This tip has come in handy many a times.

Try it!

Happy Scrapping!

Cut 4 – 5×7 Mats out of 1 – 12×12 paper or cardstock and have a bonus journal square left over.

1. Using a cutter like Fiskar’s Personal Trimmer, open the swing arm and line up your 12×12 paper on the 7″ mark (fig. A).

2. Proceed to cut taking the blade down to the 7″ mark along the blade guide (fig. A).

3. Next turn the 12×12 paper 90º Clockwise, and repeat steps 1. and 2. (fig. B)

4. Turn the 12×12 paper another 90º Clockwise, and repeat steps 1. and 2. (fig. C)

5. Once again, turn the 12×12 paper 90º clockwise and repeat steps 1. and 2 (fig. D)

6. That’s it! You should have 4 perfect 5×7 mats and 1 journal square (fig. E)

Matting your 4×6 pictures couldn’t be any easier! Amazing!!

Blackout SVG files!

What are they?

A blackout file is an SVG file which contains the outline of an assembled paper piecing pattern.

Genius!!!

This makes it extra easy to assemble the patterns! Plus, makes the whole thing much sturdier!

Here’s a sample of one my latest paper piecing buddies and its blackout file:

So,

Send the pieces including the blackout file to cut and assemble the pattern by laying each piece over the blackout using the outlines as a guide!

Genius!

Happy Scrapping!

Up until YESTERDAY I liked my Craft Robo. Today, I love it!

See, I thought that by being a Mac user I was limited to a very narrow area of cutting because registration marks had to be printed on whatever I wanted to cut. Narrow, because the marks had to be about 2 inches in from the edges of the paper/cardstock so the digital eye of the cutter could recognize the marks. Then, I always have had to try positioning the paper/cardstock in slightly different ways until the cutter finally recognizes the marks. And then, if I used a dark colored paper/cardstock or one with a busy pattern, the cutter cannot see the marks at all. I did realize that by oulining the marks with my trusty white Galaxy Marker it helped the cutter see the marks…..but come on…… a bit frustrating to get something cut.

BUT……..the revelation!

I stumbled upon a Wishblade video and noticed that what was being cut didn’t require registration marks. I thought that would be nice if I could bypass the whole centering all the pieces close together of whatever I wanted to cut so that the registration marks are placed just right for the cutter. I thought I would just have to try it.

Well…….it’s wonderful!

I tried it out (yesterday) on my giraffe paper piecing pattern which I had tried before using the “registration marks” method and had gotten it to cut but after much frustration. But now, using any colored paper/cardstock with or without busy patterns, any size from like 2 inches to almost 8.5 x 11 inches, the Craft Robo cuts it like butt-ah!!! I was so excited, I started cutting all my paper piecing patterns just to make sure and yep, it’s great!!

So……what I learned.

The “registration marks” method although I have to fidget with it, is really great when I want to silhoutte a photo or when I design something with specific colors that I’ll print on white or light colored paper/cardstock first and then run it through my Craft Robo.

For everything else, just create and send to cut! Awesome!

1. Open a new file or a file you’re working on. FILE < NEW or FILE < OPEN…

2. Select the shape tool from the tool palette on the left. I’ll be using the square tool for this tutorial (Figure 1).

3. Drag the cursor to your desired size. If you hold the Shift key while dragging you’ll get a perfect square, otherwise you’ll end up with a rectangle. (Figure 2)

4. By default your square or rectangle is filled-in white and has a black stroke. You can keep these colors or alter them to match your layout or whatever you’re creating. Make sure you keep the square or rectangle selected.

5. Next go the Stroke palette located on the right side of your desktop. You’ll see an option for “Dashed Line”, click the box next to it (Figure 3).

6. By default, the first “dash” box is filled at 12pt, this gives a rather large dash or “stitch” (Figure 4) so to change that click the box and type in 6pt (Figure 5). To open or close the gap between the stitches, click the “gap” box and enter the value of your choice, I typed in 6pt, to keep an even ration between the stitches and gaps. You’ll also notice there are two more sets of dash and gap boxes. Those can be left empty or you can play around with the values there and see the different effects you can get.

7. That’s it! Easier than actually sewing, right? (Figure 6)

Note: Whatever setting you have in the strokes palette will be applied to any other shape you draw using the shapes tool until you change the settings or open a new file.

Happy Scrapping!

1. Open your layout or a new blank file, I’ll be using PhotoShop CS2.

2. Create a shape or place a shape if you’ve purchased or downloaded a digital embellishment.

I’ve drawn out this butterfly shape (figure 1) using the custom shapes tool. You can find lots of cool shapes there. I want to use this butterfly in a layout just as I would use chipboard or paper piecing in traditional scrapbooking.

