I came across this cute little card tutorial:

http://millymollytutorials.blogspot.com/2007/07/tiger-tiger-burning-bright.html

Hope you enjoy it!!!

This week’s word is: Life

:an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

: the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual b: one or more aspects of the process of living

: the period from birth to death

: a way or manner of living

: one providing interest and vigor

This word can be used in so many ways because it means so many things. I made the following layout for Scrapdango using the Sugar Kit. It has been a big surprise to me just how far this kit goes and just how much I love it! I found an Ad in a magazine and posted an Ad challenge for their Inspirational Crop which is going on this week. I used the Life as my title choice in this layout.

Today’s Tip Tuesday is all about vellum.

-  Print off song lyrics, essays, etc. onto plain vellum to add to the journalling of a page. Use an italic-like gray font to make it fancy yet subtle. Looks very nice!

-  Use tracing paper in place of vellum.  Tracing paper is a little more inexpensive.

-  If you have an out of focus photo that you want to use on a page, try covering it with vellum for a nice soft look.

-  Try tearing strips of vellum to achieve a “wavey” look to your lake and seaside pages.

-  Try adhering vellum with specially designed vellum adhesives like Scotch’s Vellum Tape or use brads, eyelets or staples to adhere it to your page.  You can also glue it down with glue dots that are hidden under larger elements on the surface, like under a flower on the top of your vellum.

- If you are using vellum in your ink-jet printer, ensure it is designed for an ink-jet printer.  This minimizes the dry time and print spearing.

- Store your vellum paper in an acid free 8.5×11 page protector and put it in a regular 3 ring binder for easy and flat storage.

- Need more space?  Try journaling on vellum and then adhere it over top of one of your photos for a great use of limited space.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s tips!  If you would like to share a tip or two, please email Tara at thynner5@yahoo.ca and submit your tips for a chance to win our monthly prize!!!

Have a great Tuesday!

This week’s challenge is a sketch challenge!! Use the following sketch as the foundation for your next layout!

Here is my layout of Paige and our friend Jill’s lovely, new puppy, Olive. I used a wonderful DT kit from Scrapdango. It consists of some great Bo Bunny papers! Yummy!

Puppy Love:

Please email your creation to me at: thynner5@yahoo.ca and put “CCAS Blog Challenge” in the subject line. You could also link it to me here on the blog.

All creations will earn you a ballot into the Monthly Blog Draw!

~Tara~

I have the great priviledge to work with Valerie Salmon every so often creating pages using her gorgeous sketches.  Valerie’s beautiful sketches and her designer’s work is displayed at her sketch blog, Got Sketch?

Valerie is offering a sketch based class for the month of September that you might want to check out, Got Sketch 102.  For further details, check out her blog here.

Hope that you’ll check it out!

I have a couple of fun layouts to share with you today.

The  first layout was created by Jackie. I love the subject of this layout! Looks like a fun, filled camping trip!

Anne Houser made an amazingly creative layout in the shape of a ………. shoe!!

I saw a small review on the CCAS Blog on the Canadian Scrapper’s Blog Carnival. It was so nice to see that people not only read the blog but appreciate it as well.

~Tara~

For the font this week, I wanted to show you how you might use a particular font other than on your journaling.

1.  I first downloaded the “Typewriter Keys” font from dafont.com HERE.

2.  I opened my Photoshop program and created a new document using the same dimensions as a regular sheet of paper, 8.5×11.

3.  I created a black rectangle measuring approximately 4.5×5.5.  I’m going to be using my creation for a card so I only need a small piece of patterned paper.

4.   Then I created a new layer and clicked the text option.  I then typed in a whole line of random letters that spanned across the rectangular shape and off the edges.  I used a white font to show up on the black background.

5.  I then repeated step 4 and added multiple lines of font until the rectangle was covered.  Tip: You can add mini messages in your type, like “Happy Birthday” or “Have a great day”, or whatever message you would like depending on what you are going to use your paper for.

