Packing up the Pappis

WOW - is that red or what? When I first got supplies (paper ones back then) to start the girls baby books I only bought pink & green papers, now their books are full of color.

A few firsts for me on this LO - I've never used a B&W photo. Others do it all the time and it looks awesome, but when I try I just feel like the photo gets lost. This time it was the perfect solution since the photo wasn't that great and the focus needed to be on the pacifiers anyway. Doing the spot color was pretty easy - I just created a copy of the photo, changed it to B&W, and then erased the B&W photo so the pacifiers could show through in color.

Picking a font for this LO was hard for me - it had to be something that could withstand the bold red background, but not bring the focus away from the picture. I ended up using impact and then playing with the size after simplifying the layer. Then I ran the sponged canvas action on it and then embossed it to make it more 3D.

Made more custom shadows using the liquify tool, I'm getting pretty speedy with those and I just really like the unique results. I struggled trying to decide whether I needed to add a fastner of some sort to hold down the notepaper or picture, and tried a few things that didn't feel right, so in the end I left them off.



Notepaper from breathe easy freebie by KSharonK Designs
Grunge Overlay from Grungy Overlays by Misschifis Scraps
action - sponged canvas by Atomic Cupcake
fonts - cac futura casual, impact

And now for what I'm sure some folks have been waiting for - the next part of From a Little Baby. My computer time has been limited this week as we moved the twins into big beds, and I have to guard against them escaping before they fall asleep. Thanks for the comments - I hope you like this next part. About 100 more folks downloaded part 1 than part 2, so they either didn't like the kit or they missed the 2nd part - it's still available in the previous blog entry.


Pick up Part 3 HERE

Beautiful

Plunking a photo down in the middle of the page still seems a little odd to me, but it works for this LO. Once again, I tried at least 20 different things for this one. I loved this picture when I took it - the girls were outside running around and the evening colors with their dresses just seemed to pop.

I'm learning how to use more of the built in stuff in PSE - that and with Atomic Cupcake's actions are making me attempt a bunch of different stuff before I'm satisfied. On this one I used stroke (for the letters), dodge (to make the corner fold) & soft light blending mode on the photo. I have loved the Emma kit since I found it back in Nov, but mostly I just used little embellishments I've collected along the way. I guess eventually I'll have to get the scanner going to make some of my own.








Page Idea from Do You Love Me by Kate Nakajima at the digichick
Striped Paper from Emma by Amy W
Photo Frame by Manu
Swirls by Fryske
Stitches by Jasmin-Olya
Staple from Serenity by KSharonK
Date Brushes by Misty Cato Designs
Actions - inked edge & velvet by Atomic Cupcake
Fonts - Highland Perk, 2 Peas Evergreen

Valentine 2007

Once again, I struggled with this picture. I remember having to bribe them with going to the playground last year to get them to sit on the step (this year the bribe would have to be lots of chocolate). Their sweaters were just SO red and most of the Valentine's stuff I found was pink - so with a bit of recoloring and after a trial with a template that just didn't work I went searching for inspiration and found a page to "lift".

Played around with blending again - applied a soft light blend to the photo to give it a bit more pop. Glue seems to be popping up on LOs these days so I was able to recreate that - its just a tiny detail on the date tag, but now I should be able to repeat that again. I made quite a few of my own elements - see all the actions I ran. I'm figuring out more about brushes and while I didn't use any in the end I think I know now how some papers are created. Still lots to learn there though and I really don't have to be a designer anyway.



From this blog post forward I will just be pointing you to the designer - it was taking a bit of time to dig down to the exact item and I don't know that anyone is using the links anyway.

Page Idea from Warning by nikkiARNGwife at the digichick
Background paper from Love Always by Franzika
Frame from Serenity by KSharonKDesigns
Notepaper from Pink by KSharonKDesigns
Rubberband by Amanda Kay
Staple from Funky Stars by Flerg's
Actions - inked edge, epoxy, sanded edge, ink & tear, rub on by Atomic Cupcake
Font - Social Animal, Minion Pro, Sleep Talk