Hi all!  I'm posting a tutorial today on the Make It Crafty Blog on using digital stamps with your digital scrapbook pages.  There are several ways to do this.  You can print out the image you want to use, color it, scan it and then use it like an element on your digital page.  You can color the image digitally and then use it on your page.  Today, I'm going to use the image with a digital paper and create a sticker effect.  If you want to use multiple papers, check out my tutorial on digital paper piecing.

I'm using Photoshop Elements 8 for this tutorial.  It should work with other photo editing software.  The first step is to import your image into PSE.  I'm using Fair Carousel by Make It Crafty.  Be sure to use a .png image or remove the background before starting this tutorial.

The next step is to place the paper you want to use.  In PSE, you do this by selecting File > Place.  You'll need to resize your paper so it covers your image.  Be sure to click constrain proportions on the top before you resize.  I'm using a piece of digital kraft paper by Meredith Cardall (check out the supplies at the bottom for links to all the products I used).

Hide the kraft paper layer by clicking the little eyeball to the left of the layer in the layer menu (lower right).  Use your magic wand tool and click anywhere in the checkerbox area to select all of the background.  If you find that you are selecting more than you intended, then all of the lines aren't closed on the image.  On this image I had to go in with the pen tool and connect the lines in the lower right.  You can remove them later.

With the background selected, unhide the kraft paper layer.  Then select the kraft paper layer and press delete.

You'll have a cut out of the paper in the shape of your image.

Move the kraft paper layer underneath the image layer in your layer menu.

Select all of the white areas with your magic wand tool.  Turn off "continuous" on the top before you select to get all the areas.  Press delete.  Now you have your image outline with your paper filling in.

Create a scrapbook layout using your favorite software.  You can use your digital image like a sticker with your digiscrap supplies.  You can see how I made it a feature on my layout.

Credits
Fair Carousel Digi Stamp by Make It Crafty
Under the Big Top by Meredith Cardall Designs
Kraft Paper from Adventures in Yardwork by Meredith Cardall Designs
Gimme Layers v.49 by Cluster Queen Creations

Happy Scrapping!

Slightly Steampunk Christmas Card

It's my day to post on the Make It Crafty blog.  Do you struggle with backgrounds?  I admit that most of my images are just on a white background.  Of course, you can always add a MIC background and color it, which turn out fantastic.  When I saw this Steampunk Santa, I knew that I wanted to have him on a dark blue background.  I also didn't want to use tons of ink to get a really smooth background.  I started by coloring the background with B29.  I only laid down one layer of color and you can see that it's darker in some areas.



 Next, I took colorless blender and put it on a small piece of terry cloth cut from an old towel.  I dabbed the towel all over the background to create even more light and dark areas.  This way, I think the background doesn't have to be colored evenly and still gives a great effect.  I think it looks like the night sky with snow falling in the background.

 Here's my finished card.  I used Y28 to color most of the sleigh.  I really like this marker as it gives a really gold color.  I added a flower with a gear center for my slightly Steampunk Christmas card.

Supplies

Dashing Santa Claus Digi Stamp

Gears Galore Chipboard

Make It Colour Blending Card

Copics

Happy Crafting!

Sheer clothing

Hello all!  It's my day to share at the Make It Crafty blog and I'm sharing coloring tips for sheer clothing.  Before I start, be sure to hop over to the Make It Crafty blog and leave a comment to be entered to win a prize in the monthly bloggy love drawing.  I thought about calling my post Tales from the Novice.  There was a time in the not too distant past where I wouldn't even have attempted to color the Enchanted Princess.  Look at all those folds and the sheer part of her skirt and sleeves.  Eek!

I don't claim to be an expert in this by any means.  If you're like me, and still on the new side of learning, I'm going to share the things that I think about as I colored this image.  I hope it's helpful.

I started with her legs, since they are underneath the sheer skirt.  Everything under the sheer fabric needs to be colored first.  I used my lightest skin tone to give roundness to her leg and then added my darkest skin tone on the parts that are in shadow.   Don't worry, I'll show you my color chart at the end.

Next I colored over the light areas with my medium skin tone.

