Hello everyone!  Kim here today to announce this week’s Layout of the Week!  I have to say that the job of picking just one layout has been tough the last couple of months.  There have been so many great layouts posted.  It has been a lot of fun to look through the gallery and see layouts with the newest kits as well as old favorites.  So it wasn’t easy to pick just one layout this week, but I had to!  Congratulations to graciewollf and her Jungle Gym Fun layout!

First of all, this layout jumped out to me because of the colors.  I love the bright yellow and green against the black background.  And adding in a bit of purple gave it just the right girly touch.  And who wouldn’t be drawn in by those cute photos?  As graciewollf pointed out, it was the perfect time of the day for a little golden light in the background.  Makes the whole page just shine!  Lovely scrapping and my pick for this week :)

Graciewollf, enjoy your $10 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe coming in your email (be sure to check your spam folder if you don’t see it).  Congrats again!!

 Although this isn’t a Halloween layout by any means, I could see this color scheme working for some of you who may be scrapping Halloween later this week!  And speaking of Halloween, stop back by the blog tomorrow and Wednesday for some more scrapping inspiration.  We have some great Halloween (and non-Halloween) layouts to share with you!  Kylie will be with you tomorrow.  Bye!

KimLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 4 Comments

Happy Wednesday everyone!  This is Kim here today to share a shadowing trick I love.  Back when the Shabby Team did this post looking back at some of our first digital layouts, a common theme was that we all wished we had known more about shadows when we started.  It got me thinking about where I am with using shadows and I’ve been attempting to learn even more about them and think more about making the shadows in my layouts more realistic.  Along the way I’ve found a few tricks that I love to use, and I hope you’ll enjoy looking at one of them in this post today.  It’s really quick and easy – YAY!

First of all, let’s take a look at a layout I made for this post today.

I see a lot of layouts right now that use the technique of “cutting out” papers to show another paper layer underneath.  In this layout, I created a wheel shape and wanted that to be cut out to show the red layer underneath.  Now, I could have actually cut it out of the top layers (something we’ll not cover in this post), but I would have had to cut through several layers.  Sometimes it can be a bit tricky to get everything lined up just right on a cut out like this.  So what’s the trick??  An inner shadow.  Here’s how you can use an inner shadow to give the effect that a shape is cut out.  (Please note that I’m using Photoshop CS5 and it’s possible that your version could use a different menu or shortcut to get to these options.)

• Step 1: Create the shape that you want to “cut out”.
• Step 2: Open up the blending options for the shape’s layer (I double click on the layer in my layers palette).
• Step 3: Create an inner shadow.  As with all shadowing, you can change the settings to get the look you are going for.  Try different blend modes, opacities, angles, sizes, etc.  For the inner shadow in my layout, I used the settings shown below.  (As a side note, I’ve recently started using the blend mode “linear burn” for many of my shadows.  I like the look better in most cases. )

• Step 4: Bring in the background paper you would like to show under your cut out.  Clip it to your shape.  (Layer -> Create Clipping Mask or  Ctrl-Alt-G)

All done!  Your shape now looks like it is cut out, but it actually isn’t.  One of the things I love about this trick is that as I work more on the layout, I can still move the cut out shape around or resize as I need.  The shape has not been merged with any other layers.  How many times have I created a cut out, merged it, then wished I could move it later??  Many times – lol!

I thought I would also share a recent layout I posted in the gallery that uses this technique as well (might as well give a little more inspiration while we’re talking about it!)  This layout was inspired by Beckie’s rainbow post.  In this layout, the dotted papers all look like they are under the squares of the kraft paper.  But they’re not!  I created this layout with a series of squares layered on top of each other.  It is just that the squares that have the dotted paper have an inner shadow on them that makes them look cut out from the kraft paper squares around them.

Using inner shadows really is an easy way to get a cool cut out effect.  Hope you give it a try sometime!  And be sure to stop by tomorrow as SP is going to check in with us on Project Scrap 2012.  I’m sure there will be lots of great inspiration for those September pages!!  Bye bye!

KimTips and Tricks, Uncategorized 9 Comments

Welcome to a new week, everyone!  And you know what that means?  It’s Kim here today to announce another Layout of the Week!!  There were a lot of layouts to choose from this week in the gallery.  I am loving seeing all the new SP kits in your layouts, and you’re all rocking the current template challenge.  So it was tough to pick just one layout, but I had to do it :)   Congratulations to aconover’s “No Training Wheels” layout!

This layout caught my attention right when I saw the title: What’s Missing?  I just had to click on the thumbnail to see the whole layout and find out what it was!  I was glad I took the time to look at this one too.  This layout makes great use of the Gracie kit (which is still on sale for a short time in the Shoppe).  I like pops of pink in the strip of paper and recolored hearts.  I can’t help but love the words “training wheels” on the photo frame strip.  There are a lot of great details to look at in this layout!

Thanks for sharing this one with us, aconover!  You’ve been emailed a $10 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe (please check your spam if you don’t see it)!

And thanks to all of you for sharing your layouts in our gallery.  Keep them coming!!  That’s all for today, but be sure and check out the blog on Wednesday as Kylie shares our next Gallery Girl.  Can’t wait to see who it is!

KimLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 3 Comments

Hello blog readers!  Kim here today to talk a little bit about photography and sharing a love of taking pictures with kids.  Now, I will be the first to admit that I am self-taught and still have lots to learn myself about the technical aspects of photography, so that is not what I’m going to be talking about today :)  But as early as I can remember, I have always loved photos.  I remember having cameras of my own growing up and how excited I was when we would get my pictures printed at the photo lab (because, yes, there was a time when you had to wait until they were developed to see them!!)  I still have photo albums of my pictures from elementary school and beyond.  Lots of things have changed with photography now, making it easier to learn by just giving things a try.  Digital photography means I can take as many pictures as I want and see how they turned out without having to make the investment in developing and printing them.  So I take pictures of everything all the time!!  And of course, my kids see me doing this and are interested in trying it too.  I admit, sometimes this can be frustrating, like when I want to be taking the picture of them but all they want to do is be behind the camera instead!  And after finally being able to invest in a DSLR, I’ve been a little hesitant to put it in the hands of a three-year-old, know what I mean??  But then, of course I want to take advantage of the interest my kids have in what I’m doing.  I’m not guaranteed they’ll stay interested forever!  So sometimes it’s hard to find the right balance.

Where am I going with all this?  I ran across an idea several months back that I knew I’d love to do with my older kids, and I’m going to share our fun with you today.  The idea was to have a photo scavenger hunt where you intentionally spent time letting the kids be behind the camera.  Love it!  Not only would they love that this time was all about them taking photos, but it would give them a fun way to find what the subject of the photos should be.

We had the perfect opportunity this month, as we were doing a big family birthday weekend and were looking for some simple fun things to do with everyone who was coming to visit.  (Thus I played our scavenger hunt up bigger than necessary.)  I started by creating a list of scavenger hunt items that I thought could be found in most outdoor places (thinking ahead that we could do this again later with the same list).  I was mindful to use things appropriate for my kids’ ages (turning 6 and 4).  Then I made a 4×6 inch card for each of the photographers that I laminated and put on a string so they could be worn around their neck (keeping little hands free for taking pictures!)  Here’s what my card and list looked like:

Credits: Recipe Card template (rotated) from the Muffin Man set, paper from Heartfelt, alpha from Boo, star extracted from Sandbox swirl stamp, and camera by Heather Roselli

We headed to one of our favorite parks, divided up into teams (boys against girls at the kids’ request), and started taking pictures!  Here are some of the photos that they took.

So what did I learn on our little adventure?  To start with, I could have made the list longer!  Although we weren’t making it a race to see who could find all the items first, competitiveness seems to run in our family and they got through these pretty quickly (about 15 minutes).  I encouraged them to find more things to photograph when they were done with the list.  It was also good that it wasn’t just me with the two of them because having a bit of adult help for each of them was good.  But beyond that, it worked really well!  They were both excited to see the pictures later on the computer and my daughter especially was excited to have my phone all to herself to take pictures (yes, we let her use the phone camera because it was simpler and what she really wanted to do).

Of course, you would expect that this adventure turned into a scrapbook layout!  I thought I’d share that with you too before I go ;)

Hope you’ve enjoyed a peek into our fun with a kids photo scavenger hunt!  And I hope you are all encouraged to find ways to share your interests with the kids in your life.  Be sure to stop by the blog tomorrow, as Kylie will be here with the September project scrap templates.  Bye bye!

KimInspiration, Photography, Uncategorized 8 Comments

Whether you’re moving into fall right now like me in the U.S. or into spring like Kylie in Australia, they are often great times to be outdoors.

Let’s take some inspiration from the great outdoors as we speed scrap today!  And as you work on your layout, somewhere you should include the color yellow to represent the sun.  This can be in papers or elements and can be a lot of yellow or just a little.  It’s up to you!

1. Add two or three photos to your layout.  You may place them in frames if you like (not required).
2. Add 2 solid papers and 2 patterned papers
3. Add as much foliage as you want (greenery, leaves, etc) plus 3 different flowers (you can use as many of each as you like, but use only 3 different ones).
4. Add one wood OR metal element.
5. To represent wind, add an element or brush scatter.  It can be a scatter from a kit, or you can create your own scatter with an element or brush of your choice.  For ideas, check out Casharina’s tips on working with brushes and scattering -> HERE!
6. Add a title using a combination of an alpha and a font.

That’s it! :o) …you’ve now received all 6 of your instructions.  You may not add any other elements to your page that haven’t been explicitly stated in the instructions :o)  Also remember that fonts are “free” and you can add EXTRA journaling and/or a date to your page if you wish (as well as anything else you would like to do with fonts/text).

Please post your layout here by 5PM Eastern Daylight Time (one hour and ten minutes from now – so make sure you allow enough time!) in order to qualify for the prize drawings.  If you are having trouble uploading your layout to the gallery, you can find help HERE.

SP, Kylie and I will be posting our layouts shortly if you want to head on over to the Fast & Fabulous Gallery for a peek at how we scrapped along with the instructions :o)

Happy Scrapping!!

IMPORTANT: Be sure to REFRESH this page in your browser to see comments and to get the next instruction!

KimFast and Fabulous, Uncategorized 55 Comments