tickled pink

Yep, that's right, I'm just tickled pink that I have a freebie to give you today! This is a set of 9 patterned PINK papers. Your scrapbook layouts will look pretty in pink with this set. I have to admit to you though there is one in the set that I'm not real pleased with. I'm not sure what I was thinking with that one but it's got a sort of blurred edge on it. I'm sure you'll know it when you see it....lol This is supposed to be another cold, snowy weekend so I'm hoping I can find something else to give away before Monday rolls around.

So here it is, go ahead and grab it by clicking HERE

Two treats today

I've been playing around with curled edges and came up with a couple of things to offer you today. The first is a quick page that I made using my Valentine kit. I should mention that both of these freebies are saved as PSD files, so if you don't have a program that is capable of opening that type of file, you won't be able to use them. I didn't include a TOU in the zip files but it's the same as everything else. Personal use only, no credit required but greatly appreciated.

click HERE for the freebie


This one is just a photo mat. I kept this as a PSD so that you would be able to lay your photo or whatever underneath the curled edge

Click HERE for the photo mat

Hope you like my little freebies today, Enjoy and remember, I would love to see what you do with them.

Sharing

I'm pretty sure neither one of my kids ever looks at my blog so I think it's safe to share this with you here without them seeing it just yet. I did this edit for a challenge in one of my editing groups on cafe mom. It was for a collage of your kids. After I got done with it I thought that it would make the perfect Valentine card to send to each of them.


I used my own kit "My funny Valentine for the background and embellishments (you can find it in one of my earlier posts) I a recent picture of each of them (both taken within the last few months) and then one of the two of them way back when. Weren't they just the cutest?....lol
The journaling reads:
My Funny Valentines
Over the years you have both
made me laugh
you've made me cry
you've given me a reason
to hold my head high
and say...
THOSE ARE MY KIDS!

Do you want to frame someone?

If you're looking for a creative and different way to frame your pictures, I've got the answer for you. I've been very bored today so I've been doing a lot of surfing and playing. It's amazing what you can find with just the click of a mouse.

Check this tutorial out

http://www.graphicreporter.com/tutorials/elements_shapeframe.html

This is what I came up with

I also used this tutorial

http://pcin.net/update/2006/11/01/the-orton-effect-digital-photography-tip-of-the-week/

for the edit on the picture I was framing.

CafeMom Scrap challenge week 2

I posted another scrap challenge in my editing group on cafe mom This week I gave them one of my old layouts and the challenge was to scrap lift my page.
Here's what I gave them


and this is what they came up with

spidersbite999


perfectmom20


miawa

jennisue79

Another job well done ladies. I think they did fantastic. Now I'm off to come up with another challenge for them.

Using guilt to your advantage

After writing my last post earlier tonight I started feeling guilty about being such a slacker. I dug into the files and started working on my newest kit. This one is for all the dog lovers out there. So here it is ready for you to scrap all those canine shots and tell your puppy tales. Oh and by the way, that is the name of the kit, "Puppy tales".


Well that's it, now you know the drill. To get your freebie click HERE

What to blog about?

I haven't been very motivated today so I don't have much to offer. I'm working on things but seem to be having a problem with finishing anything (except for maybe the bag of combos snacks that is laying on my desk....lol) When I do get my act together, some of the things that I will be offering you are:

1) a new kit

2) a paper pack3) a set of pattern overlays

4) this last one I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do yet. I've been making a few things with the new program I told you about a couple of posts ago and I don't know how I'm going to offer them just yet.

The only thing I can really share with you today is a link to a tutorial that I found a while back and just today got around to trying out. The link is http://www.webdesign.org/web/photoshop/drawing-techniques/hearts-on-a-sun-rays-background-wallpaper-exclusive-tutorial.16853.html

and here is what I came up with. I thought it looked pretty cool. I added a little bit more than the tutorial had. I added a pattern layer and changed the blending mode on the heart layer.

I feel so pitiful

LOL, I just added a counter to my blog the other day. I can't even remember where I found it, but anyway, I thought it would be nice to see how many people actually pass through here. Right now my counter reads "10" I feel so pitiful.

Aside from that, I bought a new program that I have been looking at forever. About a year ago I found Dazzling Reflections at http://www.poppyhilldesigns.com/ I downloaded their free trial and I was totally fascinated with it. Finally, last week I broke down and bought the program and just got it the other day. It is so much fun. The program makes it so easy to create kaleidoscopes from your own pictures. I've been doing a lot of playing and will be putting together some fun stuff for you soon. Here's just a tiny little sample of what I've done.

Quick and easy freebie

Tonight I have a quick and easy freebie for you. Something I threw together while I was playing around. All you have to do is right click and choose save as. I saved it as a png so you can just drop it into your Valentine's layouts or use it for any cards you might be making. It is rather large as the original size was 6 x 6 inches but it can easily be resized to fit whatever you are making.
One last thought for today, I want to thank all of you that have been stopping by my blog, taking advantage of my freebies and leaving me comments. So this one's for you :)


No TOU with this one, use it however you like, personal, CU, just have fun. Credit is not required but always appreciated.

a hodge podge collection from this weekend

I took this picture in my home made light box the other day. I got to looking at it and thought it might make a cute picture for my bathroom wall, which needs something new.


