…cake!  I had forgotten that you can “bake” a cake in 10 minutes in your microwave in a Pampered Chef Rice Cooker.  I used to sell Pampered Chef and I have all the gadgets that there are.  I don’t know why I stopped making cakes in the microwave.  Anyway…last night being our anniversary…and me not planning much cause there is so much going on ’round here…I thought…I should make a cake!  But I have no energy or time for THAT!  Wait a second!  So I looked to see if I had a cake mix and I did.  The rice cooker was clean.  Check.  And away I went!

THIS is how easy it is…take a cake mix and make it according to directions (I’ve only ever done vanilla or chocolate in the rice cooker so maker beware!).  Pour into the rice cooker (no need to grease it or ANYTHING!)  Close it up and put it in the microwave on high for 10 minutes.  Take it out.  Let it sit for a minute or two.  Open it up and invert it on to a plate.  Done!  Here’s the final product…with icing…1/2 eaten! ;D

Oh yeah…It is YUMMY!!!!!!

Been busy.  Doing this and that.  Mostly kid stuff.  Practices and games and festivities at school.  The kids are now on Thanksgiving Break.  And we are relaxing.  But there was so much going on leading up to it!  Phew!

Corey and I saw New Moon.  It rocked!  Then I saw it again last night with my friend Jill.  Even better the second time! ;D

After 35 years I finally did this…

Ava had a “mini play” in her class the other day.  They were focusing on Pilgrims and Columbus and things of that nature.  She was Samoset in her play.

Grandparents day was yesterday at school.  Every class performed something.  Here’s Laney.

Where are you headed for Thanksgiving?
Wherever you end up I’m sure you are thinking what kind of photos am I going to take and what kind of layout am I going to do?  Take lots of photos I always say.  The delete key is your friend! ;D  You can never take too many photos and you can never get back the moments and retake the photos but you can always hit delete if you have take too many…GUILTY! ;D
So what should you take photos of???  EVERYTHING!!!!
The food.
Your plate of food.
The table.
The turkey in the oven.
YOURSELF!!!!!  Get someone to get at least one photo of you!
People cooking.
People lounging around.
Watching tv.
Playing the Wii! ;D
Decorating for Christmas…if you start to do that now.
Family members.
Things that don’t seem so important.  They will later!
People praying or giving thanks.
Candles burning.
Wine bottles.
Get creative!!!
Then when you get done with your projects there are some great ideas for Thanksgiving layouts here.  I know they aren’t digi.  But you can use the ideas to inspire.  I do! ;D

Lastly I’ve been working hard on some Christmas digi stuff.  I want to do a December Daily album but this year I really want to do it digitally.  So I’ve designed a kit for just that.  I cannot wait to share it with you!  It is all done I just have to put it in my shop!  More to come…;D

So you’ve picked the perfect pumpkin…

When it comes time to carving it what should you do?  I like to be “fancy” in my pumpkin carving.  But fancy doesn’t have to be hard! ;D  My favorite thing to do is take a drill and do some variation of this.  So easy!  But still so great looking.

Half the time I get to the carving time and I think, “I wish I had bought one of those pumpkin carving kits.” If you don’t have one of those kits I’ll bet you anything you have some of these tools lying around the house.  And if you are looking for some stencils I found some fun ones here and here.

Happy Carving!

I’ve talked about the importance of color in scrapbooking before.  A specific example of the use of color is Monochromatic.  A workable definition of monochromatic is the following:

The monochromatic color scheme uses variations in lightness and saturation of a single color. This scheme looks clean and elegant. Monochromatic colors go well together, producing a soothing effect. The monochromatic scheme is very easy on the eyes, especially with blue or green hues. You can use it to establish an overall mood. The primary color can be integrated with neutral colors such as black, white, or gray.

A good visual example of a monochromatic color scheme is the following…

I went to Kuler to create this color palette.  Kuler is a great site to go and play with color.  On the create a color page they even have a menu of “Select a Rule” and under it all the color choices of analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, etc.  It is a fantastic resource!!!!!

Sometimes people shy away from using all one tone of color because it can be hard to highlight the most important elements.  That’s probably one of the most difficult things about monochromatic color schemes.  If this is you try using tints, shades and tones of the color you are using to enhance your layout.

