Happy early Valentine's Day!
Here's a freebie you can use for a digital scrapbook page, a card, or maybe even a hybrid project. Click on the image to download!
-Liz
DIY Chalkboard, Lettering Using Photoshop & Digi Chalkboard Pages
As you can see from some of my previous Saturday DIY posts I've recently been updating some spots around my house. In December I decided it was time for a little upgrade in my dining room. You can see from this post what my dining room wall use to look like. We've recently started doing more school work upstairs and I needed more shelving space for books and school supplies. The little bookshelf I had in the dining room just wasn't cutting it. I knew that if I bought new, bigger shelves that I would want something on the wall that would cover a little more space to balance things out. The current wall display just wasn't going to cut it...even though it was one of my favorite walls in the house. For those of you wondering if I got rid of those silhouettes, I didn't. I added them to a different gallery wall I have in my house.
One day I was browsing a local antique store and I saw a schoolhouse chalkboard. Immediately I decided I wanted a chalkboard in my dining room. Since the one in the antique store was too expensive, I came home and started looking online for chalkboards. I couldn't find anything that I liked or that was in my budget. I decided to make my own and here's how:
1. Purchased a piece of cabinet grade plywood. It's a lot smoother and the finish turns out nicer than a regular piece of plywood. My dad and brother own a Building Surplus Store. Score!
2. Painted the plywood with chalkboard paint. I already had some from a previous project. So no money there.
3. Purchased thin trim and stained it a dark color.
4. Had my handy dandy husband cut and nail the frame directly onto the board.
5. Used drywall anchors to hang up the chalkboard. We put screw directly through the chalkboard and then painted over them with chalkboard paint.
My hubby tells me that this is staying with the house if we ever sell it.....whatever!
I really love it! The next step was decorating it. My plan, right now, is to decorate it each month with some new chalkboard lettering. I found this awesome tutorial over at in my own style. She also provides some links to free fonts that are perfect for Chalkboard Lettering. The only thing I did differently was that I sketched out my lettering in photoshop. In Photoshop I opened up a new document that was the same ratio as my chalkboard, used some different fonts to plan out my chalkboard art (I tried to use at least 3 fonts) and I played around with it until I liked it. Then I took my laptop over by the chalkboard and went to work using the directions from the tutorial over at in my own style.
So far I've decorated two boards. One in December and one in January. My 8 year old made some snowflakes and she thought they would look good on the board. I agreed. Then my hubby had to come in and inform us all that snowflakes have 6 sides and he had to show us how to do this. His is the big one in the middle...with 6 sides.
I'm going to try and share each month's chalkboard with you throughout the year.
And here's a little card I made for Valentine's Day to give to the grandparents and such. I ordered 4x6 cards from Persnickety Prints. I'll be showing you the printed card next week.
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| Using the February Scrap Orchard Mega, Chalked Frames by Chelle's Creations and Chalked Boards by Chelle's Creations. |
-Liz
My January Pages & Some Others....
It's the end of the month and that means it is time for me to show you the pages I scrapped this month. I didn't do so hot this month. I managed to scrap 4 pages. One of them was a double pager....so can we say I scrapped 5 pages?
Here are the pages I scrapped this past month. This first one doesn't even have photos but it tells a story, a story about my 5-year-old daughter. Too cute.
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| Using mle Card's Apple Dapple Bundle and my Celebrate Double Templates. |
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| Using Best Day Ever by Amanda Heimann Designs and my Sweet and Simple Album Templates II |
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| Using Big Sister by mle Card Designs and my Recyclables 13. |
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| Using mle Card's Big Sister and my Artsy Journal Templates. |
That's all I've scrapped so far this year. I did scrap a few pages back in November that I haven't shown you yet. The templates hadn't been released yet. I work quite a bit ahead on my designing so sometimes I scrap a page and then I can't show it to you for a while. I would say that's the bad part about working ahead!
Here goes for the pages I scrapped back in November. I was working really hard at finishing up my 2011 album so these photos were all taken towards the end of 2011.
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| I used Boy Extraordinary Bundle by Bella Gypsy and my Scrap Orchard January Challenge Template. |
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| Christmas Cheer by Tracie Stroud Designs and the Template was given away to January MIS participants (available soon in my store). |
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| Krafty Papers Bundle by Happy Scrap Girl, Sugarberry Kit by Sugary Fancy Designs, Pebblelicious Colors Alpha by SuzyQ Scraps and my Keepin' It Real Double Templates |
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| Krafty Papers Bundle by Happy Scrap Girl, Sugarberry Kit by Sugary Fancy Designs, Pebblelicious Colors Alpha by SuzyQ Scraps and my Keepin' It Real Double Templates. |
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| Hip Holiday by Bella Gypsy Designs and my January Blog Template over at Scrap Orchard. |
-Liz
Digital Embossing Tutorial
I saw a page by Tiff awhile ago in the gallery and I loved the embossing look she got on her scallop. I asked her how she did it and then I tried it out myself. I thought you guys might like to learn too, so I made a video and also wrote up a little tutorial below. Hope you enjoy!
Here's what the finished product looks like.
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| Using Simple and Sweet Album Templates, 12x12 Frames, On a Sunny Day and On a Sunny Day Add-On by Kristen Aagard and Krafty Papers Bundle by Happy Scrap Girl. |
Here's the video tutorial.
Here's a written tutorial for those of you who like the screen shots...
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| Make sure you create the new layer above the scallop layer or above the layer you want to emboss. You could use text, shapes, borders, etc... |
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| Here's where you create a new layer. |
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| Here's the paint bucket (in case you need a reminder). |
Then you'll double-click on your scallop layer, add your bevel and emboss, click on blending option and select multiply.
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| Then you click back on your bevel and emboss layer and play with your settings.
In the video tutorial I mentioned how you will lose some of the effects of your bevel and emboss layer when you flatten and save your image as a .jpg. So what I do is I make my effect a little heavier/darker than what I want it to be. The settings above seem to work well for me.
I hope this helps you add a little something extra to your digital scrapbook pages!
-Liz
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My December Pages
After my huge scrapping success in November (over 31 pages) I only managed to scrap six pages in December. Maybe I needed a break or maybe it had something to do with Christmas, family visiting, or taking care of sick kiddos. I don't know, but either way I did manage to scrap a little bit.
Here's what I managed to get done.
I made this page to scrap the 12 photos I took on 12.12.12. Never mind the fact that I only managed to take 11 photos, I still scrapped a page about it!
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| Family Memories by Sugary Fancy Designs |
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| We Wish You a Merry Christmas Bundle by Chelle's Creations |
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| Great Escape by WM Squared Optical Templates |
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| Great Escape WM Squared Leavin' on a Jet Plane Jenn Barrette and Laura Banasiak Recyclables 16 |
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| 2 in 1 Templates Chinese Takeout by mle Card |
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| 2 in 1 Templates Chinese Takeout by mle Card Krafty Papers by Happy Scrap Girl |
-Liz
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