Nap Time - and a Quick Photoshop How To

I took a few moments this afternoon to scrap a photo that my daughter took of her three boys all asleep on the couch. It's so adorable, and I wanted to get it on a page.

What's cuter than a sleeping baby? A sleeping dad and kitty with the sleeping baby!

I used the wonderful "Butterfly Wishes" kit by my friend Stacey at Scrapper's Alley. I used one of my favorite tricks for making a scrapbook page for guys - I hid the bow under the photo and only let the ribbon tails stick out. Sorry about that Stacey, it IS a beautiful digi-bow, though!

Astute readers will notice that there is NOT a golden background in the Butterfly Wishes digital scrapbooking kit (pictured on the right). Here's all I did to make it gold, which made the page pop!

I used Photoshop, but you can use any graphics program with layer blend modes (such as Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, for instance).

1. I brought in the grungy brown paper background
2. I put the green background paper over it
3. I changed the green background paper blend mode to color dodge mode
4. I adjusted the opacity of the green paper layer down a bit to get a soft gold.

When you use blend modes like this, lots of time you can retain all of the details on your papers, but get a wonderful tone shift. That's exactly what I wanted, because I loved the grunge and texture on the brown paper. If I'd done a color shift on it, it wouldn't have ended up with the various shades and vibrancy which the blend modes gave me.

Persian Dreams Used by Rachael Hudnall

I'm SO excited! Yesterday I learned that designer Rachael Hudnall is using my Persian Dreams I Patterns in her new kit! It will be featured at Digital Arts Cafe starting August 1st. I'm sworn to secrecy, so there's no peeks, and I can't even tell you what the name of it will be. It's killing me, but I'm not going to.

I will say that I've been a fan of Rachael's designs since she joined SNL a few years ago. Her creations are always artistic and have a wide appeal because of a timeless beauty in them. Rachael just gets better and better every time I see her kits. That's one of her sets in the small thumbnail above. See how wonderful she is? See why I'm so excited she is using some of those scrumptious Persian Dreams patterns?

Persian Dreams Patterns for Commercial Use

12 high quality grayscale repeating pattern tiles for commercial use bring exotic and intricate designs reminiscent of desert nights to your digital scrapbook designing fingertips in this set of exquisite patterns. You'll be able to set the rich backdrop to the very era of the tales of the Arabian Nights with patterns like these.

Additionally, there are 12 full size, 300dpi 12x12 inch filled grayscale pages using these same pattern tiles in various scales and fill angles in this set for quick projects and inspiration. Use as overlays in blend layers or as masks.

A generous commercial-use license is included - you can review it before you buy it right from the shop; look for the link at the bottom of the description of Persian Dreams I. I've included the Photoshop .pat file, a Paint Shop Pro pattern folder, and the individual png files for the pattern tiles along with the 12 300dpi full size papers filled with artful angles and scaling of these patterns in grayscale. Grab one and just start creating with it!

Don't miss the 100% tile view at the shop preview, too - you can see how flexible these patterns will be. Color them, overlay them, use them in masks, then distress them, grunge them up, or totally destroy them, it's your call. These classic lines will make you look good every time. It'll be our little secret!

They are all on sale until Monday at Midnight (Eastern time) at NutHouse-Scraps.com

Jurassic Jungle Sightings

Wilma, over at her blog, Wilma4ever, just put up two adorable pages that she scrapped with my Jurassic Jungle kits.

I just LOVED the shot of the egg! Wilma, you did GREAT! Go enjoy her digital scrapbooked trip back through time and see both the pictures in greater detail:

http://wilma4ever.blogspot.com/2009/06/made-some-layouts-today.html

Jurassic Jungle is for sale now for only $1.50 at NutHouse-Scraps.com

Battle Royale 2009

It’s happening now at: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_threads.php?forumid=86

The first round’s results are in after 32 graphic designers with MAD skills, er, skillz, tossed each other around like rag dolls in this annual head-to-head elimination tournament.

iStockPhoto.com’s Steel Cage battles are one of my favorite spectator sports – but once a year, they put their money where their mouth is, and there’s a huge prize for the taking. The banter, kudos, and WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? comments in the forum adds to the fun when I have time to follow along.

Look for exquisitely extracted hair, perfectly re-created lighting from a hodge podge of images (and original lighting angles!), and ingenious graphic storylines in the various ‘blows’ as they call them. Last year’s title winner, nbodine, was side-lined this year, but the crowd still has their favs.

The results from the qualifying submissions (117 of them) left 32 designers on the starting lineup. The first round eliminated half of these. As of today, there are 16 competitors left. They have only a couple days to graphically respond to each other in two creations, and then it will be back to the judges.

Who will be left for the 8 spots in the quarter finals?

My Secret Beach: Just the Papers

Beachy, breezy, backgrounds were the starting point for my new kit, My
Secret Beach. I wanted to show you the detail in them without all the
elements on top!

The beach scene you can use to highlight some fun and favorite moments - try using it in one of those new trendy fantasy style layouts. White-washed siding, sand, and beautifully plumed pampas grass are three of the other iconic backdrops to anything to do with an oceanscape in my head, so that's what inspired those three papers. You'll find two other related backgrounds - a beautiful landscape gradient which goes from the brilliant cereulean of the sky through soft, hazy yellowing down to a hint of brown sand. One of them with a soft rose in the lower corner - the other matches, but without the rose. Because sometimes you feel like a rose - sometimes you don't!

The My Secret Beach kit that these papers are from will be available July 1st at NutHouse-Scraps! Look for it then http://www.NutHouse-Scraps.com

I can't wait to see what you make with it!

My Secret Beach

This is a little mini kit with a beach theme – and it won’t be for sale until July 1^st.  But here’s your sneak preview.

 

It’s done in shades of colors which are evocative of a shoreline and will mix and match with over a dozen other digital scrapbook Beach Kits and quick page sets once July 1^st comes at http://www.nuthouse-scraps.com/

 

For My Secret Beach, I’ve made 2 oxidized frames, 1 rope frame, 1 long length of rope, 6 beautiful textured background papers, a pearl, a brad, a sand dollar, and a sand dollar on the ground, some gulls in flight, and a flowing rope net.

 

Now I’m going to go play with some photos and scrap some pages with My Secret Beach. I’ll share some of those soon!