For example in this layout I went into my folders and found different shades of blue.  I put them into the layout until it worked.  Some paper that I brought in worked and others didn’t.  Something else that I did to make it easier was I used a template.  All I wanted to do was focus on color…not design therefore I used a template so I wouldn’t have to think about that aspect of my layout. ;D

If you’ve never tried this type of color scheme layout I challenge you to go for it! ;D

Lynn Grievenson Essential Bases, Island Blues, Antiquities, Antiquities 2, French Summer
Anna Aspnes Hipster Plumes Korners
Katie Pertiet Everyday Inspiration 5-3-09, Graphic Word Blocks, Dried Brush Edges
Ali Edwards Template No.11 (altered), Remember Word Art

(Monochromatic layout concept inspired by Designer Digitals Daily Dose Challenge.)

How do you change a photo from the one on the left to the one on the right?

It is a technique called selective recoloring.  It is not very hard to do.  ;D

1.  Open your photo in PS and separate the layer from the background by right clicking on the background layer.

2.  Duplicate the layer.

3.  Create new fill or adjustment layer to create a black and white layer.  Right click on the new layer and merge down.  You will have two layers now.  One color photo and one duplicate black and white photo.

4.  Make sure your black and white layer stays above the color layer photo.  I also like to rename my layers.  It just keeps things in order.  It is a good habit to get into especially when you are working on projects with lots of layers.  (This one doesn’t happen to have a lot of layers but like I said it is a good habit to get into.)

5.  Next, select the eraser in your tool bar (1).

6.  Select the size of brush you wish to use to erase (2).  Depending on the area I’m working in will depend on the size of the brush.  Remember you can quickly change the size of your brush while you are working by using the [ ] keys on your keyboard (pc users).  This comes in very handy when working in tight spots and then going back out to larger areas when erasing color.

7.  When erasing make sure you have the black and white layer selected (3)!!

8.  When finished your photo should look like this.  Save.

And here is the layout I did with the photo…

Katie Pertiet 4×6 frame
Lynn Grievenson Elizabeth Kit (butterfly)
Lynn Grievenson French Summer (postal stamp, ribbon)
Ali Edwards The Story Word Art
paper, year stamp, clock stamp, defining word stamp JMDesigns

This isn’t a new concept but it is new to me!  I’ve decided to change how I scrapbook and incorporate the 4 x 6 photo sleeves that I have talked about for the Project 365.  I have seen this concept used in Simple Scrapbooks and I saw it at Archiver’s a couple of weeks ago while I was in there.  Sometimes I just have a lot of photos for an event.  And while I have really learned how to delete and to not print every single photo…there are some instances where I really want all the photos from an event.  Let’s take our vacation to Moab.  I have a lot of photos from that vacation and I really wanted to print most of them.  This was even after whittling it down by deleting and not developing ever single photo.  I do not, however, want to make 10 layouts (or more) of our vacation in Moab.  There are a few layouts I want to do to highlight the things that stand out the most in my mind.  But what to do with the rest of the photos?  I still want to include them.  But I don’t want to “scrap” them.  So what I’ve come up with is a combination of layouts and 4 x 6 photo sleeves.

As you can see I have a layout on one side and the photo sleeves on the other.

For some reason I have found this concept extremely freeing!  One of the reasons is that I feel like I can do exactly what I want in my albums…layouts but include a lot more photos without having to feel like I have to scrap them all.  Two…I have put all of my photos from 2008 into albums and not in boxes!  That huge order I placed thru Shutterfly the other day…all in my albums!!!

On these pages you can see on the left I’ve done the photo sleeve page.  One of the pockets has a journaling box in it instead of a photo.  On the right I’ve stuck some photos together that I want to do a layout with.  I’ve picked paper to go with it but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.  I’m going to come back to it.

A few days ago I did the tutorial on the word art and I said I was going to put it in my album on a transparency.  Here is where I’m going to put it in my album.  I’m not finished with exactly how I’m going to do it but at least it is in there for when I get ready.

