Help Me Flourish
Answers to your digi scrap questions
Creative Minds!
Our featured designer shares her exclusive new back to school kit
Ultimate Shadow Tutorial
Miss Behaving shares her amazing secrets
August's Inspiration
Back to School gallery picks to inspire your seasonal scrapping
Issue 14: August 2010
OWNERS Traci Murphy Gina Miller EDITORIAL Managing Editors Traci Murphy Gina Miller Editor Joy Kuoha DESIGN Joy Kuoha STAFF WRITERS Gina Miller Traci Murphy Joy Kuoha GUEST WRITER Miss Behaving Vivienne Oestergaard ADVERTISING Lori Martin
3 HELP ME FLOURISH COLUMN By Yours Truly 4 INTERVIEW WITH FEATURED Designer Sherry Ferguson of Sherry Ferguson Designs By Traci Murphy 7 Exclusive free download Get your “Creative Minds” Kit For Flourish Subscribers Only 9 CONCERTINA CARD By Vivienne Oestergaard 11 Shadow Tutorial By Miss Behaving 15 Gallery Picks August’s Inspiration: Back To School
cover layout:
School Days by lacidock
credits: Template Set #49 by Cindy Schneider, Candy-Coated Alpha by Sahlin Studio, Explore Learn Grow by Sahlin Studio, Snipettes: Explore Learn Grow by Sahlin Studio, Frosted Acrylic Alpha by Sahlin Studio
We welcome your feature-worthy layouts and ideas for articles. Please send your submissions and suggestions to: flourish.msa@gmail.com If you would like assistance with your subscription to Flourish, please email to: flourish.msa@gmail.com Advertising Inquiries can be sent: flourish.msa@gmail.com
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Dear Flourish, How can I possibly keep up with scrapping all my photos, especially when I take so many? Do I really need to scrap them all? Feeling Guilty Dear Guilty, Stop worrying about keeping up with your scrapping. Guilt is not something that helps your inspiration and creativity - just let go of it! If you could only see the shelves in my closet - I have 10 large crates of photos that need to be scanned in so I can digitally scrap them, or save them onto CDs. I have gone through my crates a few times in the last year to find a few photos of some great memories I want to share with my family through layouts. I know that I will never be able to scrap them all, and most of them are not even scrap worthy... that is to say, the photos are not the best. Some are blurry, some are of people I don’t know, and others are even photos of things I really don’t want to remember. These old photos don’t even have to be scanned - they will still be fine for years to come if I store them correctly. Now that we have digital cameras, it’s easy to take too many photos of an event or gathering. As you copy the photos from your camera into folders on your computer, make a special folder for the shots you want to scrap and leave the rest alone. Not every photo will make it onto a layout, and that is nothing to feel guilty about. You only need to capture the memories with the best of the photos, not all of them. Get into the practice of letting go of some photos and even deleting the blurry and bad shots. If you only have one or two photos of a special event, then use them even if they are not the best quality. Work with what you have, but be careful not to overload your layouts. Remember that scrapping is time consuming, and you need to take time to make more memories!
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR...
As we step into August, we prepare to get our kids ready to go back to school. It’s hard to think about buying fall school clothes in this summer heat, but now is the time for great bargains and fun styles. Just as we wind down from our summer vacations and fun in the sun, we look forward to having some scrapping time during the school hours. This new school year is a great time to start documenting your child’s progress and activities with a back to school themed scrapbook. We are so pleased to have Sherry Ferguson’s as our featured designer and she has created an adorable exclusive kit, “Creative Minds” as our free subscriber kit this month. This kit is so perfect for your school themed layouts and the colors are bright and fun. It seems too soon to be staring into the eyes of fall, but here we are getting a jump on the fall holidays as we plan out our layouts and scrapbooks. Check out our gallery inspiration this month to get you started. Have fun reading our fantastic articles and try out the tutorials - they are amazing! See you online! Joy Joy Kuoha is a graphic designer, writer, and amateur
Yours Truly
photographer. She has 5 amazing children and 3 adorable grandchildren.