3. Double click the layer of the shape in the Layer Palette (figure 2). This will open the Layer Style window (figure 3).

4. Click on INNER SHADOW (figure 4). Which will then open the options to create the inner shadow (the “chalking” effect in traditional terms). Focus on the options for DISTANCE, CHOKE and SIZE. Play around with those three until you get the effect you want. I usually set the DISTANCE to 0px and vary the amount of CHOKE and SIZE.

5. Click OK to commit your settings.

That’s it as far as “chalking” is concerned (figure 5). But if you want to take it a bit further, you can make the shape look more like real traditional paper piecing by applying a texture to it (see #6).

6. Use the TEXTURIZER filter (figure 6): FILTER < TEXTURE < TEXTURIZER.

7. Select CANVAS as the texture option and leave the default settings, they’re usually ok (figure 7). Then click OK to commit your settings.

8. And there you have it! Amazing! It looks just like real paper piecing! Cool! (figure

Step 1

Select a background “paper”.

Using a predesigned scrapbooking kit is the easiest way to get your feet wet. You can always design your own, but that takes a while. If you don’t have any kits to start from you can browse through my Shopping Nook and purchase one (they’re very inexpensive).

For this “how-to” I’ll be using my latest kit, Smiley Grunge, and I’ll be creating the layout in Photoshop CS2.

So then, go ahead and open the file you’ll be using as a background paper by clicking: File > Open > choose your file. Click OK. (Figure 1, 2 and 2b)

Step 2

Select a photo.

Maintain the background paper open and repeat Step 1, this time selecting your photo (Figure 3).

Step 3

Copy and paste your photo into the background paper file already open.

Click: Select > All (Figure 4). You’ll then see a marquee around the whole photo (Figure 5).

Next click: Edit > Copy (Figure 6).

Then close the photo file by clicking: File > Close (Figure 7).

And now paste the photo into your background paper file by clicking: Edit > Paste (Figure 8).

Step 4

Scale/Resize your photo to desired size.

You may want to or need to resize your photo as it may be too big or too small once you paste it into the background paper file. So just click: Edit > Transform > Scale (Figure 9).

You’ll see that the photo gets selected and there are small squares on the corners and middle of the sides (Figure 10). You can click on any square and drag and you’ll see that you can enlarge or reduce the size very easily. For this demo I’ll be clicking the bottom right corner while holding down the Shift key and then dragging away from the center. This will enlarge my photo but it will do it proportionately. If you don’t hold down the Shift key you can get oblong enlargements or the opposite “squished” look, which is not very attractive, unless of course you’re creating a wacky layout. Once you’ve reached your desired size click Return/Enter, to commit to the size.

Step 5

Create a Matte/Frame for your photo.

As you become more familiar with Photoshop you’ll learn some great shortcuts. You’ve probably noticed some weird looking symbols with letters or numbers in the dropdown menus. These are keyboard shortcuts, for example, we’ve been selecting things by going to Select > All to select all. We could however easily press Command key together with the A key and voila, everything is selected. Easy, right? Try to learn as many shortcuts as possible and fly thru the creation of your layouts. This brings us back to creating a matte for the photo.

We will use a shortcut. See the Layer palette to the right of the Photoshop desktop? There’s a layer for the background, in this case Layer 0, and a layer for the photo, in this example Layer 1. Go ahead and double-click on Layer 1 (photo layer) on the white area as seen in Figure 11.

Double clicking on the white area will open the Layer Style window (Figure 12). Now click on Stroke, the last item on the left column. This will open the options for that in the same window. You can then click and drag the arrow in the Size area to whatever size looks best for your photo. Next click the dropdown menu next to Position, to choose how the stroke will be applied. Choose Inside (Figure 12). Then you’ll probably want to change the red default color of the stroke to one that matches or compliments your layout, so click the red square next to Color and a color picker will open where you can choose another color (Figure 12). Click Ok. Then click Ok again to commit to all the stroke settings and you have a matte.

Step 6

Create a title/journal block.

Since my background paper is busy, I want to create a block to help make my title stand out.

First I’ll create a new layer by clicking: Layer > New > Layer… (Figure 14). Click OK. You’ll then see your new layout in the Layer palette, in this case Layer 2 (Figure 15).

Now, select the Marquee tool from the Toolbox (Figure 16). Click and drag wherever you want your block to be. I’ve chose all the way across the bottom, leaving a little of the background showing above and below the block (Figure 17).

Next, fill in the block with a color by clicking: Edit > Fill (Figure 18). Choose Color from the Use dropdown menu (Figure 19). The Color Picker will open. Choose a color. Click Ok. And click Ok again to commit.

