Tut Time! Cutouts Are Easy

I can't believe it's been a month an half since my last PSE tutorial, but then, there has been a lot going on in my life. I'm going to try to be more diligent from here on... ;)

Today's tutorial came out of a conversation on Facebook and is for Maria Hooley, scrapbooking diva. I'm going to show how easy it is to make shaped cutouts in your background papers. This technique should work with PSE versions 5 and later. Now let's get down to work!

Open a new 12x12 transparent file on your workspace. Drag and drop the paper you're wanting to peek out through your cutouts onto your workspace. Now think about what shape you want to use. In my example I've used stars.

Create your shape on your background paper. It'll fill with whatever colour you have selected as your foreground in the colour picker. Duplicate your shape a few times (CTRL/CMD>J) and resize them to suit your design; they'll all end up on their own layer. Once you're happy with how many shapes you've made, go ahead and merge the shape layers together. (Select them all in the layers palette then CTRL/CMD>E.)

This is where it gets tricky! Select your shapes by CTRL/CMD>clicking on the thumbnail in the layers palette - see the marching ants? Now you have to invert the selection by CTRL/CMD>Shift>I (Yes, I AM forcing you to learn keyboard shortcuts. Trust me, you'll be happy I did!) Then create a new layer. You can do this by clicking on the little paper icon at the bottom left of your layers palette.

Now select your new layer, which should be on top. Then fill it with a new colour by clicking on the paint can in your tool palette then clicking somewhere on your layer. You can use the same colour you filled the shapes with originally but it'll be easier to see what you've done if you choose a different colour. I used pink...

Going good so far? We're almost there! Next you're going to delete your original shapes layer. Bye-bye...

Now you can see your background paper through the openings. 

Drag and drop the paper you want to "cut out" on top of the whole shebang. Then clip the paper to the cutout layer. (CTRL/CMD>G) Et voilà!! You've "cut" your foreground paper!

To get those fabulous shadows that make everything look SO real, apply your shadow style to the clipping mask you've made with your shapes on it and this is what it will look like.

See how easy something that looks so hard can be? Now have fun jazzing up your layouts!

Time to get back to work! A new tutorial for scrapping with PSE

I took a bit of a break in March and didn't write any of my popular but labour-intensive Photoshop Elements tutorials after writing at least two a month for quite a while. But you know what? I missed it. So when the opportunity to get back into it presented itself, I grabbed it.

For the last few months I've been test-driving templates designed by Melissa Dawes under the banner of LissyKay Designs. Her templates are quite distinctive and are growing in popularity by leaps and bounds. One particular kit is especially attractive to her ever-expanding clients, and that's this one:

It's a Cut

Several people have asked how best to use these templates and so, here's my workflow for making this quick and easy. (I use version 10 of Photoshop Elements but this should translate to almost any previous version and to most other digi-scrapping software.)

Step 1:

Pretty obvious! Open the template into your workspace and choose a photo to cut into strips. Keep in mind that there will be slivers of your photo that will disappear so try and choose one where you're not going to be cutting people's faces in half, or cutting limbs or noses off. In my example I've used a photo of a sailboat on the Charles River in Boston. Make sure that the very first photo strip layer is selected in your layers palette.

Step 2:
Next, select ALL the layers that have photo strips on them. (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd>SHIFT>Click )

Step 3: Merge all the selected layers to create a single layer of photo strips. (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd>E )

Step 4:
Drag and drop your photo on top of the photo strip layer. Adjust the size of your photo so that you can't see any of the grey photo strips anywhere.

Step 5: Clip your photo to the photo strip layer. (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd>G ) You might want to adjust your photo to put the gaps in more pleasing spots, to keep Joey's nose on his face or to avoid amputating Jenny's arm. You can move your photo around on its layer and see what looks best. And that's all there is to it!

And before I post this, I'll show you a layout that I made using this template...

Now that I've gotten my groove back, I'm going to learn a bunch of new techniques so I can then draft tuts for them and share them with anyone who's interested. Links to my previous tutorials, drafted while I was a member of the Trixie Scraps blog team, which means the tuts belong to Trixie Scraps, are below for perusal. From here on out, my work will be mine, and mine only!

~Jan

Green Eyed Monster?