To finish her legs, I blended with the lightest skin tone.  I also colored in her shoes before moving to the next step - the dreaded sheer skirt.

Turns out the sheer fabric isn't as hard as you think it is, once you get over coloring over your already colored image (this always makes me nervous before I start).  First, I looked for the areas where the fabric seemed to have multiple layers and colored these with my dark color and medium.

I blended these in with my lightest color.  I wish that I had had a marker that was a little darker for the lightest shade, but you make do with what you have.

I did the same thing on both sleeves - coloring the arms first and then adding the shear sleeves.  Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, I was trying to zoom in on the small area.

The next part of the image that I focused on was her dress.  I love these images because the artist has given us lines to guide our coloring.  I'm not great at unguided folds, but these lines make it a lot easier.  I colored the skirt in sections adding colors dark to light.  I started with this fold which is curved out toward us.  I added the darkest color along the edges and then the medium color.

I added the light color to blend.  Then added the darkest color into the folds on the right.

I added the medium and light colors on the right blending out from the darkest shade.  Then I added the darkest shade to the areas on the left.  You can see how I'm breaking down the skirt based on the drawn lines. 

When I finished the vertical sections of the skirt, I moved on to the horizontal sections.  For these ones at the top, I started with the dark color along the fold and then blended to light as I moved to the top.  The fabric is folded over at the bottom, which is casting a shadow.

Here's the finished dress.  I tried to zoom in so you could see where I put the shadow and highlights.

Finally, I needed to color her hair.  I was going for a Celtic princess look so I chose red-browns for her hair. I started with the darkest color in the areas where her hair was layered or seemed to be recessed from the light.

Then I added the medium color blending out from the darkest color.

Finally, I added the lightest color.

Here's my color chart with all the colors and where I used them.

I had just seen Brave before I made this card.  Probably inspired the Celtic princess.  Here's my finished card:

Supplies

Make It Crafty Enchanted Princess Digi Stamp

Make It Colour Blending Cardstock

Copics

Happy Crafting!

Digital Paper Piecing

Warning: Picture heavy post.  May take a while to load.

Hi all!  When I created my Clean and Simple card for the Hybrid Chick Card Caravan, it occurred to me that others might want to know how to paper piece with digital stamps and digital scrapbooking products. Today, I'm using Fairy Celandine from Make it Crafty and Cotton Candy and Lemon Drops by Siamese Studio.  I chose Fairy Celandine because she has large open areas that will be perfect for paper piecing.

To use this tutorial, you'll need Photoshop Elements or similar program.  I'm using PSE 8 on my Mac.

Step 1. Open up the digital stamp that you want to paper piece.

Step 2. Create a new layer (Layer >> New >> Layer >> "OK") and move it underneath the layer that your image is on.

Step 3.  Place the paper that you want to use on the layer that you just created (File >> Place).  Simplify the layer with the paper on it (Layer >> Simplify)

Step 4. Highlight your image layer by selecting it under the layers.  Select the magic wand tool.  Make sure the "Contiguous" selection is clicked along the top bar.  Click on the area(s) that you want to add your digital papers.  For Fairy Celandine, I needed to select multiple areas to grab her whole dress.  To do this, hold down the shift key while you're selecting areas.  You'll get the little marching ants around the areas that you've selected.

Step 5. Press delete to clear the white background from your selected areas.

Step 6. Select the layer with the paper on it.  Invert your selection (Select >> Inverse).  Press delete.  this should delete all the paper that is not in the dress area.  Deselect the area (Select >> Deselect; open apple+D on Mac)

Step 7.  You may have a problem using this technique if the area is not completely closed off with a line.   If this happens you can use your eraser to erase the paper where you don't want it, or you can leave this area white and color it with markers/pencils/etc.

Step 8. Be sure to have the paper layer selected when you erase.

Step 9. Repeat steps 2-8 to add all the papers that you'd like to use to paper piece your image.

I printed my image on Make It Colour paper and colored Celandine's skin and hair with Copics.  Here's my finished card:


You'll notice that the finished card doesn't have the same paper piecing as the tutorial.  I did the digital paper piecing while I was on a trip. When I got home, I went to print the image and I couldn't find it anywhere!  Remember to save and save somewhere that you'll remember.

