Tut: Extracting Using the Magnetic Lasso Tool

Posted on | August 4, 2008 | 2 Comments

NOTE: This is a tutorial created in Photoshop Elements 6 but this function is also in Photoshop. Remember, if your background colors are just too close to whatever you’re extracting, try a different method (watch my other extraction videos).

Another digi page (but you can easily lift this using the traditional method). This picture is actually an interesting picture. She doesn’t sleep like this anymore but her daddy, when he was little, used to sleep like this too. It’s so weird! She’s never seen that picture and actually she was too little and as you can probably see was quite in the sleep zone and so this was all unconscious on her part. Aren’t our genes so interesting that way? Do your kids have habits that are similar or just like yours or your significant other?

I created this page a few weeks ago. I just haven’t had a chance to share it with you until now. I used Tara Sroka‘s kit, just a variety of them, for this page. I extracted the hearts from a full page, from her valentine’s kit.

Speaking of Tara… due to personal reasons, she won’t be producing a lot the next few months. My CT business with her will be super casual which I think will be nice for me too. I’ll be with her until the end of the year and then who knows what I’ll do then. I think, unless something great comes a long, I want to focus on stamping, paper and hybrid with occasional digi just to keep up with what’s going on out there.

Hope you all had a great weekend. M and mine was great but hubby had to work. That’s also why M was with me all day Saturday at the crop… did I tell you this already? Ah… loosing my mind…

Tut: Create a Pattern Paper, Part I

Posted on | March 27, 2008 | 8 Comments

I say part I because this is the easiest pattern you can do — stripes. For the second time I’m using ColourLovers for this tutorial. There are so many cool things that you can do on that site. I’ll show you more later if you haven’t figure them out yourselves yet.

Those who has PSE will also be able to go through this tutorial. You have the pattern and fill option. TFW — thanks for watching!

EDIT: If this is your first visit, don’t forget to check out creating pattern using the pattern sample from ColourLovers. Oh, also, don’t think that you can only pick colors from the swatch. You can use whatever color. I just want to show you how you can incorporate color pallets that you find online — in case you’re stumped or need some visual help.

Tut: Using Patterns From ColourLovers.com and Freebies

Posted on | March 20, 2008 | 4 Comments

Before I forget… have you visited Shabby Princess lately? They have a new freebie kit. Check it out, very nice!! Also, Weeds and Wildflowers are having their 1st year anniversary celebration. On their blog they have a mini kit freebie (very nice looking) and it’s only going to be up for 24 hrs. There will be a new giveaway until Sunday, so bookmark them, add them to your rss or subscribe via email. Whatever… but W&W is one of my favorite stores. I’d love to be Gina’s CT/guest {::SMILES}.

Last week I posted some Kuler info and also a one liner on ColourLovers.com. Well, I got to exploring ColourLovers a bit and it’s a really cool place. I found out that it was created way before Kuler and even though Kuler is very nice, CL has a better community and also this thing called patterns. YES, FREE patterns!! This isn’t great new just for digi scrappers, but those who has Photoshop (Elements included), you can create your own background/pattern paper with premade AND free patterns. Once you have your pattern paper, you can either go digital or print it out and use it for your cards, layouts, altered, and more — do whatever you do with pattern paper.

CL isn’t the only place to get patterns. There are many other free ones but this is my newest find and I want to share it with you. Watch the video and see how easy it is to create your own pattern paper from a sample pattern. Keep in mind that if you want bigger patterns, you need a higher ppi pattern sample or in other word a bigger sample. We’ll get to that later. For now, enjoy this.

Tut: Weathering and Antiquing

Posted on | March 14, 2008 | 1 Comment

This is a super easy technique using your eraser and burning tool. Once you’re done with the process, you’ll have something that will look worn. I did this in Photoshop CS3 but I think any software that has an eraser and burning tool will be able to give you the same effect. I haven’t used this technique in a while but I think I’ll try to do something with it this weekend at my crop. If you want to download the image on the left to use in your layout. Please feel free too. Just use the Creative Commons copyright rules when modifying and sharing.

I have nothing new to tell. M was not too happy when I dropped her off at school. She was crying and clinging on to me. Poor baby. Thank goodness it’s Friday.

Happy Friday everybody! Most likely I’ll check back in on Monday. I need to give my family some attention this weekend {::SMILES}.

Starting Digital Scrapbooking in PSE

Posted on | November 16, 2007 | 2 Comments

This tutorial was done in Elements 4 but it’s the same concept for the most part. The important part of working with a digital scrapbooking in any Photoshop product is to understand the concept of layers and inserting new images, text, or brush on top of one another and rearranging these layers to your needs and liking. I have created a video on how to get started. Nothing fancy but hope it’ll help you understand the concept.