She
is
also
addicted
to
chocolate,
facebook, and scrabble. When she is not sitting in front of her computer, you can find her in the garden cutting roses
Would you like to ask our experts a question? Let us know what you want to read more about by sending us your questions, interests and ideas for future articles and features. Email us at helpmeflourish@gmail.com. Selected interests and ideas will be featured in future issues. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
or at the beach soaking up the sun.
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Find Sherry. . . Gotta Pixel Shop Design blog
Sherry Ferguson Designer at Gotta Pixel By Traci Murphy Sherry’s style is so fun and easy to scrap with. She creates gorgeous paper-style kits and sweet doodles. Her papers are especially bright and easy to use, as are her unique elements. We asked Sherry a few questions about herself, and this is what she had to say...
Q. What would I find in your refrigerator right now? A. Lots of bread, deli type stuff, refried beans, cheese and hot sauce. I practically live on sandwiches and burritos :) Q. What is your favorite color? A. Black and Pink Q. What is your favorite drink? A. Um, that would be beer :)
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Featured Designer
Fan Blinkie Facebook
Q. What is the last book you read? A. I don’t honestly remember. Q. If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you be? A. Hmmm....I guess I would chose Wonder Woman since I have always wanted to fly. Plus it would be nice to be that strong...haha :) Q. What did you want to be when you were little? A. Well, I wanted to be a mom, of course. Other than that an artist or a singer...lol. I can’t carry a tune to save my life :) Q. What is your favorite song? A. Right now it’s “The House that Built Me” by Miranda Lambert Q. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself? A. I’ve been married to my husband for ten years. We have two beautiful daughters and live in Texas. Q. Do you have a favorite color scheme? A. Not specifically, but I love bright colors with a lot of contrast! Q. What is your favorite type of product to design? A. My favorite thing to design are papers.
Featured Designer (continued)
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Q. Can you tell us about your creative process? A. Well, it has changed a lot as I have learned more things. Now I usually start with a theme and colors and go from there. I almost always name my products before I even start. It seems to give me some direction to go in. Q. How did you get into digital scrapbooking and designing? A. When I got my first digital camera, I used several of the scrapbooking softwares that came with the designs built in. Then in 2006, a good friend of mine was over one day and we started talking about scrapbooking our pictures. She showed me her gallery and I was amazed at all the beautiful designs. I already owned PSE so I tried to do a layout, but became very frustrated. So I went out and bought a book to help. It turned out the book was more about designing papers and elements than it was about doing layouts. I was hooked.
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Featured Designer (continued)
Just for the valued subscribers of
We want to express our appreciation to Sherry Ferguson of Sherry Ferguson Designs for sharing this fantastically fun kit, “Creative Minds!”
Click below to download
“Creative Minds” Elements Papers
Featured Designer (continued)
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Featured Designer (continued)
Concertina Card by,Vivienne Oestergaard
Here’s a back to school project that’s also a great gift to make in time for grandparents’ day, September 12, 2010. Concertina books are books with pages folded out of one long sheet, flip flopping from side to side like a concertina or accordion (some call it an accordion book). Using the concertina fold for a card for grandparents, you can photograph your child/children on their first day and use it as the theme. Here is what you will need: • 2 cardboard squares (6in x 4.25in) (for the cover) • 1 sheet of 12x12 white cardstock (for the inside pages) • 1 sheet of 12 x12 white cardstock or paper cut into 2 6.5in x 4.75in (for the inside cover) • 1 sheet of 12x12 colored or patterned paper cut into 2 6.5in x 4.75in (for the cover) • Photographs • Digikit (I used Ready for School by Danielle Engebretson at The DigiChick) • Flowers • Trim I used thin cardboard for the cover because I will be sewing it together with the front paper and inside cover paper. I used the cardboard from a cereal box which is perfect for this card. Take the colored or patterned paper and tear squares a little larger than the cardboard. Do the same with the inside cover paper. I selected paper with a white core so that you could see the edges when torn. Glue these sheets to the cardboard and allow to dry. You’ll make a front cover and a back cover stack.
