Balzer Designs

Hybrid Tutorial: Creating a Patchwork Embellishment (or twelve)

Here's a fun Photoshop Tutorial to take you into the weekend.  I originally wrote it for the Scrapbook Dimensions blog, where it appeared earlier this week.

I'm a big fan of creating my own embellishments.  But sometimes I'm short on time and just want something that looks handmade.  That's why I love this technique.  I am going to show you how to create a digital template that you can use over and over and over again!

1. Open a new 12x12 file (File>New) in Photoshop.

2. Choose the "Rectangle Tool."

3. Use the "Rectangle Tool" to draw rectangles of various sizes.  You will want to change the colors (to various shades of gray) simply so that you can see all the layers.  Keep going until the entire page is filled.

4. You now need to change all those vector shapes to regular shapes.  From the Layers menu, choose Rasterize>All Layers.

5. Save your new layered template!  It's important to do it now so that you don't mess it up with the next few steps. You just did all of that work and want to have it around for a long time! 

6. Drag patterned paper into your template.  Place it just over the layer you want to cover in patterned paper. Here is a screenshot of the Layers Palette:

6.  Choose "Create Clipping Mask" from the "Layer" menu.

This will make it so that the paper "sticks" to only the one shape it's over, like so:

7. If you like it, merge those two layers together (Layer>MergeDown) to make it permanent.

8. Continuing adding patterned paper until you're satisfied with the area you've filled.

You can see here that I've only covered one part of the template.  I'm doing a small embellishment, so there's no reason to cover the entire thing.

9. Flatten the entire template (Layer>Flatten Image) so that you can cut out the embellishment shape you want. 

10. Use any method you want to cut out whatever shape you'd like.  I chose a leaf from Photoshop's existing menu of shapes.

11. Print your new patchwork embellishment out and use it on your layout!

Here's my layout using several of the patchwork leaves:



I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Challenge Me!

I love challenges.  Whenever I'm feeling a little mojo-less, I turn to a challenge.  Particularly because I don't scrap chronologically and I'm pretty much "caught up," sometimes I need a spark to get me going!

Currently, I'm participating in "The Sketchbook Olympics" at The Sketch Book.  I saw the challenge listed on the Pub Calls blog and I decided to sign up.  The first challenge was as follows:

So, the first sport we are tackling is Cycling. We thought we would go easy on you for the first week  

Here are the rules:

Create a layout (8x8 or bigger) using a circular/wheel theme.

You must include:
1. Circles as embellishments on your page
2. Circle / dot patterned paper

That's it! Not too hard for the first one right??

I used the Parfums d'ete' collection from Sultane for the challenge.

Here is a close up of the layered circles, which are super cool in real life:

I'm also participating in "Collage Play by CrowAbout."   Each week the group leader, Nancy, posts a collection of collage elements.  We need to incorporate them in some way into an art journal page.  Here is my page for the week:

 

Most of the people playing along with the challenge are collage artists, not scrapbookers.  So, my stuff is a little more literal than theirs.  I'm hoping to get further and further away from the literal as I go on with the challenge, but I've never been much of an abstract thinker.  It's hard for me.  I like text and story way too much!

Here are some other challenges that I like:

• Scrap Mojo: Leaning towards the artsy fartsy, these girls have a funny, hip vibe.  Their challenges usually involve a bunch of moving parts (so to speak) and they often feature some very hip guest hosts.
  
• How Much Is Too Much: Started by a bunch of ladies who felt that they had an abundance of scrapbook supplies (don't we all?), this challenge features prompts asking you to use up a lot of stuff on your pages!
• Method Playground: This one was started by a bunch of HOF runner-ups.  Each week they feature a technique and challenge you to use it.
• Mixed Media Monday: There's a theme every Monday.  Participants create pages, quilts, objects, paintings - lots of different mixed media eye candy - based on the theme.  This week is Recycle/Repurpose.
• One Little Word: Every other Wednesday, the crazy talented design team challenges you to use a certain word as a jumping off point for a layout.  On the in-between weeks, they offer up a technique tutorial.
• Scrapping the Music: The very international design team at this site chooses a song every week and ask you to put the lyrics on your page.  I have found that even when the music isn't my style, the lyrics often get me moving.
• Pencil Lines: Celebrity hosts, lots of different styles, each week there's a brand new sketch to inspire you.  They're up to sketch #99 this week!
• The Art is Found: Artsy fartsy and verging on something that isn't quite scrapbooking (collage, maybe?), this is a relatively new challenge blog (started in March).  It's all about making art based on the little things around you.  Art is everywhere.
• The Creative Type: Brand new challenge site (they're still on challenge #1) focused on typography.
• The Story Matters: As you might guess from the name, the focus here is on telling your story.  This site is a new discovery for me.  I haven't participated yet, but I hope to very soon!
• The Digi Dares: Another new site for me.  I found it by following a link on someone else's blog.  I'll bet you can guess from the name - it's all challenges focusing on digi artists.  But, they're not necessarily digi-specific.  The current challenge is to use the word "create" on a page.
• The original: The Effer Dares: I may be wrong, but I believe that the effer girls were the first ones to create a scrapbooking challenge blog.  Always good inspiration, but between you and me, I find their website hard to navigate.  It gets all jumbled for me.  But, it's worth hunting around and playing along!

