Happy Monday, everyone! I (Rosy), for one, am happy to be starting a fresh new week after fighting with the flu and a busy weekend, but on to why we are here.  This week’s layout of the week goes to rache77 with her You Are layout!

 I love the dramatic feel that the dark background gives this page of her beautiful daughter and the clustering that extends across the page is gorgeous!  It has such a light, airy feel and flows beautifully!

Congratulations, rache77!  Look for your $10 gift card in your e-mail inbox (and spam folder) and have fun shoppe-ing!

Tomorrow Beckie will be here with a product spotlight perfect for scrapping all those first day of school photos…and lots more!

RosyLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 4 Comments

Hello Shabby Shoppe readers!  Today I (Rosy) will be talking about creating covers for your photo book projects.  I love printing my layouts in photo books!  To be able to physically hold a book and flip through all the pages I’ve created is so rewarding to me.

Many photo book printers give you the option of designing your own custom image to put on the cover of your book.  Here are some things to consider when you create a cover and also a few examples to spark your creativity.

Purpose:

The cover of your book should be a representation of the theme inside the book.  The viewer should be able to tell by looking at the cover whether your book is a summary of your year, photos of your baby boy or all about a family vacation you took.  For this reason, I usually wait to design my cover until the rest of the book is finished and I know exactly what is inside.

Kim shared some questions that she considers when thinking about a cover:

• Will this cover be displayed somewhere? My family books are displayed for a year before the next year’s is printed and the old year goes on the bookshelf with the others where you only see the spine. So one thing I care about is colors (there are some colors I wouldn’t put on the front because they would “clash” with other things in my house). And there are other preferences people might consider if the book is going to be displayed.
• Do I want to include a dedication? I often do this on the back cover. I write a note saying who made the book and why. (For example: This book was made by Mommy for Caleb so that he would be able to look back at his first year. Someday when you have children of your own, I hope this is a special keepsake.) And as an additional note, when making covers, don’t forget to think about the back cover too! There’s room to be creative there too.
• Do I want to include a “recap”? This isn’t something I usually do because I tend to do a summary on the title page of my books. But I’ve seen examples where the cover had a “top 10 of 2012″ for a family yearbook or a “top 10 things I love about you” for a baby book.
• What special verses, quotes, poems, song lyrics, etc should be included?

Kylie shared a quote that she used in her 2011 projectSCRAP album and would be great on a gift book:

“We gather up pictures and bits of our past and scrapbook them into a gift that will last” ~Kimberly Rinehart, “Scrapbooker’s Verse” found here.

 Design:

Once you’ve decided on the purpose and what you want your cover to say, you can get on to the fun of designing it!

A cover can be designed with or without photos, but it should make the viewer want to open the book to see more!

Every printing service will have their own guidelines as to trim area and such.  Most photo book printers have a cover template with trim guides that you can download so that you can design your cover specifically for their process.  Hardback covers usually have a trim area just like the inside pages, plus the area that gets “wrapped” under, so your best option is to simply keep everything off the edges.  If you’re a “living on the edge” type of person and willing to take the risk of having something important trimmed off, then by all means go ahead and put it out there, but don’t say I didn’t warn you! ;o)

Some printing companies let you stretch your image across front and back covers like this:

And others have the covers divided into front cover, back cover, and spine images like this:

I recommend deciding on your choice of printer and downloading their cover templates or finding their crop guidelines before you start designing your cover.

One thing to note is that your cover colors may vary depending on your choice of print shop.  I have had a book printed where the cover colors were more saturated than the inside pages and so I shy away from using brightly colored backgrounds on my covers, but Jenelle has had the exact opposite experience and says that she tries not to use pale “colours”.

Some other thoughts that Jenelle shared about covers:

• I am very wary of the cropping that can occur with some print places so always make sure I have left a large margin on the covers. (Way to go, Jenelle!)
• I like to write a little summary on the back of what the book is about/where we went/dates etc.
• I usually choose some favourite photos for the front cover and keep one quite large. Then I add smaller photos on the back.
• I sometimes get a smaller/soft cover book printed as well that the kids can keep on their bookshelves. Then I don’t stress about grubby little fingers or ripped pages and they can still enjoy looking at our holiday snaps themselves.

