Posts from — August 2009

I just finished a photo book at Shutterfly and thought I would share it with you. The entire book was created using The Boundless Mega Collection. I had been planning to create my daughters baby album for a long time, but it wasn’t until I designed this kit that I finally had the right theme. I may have mentioned this before, but this kit is based on the birth announcement I designed when she was born.

Click here to view this photo book larger.

I probably would have continued to procrastinate on starting this album, cause that’s just how I roll (pardon the cheesiness of that statement) but on Saturday I received a coupon code via email for a free 8×8 hardcover book from Shutterfly. Nothing gets me moving like a free photobook! I only had until yesterday to use the coupon and then ended up having a rather busy week. As I result, I was up until 1 am last night finishing this book. I just love shutterfly, but I wish they would give me a longer deadline

At any rate, if you haven’t used Shutterfly before, I highly recommend giving them a try. If you use iphoto, as I do, they have a plugin you can install makes uploading a breeze, and I also think the Sharesites are such a cool feature. It literally takes 5 minutes to put up a site and share photos with family and friends and they can order prints and books right from your site.

I am extending my Mini Kit Freebie for one more day. It will now be available tomorrow as well, so hurry over to Digital Paper Hearts before it too late

I’ve had some exciting developments in the past few days that I wanted to share with you. I just opened a new store at Digital Paper Hearts. They just launched a re-design of their site to celebrate their 1 year anniversary in September. I am really looking forward to getting to know everyone there. I will participating and hosting challenges in their forum from time to time, so I hope you will join me.

Some of you may have previously downloaded my Mini Kit Originals No. 1 but if you haven’t, now is a great time because after this Sunday it will no longer be free! This kit is being retired on my Blog and will now be available exclusively at Digital Paper Hearts. If you’ve already got the Boundless Mini, you may just want to grab it again. I’ve added a bonus element! A beautiful butterfly and word art stamp from The Boundless Mega Collection. Here is the new Preview.

Now for those of you who have been considering purchasing a copy of the Complete Collection – I have something for you as well. Everyone who signs up for my Newsletter Originals by August 28th will receive a coupon code for 20% off on The Boundless Mega Collection. Subscribers will get the scoop on all of my new releases as well as exclusive discounts.

As I was packaging up my latest release It occurred to me that some of you might not be aware of a really easy way to recolor elements that I use all of the time. Before I get into this quick tutorial, let’s start things of with freebie!

Word Art Originals No. 1

We’ll download this one the old fashioned way here.

I’m sad to say I’m having problems with my new store plugin. It’s not sending emails the way it is supposed to. I’m REALLY bummed about this because it means I may be back to square one with my store and back to something much more complicated . Please email me if you have any problems with a purchase, or in downloading any of my other freebies. I can send the links out manually, but the auto emails don’t seem to be working right. Thanks for your patience!

And now for the Tutorial

How many of you know how to lock the transparent pixels on a layer in photoshop or photoshop elements? Many of you may know this trick, but if you don’t, this is really going to come in handy! I work in photoshop, but I looked it up and this should work in elements as well.

As an example, lets say you just love my new word art freebie but the problem is that you want to use it in a layout with a dark background. I’ll show you an easy way to change the color of a single element that is all one color (such as the word happiness by it self) as well as how to change just part of an element if you don’t want to effect the whole layer.

1) The the first thing you need to do is to select the layer.
2) Then click on the “lock transparent pixels” icon in the layers pallet. (see tutorial image 1 below)

After you click that icon, your layers pallet should look like tutorial image 2 below. Because I don’t have pse, I’m just showing an example of how I think it will look. It should be similar to what you see in the photoshop pallet.

Now if you a re-coloring a single element like the word happiness on a layer by it self, the next step 3) would be to go to the select menu and choose all, or press command A ( ctr A on a pc). You will also need to choose a color. In the example I will use white, but you can also use the eyedropper tool to choose any color you might want to use. 4) Once you have chosen your color go to edit – fill. You can choose foreground color, background color, or you can also choose color to to select a new color (rather than the eyedropper tool). (see tutorial image 3 below)

Now, if you look at tutorial image 4 below you will see that this method worked well for the word happiness by it self, but if you use select all on an element like the word art cluster the results are not very good.

