes a window in which your photo will appear.  The beauty of using a mask instead of cropping your photo, is that your original photo is still there, but the outer edges of it, behind the window, are hidden.  You can still transform or rotate your photo as you wish to suit the layout.     

Generally, when I use a template, I like to open a small group of my photos at the same time.  For example, with the above template, I have a block of 5 photos on the bottom, a block of 9 photos in the centre, and a main photo opposite.  I might open the 5 photos to go on the bottom first, then deal with the group of 9 next.  Here, for demonstration purposes, I’m going to choose the main photo. 

Step 2:  First I highlight the block in my layers palette where I want to put my photo.  Then, I drag my first photo onto my template, into position where I want the photo to be.  It will cover the block, but that’s okay.  In the layers palette, your photo should be just above the layer for the block that corresponds to where you put your photo.  Next, hover your cursor on the line between the photo layer, and the block layer.  If you hold down the Alt key while you are hovering between the layers, your cursor will switch to two overlapping circles.  While holding Alt, when you see the overlapping circles, click with your mouse.  Now your photo is “clipped” to the layer below it like so:

 

Step 3:  Next, you can resize your photo using the transform handles to fit into the block.  All you have to do is repeat until you have filled in all the blocks with your photos.

Step 4:  You can do the same for any of the elements and papers:  click and drag the element onto your template, then clip it as above.  

You can also re-arrange the template to suit your needs.  They are totally flexible, and really just a tool to help you get started and be creative.  Have fun with templates!

DeAnna

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Freebies, Tutorials, digital scrapbooking
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Oct
12

Wanna see my Shutterfly Album??

Posted by DeAnna

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I got my Shutterfly album of Kyle’s First Year a couple of weeks ago.  I’m really happy with the quality of the album, but, now that I’ve done it, there’s a few things I would definitely do differently had I known before hand! 

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Because the album is book bound (see above), the inner margins are quite tight, so I would recommend making sure that you leave sufficient space so that elements don’t get lost in the margin.  For example, my template is a 12×24 layout, so I would probably add guidelines at 11 ¾ inches, and 12 ¼ inches so I don’t put any photos, elements, or text in that space.  On a couple of my layouts, you can’t see part of the year because it falls in the margin. 

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To make a guideline in Photoshop, just click anywhere in your rulers and drag into place.  To create a vertical guideline, click on the vertical ruler to the left and drag across your screen; to create a horizontal guideline, click on the top ruler and drag down. 

I would also make sure that if you download Shutterfly’s templates for the front cover, back cover, and spine, that you fill the entire canvas with your background, not just the space within the guidelines they provide for you.  My album ended up with a strip of white at the top where my background didn’t reach. 

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The template should look like this:

Screen shot of front cover with guidelines

Screen shot of front cover with guidelines

 

 

Overall though, it’s a great album, I’m so glad I did it, AND that I ordered a copy of it.  I’m going to make a couple of changes to it and order a bunch more (Christmas presents, maybe???). 

 

 

DeAnna

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Sep
22

Shutter Speed and Aperture – what??

Posted by DeAnna

So far, I’ve learned that taking a photo is all about light.  I’ve learned this from reading various websites and books.  I have also learned this from the new digital photography class I’m taking, Oh Shoot! from Jessica Sprague’s website, taught by Candice Stringham.  How much light you let in is very important.  Shutter speed and aperture; both are all about light, but in different ways.  Shutter speed is the mechanism in your camera that opens and closes to let in light.  How long it stays open is determined by your shutter speed.

 

The tricky part about shutter speed is it’s calculated in fractions of a second.  A slow shutter speed is about 1/60th of a second and under.  A fast shutter speed is higher than 1/60th of a second, up to around 1/2000ths of a second, or higher, depending on your camera.  My Nikon D80, for instance, goes up to 1/4000ths of a second.

 

A slow shutter speed will let in lots of light, but if your subject is in motion (such as a toddler, for instance, who we know are always in motion, right??), then you will have blur.  A faster shutter speed will freeze the subject.  I like a bit of blur to show the movement, but not too much!