height. Fold both pieces at the 4” mark and the 8” mark in opposite directions so you get an accordion look. Finished and folded, they will be 5 ¾ in x 4inch. Turn them facing each other and glue one to the other so that they go in one continuous line, again in opposite directions when folded. You will end up with 4 panels on each side you can decorate. Take your cardboard stack covers and using your sewing machine, sew a border either in a straight line or zig zag around each cover piece. I chose the straight line for the simplicity. Go slowly so as not to cause your thread to tighten and tear the paper. When you are done, take the covers and glue the inside to the pages. For the front, select your photo. I used a digital kit by Danielle Engebretsen (Ready for School ) for it’s elements. Using Photoshop, create a available at page similar in size to the cover and sized at 300 dpi for printing purposes. Use this to test out the photograph and the elements. Select elements that are simple in shape to cut out. In this case, I chose an apple, some flowers and a pencil. After placing, drag it to another document sized for your printer, again at 300 dpi for print quality. Cut each element out.
The DigiChick
I created a frame out of notebook
Take the 12x12 cardstock and cut in half. Trim each to 5 ¾ inch
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paper torn along the wire edge for texture. Use a gluestick to glue all your pieces down. I used Prima flowers decorated with printed flowers from the kit. You can then add in more layouts and journaling on the inside of the card, on each page. I prefer to save on printing by only making elements out of digikits. Background papers take a lot of ink. Also, if you print, be sure not to print on cardstock as that also soaks up the ink. For elements, I use photo paper for its sheen and thickness. Also, in selecting elements, choose those that are unique and a bit graphic in nature. For instance, I would use a real button instead of printing a button, or a real flower instead of printing a realistic looking one. By laying out your page before hand in Photoshop, you’ll get an idea of what your actual page will look like! This fun to make project will be a hit with the grandparents!
Vivienne is 1/2 of the ViVa Artistry team alongside Vanessa selling at the DigiChicks. She is an ex-pat American living in Denmark at the moment with DH and 2 girls (ages 14 and 10), missing her Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and trying to learn Danish so she can communicate with the Vikings. Visit Vivie’s blog at vivaartistry.blogspot.com
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Shadow Shadow Tutorial Tutorial
by, Miss Behaving I’ve had a LOT of requests for shadow tutorials and my wish is your command. Oops ... I mean YOUR wish is my command. ;) I’m going to start you out nice and easy. In fact, it’s SO easy, you’re gonna LOVE this tutorial. Welcome to the Dark Side of Shadowing. *insert evil laugh here*
put her on a background. This background is from JenU’s Heritage and Traditions kit. If you need assistance on learning how to extract, please see the “Extraction for Dummies” tutorial. For help with creating hair, please see either: The “Mane” Attraction or “Combing” Attractions. Now, I’ve seen a LOT of layouts that just add a drop shadow. Do you hear that sound? That is the heartwrenching sound of my heart breaking into a bazillion pieces. This is: Shadows Gone Horribly Wrong! This shadow here is NOT the way to go. It does NOT look realistic in any way, shape or form. And if you use this type of shadow after you read this tutorial, I will cry. We want a happy tutorial writer so please … just say NO to bad shadows. Let’s start over. First ... create a Layer mask for your
Let’s take Morgan here (I love this picture ... she looks so innocent. Looks can be VERY deceiving. heh): Let’s take a closer look. Note the natural shadows here. I’ve marked in red the underlying shadow ... the shadow underneath Morgan that her body makes on the concrete floor. I’ve also marked the shadow her body makes falling on the floor between her arm and torso. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to recreate this natural shadowing. I’m going to extract my model and
model. Highlight your extracted model and hit “Ctrl + Enter” to select your model. The ants should be marching around your model. Then hit “Create a Layer mask” button (circled in red). You have now created your layer mask. Why? We’ll get to that very shortly, I promise.