Thanks for stopping by!

Monday's News

Happy Monday to You!

1. WINNER!!!

Congratulations to Joan Fowler!

Oh please, you have to pick me. I just love the whole bubble wrap thing. I NEEEEED it. Creating this stamp strikes me as a very inspired idea. You rock!

Posted by: Joan Fowler | August 21, 2008 at 09:50 AM

Joan, you have won a set of the stamps I designed for Scrapbook Takeout for August.  E-mail me your mailing address and I'll pop them in the mail to you!

2.  I'm going to be taking over the "Templates x3" article in Scrapbook Dimensions Magazine.  It's a column about how to use a single digital template in three different ways when you're hybrid scrapbooking.  I will also focus on using a standard 8.5x11" printer while scrapping 12x12" pages.  For the upcoming issue, I'm working with a fabulous template from Lauren Reid at Little Dreamer Designs (which is one of my favorite digi sites)!

3. In a bit of sad news, I've decided to leave My Creative Classroom.  They're doing great things and have big plans for the future.  I wish all the ladies there the best of luck!

4. As I've mentioned before, I've become type obsessed.  Well, there's a new and super cool looking challenge site called, "The Creative Type."  And from the looks of the design team, it's going to be *amazing* and very inspiring.

5. I have a new blog discovery: Something Sublime.  This woman makes jewelry and it is fabulous!  Her style is so my style.

6. I can hardly believe that I've posted eight days in a row!  Something must be wrong with me!  Or, I'm just letting all my work pile up and blogging instead...

Thanks for stopping by!

Day Seven of Sultane Week!

As promised, since Monday, I have featured  a project using Sultane every single day on this blog.  It's day seven and the official end of the unofficial Sultane week.  Today I'm sharing three layouts that were published in Histoires de Pages in February.

 

 

I hope you've enjoyed Sultane week as much as I have.  The Sultane papers are double-sided, thick, excellent quality papers.  And here's the best news: Portrait Bug is going to be the only place in U.S. that you can buy them!!!  The online store should be up this week...so let the shopping begin! 

In other Portrait Bug news: On Thursday, I went to the New York International Gift Fair.  Holy inspiration, Batman!  It was so cool!  We went looking for unique products to sell at the store.  And we found some *great* stuff!  I'm super excited for the boxes to start arriving!  At one of the children's clothing booths, I was struck by an adorable necklace featuring crocheted flowers.  Then, it suddenly occurred to me that Maya Road makes little crocheted flowers as page embellishments, and that I happened to have a package of them sitting on my desk at home!  Well, I ran home and an hour later, I had this beautiful necklace:

I stitched the flowers to a rubber tube (one of my favorite necklace supports) using embroidery floss.  So easy and so chic!

Thanks for stopping by!

Inspiration at MOMA

I live about three blocks away from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). And yet, I rarely go.  The $20 price tag keeps me away.  Sometimes you just want to go to a museum for an hour, but for $20, I feel like I need to make it a marathon.  Silly, I know.  The good news is that every Friday night, you can go to the museum for free from 4-8pm.  And so this week, we did!

The main reason we went was to see the Kirchner exhibit.  He was a German Expressionist painter and I really love his work.   I wasn't allowed to take any photos in the exhibit, but from MOMA's website, here's one of the paintings we saw:

I love the sense of energy and movement in his painting.  The jagged edges and active line make me very happy!  After happily wandering through the Kirchner exhibit, we moved on to Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities.  One thing hanging in that exhibit, was a work entitled "Scrapbook." 

I also really enjoyed this gem covered in doodling (sorry for the lousy photo, but I was shooting through glass on my camera phone and it was dark-ish):

We wandered through a fantastic exhibit on modern design and I took lots of fun photos there...



And now I am going to say something blasphemous.  I have never really liked Salvador Dali's work.   I can appreciate it, but I don't love it.   But, MOMA is currently hosting an exhibit called Dali: Painting and Film, so I felt like I should check it out.

Everything made sense to me when I watched the Disney and Hitchcock movies that he made.  For the first time, I saw his fluid creativity and the surrealistic nature of his work felt natural rather than forced or artificial.  His Disney film is called "Destino."  It looks like somebody (illegally) filmed it at the exhibit, because you can find it here on YouTube.  It's only about 5 minutes long and so beautiful (though I will say it loses a little something in the jumpy camera work on YouTube - in and out of focus, etc.)!  Spellbound is the Hitchcock movie and stars Gregory Peck.  They had one of the drops that Dali painted for the movie and I just loved it!  So theatrical.  It immediately got me thinking about stage sets.

Overall, a very inspiring visit to the museum.  And a reminder to myself that I need to walk the three blocks much more often!

And now, here is today's project using Sultane's beautiful papers:



I used the Art Nouveau collection again.  So great for paint!

Don't forget that it's not too late to win some of the stamps I designed for Scrapbook Takeout by leaving a comment on this post.  Thanks for stopping by!