Who Are You?

Bet you can't tell that this was a 3 nighter LO - yep, that's how long this one took. I found this great LO to scraplift and first tried to create the whole look from scratch. My scalloped edge action from Atomic Cupcake wasn't working right, so I spent a long time trying to find scalloped templates, and even after I bought some they didn't give me the look I wanted - so in the end I bought the Happily Ever After kit and it is quite fun.

So on day two I customized the striped paper to make it coordinate better with the hats, modified the border and the scalloped circle - just to go back to the original in the end - and spents hours trying to create flowers to go on the swirly. The kit came with flowers, but they just weren't tropical enough. I ran actions galore on some flower shapes that came with PSE, and finally created some that were passable, but I still wasn't pleased, they just looked normal, not like the tropical flowers on the hats.

So the search for custom shapes to download started and after much hunting I finally found some, then struggled to get them copied to the right folders. I think I did have it figured out, but didn't know it as the shapes are not in the shape menu but in the Artwork & Effects. I finally ended up using Graffi's Add-o-Matic, and for once it actually worked properly, which is how I discovered that I did have them in the right spot, but wasn't looking for them in the right place once I opened the program. So once I found a flower I liked and cut it apart to be able to create a 3D look, I ran some actions and put it all back together with drop shadows and the final result is more of what I was after.

I also played around with the texturizer and learned that you can create different layers in the filters area - now I'm starting to understand a little more about how the designers play around with the filters, the blending modes & brushes to make some of their papers. But I think the whole following a path that photoshop has would be critical. So for now I'll create a solid color background paper and leave the rest up to the "professionals". I might have to invest in some paper textures from ScrapGirls though. I did find the notepaper texture and discovered that it will take the background color and use that for the notepaper texture which is nice
touch for something different than canvas or linen.

Then for a journaling block - ended up just using a preloaded shape in PSE - it's from the crop shapes, but I'm hoping it looks like paint.









Page Idea from Cherish These Moments by MizAmyLou at the digichick
Background Paper from Tomboy by Angie Briggs
Other Papers & Elements from Happily Ever After by Mary Fran and Kay Miller
Stitches by Natali
Flower Shape by Scrap Stew Sue
Actions - Enamel by Atomic Cupcake
Font - CK Ali's Writing, 2 Peas Hot Chocolate

read some lovely comments from Sue here