Painted Faces

I decided to play with some digital brushes this afternoon and created a layout for the Scrapbooking Competition challenge blog. The blog owner Ingeborg designed the sketch to use. I looked through my old photos and picked this one of Kyaa and her cousin Matthew who was visiting us part way through a round the world trip with his family at the time. They look pretty cute don't they?!


I created four different sized circles and layered them on top of each other. I used a clipping mask to attach the photo to the smaller circle, then picked colours from the photo to fill the remaining circles. Then I started playing with brushes! Altogether I used brushes from butterfly_by_ShadyMedusa-stock, Porcelain brushes by Miko, KPertiet_FloralEdger (not sure where I picked that one up from?) and Circle Flourish Brush from Little Dreamer Designs. The fonts I used were One Fell Swoop (one of my favourite script fonts!) and Papyrus (aside - while looking for the link for the Papyrus font I came across several links about the overuse of the papyrus font. Lucky I didn't know about that before I finished my layout!!).

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Pelicans

Well, from spiders to pelicans...

I checked out one of my favourite blogs this morning, Ideas for Scrapbookers and came across this cool layout template. I immediately fell in love with it and had to make a layout!

This is the result.

I haven't made a digital layout for a while, and with the help of the layered template it came together very quickly! I have to admit that as I haven't worked out where I can get 12x12 prints made economically that I haven't printed any of my digital layouts and they just live on my computer at the moment. So, I'm also loathe to pay for any digital supplies. Hence I tend to use the bucket tool and pick colours from my photos. This time though I did use some freebies that I had downloaded . I haven't worked out how to record them well, so I can only tell you that the patterned papers around the photos are by Jessica Sprague from a collection called LoveYa. The background paper by Amy C Bleser is called "acbleser-rds-addon-pp1".

I remembered to write down the fonts this time! They are: for the title - Do you Like Stripes? and for the journalling - Bitstream Vera Sans.

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Beautiful Curse - digital version

For days I have been travelling past this field on my way to and from work that is covered in purple flowers, called Paterson’s Curse, Echium plantagineum (and known as Salvation Jane in South Australia). It is actually toxic to grazing animals and classed as a noxious weed in parts of Australia. After the Canberra bushfires in 2003 apparently tens of horses had to be put down after eating it for several months. Despite its terrible consequences to grazing animals, it is an amazing sight. I have been meaning to take my camera with me to work and stop and take some pictures, but kept forgetting. Finally last weekend I made a conscious effort to go and take some pictures. They turned out fabulously and I couldn’t resist making a layout straight away. I turned to one of my favourite sites for digital templates – Ideas for Scrapbookers – and picked a suitable template (Two Curves - see further down). The layout came together very quickly.


The template I used is this one. I flipped it 90 degrees first. Before I started, I also made a kaleidoscope from one of the close up photos and used that for the side strips of “paper” in the layout and to make the square embellishments. I picked the purple colour for the “paper” and “cardstock” from the pictures. Stupidly I didn’t write down the name of the font I used so I’m afraid I can’t give credit for it. I have a list of fonts a mile long and can’t find it back again now (and believe me I tried!). So, if you know what it is, please let me know!

I’ve subsequently made a paper layout with one of the pictures as well, but you’ll have to wait for another day for me to blog about that one. I even made some of the patterned paper for the layout as well!

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Geocaching in the Aussie Bush

There's a blog I like to look at called Ideas for Scrapbookers. There are lots of great layouts for inspiration, tutorials and best of all templates to follow! Pam Callaghan is the blog owner and the maker of all these wonderful templates. I really liked her latest template and couldn't resist downloading it and making a digital layout with it. I didn't download the PSD template, just the jpeg of the frame itself. I then made a similar but different (IYKWIM!) layout with it. Here's the frame, and my layout.




I started with the frame and used a clipping mask with this kaleidoscope made from the photo of lichen on a rock (also shown here).




I then added the background colours, taken from colours in the photo. I added the photograph and some special effects. Finally I added the text. The font is JoeHand. I'm pleased with how this turned out. Now if I could only find a place to print these digital layouts in Australia at a reasonable price I'd be completely satisfied!

Till next time, happy days!

Francine