Michele

I love what everyone's been doing. I couldn't manage to do Day 1, but here's Day 2.

 

I used the background and ornaments (a little altered) from Pixel Scrapper by Marisa L. I created the Happy Holidays circle, then added one of Cass's trees and used a starburst brush to top the tree.  I copied the tree to the back of the card and added some picture tube presents. Since the presents came with a drop shadow, I added one to the tree. I just hope I got the right angle; I'm not that confident with drop shadows yet. The reason I included two pics of the card and the envelope is I wanted to display what the front and back would look like since I can't digitally fold them. (Before you ask, yes, I do have OCD; lol.)

DeLoris, I already downloaded them yesterday. The trees came out really cute.

 

Sue, an advanced border master class would be great, but Diamond membership isn't within my budget. :( I'll have to absorb as much as I can for the month it's available. Very pretty calendar page, btw.

Sue Thomas, you have created a framing monster!

 

Cassel, your lessons in Word Art 2 came in handy, too.

Thanks, Dawn. I found these purely by chance. I love tripping over a new resource.

Wow, Claudia; just wow.

I think it might look like snow. The difference is I added the noise using a random setting instead of uniform. I also didn't change the threshold or use the motion blur. Any suggestions?

Love how you added the clouds, Dawn and it's a beautiful photo.

 

 

Cool. Thanks.

 

 

I am now so addicted to frames via the "Sue Thomas" method. Somebody stop me!!!! I started with a duo-tone gradient in the sunburst mode. I flood-filled both frame borders with the same gradient and mode, but increased the number of repeats. I would have used a honeycomb pattern, but I just used one a few days ago. (The game programmers really need to stop re-using the "Honey" theme lol.)

 

Actually the reason I want to share this one is because I found the cutest set of free brushes. All the images with the bees and the dripping honey at the top are different brushes. Aren't they adorable?

 

https://www.brusheezy.com/brushes/59712-20-cute-honey-ps-brushes-abr-vol-4

 

Carole, if you don't approve of my sharing the free brushes, just delete this post or let me know and I will delete it. I thought it would be okay because they're not similar to your style; they're not "scrapbooky" at all.

That tutorial was so cool! I used a free stock photo I had. Here is the before and after. I actually applied the Motion Blur twice to get a softer effect. I used the One Step Photo Fix adjustment on the background afterwards to make the colors stand out.

 

I wonder if we could do something similar to create snow.

Great job, ladies. Your projects are lovely.

I'm glad you guys liked my little pun with the turkeys; I can have a weird sense of humor.

 

Now you warn me, Sue! I'm totally addicted. I have to try not to get carried away or my group members will get bored LOL

I'm having Fun With Frames. I even made a turkey texture for the outer frame.

 

Most others showed people eating out for this theme; I went a different way. Do turkeys eat spagetti? LOL Thank goodness for clipart!

I wish there was a "like" button. LOL

I am completely blown away by all of these projects. They're really lovely. I've bookmarked this page because there are so many great suggestions that I want to try out.

 

Thank you, ladies, again, for your kind words.

 

The method I use is every time I make significant changes to a project, I save it with new number. This way I can go back to an older version. Sometimes I'll save a merged layer and add it to my frame later. Oh, and I usually document what fonts, materials, and different methods I've used in the Image Information section. I have a really bad memory so I would never remember what I did on past projects.

 

In the spirit of the season for my fellow American scrappers, here's something I made for this year's Thanksgiving. Enjoy your day.

Sue, I've used your method, but instead of adding borders, I increased the canvass size for the outer frame. That way I could still manipulate the other elements as I went along. I also tried putting the corner elements on this project above the background, but below the layers where the cutout effect was applied. I thought it looked pretty cool.

 

Wishing a wonderful Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.

It's so lovely the way you framed it. I'm going to keep practicing until I can get to that level. I like how you challenge me.

Now I'm going to have to use time I was keeping to do something practical so I can try your new suggestions, Sue. I'm so disappointed...NOT. I'd rather do this than pretty much anything else. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Thanks so much, April and Christina. I'm glad you liked my project. I have a thing for the Aurora Borealis. The colors in this particular picture I found were just astoundingly gorgeous. They really inspired me.