This is the edit I did to it. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.




I know that snow and cold weather are not big news lately since everyone seems to be stuck in a deep freeze. I took this picture of the back of the doctors office that's behind my house. Yep we're getting more snow, as if we don't have enough already. But, hey, we're having a heat wave today. The temperature is all the way up to 28.



Ok so I've never claimed to be the perfect wife, and this picture may just prove that I'm not....lol
Wade was out shoveling earlier and I was sitting inside taking pictures of him through the window. Hey someone has to be in charge of creating these memories....lol

A Scrapbooking challenge

I started a weekly scrap booking challenge in one of my cafe mom groups last week. The challenge was to create a LO using the sketch (made by me).
This was what they had to work with


And here are their submissions.
by: Keyfra

by: Miawa


by Perfectmom20

This one was made by yours truly

by: Spiderbite999

by: Taterlvsmommy

by: Topaz

by: whiteprincess2k who by the way even used my kit "home tweet home"

Didn't they do a fantastic job?

When plans don't work

I had planned on posting last night. I was all ready, I had the file uploaded to 4shared and then it hit me. I forgot to add the credits to my TOU. The little voice in my left ear said "Go ahead and post it, who's going to know?". The little voice in my right ear replied "I'll know, and you can't do that." Needless to say the voice in the middle of my head told me that I was too tired to add the credits and wait while the file uploaded again and that the voice in my right ear was absolutely correct, you must give credit where credit is due.



So tonight I have a small Valentines kit for you complete with corrected TOU. This one is called "My funny Valentine" and you can download it by clicking HERE

It's over!

LOL OK so nothing is over except for this set of OVERlays that I made. When I get frustrated with an edit that I'm working on and nothing seems to be going right I tend to start doing some mindless playing. I either grab some custom shapes, like I did for this set, or mangle a picture for the heck of it. (The mangled picture thing will be revealed in another set of overlays I'll be putting up)
I called this one "Sunshine on my shoulders" because 1) the custom shape I used to make it was a sun and 2) I live in the Northwestern Pennsylvania snow belt and I could use a little sunshine on my shoulders, or anywhere for that matter, right now.
These have only been colored to highlight the detail, and both were saved as PNG files.


Grab your freebie HERE
The great thing about overlays is that you can get sooooo many different looks from them by changing the blending modes. If you add more than one color layer and play with blending modes some more you get even more versions. Not only can you use them to create background papers for your digital scrap booking but you can get some cool effects when you layer them on top of pictures that you are editing.

Go grab that freebie and have fun.

Make your own light box

I found an article on about.com that gave instructions on how to make your own light box for digital photography http://desktoppub.about.com/od/scanninggraphics/ss/lightbox.htm

Since I work in a grocery store, there is always an abundance of empty boxes, I picked one up before I left work last week and set out to make one of my own. It may not be the best construction job in the world but it was fun playing and creating something.

The article doesn't tell you how to set up the lights outside the box so I did some experimenting with small lamps set around the box. Keep in mind here that I am no expert when it comes to taking pictures and my point and shoot camera is the only piece of photography equipment that I own other than a tripod. The pictures I got, while not perfect, were better than if I just had the objects sitting out on a table in the open.

The biggest problem I encountered while trying to take the pictures was with my assistant.

You see, I was using touch lamps on either side of the box and Mr. Duke felt that the light source was perhaps a little too much and kept turning the lamp off with his nose. I guess setting this up on the floor while the dog was around wasn't the best idea....lol

Maybe with a lot more experimenting and playing around I'll get it perfected. I hope the box holds out.

Be Squares

I was playing around tonight and made a template of sorts for cutting a picture into squares. This is what I came up with.


Actually I made 2 different ones and I'm giving them to you. Both are png files. These are great to use either on a photo alone to give it something extra or for adding to your digital scrap book layouts.

Grab your Freebie HERE

I forgot to add instructions for those who may not know how to use them so I'll include them now in the post.
To use:
Open up the picture you want to use.
Layer the png square template on top of the picture
Using your selection tool (I used magic wand) select the area outside of the template
Go pack to the picture layer and hit delete on your keyboard.
I also used the wow chrome effect on the squares on my example above.

One of the templates does have some extra areas that will have to be deleted. You can either do each area separately or, after selecting the outside area, while holding down the shift key, select the additional areas that need to be deleted.

Have fun with it and enjoy

Pixel stretched background

I saw a Photoshop tutorial for pixel stretching that I thought was pretty cool. I had to adapt it to work with elements since I don't have the exact same tools available. This is how I did it.
First you have to make a narrow selection on your picture. I lowered the opacity of the original picture here so you could see the narrow strip a little better. Once you have made your selection you'll want to copy that selection on to a new layer. In PSE you would right click and choose layer via copy

On the layer with the narrow strip you are going to stretch it across your canvas. First do one side then the other until the entire canvas is covered with the stretched strip.

