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Day 3 The silouette is a picture of me at about two or three–I extracted it with great difficulty–the selection tools are not my friends!
This has been fun: I realize, though, that my first pages are illegible in the reduced size format, so I’m removing them.
Cassel: I’ve been out of town for the past 5 days without my computer so I have a lot to do, but I just read the comment you made about the similarity of the passport embellishment I used for day two with one you had designed. I downloaded that from someone’s designs for a blogtrain about travel–I think maybe it came from pixelscrapper. Perhaps that person liked the way yours looked and made one like it–who knows?
Day 2–off I go!
This really sparked my imagination! I enjoy photographing birds–where would I like to go to photograph some I’ve never seen before? Why not Costa Rica? I’ve never been, but I would like to go, and I found out it’s less than 3 hrs by plane from my home! So that’s where I’m going on my imaginary journey and, who knows, maybe next year I’ll go there for real!
Cassel: You had remarked earlier that the masks in the layers<load-save mask function filled the entire page. In my PSP 2019 there is an option to load as is or to fill entire page, so smaller masks literally sit in the upper left hand corner when used if the “as is” option is chosen.
Final day! (I didn’t think the wire effect font fit this layout so I didn’t use it.)
Teddy the dog and Peep the cat are on the lookout for squirrels, possums, and raccoons-all three can be found in my backyard. I know raccoons can adapt to many different environments, but how possums got to a typical suburban neighborhood is a mystery to me. They’re here, though, and they drive Teddy crazy at night as they do a really amazing balancing act on the overhead utility lines as well as the fence in my backyard.
Thank you so much for this challenge. I enjoyed each day’s assignment and I learned a lot–not only about PSP but also about my design style.
Cassel: Thanks for the comments. I agree my day 5 page needs some help. My problem was that the pictures I was using were close-up shots, there were no margins to work with. I tried putting layers that sort of matched in color under each before making a mask so I’d have room to feather around the outside. That sort of worked. But then I started fooling around with the pictures and the page and totally lost track of what I was doing. In the end, I did an entirely different page and then added lots of stuff the first to page to make it more interesting. This is the new one. I put the reworked one next to the one I already did on day 5.
Gerry: I’ve played around with removing creases and wrinkles using the clone tool. I start with the opacity at about 50 and density at 70 or so, take a sample under the crease and then move smoothly upward over a very small piece of the crease. A little at a time, I’m trying to make a more gradual color shift from dark to light, and the clone tool seems the best at doing this. I think it’s easier to get rid of creases on clothing than it is on background. Getting larger areas of exactly the same color to look blended and smooth is harder. I worked a little on your picture and got rid of the most obvious creases.
Bottom line: Experiment with the clone tool. You may find it helpful in getting rid of lines and creases.
Minka: back in the early ’50’s, there used to be a radio program for children that had “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” as its theme song. I loved that program and can still remember all the words to the song!
Trish: your Tangerine page is stunning-wow!
day 6 bokeh background. Rahne the cat often mimicked whatever Teddy the dog was doing. He’s staring intently at something, so she has to take a look as well.
I just realized I didn’t do the background page correctly–I blocked out the original “inspiration” background and just included the dots. Oh well.
Added a layer to original background paper.
Lydia-I really like the page you did of your granddaughter: the layout fits the page “just right”, the colors you chose compliment the picture and I love the way you applied the painted flowers over the edge of the mask as well as over a teeny part of the picture–they pull the eye toward the picture. Very nice.
Gerry- The way you dropped part of “love” below the page was interesting. I’ve never tried that before. I think I will.
Cristina: I’m enjoying your family series. Each page is visually attractive and the pages as a whole are cohesive.
Minka–I love the “Stay Clever” page.
I don’t want to discourage you from buying graphics from different sites–there are lots of really nice things for sale. However, there are also lots of free things available as well. PixelScrapper has been mentioned a few times. You can download a limited number of items each day for free. Scrapgirls has a free item on both Tuesday and Friday–it’s always on the last page of “What’s New”. My Memories.com has free items to download. There is a french site that has free layout templates, papers and elements: look for le blog de loulou31. And there are more sites, I’m sure. I started digital scrapbooking just about this time last year and I’ve collected a lot of digital supplies, some I’ve paid for, many for free.
