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It’s The Little Things…

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It’s the little things that make life great isn’t it? For me it’s  chapstick, diet coke, flip flops, automatic flushing toilets in public restrooms. Just to name a few. The same idea applies to scrapbooking. When I first started digital scrapbooking, it seemed to take me ages to complete a page. You can cut some serious time if you use a few little “tricks”. Lots of seasoned scrappers may know these already, but if you are just starting out, chances are these will be new for you.

Here is a short list of my favorite little time savers when scrapping.

Please note- I work in CS4 on a Mac. The control key on a PC is the equivalent of the command key on a Mac. For ease, I will simply refer to this key as C.

  • Resizing the size of a brush or eraser- the  ” [ " key resizes smaller and the " ] ” resizes the brush or eraser larger. I love this function & use it ALL the time.
  • Resize your image to fit to page Hold C {as in command or control} and press zero.
  • Make a duplicate {great for when you are make clusters and need multiple flowers or leaves} hover over your image hold the alt key and click and drag. You will drag a new image with it’s own layer.
  • Resizing from the middle: Hold shift/alt while dragging the transform control. This will resize your image from the center – in.
  • Resizing with the vertical skew: Hold Shift/C while dragging the transform control.
  • Merge all layers: C/Shift E
  • Undo: C/ Z
  • Outline an element: hold C and click on the image in your layers pallet.

These are just a few of my favorite little tricks. I use all of these when scrapping or designing. If there is something you have never tried before, give it ago! You may be surprised at how easy it is to incorporate these little tricks into your scrapping and before you know it they will be second nature!

Happy Scrapping!

Tagged as: digital, scrap booking, Scrappy Cocoa, Shortcuts, tips, tricks

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Using Clipping Masks with Page Sprays

Hi all! My dear friend Boo, Booland Designs, has some fantabulous Page Sprays she has been adding to her collections for almost a year. They are breath-taking and make creating a page a snap. Each Page Spray comes with three elements, a photo mask, a cluster and the two combined & ready to go. I’ve had a lot of questions from our scrapbookers over the last couple of months on how to use the photo masks.

There are, as always, multiple ways to use Page Sprays and photo masks. My way is only one way. For this brief tutorial I used photoshop CS5, however, these steps should work in earlier versions as well as in photoshop elements. Ready?

My supplies:

My Supplies

my photo and Winters Dream Page Spray Pack 1

Step 1
As always when I create a new layout (LO), I start a New Document (Ctrl+N) at 3600px X 3600px, Resolution 300 pixels/inch.

Step 2
I open my picture and each of Boo’s files (bld_wintersdream_pagespray1 cluster.png and bld_wintersdream_pagespray1 mask.png) in photoshop.

Step 3
I drag all three open files into my New Document. I now have four layers.  I renamed my layers “Owl cluster”, “Tess” and “Mask” to make it easier for you to follow along.

Step 4
In the layers palette I drag my layers so that Boo’s Owl Cluster is on top, followed by Tess’ photo, followed by the photo mask and finally the background (aka bottom layer).

Step 5
It is time to “create a clipping mask” with Tess’ photo. Simply select your photo layer in the Layers Palette (number 1 below), my layer has been named “Tess”, by clicking on it. A blue highlight appears on the whole layer box (number 2 below). Right click while your pointer is over the words, in this case “Tess”, not the thumbnail, and select “create a clipping mask”. That’s it.

Creating a Clipping Mask

You may need to move your photo around, and/or resize the photo, or for that matter the mask itself.  Be sure to click once on your desktop so that you are no longer operating in the Layers palette.

Step 6
Select the owl cluster (number 3 below) by clicking on the Owl in the Layers Palette.  Then click on your desktop, select the “move tool” and slide the owl cluster around until you are happy with the look.

Step 7
It is time to finalize your LO. I simply added a background paper from Boo’s coordinating Winters Dream Paper Pack and some basic text.

LO with Winters Dream

Boo has very graciously allowed me to share Winters Dream Page Spray Pack 1 with all of you FREE!  Please use coupon code FREESPRAY1 at checkout.

Tagged as: BooLand Designs, clipping masks, page sprays, photoshop

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Layered Files: PSD vs. TIFF

When I first started my digital scrapbooking adventure, I didn’t know much about file types, file size or just how much hard drive space my new hobby would take up. I slowly learned these things, invested in an EHD and got my stuff organized. I’ve learned plenty over my years (like every little bit helps) and I’m sure I’ll be back to share some of my tricks….but today I want to focus on the difference between layered TIFF files and layered PSD files.

Adobe programs (like Photoshop and Photoshop Elements) can open either file type. A PSD file is a Photoshop file, and only the Adobe software can open these, a TIFF file is more universal and I know that some other scrapping software programs can open these in the layered format. This is why a lot of templates come in both versions. But, the biggest difference between the two is space. TIFF files are smaller than PSD files – and they still maintain the quality as well as layers and all effects applied to layers just like a PSD file does.