And sometimes I know some of the elements I’m going to use and so I slide them into the page protector with the photos and paper I’ve chosen…

And then here is a page in its unedited form…

And then I found paper and elements I wanted use so I semi put it together…not glued down…and put everything back in the sleeve.

And why am I doing it this way and not finishing it all the way do you ask?  Well I’m just getting stuff all ready for the crop overnight next weekend so I’ll have a plan and get lots done.  That and sometimes it just takes me awhile to figure out exactly what I want to do on a layout.  So if I do it in stages and I think about it more I’m happier with the end product.

I will let you know if I get a lot done at the crop by doing it this way.

Working with text can be really fun.  Especially when you use it for design purposes.  Here’s a Photoshop Tutorial about an easy Text Design.

1.  Open a new PS file.  I did mine as an 8 1/2 x 11″ document because I’m going to print it for one of my scrapbooks and that is the size printer I have. ;D

2.  Create a new layer and draw a text box in whatever size you wish.

3.  Take your text and paste it in the text box you just created.  I wrote my text out in Microsoft Word and then cut and pasted it from there.

4.  Create a new layer and choose the custom shape tool.  Then select whatever shape you wish.

5.  With the shape layer selected right click.  In that fly out menu choose Create Clipping Mask.

6.  When you do that your image should look like this…

Voila!  You have done it!  Easy peasy!  After that I added some other elements to it and the final product looks like this…

I printed my out on a transparency and am going to put it as an overlay in the Moab section of my scrapbook.  I’ll try to post about that tomorrow or the next day.

Questions or comments welcome! ;D

I wanted to use vinyl with my Cricut Expressions and make some decorations for my home.  When I went to look for information about it online there wasn’t much in the way of help.  The directions with the packages of vinyl you can buy for your Cricut…well let’s say they leave something to be desired.  The directions say to go to the Cricut website for a video tutorial on how to work with vinyl.  I’ll be darned if I could find it.  One night a couple of months ago I stayed up late for some reason and there was this infomercial about the Cricut Expressions.  While I am not advocating for this infomercial in any way there was a section on working with vinyl.  I’m glad I watched it because it really helped!  I went looking for the infomercial online and found it but it doesn’t have the part that I saw with the demonstration so I will not be linking it.  With all this frustration and unknowns…and knowing my friend Jill had questions when she was doing vinyl I figured I’d do a post about what I did and how I did it.  You can bet that if there is a suggestion made here it is cause I did it wrong!  LOL!

1. Make sure your vinyl is flat before putting it on your cutting mat.  I did NOT do this the first time I cut shapes and everything was curling up off the mat.  It was a nightmare!!!  I just put some heavy objects on each corner of the vinyl.  It didn’t take all that long for it to flatten…or at least not be so curly it would come up off the mat!!!

2.  Roll your vinyl in the opposite direction that it came in the package.  You want to do this because…when you place it at the top of your mat and line it up all you have to do is roll it out and voila it is all lined up and flat ready to load!  Again…this was something I did wrong the first time I tried it.  Try applying a curled up piece of vinyl and get it all down and even…good luck! ;D

3.  Load your mat and cut your image.  I left my settings on the Cricut to medium speed and medium pressure and I had my blade set on 6.  This could be that it is getting dull…lol…but if you are in doubt AT ALL just do a tiny shape instead of your entire image just to make sure it cuts correctly.  Don’t want to be wasting entire sheets of vinyl!  ;D

4.  The easiest way I’ve found for applying vinyl is the transfer tape that you can buy the same place you bought your vinyl.  I peeled up the excess vinyl and just left the image on the mat.  This way is the easiest for getting it on the transfer tape cause you just remove it from one sticky surface to another.  Also if your letters are placed just how you want them on the mat exactly how you want it to go on the wall it is easier to leave them on the mat rather than pulling up and replacing.  Too much room for error and plus it just takes too darn long…again something I did wrong before!!!  Below is a photo of my word art on my cutting mat and the transfer tape over it…

5.  Rub the transfer tape on the image.  I did it with my finger.  There is a popsicle stick in the package with the vinyl.  Anything like that would work.

