Friday 25 March 2011 2 comments

Introducing Blake + Freebie!

 So .... We've all done it! Fallen for the ultimate bad guy, only to have our hearts broken for the trouble.

What is it about bad, bad boys that is so magnetising? And just how bad does he have to be to get your attention? Oh sure, you may be all mature and grown up now, but I'm sure you've got a good story to tell.
   
We all do. Some memories may be more horrifying/dramatised than others...

Petra here for Brine Design with a new kit! The latest release is called Blake {Bad Boys Bite}. I'm sure you have (or have had) a bad boy in your life. Well now's the chance to pour all your feelings about that bad boy onto your pages! They can be good or bad feelings; we sure would love to see the results you come up with! And of course, this is a great way to share your good, bad and ugly stories with your children and/or grand children one day!

Grab it at FPD or 2LP

Grab Elements only at 2LPor FPD.


You can get just the papers here at FPD and 2LP


 But if you want the BEST deal, grab the bundle - it  includes five additional papers (including my favourite from this kit) and two quick pages!



Available here at FPD and 2LP.

Every part of the collection is discounted 20% for a limited time only!

And because Katharyn values your blog visits and shop support, here's a freebie for you! I've made this quick page for you to download with Blake and left lots of room for your own journalling, or if you purchase the kit, you may add your own touches to it and personalize it some more :)



And here is some inspiration for you by the Creative Team!!
Demetria

Zeb

Margote @ 2LP

Sandrine @ 2LP

Glynis @ FPD

Katharyn

Until next time! Petra

Tuesday 22 March 2011 2 comments

Tuesday Tutorial: Saving Sharp Layouts for the Web

So I haven't learned anything new this week in Photoshop, I've just been flat out churning out kits instead! But I'm not going to leave you hanging (been doing that a bit lately, sorry, my baaaad!) and I wanted to share with you a nifty way to sharpen  and resize your layouts for premium web viewing.

  1. Flatten your layout page
  2. Resize it to 600px x 600px (most online galleries go with this size) at 300dpi
  3. Control-J to copy the image on a new layer
  4.  Activate the new layer, then go to topline menu bar. Select Fliter>High Pass>Radius o.3px (or somewhere there, play with it for each image)
  5. Image will turn almost solid grey - don't panic!
  6. Change the blending mode of the layer to "Linear Light"
  7. Save for web > jpeg, under a different name.

Don't do this to your full-size pages that you wish to print out though. It only works well for web-viewing.

 Hope this helps you a bit :)
Friday 18 March 2011 1 comments

Meet me @ 2LP with a freebie template and coupon!

Hello!
This is a quickie post today - telling you to hop on over to the Two Little Pixels blog to pick up today's freebie from me. It includes a paper, PSD lifted photos (attach your own papers to the frames, or leave white as is) and a butterfly element. Then take advantage of my coupon for my 2LP shop, for a limited time only. Would love to see your layouts in the gallery over there too, you never know what RAK (random act of kindness) might fly your way ... Enjoy!


Friday 11 March 2011 5 comments

Introducing Cooper + SALE + contest + freebie!


Yes indeed! Thank God It's Friday and Thank God It's....Cooper!
Petra here with the latest news from Brine Design. Cooper is today's new release and full with beautiful and elegant elements and papers! In my opinion, it's a must-have! :D

Cooper has 46 elements and 26 papers (patterned and solids) and is available at Funky Playground Designs and Two Little Pixels. This week you will receive a 20% discount when you purchase Cooper!
Kathy also made an add-on for Cooper and an alpha and these are available at Polka Dot Plum.


Here are the links:

Cooper kit:

Paper Add-On:

Alpha:

Now speaking of Polka Dot Plum...Kathy is closing down her store at Polka Dot Plum on March 19th so the last day you can buy her products at PDP will be March 18th.
When you purchase an item or items there, you will receive a 30% discount which will show up in your cart! So take advantage of this great deal while you can!!
It starts today until March 18th!

And speaking of a great deal... don't we all love freebies and give-aways? Well we do have one today which you will get to in a minute, but this particular one we're going to talk about now is a contest of sorts! If you created or are going to create a page with at least 75% of Brine Design products (template is allowed) make sure to upload it to the gallery at either Funky Playground Designs or at Two Little Pixels. When you've done that, you can PM the link to Kathy @ FPD or at 2LP. She will pick a winner by the end of each month and the winner of the most beautiful LO will receive a coupon for Kathy's store!! So make sure to send in those links!! :)

The other freebie I just mentioned is a Quick Page I made for you with Brine Design's new kit Cooper. You can see the preview of it below and you can download the QP HERE.
I hope you'll enjoy this freebie!