 

Aperture, is the mechanism in your lens that opens and closes to let in light.  How much it opens is set by the f-stop.  Each lens will have a range of f-stops.  The range will depend on the lens.  My lenses range from: 1.8 to 22 for my 50mm f/1.8 lens; 3.5 to 5.6 for my 18-135mm kit lens; and 4 to 22 for my 70-300mm zoom lens.  I haven’t learned much about the actual f-stop values, that’s next week!

 

Anyway, here are the pictures I took for assignment 1 of Oh Shoot! about shutter speed.  If you click on the photo it will enlarge and show you the details of the photo:

 

slow-shutter.jpg [singlepic id="198" w="320" h="240" mode="" float="center" ]

 

Next up I have a tutorial planned on how to use templates in photoshop for your digital scrapbooking.  Coming soon!

 

DeAnna

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Aug
03

Gigi’s 90th birthday

Posted by DeAnna Allan

On December 29, 2007 we had a surprise luncheon for Rob’s grandmother’s 90th birthday.   She had no idea we were throwing her a surprise party!  It was a great afternoon.  Rob’s sister Angela put together a memory book for Anne (aka Gigi).  It was a beautiful compilation of photographs from friends and family and commemorated all the stages of Gigi’s life so far.  It was wonderful to watch Gigi and her two sisters going through all the photos and reminiscing.  Rob presented a slide show.  Rob’s dad Brian did some reasearch and prepared a cool list of important events from 1917 and some of the major milestones during Gigi’s lifetime. 

 

week1layout.jpg

 

For Week 1 of Digi: In Deep, when I first looked at the layout we were doing, I knew right away I had to do Gigi’s birthday.  I love the scrollwork added to the title and the hint of red in the strips on the bottom left would work perfectly with the main photo I had in mind.  I know Gigi will probably hate this photo, but I love the fact that she’s hiding behind the napkin.  She just has this mischievious look in her eye that really captures my attention.  I really like the half-circle embellishment, it’s a great accent.

 

This assignment wasn’t overly difficult, but it was definitely more difficult than Now We’re Rockin’.  There were more tasks to complete as well.  The part that took me the longest was figuring out what to write on the accent strips and in my journaling.  It’s surprising how few poems or quotes relate to someone who’s turning 90!  I finally found a quote that I liked from Oprah. 

 

The one very cool thing that I learned was how to re-colour items using the Image-Adjustments-Replace Color feature. You have to be careful using this though because it is a permanent change.  So if you don’t want to change the original image, you have to make sure to either do not save the changes when you close, or create a duplicate document and then make the changes.  When you are using this feature, you have a couple of ways you can make the selection for what you want to recolor.  You can click in the area you want to recolor, and then use the slider to make the selection more solid (the selected area you want to re-colour changes color to white, as opposed to the “marching ants”), or you can shift+click a few times throughout the area until you get the selection you would like.  Very cool.

 

DeAnna

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Jul
20

Now We’re Rockin Week 2 – finally!

Posted by DeAnna Allan

 

 

Well, I finally managed to finish my week 2 layout. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I used pictures from my son Kyle’s first haircut, which didn’t go so well. He refused to sit still and wandered around the shop trying desperately to get away from the lady cutting his hair. I think the comb tickled, especially around his ears.

 

I’m really glad I have taken this course, I’ve already learned some cool tricks. I never understood what “screen” meant in the blending modes in Photoshop. I finally learned that anything that is black on the layer you change to screen blending mode will become transparent. It was very cool for the overlay we used to add the last finishing touch to our layout.

 

Here is my final layout:

week2layout.jpg

 

I think it’s very cool.  If you haven’t taken any classes from Jessica Sprague, you should.  She’s a very good teacher.  I’m hoping to sign up for Digi In Deep tomorrow.  The classes start on July 28 and I’m very hopeful that I’ll be able to finish weeks 3 and 4 from Now We’re Rockin before then!

 

Plus Lynn and I are attending the Photo Express crop in support of breast cancer on Saturday next week, so it will be another busy week – especially with Rob leaving on Wednesday!

 

DeAnna

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