Friday, December 30, 2011
Great post on design principles for Scrapbooking
Laura Banasiak, a digi designer (check out her shop at Scrap Orchard), wrote a terrific post over at DigiShopTalk about design principles for Scrapbooking. She hits all the highlights with examples for each to make it easy to visualize each principle. Highly Recommended!
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Tipsy: What a little shadow can do for you
Last week I was out taking pictures at my favorite place, Disneyland (where else?) and while I was waiting in line at Toy Story Midway Mania, I was snapping pics of some of the great poster art decorating the queue. This one caught my attention not because it's the most interesting (it's not) but because it suddenly occurred to me that one of the reasons the art is so great is because of the terrific shadowing.
The posters are absolutely 2-dimensional, but the darts look like they are standing straight out, like you could reach out and touch them, and it's because of the shadows applied to the design. Here's what I mean. On the poster on the right, the darts appear to be popping off the page. Or look at the pink balloon near the top. The words also appear to be dimensional ("Surprises Galore.")
In the circle on the left is a close up of one of the darts. It's really 2-dimensional, but it's shadowed to make it appear 3-dimensional. Clever, right?
When you see a great design that catches your eye, it's worth it to stop and think for moment. After the initial "this is awesome!" let it soak in for a second until you start to analyze WHY it's terrific and you might learn something useful for scrapbooking.
I've actually done this on a digital scrapbook page, but only once. I was using this awesome book element as if it was an actual scrapbook page, and placed the photo I was showing off "in" the book. I used a handwriting font for the description, and then shadowed a feather pen to make it appear is if it was standing up off the page.
Very briefly, here's how I did this. I made a copy of the feather element and placed it under the original feather. Then I rotated it and resized it until it was in a position that it looked like where a shadow would fall. When resizing, I am generally careful to re-size proportionately, but in this case, it actually works better to shrink it disproprtionately. Think about when you are walking outside at sunset and your shadow is really long, or at midday when your shadow is really short because the sun is overhead. Shadows are not always the same!
Back to how I did this, after stretching and shaping my second feather in the shape I wanted, I added another new layer. I "hid" the second feather by clicking on the eye in the layers palette, and then I selected the layer by using CTRL+clicking on the layer thumbnail. (All of this is working with the second feather that is the shape of the desired shadow.) Next, I simply used a the paintbrush tool to paint in that selection on my blank layer. I used a grayish blue color rather than black. Once my shape was painted, I reduced the opacity of that layer until it looked right.
That was a really quick explanation, please comment if you have questions!
The posters are absolutely 2-dimensional, but the darts look like they are standing straight out, like you could reach out and touch them, and it's because of the shadows applied to the design. Here's what I mean. On the poster on the right, the darts appear to be popping off the page. Or look at the pink balloon near the top. The words also appear to be dimensional ("Surprises Galore.")
In the circle on the left is a close up of one of the darts. It's really 2-dimensional, but it's shadowed to make it appear 3-dimensional. Clever, right?
When you see a great design that catches your eye, it's worth it to stop and think for moment. After the initial "this is awesome!" let it soak in for a second until you start to analyze WHY it's terrific and you might learn something useful for scrapbooking.
I've actually done this on a digital scrapbook page, but only once. I was using this awesome book element as if it was an actual scrapbook page, and placed the photo I was showing off "in" the book. I used a handwriting font for the description, and then shadowed a feather pen to make it appear is if it was standing up off the page.
Very briefly, here's how I did this. I made a copy of the feather element and placed it under the original feather. Then I rotated it and resized it until it was in a position that it looked like where a shadow would fall. When resizing, I am generally careful to re-size proportionately, but in this case, it actually works better to shrink it disproprtionately. Think about when you are walking outside at sunset and your shadow is really long, or at midday when your shadow is really short because the sun is overhead. Shadows are not always the same!
Back to how I did this, after stretching and shaping my second feather in the shape I wanted, I added another new layer. I "hid" the second feather by clicking on the eye in the layers palette, and then I selected the layer by using CTRL+clicking on the layer thumbnail. (All of this is working with the second feather that is the shape of the desired shadow.) Next, I simply used a the paintbrush tool to paint in that selection on my blank layer. I used a grayish blue color rather than black. Once my shape was painted, I reduced the opacity of that layer until it looked right.