Here is some inspiration for you! Pages made by the Creative Team with Cooper.
Enjoy this Friday and your weekend; happy scrappin'!

Petra

By Demetria

By Kim, also using the Vivacity template set
By Petra

By Jenny

By Azrood

Memi

Trish

Katharyn
Katharyn (pg1 and 2)

Monday 7 March 2011 3 comments

Organising your Digital Stash


The latest issue of Scrapbooking Memories (Volume 13, No.4) is out in newsagents now! In it I have an article about how to organise all of your digital supplies, using several methods. Hopefully one of them should suit your style! You will need to buy the magazine to read the article. After two months, I will post it here on my blog :)

Also, have you voted for me in the 2011 Scrapbooking Memories People's Choice Awards yet? What, no? Well, better do it soon so we can BOTH win some yummy prizes!!! Voting closes TODAY!

It's a bit hard to navigate around the website (in my talent-less opinion, lol) but register or sign in to Craftlovers here, (at the end of the speil) then go here to post a comment to vote for one of the layouts below (copy and paste the layout name & details). Don't forget to also put in your own name and address too. You have a chance to win $100 worth of product just for voting! And I can win $500 if I win, which won't happen unless somebody votes for me ;)

Here are some of my layouts that have been published there lately:

Wonder What Might Have Been, by Katharyn Brine (Vol. 13, Number 1).


So The Story Goes, by Katharyn Brine (Vol. 13, Number 1)


My First iNSD! by Katharyn Brine (Vol. 12 Number 10)

Daughter & Mother, by Katharyn Brine (Vol. 12, No.4)

Thank you, and have a happy day :)
3 comments

Tuesday Tutorial: How to Make Your Own 365 Challenge Templates + freebie

I've adapted this tutorial from a magazine article I published in Australia's Scrapbooking Memories magazine Volume 13 No. 2.

Good morning fabulous people!
By now you would have heard about the 365 Challenge, where you commit to taking at least one photo each day of the coming year.

It’s developed into something of an annual scrappy diary for me, and I’ve practised, lamented and eventually honed it down to being just what I want as a momentous record of the year that was. I’ve been keeping it since December 2008. Sometimes successfully! Before that, I was writing onerous Christmas letters - during late December - and calling it a yearly round-up! Pfftt!

A lot of people get turned off by the overwhelming chore of it all. And that’s such a shame, because it makes such a beautiful, detailed keepsake for your children and grandchildren. Imagine how interested you would be to read and view the daily happenings of your ancestors, in “real time” as it happens!

Well, I’ve developed a way to make it slightly easier (I hope!). I think if you stick to a sketch or digital template each week, and get into the habit of decorating or embellishing and updating it every Sunday night (for example) then it becomes easier to just slot in your photos/ journalling whenever your inspiration hits. No creativity required, just pure unadulterated recording. And it does pay off – when your children or friends glance through your 365 Challenge albums and actually reminisce about the occasion depicted, it reminds you what scrapping is all about. Recording the memories. In such a way that they need no explanation from you. They just browse through that album & get a great sense for who you are as a family. Where you are up to in this phase of life. Ok. So I admit I can get a few months behind sometimes, but the joy of recording our year is what drives me to keep at it. And when I’ve pre-prepared pages like the one I’m about to show you, it is so much easier to catch up!

This tutorial is written for beginners using Adobe Photoshop Elements. The names of various actions may vary from one program to another, but the basic functions are the same across most photo editing software.

Step 1:

Open a blank canvas (file > new blank file) measuring 24inch wide, 12 inches tall with 3000dpi on a white background. This is our double page, which we can later crop into two 12 x 12 inch pages when our layouts are finished and we are ready to print.



Step 2:

Turn on your workspace grid (view > grid). Create a new layer. Select your rectangular marquee tool from the left-side menu and draw your photo shape. I take a lot of portrait-orientated photos, so I’m going with a tall rectangular shape. Select any colour other than white as your foreground colour, and click inside your marching ants shape to fill it with colour.



Step 3:

Control-D to get rid of the ants. Select the move tool (cross at top left menu). Press Alt and hover your mouse over the shape until the cursor changes to a double arrow. While still holding Alt, click your left mouse button and drag away to create a copied shape. Continue for the seven photos of the week, positioning them as per your design. They will automatically all be on their own layer. If you run out of space for all your shapes, there is a way to move and re-size them all together. Activate all the shape layers in your layers palette (control > click on each separate layer). With your move tool on, drag a corner in/out to resize, or move the whole lot by clicking anywhere within the bunch of rectangles and drag your mouse to their new position. Make sure a photo mask doesn’t cross the 12inch crop line in the middle of your canvas.



