Hi, Karen here with ‘what’s in my beauty bag’ :o)

When I’m buying beauty products, I have to look for two things…low cost and products that can be tolerated by my sensitive skin.  I mean super sensitive! I think at one point I tried every make-up base our local discount store carried.  So, I am more than happy to be able to share with you some of my favorite finds that are easy on your face and that won’t break your budget.

I always start my routine with a layer of moisturizer.  My favorite at the moment is Purpose Moisture Lotion available at Wal-Mart, Target or drug store chains.

For my foundation I use Everyday Minerals Original Glo Formula available on-line. There are four foundation choices available for every type of skin. After trying another brand of mineral make up in the past I was really skeptical that this would work for me.  But, I ordered a free sample ($5 for shipping) and was shocked when I ended up loving it.  If you have dry skin like me, be sure and put a moisturizer on first.  Also, the last thing I do is get my brush a tiny bit damp and brush lightly under my eyes to remove any powdery look.

For color on my face I use Everyday Minerals Cheek.

For my eyes I use Everyday Minerals eye color in Hot Chocolate,

 Covergirl Perfect Point Eye liner in Charcoal, and Volum’ Express Waterproof Mascara by Maybelline, that I tested thoroughly last June at my daughter’s wedding.

And lastly, if I’m dressing up, a light, natural feeling lip color,  Burt’s Bee’s Lip Shimmer.

I hope I’ve helped anyone else out there with super sensitive skin by giving you a little peak inside my make-up bag.  Check back tomorrow for a fun hybrid post by Denise!

KarenBeauty & Fashion, Uncategorized 9 Comments

It’s funny how things can work together to inspire us.  A mishmash of things all came together for the idea for today’s inspiration.  First,  my sweet hubby and just I celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary.  (Wow! That sounds like such a long time! lol.)  And, I started following a thread on a parenting board where members were posting their wedding photos.  I enjoyed so much looking through the images, old and new, of couples on their first day as husband and wife, all with faces full of hope and love.  Mostly, though, life has been totally crazy for us lately, and it’s made me appreciate my sweet hubby all the more… so, I just had to tell him so.  (Don’t you love it when you feel a good journaling coming on!)  So, here’s a little tribute to marriage and what a wonderful gift it can be as the Shabby Artists and I share our wedding photos with you. 

by Karen

by Kylie

by Lu

by Mariquita

by Anna

 And now, it’s your turn!  Make a page with an image from your wedding and share it with us in the gallery. I can’t wait to see your smiling faces! :)

Join us tomorrow as Lu shares a sweet treat with us!

KarenInspiration, Uncategorized 9 Comments

Hi everyone!  It’s Karen and today I’m bringing you a tutorial for doing photo extractions for our scrap pages.  In the past, if I wanted to remove the background from a photo, I would  use the eraser tool…zoom in close and erase away the part of the image that I didn’t want.  It was very time consuming and I made lots of mistakes.  But, lately I’ve discovered two things that make it much easier.

1.  Using a pen tablet instead of a mouse. It gives much more control and is easier on your hand.

This is like the one I have.  The small Bamboo Fun Tablet.

2.   Adding a Layer Mask to the image. Basically, instead of erasing,  the unwanted part of the image is just painted away.  It’s so much quicker.  If you make a mistake, with just a click, you can fix it and be on your way.

If you are a Photoshop Elements user, never fear,  you can use layer masks, too!  Just install one of the free add-ons for Elements found here or here.  Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for the simple steps below.

Now, let’s start an extraction!  Open an image.  Make a copy and close your original.  I also always hit control J (or Command J for a mac) to duplicate my image onto a new layer.   Basically, the extra copy is  just there in reserve… just in case I want to trash the one I’m working on and start all over.  From now on I’ll always be referring to the top image.  To make things easier to see while we work, add a bright colored layer underneath the image.  To do that click the new layer icon and then use the paint bucket tool to fill that new layer with bright red.  Be sure and drag the new layer underneath the image if it’s not already there.

Next, click the layer mask icon to add a mask to the image.  (Or run the mask action if you’re using Elements.)  Look in your layers palette and make sure that your mask (the box that’s now linked to your photo) is white (check out the screen shot below).  If it’s black instead of white, click on the mask in your layers palette with your pen or mouse and hit control I.  That will inverse the color and change it from black to white.  Next hit the “D” key to select the default colors, select a round, soft brush of about 10 pixels, make sure the brush is black (hit the “x”  key if it isn’t, that will switch the colors,)  and zoom in on your photo to around 250 – 300 %.  Click on the white mask in your layers palette, move the brush over to the image and paint away.  What ever is painted will be removed from the photo.  Since the part of the image that you are painting is being removed, the red layer from below will begin to show through.  Don’t worry,  it looks strange now, but we will delete the red layer later, after we’re all done.  As you can see below, I got a little sloppy and painted on the face by mistake.