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We’re going to paint our shadow under our model first. Create a new layer under your model and name it “Shadow Layer”.
Continue painting along the edge of your model. Looks pretty good but we’ve just gotten started.
Go to your Tool Box and Select your Brush Tool.
I’m going to blur it a bit because my freehand painting can sometimes be a little lacking in refinement. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur
I’m going to choose a dark color to paint in the shadows. Set your foreground to the color of your choice. I like the dark color of the cracks in the floorboard.
Use a 25 pixels brush (this depends on the size of your model ... I started with 25 because of the smallness of Morgan’s fingers), Hardness 25% and color black or a dark brown, Opacity @ 100%. The goal is to paint with the brush right along the edges of your model.
I’ve used a Radius of 2. Mommy likey. We’re getting there. Duplicate your Shadow Layer by hitting “Ctrl + J” and place it on top of your model. Umm ... yeah ... nice paint work, eh? LOL We’re going to fix the shadows in a second.
Paint so that you only see the bottom edge peeking out from your model. The bottom of her dress and legs are larger and it’s easier to paint with the bigger brush along the curves, so I’m going to adjust the size of my brush to 35, keeping the rest of the settings the same.
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Remember the layer mask we made earlier? Here’s where it comes into good use. We’re going to clip our shadow into that layer. Go to your extracted layer and Highlight the mask. You’ll see a black box around it. Hold down the “Alt” key and take your mouse and hover between this layer and the Shadow Copy layer above it until you see a little icon that looks like
a bug with a little arrow beside it. I’m not able to take a screen shot of it so I’ve recreated it as best I could.
I’m going to blur it as I did before. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur I’ve
Press Enter and your Shadow Copy layer should now be clipped to your Mask. Highlight the clipped layer and change the Blending mode to Soft Light. Ooohhh Pretty!
used a Radius of 2.
I’m going to change the blending mode to “Multiply” and lower the Opacity to 70%. Honestly, your shadows don’t get much better than this. Almost done! The only thing we have left to do is re-create the body shadow on the floor between her arm and torso. Create a new layer under the model’s body. Using the original photo as your guide, paint in the rough shape of the shadow.
I added a couple of more goodies from JenU’s kits: “Heritage and Traditions” and “Vintage
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Lullaby” and Lorie Davison’s kit: “Before the First Snow” and used the same shadowing techniques for the elements. Here’s the final result: Shadowing is muy importante. It honestly can give a beautiful depth to your layouts. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and you find it useful. Depending on the feedback from this tutorial, there may be more. If you have a specific tutorial you’d like to see regarding shadows ... please post it in the comments and I’ll do my best to help out. Good luck and happy creating! Go forth and experience the shadows.
Miss Behaving hails from South Florida. Her hubby of eight years and 3 children support her fully in her teaching endeavors and have been known to show up in her videos. The world of teaching is nothing new to Miss Behaving, as she also teaches pre-school. Miss Behaving is known known through out the digital scrapping community as the go-to-gal for tips, tricks and amazing digital art and digiscrap classes taught with humor and the one on one follow up of her red pen! She has written numerous tutorials and recently decided to open a more detailed workshop training series. Miss Behaving Workshops offers video tutorials and PDF files available for download along with personal training and one on one instruction. You can find Miss Behaving Workshops @ and
Miss-Behaving-Guest/
http://shop.scrapbookgraphics.com/ www.deviantscrap.com.
Click here to grab Miss Behaving’s “Fan Blinkie!” Page 14 My Scrapbook Art
e!
M Click
Inspiration:
Back To School
Click on graphics for credit info. Featured Layouts found in the My Scrapbook Art Gallery.
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