Step 4:

With your photo masks in position, add text boxes for journalling later on. You will need to add some “blah blah blahs”. Add your title, in this case “Week 1”. We can change this each time we make a new layout. I also like to include the actual dates. Save as a PSD file. Your template is now ready to use week after week by simply adding some digital paper and embellishments after you’ve clipped your photos to the masks. To do this, activate the layer the mask is on, drag your photo onto the canvas, and press Control-G. The photo layer slips into the shape. You can move the photo around or resize it as long as you have the photo layer active. Remember to save your completed 365 page as a different name and a jpeg file, and close your PSD template file without saving changes.



** There are a range of 365 Challenge template sets available in my shops at Funky Playground Designs shop, and Two Little Pixels. Some of them are:




I'm also giving away the tutorial template! Yay!



Credits for Tutorial Layout: Brine Design patterned paper (365 Challenge kit), date tab, circle stamp, sticky notes, floss stitch; Siamese Studio staples; Traci Reed stitching (altered); Misty Mareda doodled camera sticker (First Day kit); One Little Bird “Smitten” alpha (altered).


0 comments

Store CT call at FPD

Hey all,

Just letting you know about a great opportunity to get onto the Creative Team at Funky Playground Designs store.

Here are the details, and good luck if you decide to apply :)

Sunday 6 March 2011 0 comments

Introduction and new templates!

It's time to introduce myself and not pretend I'm Kathy anymore I reckon ;P
Not too long ago I applied for Brine Design's Promo Team and here I am! My name is Petra, in the digital scrapping community I'm better known as Dutch_Diva.
I'm a 38-year old married woman and even though I'm originally from the Netherlands, I've been living in the USA since 2001.

I can tell you the very long story about how I ended up here but I guess it's not very interesting! If you would like to know just leave a comment and I will tell you the long story after all hehe!!
When I just moved here (USA - Florida) I worked as a front office manager for 2 Hilton hotels near Universal Studios and loved doing that until I got a new manager above me who loved to delegate and make herself look good, blah blah, so I resigned.
My husband was already driving a semi truck so he asked me why I didn't get on the truck with him for a few weeks so I could see some more of the country so I did. To make a long story short: I have been driving a big truck myself (as a team with my husband) since 2005 and we drive all over the country together.
That's why you see a lot more travel/landscape pictures on my LOs than people pictures :D

So enough about me, you're all here to see what goodies Kathy has made and I'm happy to tell you she made 2 beautiful templates that you can find within Two Little Pixels' Store Collab "Vivacity"! I just love the colors of this collab - so fresh and full of energy just like Spring which is coming to a lot of us! You can see pictures of the entire collab and one of Kathy's contribution as well and I hope you like it as much as I did!

Here are some inspiration pages from the team:

By Becki:


By Extase:


By Becki:


By Extase:


By Petra:



Looking forward to getting to know more of you out there :)

Petra





Friday 4 March 2011 0 comments

Hammer Time made Sexy!

My husband is really great at this handyman thing. He can fix drains, pipes, build sheds, build garden pergolas. He loves being outdoors and even does his own roofing, despite being wildly afraid of heights. I {heart} that he built my guinea pigs a massive fox-proof metal mansion complete with roof and in-wall insulation and an exercise ramp. He also installed taps all over our property - do you know how time-consuming it is lugging buckets of water to all your newly-planted trees? He has a constant tan on the back of his neck, and just above his undie-line on his back. I think this makes him extra sexy...

So what the hell has this got to do with scrapbooking? Well, today I'm releasing my very first collaboration kit, and it's all about your own Mr Fix It.

I teamed up with Amada Carlson, from Funky Playground Designs, to create something that you could scrap your man with. Any man will do, the one who usually helps you out with stuff around the house (brother? dad? uncle? boyfriend?) or even if you have a little man who enjoys getting his hands dirty!

Check it out:

It will be in Amanda's shop at FPD, and my shop at 2LP.

And here's some inspiration from my team:

oooh! eerr, how'd that get in there?

I mean, THIS is inspiration from the team ...


azrood

ve lomba

Becki

Petra

Cheryl

Cheryl's uses my Spritz templates too!

Sophie

Sophie

Cheryl

Demetria

Zeb

Happy scrapping!




LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails
 
;