If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll remember that my first template freebie was developed from a layout that I designed for a recent Designer Spotlight challenge at Oscraps featuring Danielle Young. Well, I’m excited to announce that I am now a member of Danielle’s Creative Team!

Her latest kit is called “Granola Girl” I was just released on the May 22nd. Since I just joined the team and wasn’t able to use the kit in time for the release, but couldn’t wait to scrap with it. This kit is perfect for camping trips, backyard barbeques and anything “outdoorsy”, but you could easily use it for any occasion. I just love a kit with versatility.

Layout Credits: Granola Girl Page Kit by Danielle Young.

I decided to scrap my daughters first trip to our local pumpkin patch last October. I love the way it turned out, so I decided to offer this layout as my next template. So as promised…

Template Originals No. 2
It will only be free for a limited time, so be sure to download before the link expires. You can download the files here.

As in my last tutorial, I encourage you to experiment with different blending modes on various layers. You’ll see that I have some layers set in the template as I used them in my layout, but try different options for various elements until you find something you like depending on the colors and hues you’re using. I seem to use linear burn a lot lately so I guess it’s my new favorite. Enjoy, and I’d love to see what you create with the template. Post a link in the comments so I can see your layouts and be sure to visit Danielle’s Blog!

As I mentioned in my recent post, I won first place in a recent Designer Spotlight challenge at Oscraps featuring Danielle Young. I decided this design would make a great template and to celebrate the launch of my blog, I’m excited to offer my first freebie, Template Originals No.1, a layered template. You can download a copy of the files here.

And Now for the Tutorial
I will now provide a tutorial demonstrating how to create the blended photo in the background. I am hoping that this will work for those of you who use PSE, and apologize in advance if it doesn’t. I only have experience using photoshop®, but hopefully I know enough of the differences to make this work.   Should you run into problems, I would encourage you to experiment with blending on your own to see what you can achieve. The possibilities are endless.

This first screen shot shows the layer structure that you will see when you first open the file.

I would recomend that you immediately go to file – save as and create a new file name  for the layout you are creating. This will keep the original template file intact for future use. The first layer labeled “guide_delete” is for reference only and includes some notes. You can delete this layer once you have completed your layout.

The next step is to choose a photo and drag in into your file. Make sure that this new layer is directly above the layer labeled “mask photo here”. Once you have positioned the photo and sized it as you would like it to appear you will need to duplicate the layer 4 times (so that there are a total of 5 copies of the photo). To do this, click on the photo layer and right click then choose duplicate layer. This is demonstrated in the image below.

Once you have 5 copies of the photo, drag 2 thru 5 down, positioning one above each of the layers labeled “photo blend…” as illustrated below. Be sure to leave one in place above the “mask photo here” layer.

Once you have the layers in place, right click on each of the 5 photo layers, and choose create clipping mask. This will mask each photo layer to the shape on the layer below (this is a very handy trick that I just learned recently. How did I not know this before, sheesh! very cool)

Okey dokey! We are now ready to play with blending modes (this is the fun part!). In order for this to work properfly, we must first make the layer masks permanent on photos 2 thru 5 (you can leave the first photo as is). To do this, right click on each of these 4 layers and choose merge down.

Now feel free to play around with blending modes and opacity (transparency) on each of these 4 blended photo layers. You will see that I have labeled each layer with the blending mode and opacity percentage that I used on each layer. Depending on the background paper you use, different settings may work better. For instance, because I had a flat color background on this example file, instead of the textured paper used in the original design, I had to adjust the opacity down a bit on 2 of the layers for it to look right. In the end, you should end up with something similar to what you see below.

Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoy this template and find the tutorial easy to follow. I’d love to see what you create. Feel free to post a link to your layout in a comment below.