That was a really quick explanation, please comment if you have questions!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Charlie and the Trains | July 11, 2011
I scrapped! I haven't been doing nearly as much scrapping and have been doing even less posting on the blog, unfortunately. (My other blog is suffering too; I'm an equal-opportunity blog neglector.)
Last night I was baking and hanging around home when I noticed there was a Speed Scrap happening at ScrapMatters, and it was kicking off around the time my last batch of brownies was coming out of the oven. Perfect!
I grabbed this photo of Charlie playing with the trains, and searched my stash for some transportation-themed supplies, and this is what I created:
Last night I was baking and hanging around home when I noticed there was a Speed Scrap happening at ScrapMatters, and it was kicking off around the time my last batch of brownies was coming out of the oven. Perfect!
I grabbed this photo of Charlie playing with the trains, and searched my stash for some transportation-themed supplies, and this is what I created:
"CHOO CHOO!!! Charlie has lots of toys to choose from at Oma’s house:
cars and books and on and on. Today, he set up the trains and of course
I couldn’t resist getting out the camera to capture my favorite cutie.
- July 11, 2011"
CREDITS: Birthday Blog Train Template Freebie by WM[squared
FONT: FG Sara Elizabeth
FONT: FG Sara Elizabeth
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Tech Girl After All | 2011
So, a few people have told me lately that they are following me scrap blog, and I have been TERRIBLE at posting anything. Guess I'll have to remedy that!
I'll start with this one. I created this page just for fun to use this scrapbook kit, Techno-Girl by Pixel Gypsy. How could I resist all those adorable doodled elements?
but then i got a laptop
& an ipod
& a sweet digital camera
& a smartphone
& a tablet.
once photoshop & i became friends,
my laptop and i became inseparable.
So yeah....
i guess i am
a tech girl after all!
The only correction I would make to this page is that I don't really have a smartphone. I've taken to calling it a "dumbphone" and swearing at it under my breath now and then because I. Hate. It. Maybe someday my techy status will rise to the level of an iph*ne. Maybe.
I'll start with this one. I created this page just for fun to use this scrapbook kit, Techno-Girl by Pixel Gypsy. How could I resist all those adorable doodled elements?
The journaling on this page reads:
i never thought
i’d be a “tech” girlbut then i got a laptop
& an ipod
& a sweet digital camera
& a smartphone
& a tablet.
once photoshop & i became friends,
my laptop and i became inseparable.
So yeah....
i guess i am
a tech girl after all!
The only correction I would make to this page is that I don't really have a smartphone. I've taken to calling it a "dumbphone" and swearing at it under my breath now and then because I. Hate. It. Maybe someday my techy status will rise to the level of an iph*ne. Maybe.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Guest posting on Krisi's Kreations today
I wrote up a little post today about about my latest hybrid project on the Krisi's Kreations blog. To read more about the creative process behind this project and see a bigger picture, hop on over there and check it out!
Friday, April 8, 2011
Font Friday: peach sundress
I seriously have a font problem. I have close to 1000 fonts on my computer, and somehow it's not enough when I find another adorable typeface. This one is cute and whimsical, and I had to have it the moment I first laid eyes on it! "peach sundress" is available at dafont.com.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
ABC Book | Christmas 2010
I've been doing a lot of organizing of my files on my computer and online. I've have tons of projects I completed over the last 6 months or so that never made it on to the blog, so I'm picking some of them for new posts, since I've cut back on how much scrapping I'm doing right now.
This book was a looooooooooong time in the making. I started it last spring, and finally finished it just a day or two before Christmas when I gave it to my nephew as a gift. The book contains a page for every letter of the alphabet, and two pages at the end show counting from 1-10. Since it's so long, I thought I'd experiment with a slideshow on this post. Here goes!
This book was a looooooooooong time in the making. I started it last spring, and finally finished it just a day or two before Christmas when I gave it to my nephew as a gift. The book contains a page for every letter of the alphabet, and two pages at the end show counting from 1-10. Since it's so long, I thought I'd experiment with a slideshow on this post. Here goes!
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