Artsy Grunge

Creating Embossed Vellum

Capturing Christmas Bokeh

Creating Chalked Subway Art

Creating Aged Paper

Customize Your Shadows

Tearing and Creasing

Creating Photographic Titles

Create Your Own Brushes from Elements

Manipulating Multiple Layers

Creating Facebook Timeline Covers

Creating Blended Clipping Masks

Creating Digital Die-Cuts

Art Journalling with Traditional Digi Kits

Give Your Text Letterpress Looks

Making the Most of Templates

Turning Fonts into 3D Titles

New Year, New Focus

So it's been awhile since there's been an update here. Since I've made some changes in my creative life, it seemed like today would be a good time to rectify that.

Today was my last day as a Trixie Scraps Star; it was a difficult decision to make, but it was one whose time had come. I had a lot of fun on that Creative Team and learned a lot... teaching myself new ways of getting the most out of Photoshop Elements that became my Masters Monday tutorials helped me stretch my skills. I'm seriously considering a plan to continue posting tutorials twice a month, maybe on this blog or maybe starting a new blog just for that. After all, I'm always going to be figuring out new things to make my scrapbook layouts special, so why not?

Another one of the good things that came from my time as a Trixie Scraps Star is that I've found a new digiscrapping home on the Web at Gingerscraps. Back in June 2013 GS was my assigned store gallery for commenting on layouts made with Trixie products and I quickly found that I like the community there a LOT! And I really love the challenges. There are a lot of them, with something for everyone. Once I got my feet wet with the challenges, I did a speed scrap and found the chat room to be a lot of fun, especially the Friday Night Owl chat where the topic of conversation is completely unpredictable and never boring! (The fact that the hostess usually has an exclusive freebie for us is strictly secondary.)

Back on a Friday night in November, I exchanged some chatter with another GS lover, Melissa Melanson-Dawes. Melissa made templates for some of the challenges and as chat gifts; she asked me if I'd be interested in testing some of her templates to make sure they worked and the layouts made with them would look good and I of course said, "YES!" Today Melissa opened her own shop at GS, Lissykay Designs, and I'm one of her Creative Team members. Her templates are pretty sweet! The layout above was made with one of her templates. Here are a couple more:

But if that wasn't awesome enough, my connection with Melissa has led me down yet another new path. When she asked all of us template testers if we'd be willing to become the foundation for her CT, she told us she had no problem with using her templates for any other CT requirements we might have. That was the same day that I let Trixie know I was resigning, so I replied that I wasn't currently on another CT but it was good to know. Next thing I know she was asking me if she could pass on my name to one of the GS designers she herself CT's for. And that's how I came to be a member of the Created by Jill Scraps CT! I'm going to create word art with each of her new kits, as well as layouts. Jill Walls also has a shop at goDigitalScrapbooking and has a stake at DigiShopTalk too. The last week has been a blur of creativity for both these ladies' CTs and I have some wonderful work to show for it. (At least I think it's wonderful!)

I hope to be much more diligent about updating and keeping current. But I know I've said that before. We'll see how well I do...

Pixels and Company iNSD Creative Team Blog Hop

Wow... the festivities for iNSD are in full swing at P&Co. Did you all get a chance to collect the fabulous parts of the Designer Blog Hop collab MO{R}E or LESS? If you didn't you might want to get on it while it's all still F{R}EE! It's pretty special...

But that's not the only Blog Hop you can participate in this weekend at P&Co... the Creative Team has been busy... well... creating! We've put together a nice collection of journal cards that coordinate with More or Less and you can gather them simply by hopping from blog to blog. At each stop you will need to find the letters and numbers that make up the coupon code for the collection. You will need to follow the course in order as I've listed below, otherwise it won't work.

But before I get to my contribution, I wanted to share some of my favourite products available through the shop at P&Co.

First is Karen Funk's Brown Paper Packages. Don't be fooled, it's not just for Christmas!

http://pixelsandcompany.com/shop/Brown-Paper-Packages-Full-Kit.html

Next is The Ardent Sparrow's The Olivia Wordart. So versatile!

http://pixelsandcompany.com/shop/The-Olivia-Wordart.html

Third is Mye De Leon's Ephemera. It works so well with my style... and it's beautiful too.

http://pixelsandcompany.com/shop/Ephemera.html

And last but not least, Wild Blueberry Ink's Definitive Frames V.1. Clean and sweet!

http://pixelsandcompany.com/shop/Definitive-Frames-No.-1.html

 Now let's get to the good part! These are my journal cards, hope you like 'em!

