Hello Shabby Shoppe readers! Rosy here with this week’s Tips & Tricks post on…sketches!

I’ve read different tutorials on how to make photos into sketches in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, but this is the method that I found works (and is simple enough) for me.

There is a filter/sketch action in Photoshop Elements, but from my experience this produces less than pleasing results for using on a scrapbook layout.  I’ve written this using Photoshop Elements 9.0, so if you are using a different version your steps may vary slightly.

First I’m going to give you the simple steps that I use on the photo.

For some of you that may even be enough instructions, but for the rest of you, I’ll give more details with a few visuals to help.

• Convert your image to black & white using whatever method you prefer. I usually use an action that produces a good amount of contrast.

• Duplicate by right clicking on the image layer and select “duplicate”.
• With the top layer selected, go to filter/adjustments and select invert.

Which will give you a terrible looking photo like this…

• With the top layer still selected, change the blend mode to “color dodge”.  Don’t panic if it seems like your photo disappears!  This is normal :)
• Now (still on the top layer) run the “gaussian blur” action on it (found under effects/filter/blur), and you should have an image looking something like this…

Sometimes the sketch is too light and in those cases, I flatten my image; duplicate it, and turn the blend mode of the top layer to “multiply”.  Flatten again.

Now you’re ready to put your sketch onto your layout!  Position it on top of your background paper and then, once again we change the blend mode.  On my example I used “multiply”, but I’ve used “linear burn” too.  Experiment with the blend mode and opacity until you are satisfied!  (For more information on blend modes…click HERE)  Also, Shabby Princess has a lovely range of textured digital papers in her kits, ideal for that authentic sketched look we wish achieve.  The new GRACIE cardstocks are perfect!

Depending on the look you want and whether your photo has distractions in the background, you can mask out (or erase) around your subject. I used a soft edge brush on a layer mask on my example.

Am I making any sense?  Are you ready to go play with sketches? or are you shaking your head, wondering what in the world I’m trying to say?! ;)  I am by no means an expert (in sketches or writing tutorials!), but I’ll try to answer any questions you may have in the comments.

Using sketches on scrapbook layouts can really give you a unique look!  I hope you try it out and I’d love to see your layout in the gallery if you do!

Here is the layout that I created with my sketch.

Thanks for joining us at the Blog today, Kylie will be along tomorrow with the brand new NOVEMBER projectSCRAP templates!  And make sure you check out the new & festive EASY-AS-PIE HOLIDAY CARD TEMPLATE SETS that were released in the Shoppe yesterday!  You’ll love them!! :)

RosyTips and Tricks, Uncategorized 13 Comments

Hello everyone!  This is Kim and I’m here today with my first inspiration post, which means I’m supposed to talk about something that can inspire us in creating layouts.  I got to thinking about an idea that’s been on the blog in the past… ad inspiration!  I remember SP’s fun templates from ads in Ad Inspiration One and Ad Inspiration Two.  And I remember Beckie sharing in Ad Inspiration Three that you can google “print advertising” to find a lot of ideas.  I took that advice and found a lot of ads that I wanted to use to inspire layouts.  But as life can get busy…some of those ads have been sitting in a folder of ideas and I still hadn’t made them into layouts!  So this blog post today was the motivation I needed to finally pull one out.

Let’s look more closely at the ad that inspired the layout I’m going to share with you today.

How could this not catch my attention with its bright colors and ice cream cones?!  When I got to looking at the ad more closely, I realized that this was actually three different print ads.  They wouldn’t normally be shown beside each other like this.  It’s just the way it showed up in my search engine.  But since this is how I saw the ads first, this is where I got the inspiration from.  Here is what inspired me…

• bright colors
• three words ~ Cool.  Yum.  Sweet. ~ I like that they all mean similar things and the repetition three times makes an impact.
• you don’t really know what the ice cream cones and words are all about until you read more
• darker colors of the same hue at the bottom of each ad

Combining all these bits of inspiration, I created this layout…

 Once I finished the layout and looked back at it, I love that I captured an emotion for me as a Mommy.  Sometimes I journal just about what’s happening in the layout, but this for me was more about what I was feeling.  We have made a tradition to visit this place twice a year. It is all about spending time with my kids and cherishing that time.  I looked up synonyms for the word cherish and that led me to use “Cherish.  Treasure.  Remember.”  And I explained what was behind those words more in the journaling.

I hope this inspires you as you make your own layouts!  We are even sharing a free template to help you get started.  To download, CLICK HERE, or click on the image below.  I would LOVE to see your layouts with this template in the gallery!