Now here is what makes using layer masks so much fun! When I see that I’ve made a stray stoke, I just hit my “x” key to switch my brush color to white and paint over the mistake.  I hit the “x” key again to switch back to black and resumed my painting. Fixed it in a flash!

The goal here is to outline around the whole image with the small brush.  Use the bracket keys to make the brush smaller and larger as you work in tight areas.  As I painted my image,  I moved the image around by holding down the space bar to change my cursor into the hand tool.  With the hand tool activated (keep holding down the space bar) you can easily grab the photo and move it to a fresh area.  So basically, I just painted away, scooted my image, painted, scooted…over and over until I had outlined the whole thing.

I kept painting until I got a pretty wide border of red so I wouldn’t mess up my image once I moved to a bigger brush.

Next I used my bracket key to enlarge my brush to around 300 pixels and finished painting all the white area.

Once I had everything painted I turned off the layers below, including the red one, to see how it looked.  I cleaned up a few things by clicking between the black and white brushes using the x key.

When I was happy with how everything looked,  I dragged the extraction, mask and all, onto a new 12 x 12 document to start my scrap page.  Once I got the extraction on the new white document I could see a few spots on the left side that I had missed painting.  No problem!  I just hit the “b” key to select my brush tool, made sure it was black, clicked with my pen (or mouse) on the mask in the layer palette, then on the scrap page, painted away the black, smudgy areas.

Next, I added a digital paper to my page.  Once the blue paper was underneath the extraction, I could see that there was quite a bit of the white showing amongst the curls in her hair.  To take care of that, I zoom way in, used a 3 pixel brush and painted away more of the white areas.  I wasn’t too concerned about being exact and I didn’t remove every speck of white.  I was pretty sure no one would be able to tell once I had zoomed back to normal.  I zoomed in and out a few times checking as I worked.

And here it is! All finished and ready to continue scrapping.  I did add a shadow to the extraction…larger and softer than the shadows I usually add to paper pieces.

Below you can see the layer mask in my almost finished page.

And here it is…my finished layout!

I hope so much this tutorial has been  helpful to you and that soon we will be seeing your beautiful extraction work in the shabby shoppe gallery.

P.S. I used  Hopscotch to make the page above.

P.S.S.  If you need more information to help you understand masking you can check out this tutorial…or this one.

KarenTips and Tricks, Uncategorized 8 Comments

Hi Everyone!  It’s Karen and I’m so glad to be here with this weeks product spotlight on “Yours Truly.”

My oldest daughter got married a few weeks ago, so when I saw this kit I thought it would be just what I needed to scrap some fun pages.  The wedding colors didn’t really match, but I didn’t let that slow me down too much.  I did a quick black and white conversion on the photos and then scrapped away.  My favorite part of the kit was that adorable tree,  so I made it the base for my page.  Then,  I just couldn’t resist topping the whole thing off with one of the sweet  little  birds.  And, since I think that no page should be with out it, I framed the whole thing with some of SP’s wonderful stitching.  I really had sooooo much fun scrapping with this kit!

I think you’ll be able to see from the pages by the team, how fresh and fun the kit is.  But don’t forget that it’s marked down this week only to just $5.96!  Happy scrapping and I can’t wait to see what you do with “Yours Truly.”

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AND, last (but certainly not least), I am so excited to announce the winner of my SWEET RECIPE CHALLENGE!  We had a lot of fun seeing all of the different ‘takes’ on the challenge.

CONGRATS, Jenelle!  Your SMILE layout is absolutely adorable, and we thank you for joining in the challenge.  You should have a $10 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe in your email inbox!  Stay tuned for our next recipe challenge.

Thanks so much for stopping by, we’ll see you back here tomorrow :o)

KarenProduct Spotlight, Shoppe News, Uncategorized 10 Comments

Hi Everyone! This is Karen and I have the privilege of choosing this weeks Layout of the Week.  What a fun job…browsing through all the gorgeous pages from the past seven days.  The hard part was choosing just one.  But I was finally able to narrow it down and chose this wonderful page, My Lil Man by georgeinci.  I just love every detail…the sweet photos, the clean design, the wonderful journaling, all topped off with just the right elements.  And she used one of my favorite kits,  The Barefoot Collection.  Congratulations, georgeinci! Thank you so much for sharing your page with us!

A $10 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe has been e-mailed to you! Enjoy!

And thank you to EVERYONE who posted this week (and every week), the Shoppe’s gallery has been overflowing with amazing layouts and we truly love seeing each and every one of them!  Have a wonderful 4th of July weekend.  The Blog will be taking tomorrow and Monday off for the holiday, but we’ll be back on Tuesday with  a NEW KIT!  See you then…

KarenLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 3 Comments