Trying something new (to me) in May!
Hello, hello, hello DAISIE blog readers! One post that I would like to bring to you every month is about what new scrappy things I’m trying every month. I like to challenge myself and my readers to stretch our creativity and try new things. It helps us to learn new methods of scrapping, learn new things that our editing programs can do, and learn what amazing things we’re capable of. I strongly urge you to find something you’ve never done before and give it a try! Then tell me all about here so I can see! It just might be something new to me too! On to this month’s "new (to me)" self challenge!
This month I wanted to try combining framed photos and extracted photos in a layout. It’s something that I saw recently in another layout at one of the other scrapping site’s galleries and it just screamed scraplift me! So I did! I also tried another new (to me) thing in a layout, a "blocked" layout design. So here’s what I came up with:
Layout Credits:
Scraplifted from my3hens’ Fly High layout at SSD Gallery;
Papers, ribbon, staple, string from Doreen Stolz’ Spring Romantic kit;
Frames by Doreen Stolz;
Lace (recolored) by Mindy Terasawa;
Flowers and butterflies by Flergs;
Metal heart by Michelle Bowley;
Letter "A" charm by Pink Poodle Designs;
Memories barcode by Carolyn Bender;
Priceless receipt by Crazy Universe;
My inspiration for this layout was the layout that I scraplifted. Then after taking the photos, doing the extraction and playing around with the brightness and contrast in the photos I decided on the colours that I wanted to use. I then went to the DAISIE shop and found the perfect kit, Doreen Stolz’ Spring Romantic kit, it was perfect. I also decided to try another new thing, scrapping in a new size. I thought I might want to frame this one so I scrapped it in 8×10 inch so it would be easy to print and frame. After putting in the papers and photos I went looking through my files (thanks to ACDsee it was super easy!) and found some great flowers and ribbons, along with a few other cute elements. And of course I just had to use Doreen’s frames, I just loooove this set! I use them all the time, and if you’re a scrapbooker looking for a good basic set of white frames with some curl to the edges then these ones are a must have! The set also comes with a set of frames with cute little scalloped edges on the inside of the frame, can you say adorable?!
Anyways! In case you were wondering if there were any special effects done to the layout, there were… but not much. For the photos I used my PSP 8’s Brightness and Contrast settings to get the look that I wanted, I don’t usually go quite so harsh with the settings but that was the effect I was going for this time. For the extraction I just start with the Freehand Selection Tool and selected roughly around my DD in the photo, hit invert selection then delete! I then went around my DD’s image with the eraser tool very carefully using a reduced Opacity and Density setting. One thing to remember when doing things to photos, don’t use the original! Create a duplicate copy (shift-D in PSP) first!
Then the only other thing I did is adjust the size of the elements as needed, my fave way of doing this is by using the Deform tool and playing around with the Scale % settings. The framed papers were resized down to 55% so that you could see some detail of the patterns even at that smaller size. Oh and I recolored the lace by playing with the Hue and Saturation settings
And that’s it! I’m very happy with my latest layout, I love the framed photos with the extracted photo of my DD all in one layout. So what new crafty thing have you tried lately?