6.  Add any distressing or other digital elements and merge all your layers together.

7.  Print your page on cardstock and create using your piece of paper.

Here is my creation using the Typewriter Keys font:

Supplies:

Cardstock: Prism, The Paper Company. Stamps: Gina K. Designs.  Ribbon: Prima, Misc.  Flowers: Prima.  Arrow, Star: American Crafts.  Tools: Spellbinder’s Nestabilities.  Chalk: Craf-T.  Ink: Ranger, Copic.  Pen: Micron.  Other: thread.

I hope to see you make something using a font too.  Come and share with us here on the blog!

I searched for this wonderful tutorial by Heidi Brand the other day. I love the look of black and white and sepia pictures. I have been unhappy with the short cut options on my photo editing software and remembered the following tutorial:

Black and White Conversion in PSE ~ Heidi Brand

1. Open Image, and using the menu across the top, select IMAGE, this will give you a drop down menu where you will select MODE, that will bring up another drop down menu where you will select GRAYSCALE. It will then ask you if you would like to discard the colour information, hit OKAY. You should now see your image in black and white.

Now go back to IMAGE>MODE>and select RGB and hit okay.
2. This is a little flat, so you can now add some contrast to the picture. ENHANCE>AUTO CONTRAST or ENHANCE>ADJUST BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST, and play around with the brightness and contrast sliders so you see somthing that you like. In my example I have lightened it some and increased the contrast a little.

3. Now this is where it gets a little more complicated. From the menus at the top go to LAYER and select DUPLICATE LAYER from the drop down menu.
Now you need to go into the layers pallete, where you will see a box with a drop down menu. Currently NORMAL should be in the box. Click on the arrow down button beside Normal and the drop down menu will appear.

Now you want to select SCREEN, and adjust the opacity to taste. The box to the right where it says 100%. If you click arrow with the box saying 100, it will give you a slider to move so you can adjust to taste. I did a screen layer at 70%.
When you are happy with that go to LAYERS>FLATTEN IMAGE

4. Now to make the tones in the picture pop a little more, you need to go back to LAYERS>DUPLICATE LAYER and select okay. Now in the layers mode window, which should say normal, click on the arrow for the drop down menu and select the soft light layer, and go to the right and adjust the opacity to your liking. Once you are happy with what you have flatten the image LAYERS>FLATTEN IMAGE I used a soft light layer at 40%.

5. You can repeat the same instructions as in number 4 except using a hard light layer instead of soft light. Remember to adjust opacity to taste. I did a hard light layer at 50%, a little extreme but I wanted you to be able to see a difference.

You can repeat these layers as many times as you like. Just remember to flatten and save the image under a different file name when you are happy with it.
Also if you would like to add a bit of a warm brown tone to the conversion, once you have flattened the image hit CONTROL “U” check the colourize box and play with the hue and saturation sliders till you see something that you like, then hit okay.

^^^ I also wanted to let you know that these different layers, screen, hard light, soft light also work great to lighten and bring out different tones in colour pictures ^^^

I hope you enjoy this wonderful tutorial from CCAS gal Heidi Brand.

~Tara~

This week’s word is GIFT.

Gift is defined as….

• something acquired without compensation
• endow: give qualities or abilities to
• giving: the act of giving
• give: give as a present; make a gift of; “What will you give her for her birthday?”

 

Here is my page using this week’s word….

I would love for you to be inspired to create something using this week’s word. It can be in your title, your photo(s) or your subject. Don’t forget that if you complete any sketch puzzle challenge, Monday challenge, wordy Wednesday challenge or submit a tip for Tip Tuesday then you will automatically be entered to win this month’s Blog Prize!! So get scrapping and either send them to Tara at( thynner5@yahoo.ca ) or link them in the blog.

Good luck!

Here is a wonderful sewing tip submitted by Jackie