I came across a very helpful post today that shows how to animate a gif file in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. I have to tell you that I was not even sure you could animate in PSE, and was very excited to find this tutorial and see how easy it was to follow. You can check it out here.

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~

I love making cards so I thought today I’d make my own paper to make my cards with.

So I opened up my photo editing program. I use Photoshop CS3 but this will work with your personal system too.

1. I created a new document: size 8 x 10.5 inches. I choose this size to it fits nicely inside a 8.5×11 sheet of paper for printing.

2. Using my “Custom Shape Tool” I chose a fleur de lis shape as the object I wanted to repeat.

3. Since my fleur de lis was located on layer 1, I duplicated my layer to create an exact duplicate of my shape.

4. I created a “Group” layer, Group 1.

5. I dragged both my layer 1 and my duplicate of layer 1 to the Group 1 layer. This creates an image that sticks the 2 shapes together in the given position.

6. I then duplicated Group 1.

7. I then created a new Group layer, Group 2.

8. I then dragged Group 1 and the copy of Group 1 to the new layer, Group 2.

9. I continued through this group duplicating and positioning until I fully covered my entire page with the lines of fleur de lis. I used some guidelines to help line up my layers as I went along.

10. I then created a new layer under the fleur de lis image layers. I colored it green by using my Paint Bucket Tool.

11. Then I played with some of my brush tools and some layering of colors and textures to get my desired paper. It’s just kind of wild and funky!

Now it’s time for you to create your own simple patterned papers. Let’s see you make your own patterned papers to use on a card or a page.

Here’s a card I created using a simple Superman crest that I downloaded off the internet and created my own papers for this card….

Supplies:

PP: Scenic Route Cardstock: Bazzill, Prism Stamp: Bella stamping Coloring Tools: Copic Markers Ink: Ranger Ribbon: American Crafts Die Cut: Spellbinders

I love using black and white photos on my layouts.  Since there is no colour to have to match to your paper and embellishments, you can use almost anything with these kind of photos.

Heidi wrote a fabulous tutorial on converting your coloured photos to black and white images in the CCAS Wiki HERE.

Enjoy!

I wanted to share with everyone this great tutorial by Amy Duquette. It is an awesome project and it is really well written too.

CD Memory Magnet by Amy Duquette

This project is perfect for school photos, sports team photos or for a favourite photo that you may have that you want to keep around you so you can see it often. I am using a photo of my grandma and my son that was taken a few days ago. This will become a very special picture for my son as he grows up because my grandma was just diagnosed with lung cancer. He will be able to take this magnet with him in his many journey’s life has for him.

Digital Supply List
Reckless Kit and brown tag from Faded Tee kit by Traci Reed available at Scrapbook Graphics
Circle journaling - Daniela Peuss
Font - Digs My Heart

Paper Supply List:
1 CD
1 magnet (I am using an old business card sized magnet)
1 sheet of white cardstock 8 1/2 x 11 (if you don’t have any on hand a good tip is to use the back of a sheet of patterned paper that you don’t like the pattern and won’t use…just make sure its thickness is that of cardstock)
scissors
embellishments
adhesive

Step 1
First thing you need to do is create the basic layout of the magnet in your favourite image editting software. I am using Photoshop CS. I created a 4 3/4 inch circle on a 5×5 inch document and filled it with white. Next I opened up the paper I wanted to use and resized it down to 5×5 and then SELECT>ALL and closed the paper without saving. I went back to my circle layout and with the circle selected I EDIT>PASTE INTO the paper. Another way to get the paper to fit into your circle is to past the paper on a new layer and then group the layers (ctrl + G) and then LAYER>MERGE VISIBLE and voila there is your circle.

Once that step is done you can continue adding your digital elements and even your photo like I did and then print it out on your cardstock. Make sure you use the correct settings on your printer to get the best print out. If you want to add some dimension and texture to the magnet you can print the photo out by itself and glue it on or use pop dots.

Step 2
The Next step is to add whatever extra embellishments you want to your circle. In my case I added 2 blossoms by Prima and a black brad from Hot Off The Press and inked the edge with green fluid chalk from Colorbox. You can add as much as you want or as little as you want, its totally up to your personal taste.

Step 3
Next its time to adhere the magnet to the CD. I used double sided tape to do this to make sure it really sticks!

Step 4
Almost done! All you need to do now is glue the circle to the CD. Again to make sure it stays put I used doublesided tape. Thats all there is to it. Simple, easy and fun and kids will love this project too!

I hope you enjoyed learning something new.

~Tara~