6.  Peel the transfer tape from the mat pulling up the letters but leaving the backing on the mat…

6.  Place your letters or image on the wall.  You can pull it up and restick it if it isn’t lined up just right as long as you don’t rub it on the wall too hard.  Once it is where you want rub it on to the wall so that the letters will stick when you pull the transfer tape away.  Again I just used my finger.

7.  Pull back the transfer tape at about a 45° angle.

If some of the letters come up as you are peeling the tape off just push that part back down and rub again.  Here’s a photo of it doing it to me…

Finished Product…oh and I’m not done with the wall decorations…just the vinyl art…just to be clear. ;D

This project took me about 50 minutes and that included taking photos for this blog post.  So once you get the hang of it…it really is a simple project that can make your home look so lovely! ;D

Any questions or comments please feel free!

Cricut cartridges used: Base Camp, Home Accents

I was putting together my photos from last week for my Project 365 and I wanted something simple, fast and easy.  I started to use my template but it just wasn’t coming together for me.  Then a light came on and I thought of these templates that I’ve used before over on scrapbooksetc.com.  They are called Quick Collages and there are lots of different styles and 3 series, card, rectangle and square.  Here’s what the one that I used looks like in its original form…

I have a bunch of them downloaded so I just pulled one up and plugged in the photos, did a little journaling, some embellishments and voila!!!!  Here’s what I came up with…

Scrapbooks Etc Quick Collage 103
Anna Aspnes Weathered Neutrals (Black paper)
Shabby Princess Seasonal Sampler Amore (Paper, Ribbon)
Michelle Coleman Vintage Dreams Retro Diva (Brads)
Studio Diane Scrapbookgraphics Made in the Shade mini kit (heart)
Shazbutt’s Digi-Scrapz Fall Splendor Collab (flower)
Jen Maddocks Designs 2009 brush, Valentine Pack tag brush
Ali Edwards Designs 31 Days Circle Accents, Title + Journal Photo Overlays No1
Font KarabinE

I went looking for the links for the Quick Collages and found some people on there with questions on how to do certain things with these collages.  I was just going to post where to find them and what I did but was thinking if more than one person had a question I would post how I did things…cause I had some of the very same questions…and found answers…just by mucking around.  That’s usually how I discover things…I figure there’s always the delete key! ;D

If you watch the tutorial it will give you a basic idea of how to use the template.  I’m not going to reinvent the wheel so watch that first.  Then…one question I saw was how do you get a different color background around the photos other than white? What I did was duplicate the template layer so I had two layers of that then I stuck the layer of paper I wanted in between these two layers.  That was how I was able to move from a white background to a different colored background.

Step 1…(After opening the collage in Photoshop) is to duplicate the layer.  Oh and I also enlarged my collage to 12″x12″ because the original size was 8″x8″ and I wanted it to be a full 12″x12″.  You can do this by just going to Image>Image Size and then change it there.  You can see I have ‘duplicate layer’ circled in the photo below.  Right click on the layer you want duplicated and in the fly out menu there is a choice of duplicate layer.

Step2…find the paper you want to have as the background and bring that in to your collage and put it in between the collage layers…As you can see in the photo below the borders around the blue photo squares is now black…the color of the paper I want to use.  And that layer is in between the collage layers as indicated by the arrow in the photo…

Step 3…start pulling in the photos you want to use in your collage…To get this photo into position and underneath the (now) black frames but above the blue photo frame you must position the photo above the template copy and then use the clipping mask talked about in the tutorial…see I told you it was important to watch it ;D…what I did to get it in the right place was put the photo over the template layer and then mouse over the two layers holding down the ‘alt’ key and the left mouse button until you see two bubbles appear.  It will look something like this…

When you do release the left mouse button (but still holding the ‘alt’ key) and then the photo will fall in behind the frames and in the layers palette you will then see it has an arrow pointing down to the collage layer as it does in the photo below in the section circled…

Then position and size your photo to where you want it and then…as it showed in the tutorial…you are going to delete the areas of your photo that you don’t want…make sure you are on your photo layer or else you will delete things you don’t want…but remember there is always the undo button…I use that A LOT!!! ;D