Before I go… this is my chance to say Happy Thanksgiving to those here in the US with me.  And even if you don’t celebrate the day, it’s always a great time to think about all we have to be thankful for, don’t you think?  Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow as Rosy shares some tips and tricks with you!  Bye bye!

KimFree (not desktops), Inspiration, Uncategorized 18 Comments

Happy Monday everyone!  Hope you all had a happy scrappy weekend!  Kylie here and I am excited to bring this week’s Layout of the Week post to you all.  Gallery browsing is always such FUN, but narrowing down all my favourite layouts to just the ONE is always much harder than you think it will be ;o) – gorgeous page after gorgeous page!!  You guys really do make it unbelievably tough…but I wouldn’t have it any other way!! ;o)  In the end, I just couldn’t resist this work of art…

The Fated Bond by chocochoco

What can I say?!!  Ahhhh.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!  The beautiful chocochoco is an incredibly talented digi-scrapper and we love all her pages…check out her entire gallery here!  I’m sure you’ll agree that this latest addition is an absolute stunner!!  The mix of kits – colours, elements, textures – is gorgeous!  The shadow work, and the depth created, is awesome.  The clever and creative way chocochoco has used two of the Blog’s free templates…ad inspiration ONE and Template Challenge THREE…is brilliant!  This page is a perfect example of reworking templates to create a fresh new page.  And, last but far from least, a beautiful family photo and lovely sentiment!!  …and the little yours truly birdies are too cute to resist! :o)

Congratulations chocochoco!  Thanks so much for sharing your very special layout and talents with us!  You have been emailed a $10 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe (be sure to check your spam folders)!  Have fun shoppe-ing!

A big THANKS to EVERYONE that posted to the Shabby Shoppe Inspiration Gallery last week (it was a true joy to look through them all!)…and thanks for stopping by the Blog today, we’re so happy you did!  Kim will be here tomorrow with a fun post that’s sure to inspire…and she has a little added bonus for you all to download too! :o) 

KylieLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 9 Comments

Hello everyone! :) Welcome to another edition of Food Friday!

Some recipes call this cornbread or baked corn, but I (Rosy) am calling it corn bake… just because!
It’s become one of my favorites because it’s a filling side dish to complete your meal and it’s so simple to make!…and in cooking, my humble opinion is that simple is better!

Here is what you need…

• ½ a stick of melted butter
• 1 cup of corn (I have homegrown sweet corn in my freezer so I usually use from that, but you can also use any can of cream style corn.)
• corn muffin mix (I always use Jiffy, but I’m sure any brand would work just fine)
• 1½ tsp honey
• 1 egg
• ½ cup of sour cream

How to make it and some handy hints:

• This is the amount that I usually make for my little family of four, which is actually only half of what the original recipe called for. So if you are serving more (or hungrier) people, go ahead and double it!
• I like to melt the butter by simply popping it into my 8×8 inch baking pan and sticking it into the preheating oven while I mix the other ingredients together.

• Once it’s all stirred together, pour it on top of your melted butter.

• I usually stir a little bit of the butter into the batter at this point, but having that butter along the sides and edges makes for a nicely brown and a little bit crunchy edge. Mmmm….
• Bake for 30 – 45 minutes at 325F (160C), or if you’re like me and often in a hurry you’ll turn it up to 350F (180C) and enjoy the crisp edges :)

That’s it! See? So simple…and yummy!

I like to serve this with enchiladas or a rice casserole, but it would be a complement to any meal! I can even see it as a side dish to one of the upcoming holiday meals.

I hope you enjoy this (my first food post!) and pick up the FREE RECIPE CARD…just download HERE or click on the image below.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend! …and we’ll see you back here on Monday with our LOTW!

RosyFood Stuff, Free (not desktops), Uncategorized 7 Comments

Hi Everyone :)  Rachel here with a fun little post to give you some scrappy inspiration.

One of my favorite ways to scrap is centered around the photo and story.  And my favorite way to do this has to be uploading my photo to a color palette generator!  I then use the colors it comes up with to scrap my layout.  So I am going to challenge everyone to try it for themselves!!  If you love color then you’ll love this!

I challenged the shabby girls and they came up with some amazing layouts!!  Here are their pages with the photo they started with and the color palette that was generated:

Kylie had a great tip ~ “my photo had heaps of blue and brown/skin tones and the software couldn’t seem to pick up the other colours so I cropped my photo to balance it out“.

If you want to try this out too, here are some sites I’ve found that you might like to use:

Thanks for checking in with us today! Rosy will be here tomorrow with something YUMMY and a freebie too. Don’t miss out on that!! :)

rachelInspiration, Uncategorized 21 Comments