Step 7

Type a title or journal.

Select the Type tool from the Toolbox (Figure 20). Now click inside of the block you just created (Figure 21). You’ll notice that a new Text layer automatically appears in the Layer palette. This is good because you don’t have to do it manually like we did for the block layer (Figure 22). Woohoo! Anyway, now you can type away!

Next, select the text just as you would in a word processing program. Then using the Character palette change font (Figure 23a), size (Figure 23b) and color (Figure 23c) to whatever compliments your layout.

Step 8

You’re done!

You may, however, want to move things around. Do this by selecting the Move tool from the Toolbox (Figure 24).

Then select the layer you want to move things around in and click and drag to a new position. Rearrange items until you’re happy with the layout.

Now you’re done. Remember to save your layout by choosing File > Save As > Name your file whatever you want.

Here’s what the final layout looks like:

This is the simplest of layouts. There are many things that can be done to add details to your layouts. For example, using the steps taken for creating a matte, in the Layer Style window you have other options besides the Stroke option. There’s Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, Bevel, etc. Take some time to click through the different options and combination of options to become familiar with the effects. There are other effects under the Effects dropdown menu giving you more options. Don’t be afraid of experimenting and get scrapping!

For more sample layouts checkout my Gallery and be inspired!

Happy Scrapping!

I’m gonna try to select a “Digital Layout of the Week”, every week, and deconstruct the design process for the benefit of any newbies to the digital world and for the veterans, maybe we can learn something new! Please leave your comments and questions and I’ll be happy to answer.

This week we have two single photo digital scrapbook layouts, “Cuddly” and “Sweetie”. Here’s how these were created along with notes on the software used:

1. PhotoShop or Illustrator?

It’s up to you. If you want to edit your photos (ie. add effects) then PhotoShop is better. But, both have similar tools and are compatible with each other. I sometimes create patterns, doodles or a drawing of something (like the giraffe and bear) in Illustrator and later open them in PhotoShop and make the rest of the layout there. For this weeks layouts I used Illustrator only.

2. What theme or color palette? (ie. abstract patterns, events, travel, etc.)

I wanted a “playful kiddie” look so I grabbed the brush tool and started doodling. I came up with the giraffe first and then built around that. The leaves and branches came next, and then, the frame and grass. The color palette menu, by the way, is very similar to the one in PhotoShop. To add to the kiddie drawing look I drew the lines you see behind the titles to mimic those “learn to write” books kids use at school.

A note about Illustrator:

The neat thing about drawing in Illustrator is that whatever is drawn is “vectorized”, meaning, that a line for example will have several vector points, depending on the shape whether straight or curvy, which you can click on and manipulate to either make the line straighter or smooth out curves. Here’s an example of what I mean:

3. Placing the photos.

Placing photos is easy. Click “PLACE” found under the “FILE” menu, and browse through your computer to wherever your photo is located and click “OK”. You can resize the photo using the scale tool. For these layouts I placed the photos and sent them to the back so that the frames are on top. You can instead place the photos in a separate layer, just create the layer before placing them and make sure the layer is selected and place the photos. Then you can change the order of the layers so that the “photo” layer is under the layer where the frames are.

Another note about Illustrator:

Unlike PhotoShop, in Illustrator you have to create layers, if you want more layers. In PhotoShop just by copying and pasting let’s say a photo, once you click paste, it pastes the photo on a new layer. In Illustrator you have to create the layer first then click paste while on the layer you created. Sounds odd? Well see, if you don’t have layers automatically created for you in PhotoShop everything you paste or type stays on one layer and then you can’t click on individual items to edit them. On the other hand, in Illustrator you can create a complete layout on one layer and still be able to click individual items (ie. text, lines, photos, shapes, etc.) and edit them with no problem.

4. Title and Journaling.

To keep with the theme I wanted to use a font that sort of looked like a child’s handwriting and in this case I went with one called Prestige Elite Standard. I used it on the titles and all other journaling.

One more note about Illustrator:

Something I love, love, love about Illustrator is that since you’re working with vectors, resizing objects is a breeze without sacrificing resolution. For example, you can create a 6×6 layout or even a tiny 1×1 layout and later resize it to 12×12 or more and everything stays sharp!! It’s great!

5. That’s It!

I could get a lot more technical, but, it’s not necessary, at least as far as these two layouts are concerned. If you have any questions about using Illustrator or PhotoShop let me know! I check this site constantly!

If you’d like to purchase these two layouts (without the photos and journaling, of course) check out the Shopping Nook. I’ll include the font as well.

Happy Scrapping!

Illustrator CS3

PhotoShop CS3