 I hope we’re not making this sound more daunting than it really is!  Like any other scrapping, there is no wrong way to create the cover of your book, but I hope our ideas can give some inspiration and direction to anyone who may be struggling with this part of the book printing process.

Thanks for joining us today…Kylie will be here tomorrow with our next Easy-As-Pie Template Challenge and to announce the winner of number 25!

RosyInspiration, Uncategorized 3 Comments

Hello Shabby Shoppe readers!  This is Rosy, here to talk (write) about a favorite little trick of mine involving blending modes in Photoshop; more specifically, the Soft Light blending mode.  This is by far the blend mode that I use the most!  Actually, I would be satisfied if there were only two blending modes in PSE as long as they were Soft Light and Multiply! :)

So what do I do with the Soft Light blending mode?  First, let’s talk about what this blend mode does.  Soft Light will multiply the dark tones and screen the light tones, so any blacks will become a darker version of the background color and whites will become a lighter version of the background color.  There are many uses for this in photo editing, but on scrapbook paper this is what it will look like.

I often use this on fonts and brushwork to get a softer look; but that’s not all!  This works well to make your own tone-on-tone papers.  Sometimes you have a beautiful solid paper that needs just a little pattern for a finished look to your page.  Here’s one way to add some pattern to your paper.

(note: these instructions are shown in Photoshop Elements 9)

1. Open a solid (or almost solid) paper and a paper that has the pattern that you’d like to add.

2. Layer the patterned paper on top of the solid paper.

3. Convert the patterned paper to black and white using whatever method you prefer.  (I usually adjust it to have more contrast.)

4. With your patterned paper selected, go to the drop down box with blending modes and select Soft Light.

Now your paper has a tone-on-tone pattern!

You can lower the opacity or duplicate the patterned layer, depending on the look you want.  Another option is to invert the black and white layer.  It’s a great way to stretch your stash of digital papers and use SP’s beautiful patterned papers with any color palette!

Here is a page that I’ve scrapped using this trick.  The background paper and the purple patterned paper have been blended and the title and date both have the Soft Light blend mode applied as well!

Thank you for stopping in at the Shabby Shoppe blog and I hope you find this trick useful!

Tomorrow Kylie will be here with the projectSCRAP July templates for us!

RosyTips and Tricks, Uncategorized 16 Comments

Hello and happy Monday to all of our Shabby Shoppe readers!  This is Rosy, here to announce the layout of the week.

This week Ladibugbaby‘s vacation layout caught my eye.

I love the carefree feeling that all of the circles create and it looks like her kids were having a lot of fun, but what I like best about this layout is that she has six photos on it and it doesn’t look crowded at all!  The variety of sizes and shapes keeps the page from feeling too formal and this is an inspiration for me as I work through a vacation book with lots of photos to scrap, myself.

Congratulations Ladibugbaby and have fun shoppe-ing with your $10 gift card, sent to your email inbox this morning (check your spam/junk folders if you don’t see it)!

Be sure to stop back tomorrow for a spotlight post from Casharina! (hint: today was just a little preview of the inspiration to come!)

RosyLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Hello fellow scrappers and happy Monday!  This is Rosy, here to bring you the layout of the week!

I’ve chosen joelsgirl‘s layout entitled “3“.

Aren’t those photos absolutely precious?!  I love the monochramatic color scheme and her use of the Darling Paper Collection is wonderful!  Check out joelsgirl’s gallery for more beautiful layout inspiration!

Congratualtions joelsgirl…and thanks for sharing your layout with us!  You have been emailed a $10 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe (be sure and check your spam folder if you don’t see it).  Have fun shoppe-ing!

Thanks for stopping by! Tomorrow Kim will be here with a product spotlight post to inspire you.

RosyLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 5 Comments