Now you can move the original picture above the new pixel stretched background

To finish it off, I added an outline around the original picture on a separate layer. Then I erased parts of the original picture to let the background show more. And finally merged the layers together

There you have it a unique background created from a little strip of your own picture.

A couple of edits I did

A quick post tonight to share some edits I did the other day.

This was a picture I took when we went out for a walk on New Years day.


This one I did for a challenge in one of my cafe mom groups. It was for an antique collage. I'm betting that if my dad were still alive he would really like this one.

I just found out it National De-Lurking Week

I was reading through the posts in my blog list today and came across this one at http://lauras-little-corner.blogspot.com/2009/01/national-delurking-week.html I absolutely love this. The next paragraph is copied word for word from Laura's blog.

If you are out there and happen to come across my blog for one reason or another, please leave a comment!! This is National De-Lurking Week! I get hundreds of visits but I have no clue who you are! I only have 1 or 2 faithful commentors. Now is your chance to show yourself! Let me know you like my blog and you are watching! You don't even have to leave your name. Just tell me you are looking! Thanks

Now I must admit that I have absolutely no idea how many people, if any, ever look at my blog but I really liked this. Like Laura said "You don't even have to leave your name. Just tell me you are looking!"

So come on everyone, lurk awhile and then before you move on leave me some love or a simple hello.

Give away of the day

Check out the ticker on my side bar. It's for a website called Giveaway of the day. Every day they give away some type of computer program. Today it's InPaint which is a program that deletes unwanted objects from your photos with a lot less hassle than using the clone tool. I haven't tried it out yet because I wanted to come here and share it with you. Of course you have to download before the end of the day. Each offer lasts for one day only. Sign up for their newsletter and the daily offer will be delivered right to your inbox.

Layouts made using my Christmas memories kit

Right before Christmas I posted a Scrap booking challenge in one of my Cafe Mom groups that I'm an admin for. The challenge was just to create a page using my Christmas memories kit. I've posted the layout I did with the kit before so I won't show it again but here are the pages that two of the group members did. Aren't they great? I just love how you can take one kit and get a totally different look.

This one was submitted by Whiteprincess2k


And this one was done by Topaz



Great job ladies. I love them. And thanks for participating in my little challenge.

Come grab a freebie

I started a digi scrap kit some time ago but with all of the holiday hustle and bustle and trying to make things for Christmas, it got put on the back burner. Finally I got back to it this week and finished it. Although, when it comes to scrap kits, are they ever really finished? There is always one more thing that could be added or an alpha that could be created (I'll just add here that I really don't like doing alphas, that's why you'll very rarely see one in my kits) I think with me, it's more a matter of I simply run out of inspiration or ideas and that is when I say "It's finished".
This may be a little early in the year to come out with but I have a thing for birds and birdhouses so here it is. "Home Twee Home"



You can download the kit HERE

before, after and be funky

I made a small dent in the growing number of pictures waiting for me to edit them today. I don't even want to think about how many pictures I actually have on my computer right now. At least I have a removable drive just for all my pictures, edits and scrap booking stuff, otherwise my computer would be suffering from a major overload.

Here are just a couple of the ones I did today. I thought I would give you both the before and after so you can see how much of a difference editing can make. Either that or I'm showing you just how bad I really am at getting good pictures straight off the camera.

Now on to the funky part of today's post. I found this website the other day and had to share what I made there. That is a picture of me that I cartoonized. All you do is pick which project you want to do and then upload your picture. I didn't try any of the others but on this one they had different stuff you could add such as frames, hair, facial features as well as other graphics. On mine I just added the eyes and the big red lips. If you want to try it out the website is www.befunky.com Go ahead, you know you want to....lol

what I've been doing this morning

Since I'm not a drinker or a party animal I have a very clear head this morning and was able to do some playing around. I upgraded to photoshop elements 7 so I've been checking out what's new. I'm still trying to figure out how to use some of the new features and I find myself going back to the same old ways. I really need to start investigating all the possibilities. Any way I just started messing around this morning and was putting some stuff together and this scrap book page was born. After I got the background done it just cried out for some country side pictures.



This one I did for a just for fun challenge on cafe mom. I started with a picture of my eye. duplicated the layer and changed it to black and white. On the black and white layer I erased the eye so that the color would show through. Then I found a color wheel and copied and pasted it on top of the black and white layer. I played around with the different blending modes until I got one I liked, adjusted the color wheel so that it fit over the blue in the eye and then erased the edges that were extending into the white part. Pretty cool huh? I wonder if they make contacts like that?



I still have the rest of the day with no plans so I may be playing around some more if I don't find some ambition.

It's a new year

Just a quick post this morning to wish everyone a