Supplies Used

 Fairy Celandine from Make it Crafty

Cotton Candy and Lemon Drops by Siamese Studio

Happy Crafting!

Using Templates in iScrapbook 2: Adding elements and shadows

Hi all!  I use iScrapbook on my Mac to create my digital scrapbooking layouts.  At Brownie Scraps, there are a series of challenges - Level 1and Level 2 - for learning digital scrapbooking.  I'm going to create a series of tutorials using iScrapbook for the Level 1 and Level 2 challenges.  I hope they're helpful.

For all of these tutorials, I'm using The Little Things by Bella Gypsy and 3 Photo Vol 1 by Memory Clips.  You'll want the .png files for the template.
Challenge 3 is adding shadows and elements.  You'll want to start with the first tutorial - adding papers.
I'm starting with my layout from the first tutorial.  First, I'm going to add shadows to the papers.  Then, I'll add two elements and add shadows to them.  I'm using the .png files slightly out of order for these challenges.  Normally, I would add each .png file in the order of the template, add shadows or other effects, and then move on to the next layer.
Here's my starting layout:

Step 1. Add shadows to papers.  Select the paper and expand the drop down menu by clicking on the arrow.  Select shadow.

Step 1b.  Select the box next to "Shadow."  I typically use an angle of 30 degrees, which you can adjust by moving the dot around the circle.  You want to use the same angle for all shadows.  For papers, I typically use Offset = 3, Blur = 3, Opacity = 50%.  Offset and blur are the default values.  If the papers have several element layers underneath them, you may want to increase the offset and blur.  I like to make the blur value one number greater than the offset.

Step 1c.  Add shadows to all the paper pieces.  Usually, I would do this as I added each piece to the layout.

Step 2. Adding an element.  Add the template piece following Step 4 in the first tutorial.  I've moved the template piece under the papers by pressing ⌘+[.  This is the order the template pieces should be in.  The first element is a bracket.  This is not a default shape in iScrapbook, so you have a few options.  If your kit has a bracket in it, you can use it for this element.  If you don't have a bracket, you can use a scalloped edge, ribbon, or banner.  You can pull the shape into another program, like PSE, and create a paper version of it {I won't describe that here}.  Finally, you don't have to use it.  You are free to alter the template.

Step 2b. The template I'm using has a bracket in the alpha.  I've added it to the layout by double clicking on it.

Step 2c. Rotate the bracket to point downward.  Click on the bracket.  Click on the arrow.  Select Rotation.  Adjust the dot on the circle until the bracket points down.

Step 2d.  Move the bracket to overlay the template piece and resize to the template.  You want to be careful about enlarging elements as you can make the elements blurry if you make them too large.

Step 2e. Add a shadow to the element using step 1b.  For paper elements, I typically use angle = 30 degrees, Offset = 3, Blur = 3, Opacity = 50%.

Step 2f. Delete the template piece by clicking on it and pressing "delete."
{I added in the photo placeholders using the directions for adding shapes in the first tutorial.  We'll talk about how to add photos in a later tutorial.}
Step 3. Leaf elements.  The next template piece is a leaf element.  I added the template piece and the corresponding element using the directions above.  For leaf elements,  I typically use angle = 30 degrees, Offset = 4, Blur = 5, Opacity = 50% for the shadow settings.  These are my default settings for  non-paper elements.

Step 4. Add a flower. I've added a flower using the steps above.  You want to take care to select a flower that is as large or larger than the template flower.  If you make a flower (or other element) too large, it can become blurry.  For flat-ish flowers, especially those under paper elements,  I typically use angle = 30 degrees, Offset = 4, Blur = 5, Opacity = 50% for the shadow settings.  If your flower has papers layered over it, you want to think about how "thick" your flower is.  I would avoid flowers that are very dimensional, like rolled paper flowers.

This tutorial has covered basic shadowing and adding elements.  Here's my layout so far:

I'll be back with more tutorials.
Happy Scrapping!