They're included in this collection: http://pixelsandcompany.com/shop/2013-iNSD-CT-Journal-Cards.html

Start by checking out the P&Co blog: Pixels and Company where there will be more details. Then carry on!

Sarah
Kat
Mandi
Kate
Rachel
Anna
ME!! <---
Carey
Emilie
Ronnie
Amy
Jennifer H
Celeste
Melanie R
Aria
Jen E
Linda
Christy
Barbara
Mary
Arielle
Jeryn
Indah
Melanie C
Jen P
Erin
Kelly
Kim
Wendy

You should have arrived here from Anna's blog. Your next stop on your journey is with Carey

Did you catch my hints about what my part of the code is? You got it... it's {R}!! Now you should have the whole coupon code to get your journal card collection totally F{R}EE!! I hope you love it as much as we loved building it. Now on with your iNSD celebrations!!

iNSD... and my Birthday!!

I love International Scrapbooking Day! It always arrives right around my birthday, and this year it's ON my birthday, so happy day to ME!

Another thing that's different this year is that I'm on TWO creative teams. I'm now a permanent member of Trixie Scraps Designs blog team and a guest on the Pixels and Company store team for the month of May. So I've been a bit busy! Let me show you what I've been doing...

Since I was invited to guest at Pixels and Company for the month that includes the second-biggest day of the year for digital scrapbookers, I was offered the opportunity to create a couple of journal cards for the P&Co blog hop using the collab kit More or Less, specially created for this event by their fabulous designers.

I also took advantage of my sneak preview of this lovely collection to create a layout.

Next is a layout I created for Trixie Scraps' May 1 Gingerscraps release Spring Fling; this kit is her part of the May Gingerscraps Buffet. (The Buffet is a great way to pick up really awesome mix-and-match kits using a common colour palette at rock-bottom prices, for a limited time only. You can find it all right here: http://store.gingerscraps.net/SpringFling/ )

Yes, you do see the same photo in both layouts. I just love it so much I HAD to use it twice. I like that the colour palettes of both kits are similar enough that the layouts are great together. Look for this layout to be featured in my May 6 Masters Monday blog post at http://blog.trixiescraps.com/.

I'm busily putting together a few more goodies for this week and will be back to post them as soon as I can!

Time for a new siggie!

So. This month I'm a guest on the creative team for Trixie Scraps Designs... a great honour for me that I'm striving to deserve. Tracy, the genius behind Trixie Scraps, has the most brilliant templates and a design style that suits my scrapping mojo very well. These are the layouts I've put together so far using only Trixie Scraps products.

Brittany's Lap Dog uses A Tender Heart ( a Pixel Club Exclusive at Gotta Pixel) and a template from Star Struck Vol 9 Bree (http://www.gottapixel.net/store/product.php?productid=37387&cat=0&page=1).

Hockey Hitmen was a fun layout for me. It uses a variety of Trixie products (I'm SO not a kit scrapper!) including cardstock from Change your Fate (which was a freebie), Feelin' Flakey (not currently available), Stamped Dated and Stated (also not currently available), Stars and Stripes minikit (http://www.gottapixel.net/store/product.php?productid=40228&cat=0&page=1) and a template from North Meets South Studios October 2012 Templatetopia (http://www.gottapixel.net/store/product.php?productid=41191&cat=177&page=1).

This layout of one of my coworkers makes good use of another of North Meets South Studios October 2012 Templatetopia templates and a collaboration kit from NMSS as well called One Haunted Evening ( http://www.gottapixel.net/store/product.php?productid=41121&cat=0&page=1).

This layout and the only following it are done using a kit that releases today called After 10 Years. Both templates are from NMSS October 2012 Templatetopia too. This one is from Standing Alone Vol 2; the photo was taken at Amanda's wedding on September 2, 2012. 

I used one of the templates in Star Struck 16 Stacey A for these photos of Amanda, Micah and their sisters with their beaus that were taken during the wedding festivities. Who's next?

There are more new layouts coming as soon as I can crank them out. I'm having SO much FUN!!