Lynda–pretty effects–you have your OWN motorcycle? Brave woman!
Also, I took the picture of the robin with my bridge camera. It hasn’t been edited except to reduce it in size to post here. It was raining, I was in my car, the bird wasn’t that far away, less than fifteen feet, but I was able to zoom right into it. I think bridge cameras are great for wildlife shots.
day 5 project: I added a few “z’s” to the mask. Then I spent a couple of hours trying to make sleeping dog and cat emoji brads which turned out sort of okay but they just cluttered up the page so I didn’t use them. The three sleeping pictures were not close to the same in terms of quality so I used the comic sketch script to make them match a little better.
According to google, cats sleep as much as fifteen hours a day (some actually sleep even more, up to 20 hours out of every 24). Dogs don’t need quite as much sleep, averaging 12 to fourteen hours a day. When my cat Rahne got to be about sixteen years old, she decided to schedule a good bit of her awake time starting about 2 a.m. when she’s wander around and yowl.
day 4: this is my dog Teddy. I don’t know where I got the belt frame but I think it’s kind of cute, sort of like a collar. His toys are scattered all over the house so I decided to give him some toys here too. The carpet and the toys are from pixelscapper and I think they’re adorable!
A couple of days later. I’m not sure about this. Tried something else.
Also, I went back and redid days 2 and 3.
Cassel: The actual drop shadows I applied all go in the same direction. But, I’ve been playing with adding depth to different fonts and elements by duplicating the letters or objects and making the bottom layer black or white. Then I move that bottom layer either up or down a little to the right or left. I particularly like moving to the left with fonts…for some reason, they’re more pleasing to my eye that way. I usually move that bottom layer in the same direction for all of the elements, but I notice I didn’t do that on my Peep page. So, I’ll go back and correct it now!
Annie: thank you so much for noticing my Rahne and Peep. They were both very special to me.
Day 3 project. I’m so happy to know how to use a mask like this. I have tried uploading them to PSP and using them with the “load/save mask” option under layers, but many of those masks, if loaded at their original size, load in the upper left-hand corner of the page which is a pain.
Cassel: Yes, the “select none” option was what I needed. Quite honestly, I don’t find using the shortcut methods any easier to use than what you refer to as the long way, maybe because I don’t have to remember anything. All I have to do is look at my choices and select. Who knows?
I put a small drop shadow under three of the elements on this page.
Sue Thomas: thanks so much for your very detailed description of techniques you used. I really appreciate it.
Lynda: Though you wouldn’t know it from my scrapbook pages, my main interest in photography is photographing birds. The lens I’ve used most is one that zooms to 250mm, but I wanted to be able to get more detailed shots and I have a limited budget. I ended up getting a bridge camera (Canon PowerShot SX60HS) which zooms to forever. I’m so happy with it. I’m able to get really good close-up shots of birds that I couldn’t get with my regular zoom lens.
Lynda–it’s nice to see your pages again. Your tribute to your mother-in-law is lovely.
Sue–a couple of things: first of all, I’m in awe of your tree swallow picture. I find swallows to be among the most difficult of birds to photograph because they’re rarely still . . . or, at least, the only ones I ever see seem to be in endless motion as they zoom here, there and everywhere.
–second, I was fascinated by your description of how you made your page–I truthfully have no idea what you did. I don’t know what a masked image is, much less seamless tiling. Did you learn the techniques you were referring to using the modules in scrapbook campus?
Here’s day 2:
Thank you! That’s exactly what I needed–I don’t think I would have ever associated “select none” with deselect. But it works. And here is my first day’s project: “old friends”. I’ve decided to do all of the pages using the three pets I’ve had in the past 20 years.
Help! For some reason, my control key isn’t working. I was able to use the select all and float commands from the Selections option but I can’t find “deselect” anywhere and “control + d” doesn’t do anything. What should I do?
Barbara Hall