For an element such as this, which has several different colors of text, as well as some full color elements we can use a slightly different process to change the words that are brown, to white. Follow steps 1) and 2) above. Now instead of choosing select – all, use the marque tool (see tutorial image 5) to select just the word “this”. with that selected, hold the shift key and marque around the words “is boundless”. Holding the shift key will add to the selection. You should now have two boxes of “marching ants” around the text that is brown.

Now fill with a color of your choice as in step 4). This will fill only the areas selected with the marque tool, and the transparent areas will also remain unchanged.

So there you have it. Hope this tutorial is helpful. Oh, one last trick. Once you have an area (all or marque) selected you can press option delete to fill with the foreground color and command delete to fill with the background color (probably option and ctrl. on a pc).

My daughter will be starting pre-school for the first time in just a couple of weeks, so I’m sure I will be using this kit again soon. I created this layout with some great photos I took of my daughter when we went out to splash in some puddles a few weeks ago. I used a couple of elements that you might recognize from The Boundless Collection and the rest are all from Danielle’s Kit.

I tend to avoid journaling because the visual comes easier to me than the words. I’m often “out of juice”, so to speak, by the time I get a layout together. With this layout, I really wanted to remember what was so special about this day. If you’ve read my bio you know that I’ve had my struggles with unemployment. It’s been easier for me this time around. Maybe it’s just getting easier because I’ve been through it before, but I also know that my beautiful daughter gives me something to focus on other than the constant rejection of a prolonged job search. Whenever things really start to get to me, I just have to remind myself that I’m so lucky to be spending this time with her. Lucky because we get to splash in puddles together. Everything else will fall into place somehow.

Journaling reads: It started to rain one morning last month as I was working at my desk. It occurred to me that you hadn’t yet splashed in your new rain boots. Summer rain is one of those magic memories of my childhood. Splashing in warm water, the smell of wet cement and earth.

Suddently I realized this was one of those moments that would be gone all too soon. so I stoped what I was doing and told you to put your boots on. “why?” you asked. “because we’re going to go splash in the puddles.” “really?” you said, your face lit up.

You’re growing so fast and time will go by all to quickly. As hard as it has been to loose my job…again, as much as it has set us back financially, I know that I am lucky. Lucky because I get to be home with you and we get to splash in the puddles.

I now have 2 additional products available in the store. The new Boundless Words & phrases and the Boundless Mega Collection which includes the papers, elements and the words & phrases.

I have a coupon available for  those who have already purchased The Boundless Collection. This will allow you to add words & phrases for the same price as the Mega Collection. Send me an email or post a comment if you would like the coupon.

Boundless™ Mega Collection
Price: $6.50 See kit details and purchase

Boundless™ Words & Phrases
Price: $2.50 See kit details and purchase

Here is a sneak peek of some of the new goodies that will be available with the New Boundless Words and Phrases Kit. I should have everything ready to go tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait to show you how it enhances the full collection. I call this layout… Boundless Defined

Designed with baby girls in mind, Boundless™ is a soft and delicate kit that is perfect for documenting life’s journey at any stage.

The Boundless™ Collection
Price:  $5.00 See kit details and purchase

Boundless™ Element Pack
Price: $3.25 See kit details and purchase

Boundless™ Paper Pack
Price: $2.25 See kit details and purchase

And now some layouts for inspiration. Pricing is available

Thanks for looking and for all of the encouraging comments! If you haven’t found it already, you can find a link to the store at the top left under navigation. It just a small store for now, but I have lots of ideas in the works including a collection of wordart and phrases for Boundless™ that will be my next release.

I am hard at work getting everything ready to launch my store. If all goes well, it will go live sometime today. I’m so excited!

 I wanted to give you another sneak peek of what you can expect from my Boundless kit. Although it was designed with baby girls in mind, I think this layout really shows the versatility of this kit.

To thank you all for your patience, I’m releasing this layout as a quickpage freebie. Hope you like it. You can download the quick page here.

oh, and I almost forgot… The floral elements in this layout were created using photoshop brushes from Jennifer at Pixels and Ice Cream. I just love her designs. These brushes are called “more flowers”. She offers some great free brushes for you to try, so be sure to visit her site.

I have another freebie to share with you… a frame cluster from last weeks “Help choose my next freebie!” layout option a. Enjoy, and be sure to check back next week! Lots of goodies on the way. You can download the freebie here.