Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!!!!

Welcome to the Pixels and Company Creative Team Blog Hop in celebration of Digital Scrapbooking Day!  Here is a complete list of the Blog Hop:

Pixels and Company
Mandi
Jennifer H 
Anna
Lynette
Mary
Becca
Jen F     <<<------ You are here!
Erin T
Sarah

I hope you are enjoying your travels through our blogs trying to get all the amazing bonuses to the Picadilly Kit.  And speaking of Piccadilly, have you picked it up yet?  You can pay full price for it...or, you can travel through the Designer Blog Hop to get a coupon code so you can receive it for FREE!!!

There are lots of sales and promotions and FREEBIES going on at Pixels and Company this weekend. You can find out about all of it here.  Trust me...you don't want to miss it!

So, let's turn this conversation back to the Creative Team Blog Hop.  Here's my part:

A quick little cluster to add some interest to your page.  You can download it here.

In addition to the cluster, I thought I'd give you another little gift just from me to thank you for stopping by my blog and maybe to keep you coming back. ;) So here's a quick tutorial on how to alter a premade scatter when you find parts of it are overlapping other parts of your layout.

Here's an example.  I recently created a treat topper for the Halloween goody bags for my daughter's class:

I used Dawn Farias's Ghoulies Collection to create it.  Of course, as luck would have it, I didn't save the layered file, so I will recreate it with a little less detail for this blog post.  Here is what I began with:

Clearly, the green sticker is covering up too much of the word, "Happy."  So I am going to move it.

Step One:  Select the Marquee Tool (Quick Key = B):

You can use either the rectangle or the ellipse shape because we will mask out whatever extra we pick up with our selection.  You can change the shape by clicking on the one you want in the Tool Options on the bottom:

Step Two:  Drag out around the area you want to copy and with the scatter layer selected, press Ctrl + J (PC) or Cmd + J (Mac).  This will duplicate just the area of the scatter you had selected.

Step Three:  Position the duplicated area of the scatter where you want it.

Step Four:  Add a Layer Mask to the original scatter:

Step Five:  Using your Brush Tool (B) with the color set to black and the Layer Mask selected, brush over the part of the original scatter that you want to hide.

And there you have it, you will never be locked in to the layout of a premade scatter again!

Note:  If your duplicated scatter has stray pixels because you did not make a clean selection, just add a layer mask to that layer and brush away the unwanted pixels as well.

And for those of you that prefer to watch videos, click on the link below:

Video - How to Alter a Pre-made Scatter

So, I hope you have learned something useful today.  It would be great if you keep coming back to my blog.  I will be posting little tips and tricks that I use as I create my layouts.  I'd love to share them with you.

Now head on over to Erin Taylor's blog where you can pick up something amazing and I hope you have a great Digital Scrapbooking Day!

Quick Tip - Pyramid

So here is one of my newest layouts --  Pyramid. Every time I see it it makes me smile.  These are my best friends and any time with them is a good time.  Most of them I have known since high school, but some of them I have known since grade school.  And let me tell you...that was a long time ago!  I could wax on forever about how awesome they are, but that's not really why you are here, is it?

Today I am going to share a simple tip for creating a vellum journaling spot like I did in this layout:

Step One:

Create a new layer by clicking on this icon:

Step Two:

Using the Marquee Tool, draw out a rectangle.

Step Three:

Fill it with white (or whatever color you wish) by selecting the Paint Bucket tool and clicking within the "marching ants."  Then,  deselect it (Ctrl or Cmd +D).

Step Four:

Reduce the opacity.  I reduced it to around 40%.

Step Five:

Add a shadow.  My settings were:  Size = 5, Distance = 10, Opacity = 30.

That's it!  Feel free to ask questions if you have any and thanks for stopping by!

Playing Catch Up

So much has happened since I decided to switch blog platforms.  I really wanted to be able to customize my blog a little more which is why I decided to switch.  I am hoping to really keep up with it now and maybe even gain a little following!

So, what has been going on?  Well, I am still creating for Pixels and Company and have to say I absolutely LOVE it there.  The designers are AMAZING!  And I am also still creating for the amazing Karla Dudley.  She is so incredible.  I just love her!  And although Tiffany Tillman is no longer selling her templates any more, I have the pleasure of working with her on her new venture:



That's right!  I am the Peer Director for the Scrapaneers Peers Creative Team and I couldn't be happier about it!  If you haven't checked the site out, now is a great time because Tiffany will be offering a free class called Keeping It Real -- all about making your scrapbook pages look more realistic!  Who doesn't want that?!  Once registration opens, I will be back with a link for you to sign up for it and get a taste of the quality of classes Scrapaneers will be offering.  You won't be disappointed!

Thanks for stopping by!

Tick. Tock.

I'm finally working on finishing up this blog and getting it ready to go live.  If you've stumbled upon me, thanks for your patience.  It won't be much longer...