 

Just a little additional info: I used the shape tool to make the stars for the dots over the "i's" in the text. Then I used Corel ParticleShop Plugin to create the little flares to put under the stars. The font is Heavenfield, another one that I picked up during a $1 FontsBundles deal.

Cristina, your Alaska page is lovely. I love the colors and the scalloped edges are fabulous. I always click on the pics to enlarge them so I can see the details.

 

Thanks April and Cristina. I liked the beveled effect. Thanks to Sue, I'm getting the hang of it. I changed it up a bit in today's group pic. I used the Outer Bevel instead of the Inner Bevel. I was very happy with the result.

 

Wish I could afford the Lab or Diamond membership, but I learn a lot from you ladies and it's really appreciated.

Thanks, Sue. I've already been playing around with it.

Thanks so much for the kind words, ladies. <3

 

Sue, that is a great pic of the robin. He's so beautiful. I extract a lot, too, but I'm not very good at it in PSP so I use ClippingMagic.

 

Marlene, the card you made for your nephew is super fun.

 

Sue, I don't think I followed your directions properly, but I ended up with a sweet beveled frame. I played around with the Inner Bevel settings and got a different look. I'm going to experiment more to see what kind of different effects I get. Thanks for your suggestions. Learn something knew every time I come here :D

 

 

 

 

Sheila, I LOVE what you did with the butterflies and Mr. Snow is just adorable. I'm going to have to get that Directional Tube Script.

 

Yesterday's theme for my FB gaming group was Country Thanksgiving. I immediately thought of Norman Rockwell's famous Freedom From Want painting. The background came from Marisa Levin's Thanksgiving Mini-Kit from Pixel Scrapper. I used the Sepia Toning Effect on the original colored Rockwell pic, then Adjusted the Vibrancy until I was satisfied it would blend well with the background. With a ribbon from Cassel's Ribbon Factory, I used the Change to Target Brush to get the right color, but leave the subtle nuances of the ribbon's texture. Cutting it to size, I duplicated it and placed the pieces to form the inner frame. I used a Merged copy of it so the 3D Drop Shadow Effect would give me the desired look. I used the round turkey flairs from Marisa's Mini-Kit and added shadows to them, too. I was really going for a shadow box feel for the project and at that point, I was stumped as to what kind of frame to use for the outside. There weren't any in my files that worked well. After playing around, I finally used a piece of the ribbon and resized it. I duplicated it, changed the angle on the duplicate to 90 degrees and lowered the opacity so the edges of both layers would show; then I Merged them into one. Using the Erase Tool, I made the Merged layer into a frame and, again, used the 3D Drop Show Effect. The font is Breathe that I purchased for $.90 in FontBundles' monthly $1 sale.

 

Hope I didn't bore you with all the details, but I learn so much when others explain how they got the results they did on their projects. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I could have achieved any of these steps in an easier way, I'm all ears. With the pressure of having to do my group's pics in only an hour or two every night, I sometimes do things the hard way. It's only afterwards that I find easier methods.

I think it uploaded now. Fingers crossed.

 

Nope. No joy :'(

 

I'll try tonight. I'm going to shut down the laptop for the day and let it, and me, recover from my all-night frustration fest.

I did that for the first Update 1. It doesn't let me get far enough in the process to download the second Update 1. Where can I download it from Corel?

 

I just spent the last hour and a half opening PSP, opening this project file so I can save it as a jpeg to show what how far I had gotten. With any luck, I'll be able to finish it before the month is over. And now it's not letting me upload the file. I think I am cursed LOL

I'm running v 20.1.0.15 x 64.  When I have the program check for updates, it tells me there is one, but it won't work because a version of PSP is already running. I exit the program, wait a really long time, then I get another error telling me no update is necessary. <span style="color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">(And who has two update 1's, anyway?)</span>

 

I am so frustrated because I haven't been able to work with the program in days. They responded to me and I tried what they suggested, but it did not work. I'm waiting for another response.

 

Thanks, Cassel