And then here’s my photo after I’ve ‘cleaned up’ the extra edges I didn’t want…

Then just bring in your other photos and finish it up like the tutorial talked about.  Again here’s my finished product…

The best advice I can give you is what I did.  And this was last summer when I was first getting into digital scrapbooking.  The more you do it the easier it gets…trust me! I watched the tutorial over and over till I got it.  I watched it and then stopped it…did what it said and then kept going.  I tried it and it didn’t work and I got frustrated and I walked away and then I went back to it.  I did online searches for Photoshop tutorials and found things that helped (and some that didn’t l0l).  Not trying to be a saleswoman…but I took Jessica Sprague’s class Now We’re Rockin With Photoshop last fall…when I’d gotten to a point where self teaching just wasn’t cutting it.  That class taught me so much!!!  So ask questions, do searches, keep trying, and don’t worry.  There is always a delete key and an undo key.  Believe me I still use both ALL THE TIME!!!

Questions or Comments are welcome!!!

*********************

3.5.09  This particular post seems to be popular.  I just found another link on the scrapbooksetc.com website today with some answers to other questions.  I thought this might help some people too…specifically those who have other versions of Photoshop.

Color is so important.  From the color of your blog to the color of the rooms in your house to the clothes that you wear to your favorite colors.  Colors are all around us and they are important in design and in scrapbooking!

Sometimes color or matching colors, finding complimentary colors and such can be very elusive.  Sometimes you can be drawn to certain colors and not really know why.  Sometimes we can put a layout together and it just works and other times there is just something going on that doesn’t seem quite right.  A lot of this can be due to color.

I’ve gone to numerous crops and had lots of other scrappers ask me questions about colors.  What papers go with which other ones.  Do I pick colors that go with my photos or no?  What are complimentary colors?  It is very confusing!  I have a knack for putting colors together.  This could just be something that I was born with, because I’m an artist or because I went to art school.  If  you don’t have it, it does not mean that you either can’t learn or that you can’t find resources out there to help you!!!!

The general rule of thumb is to use one dominant color and then one or two accent colors in your layouts.  Enough to keep it interesting but not too many to make it confusing to the eye.  The rule of threes…or odd numbers.  It’s something I learned in art classes.  It’s the same general rule as using three focal points in your layouts to form a triangle.  The eye goes from one point to the next in the layout without falling off the page and getting distracted or lost.  Here’s one of my layouts with lines highlighting what I mean about the rule of threes and the triangle drawing your eye around the page:

One basic tool that we can use in our work of scrapbooking layouts is the age-old color wheel.  If you don’t have one kicking around get one!  You can pick them up in your local craft or art store.  You can find them online by doing just a general search.  I found a great one on Two Peas with an excellent explanation of colors.  You can get to it by clicking here.

The designer does a very good job of explaining complimentary, monochromatic, triadic and other color combinations.  I highly recommend reading it!!

I’ve shared this site with you before and I’ll share it again.  Big Huge Labs has a palette generator designed for uploading photos and having color palettes generated based on the colors in the particular photo you upload.  These palette colors can then be downloaded to your computer and used in Photoshop.  If you need help downloading these palettes see this post for help.  If you are at a loss as to where to start with colors with a certain photo…or you feel like designing something of your own, this is a great resource that I’ve been using a lot lately!  Here’s an example of what it looks like when you download a photo and the palette it gives you with that photo…

Another great resource to use for playing around with color is Idee Multicolor Search labs.  You can get to it by clicking here.  I was feeling in the mood for Valentine colors and this is what I generated last night…

Just a couple other ideas for inspiration:  I go to websites like Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Pier 1, Old Navy, The Gap and the like for color inspiration.  Look at the catalogs that come to you in the mail!  These are great places to find examples of color coordination.  Open a visualize.us account and store your inspiring photos there…save some hard drive space!

I just did a general Google search for ‘color combinations’ and came up with some excellent sites.  Also something else I do…go to Home Depot or Lowe’s or even Walmart and grab a few of the free paint color swatches in the paint section and bring them home.  These are also excellent color resources.  Don’t forget Kuler either!!!

Experiment with color!  It is fun!  Get the creative juices flowing!  And if you feel like sharing…by all means! ;D