Let’s take a look at this layout I did using my Mr. & Mrs Kit of my husband and I on our wedding day.

With the high-quality photo and lots of layers and shadow effects applied to them, the PSD file comes in at 223.7MB. (To see this information on a Mac, right click on the file and select Get Info).

I’m going to open the file and re-save it as a layered TIFF file. After selecting Tiff as the file type in the Save As menu, a window of options will pop up. The image below will show you what options I use, but you can look into what they mean and make your own decisions if you’d like.

Now that my layered file is saved as a TIFF, let’s look at the difference in size. Remember our PSD was 223.7MB…

Only 129.8! That’s a difference of 93.9 MB – multiply that by all of the layered files on your computer (layouts, templates, etc) and you can save yourself GB after GB of space!

Hugs, Mandak
Nibbles Skribbles 
Products available at: theStudio PU and theStudio CU

Tagged as: Nibbles Skribbles

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Smash Books

Have you heard of Smash Books? (also known as Smash Books or Smash Journaling)? I recently was exposed to a new product by Paper Crafting Company EK Success (K & Company) called Smash Folio’s. These things are really cool! They are 40 page wire bound, hard covered, finished bound journaling books ready for you to get your SMASH on in! The concept is that you can kind of have a junk drawer in your journal. Stick anything inside from a fun quote to the birthday card from Uncle Mark to a photo to a ‘doodle of a poodle.’ If you want to see them in action, check out this video that K & Company put together.

The Smash Folios, if you choose to go that route come with a Smash Stick – which is a pen and glue stick in one and it is secured to your folio with an elastic loop. (See photo below) The product line also comes with a lot of extra stuff you can purchase from journaling tags to sticky flags to clips to decorative tape and more and I personally feel like all of the products are very reasonably priced. (The folios themselves run about $15 USD and the extras range from $1.99-$5.99USD). The joy of this style of journaling is that you can use ANYTHING to make your album yours. So far I’ve stuck in some photos, a few quotes I printed from Pinterest and I am planning to stick in the receipt from Target this weekend highlighting my $36 in coupon savings…

The only additional supply I’ve found I’ve needed, and it’s just to make things easier on me, is my Xyron Create a Sticker machine. These little guys are available at any craft store that sells scrapbooking stuff, even Target. The small 1″ sticker maker runs about $7 and the larger one that does about 2.5″ stickers is usually around $15. Simply stick your item in one end, pull or crank and pull it out, as a sticker, on the other.

I was discussing my new found love of SMASHING in the forum, when Angel shared that this is how she has always journaled, and she uses Artist Notebooks for hers. I went out to see how much one of these would run and picked up an 11×14″ wire bound artist sketch pad for about $20 (full price). I had a coupon, so I paid less.

My plan is to use my Smash Folio to capture ME in 2012. Most of my scrapping focuses on my kids or family activities, but I am terrible about scrapping myself – so collecting bits and pieces of me will be a fun way to see who I was this year. Tickets from events, brochures from things I do, pictures (especially phone pictures, I take a lot of those of my daily life), inspiring things from magazines or printed from Pinterest – the possibilities are endless!

Since we’re all dig scrappers, let’s talk about how we can use our digi-supplies to add to our journals! Make ‘em hybrid! I used some digi-alphas to put my name on the front cover of mine, and have some ideas to use journaling elements and other cute elements along with word bits to add to my pages. I might even print some of my layouts in small versions (3 or 4 inches) to stick in….or perhaps the preview of a kit I designed and love!

I’m just getting started, but expect another post from me in a few months sharing my progress and perhaps some new tips and tricks! I’d love to hear your comments, thoughts, tips and tricks for Smashing together an album, and be sure to join my discussion in the forum if you’re going to get in on the SMASHING fun as well!

Hugs,
Mandak
Nibbles Skribbles

Nibbles Skribbles Products available at: theStudio PU and theStudio CU

Tagged as: journaling

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Folder Images for Mac Users

by Nibbles Skribbles 25 January 2012

If you’re a Mac user and would like those boring blue folders filled with your kits to display the kit preview, product preview or something else – this is for you! Many designers include an image in their products named folder.jpg – my understanding is that, in Windows, this image automatically displays as the folder [...]

Tagged as: mac, Nibbles Skribbles, tutorial

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Knockout Style for Quickpages/BragBooks/Albums

by Toiny 20 September 2010

This one is for all of you who love to make a Quickpage/BragBook/Album set with your kits. I know my old way of doing it is a very common way. It is also a very tedious, annoying, time-consuming way. You know, where you select the area under a frame and then delete each bit under [...]

Tagged as: quickpage, style

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PS: Select Color Range

by Toiny 2 September 2010

Ever buy a CU product and wish it was another color?  Did you try moving the Hue/Saturation sliders?  Did you try moving the Color Balance sliders?  And still it’s just not the new color?  At least not evenly.  I’ve got another trick you can try. I’m going to start with a CU bloom:    Perfectly [...]

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