Archive for the ‘Videos’ Category

In the middle of launching my new digital scrapbooking web property (watch for an announcement soon) I somehow volunteered to do a video scrapbook for my Father-In-Law’s church. Knowing I’d be crunched for time my husband suggested I make a single background design to match the music video that would play beforehand.

I didn’t get to watch the video and slide show, but I’m sure it was touching because the music video was fantastic. Here is the link to the “Thank-You Mom” video from “Sermon Spice.”

Here is the end of the video with only the photos from our family. Sorry about the quality of this web version!

Credits: Photo Corners-Mira Designs, Vintage Photo Frame-Katie Pertiet, Flowers/Butterfly-Kasia Designs, Glitter/Glitter Gel styles and “sparks”-Flergs, scroll stamps by BitBox, papers were by too many people that I can’t remember but they are un-discernible because it is about 5 blended layers.

This is a slide, for my latest video template, is a picture (from the local newspaper) of our family touring Holland in the early ’70’s. I used the bird graphic from Tracy Ann’s Graphics because there are other photos of me from that day standing among pigeons looking at the miniature city exhibit.

Journal strips are something I have not purchased yet because they seem too easy to make.  The other night I needed some and didn’t want to pay $14 to buy the ones I sourced with “Scrap For Hire” licensing. I polled a message board in search of someone else’s product with cheaper professional fees. But, I didn’t get a reply in time so I made my own.

First I painted my strips with an oblong brush set at 180 pixels. I set the brush up to have a hard edge and checked “shape dynamics” so it would start small and get bigger as I pressed harder. Next I clipped a plain aged looking paper to the brush strokes. I merged the layers and then applied Atomic Cupcake’s Pristine Chipboard action. WaLa, cute journal strips with a photo wrap layered on top! This mock up was done after the fact to show the stages. With this technique the shapes will differ because you are freehand “painting” the shape which is why my final chipboard strips are shaped differently.

Just for fun I did one more quick sample with tonight’s strokes and the “sketch and paint” action from Atomic Cupcake.

Later I went back to my ISO post (In Search Of) and there were some great options that were less than the $14 option I sourced. The hand doodled ones are especially cute, and I think the ones with the text paths might be a time saver? I’ll probably add some of these to my wish-list:

• http://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/sweetshoppe/product.php?productid=18288&cat=0&page=2
• http://www.elementalscraps.com/shoppe/product.php?productid=19913&cat=0&page=1
• http://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=22414&cat=0&page=5
• http://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/sweetshoppe/product.php?productid=18406&cat=0&page=1

Products Used In The Layout:

Artists include Christina Renee (frame, flower, paper), Tracy Ann (bird and paper overlay), Bisontine (paper), Lotta Designs (greenery), New Life Dreams (greenery), Katie Pertiet (ribbon) and Atomic Cupcake for creating the journal strip.

Just in case any of my readers are wondering what in the world an action is I thought I’d do a quick post today showing a “before” and “after” layout with actions in use.

Photoshop’s help menu describes actions like this: “An action is a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files—menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. For example, you can create an action that changes the size of an image, applies a filter to the image for a particular effect, and then saves the file in the desired format.”

So, what Atomic Cupcake has done is created a store dedicated to selling actions to scrapbookers. There are a lot of digital designers that use Atomic Cupcake actions to help create the products they sell to you.

Here is a layout I created for the 4th video template which is still a work in progress. It is a photo of my dad taken in Hawaii at a Luau in the early ’70’s. I used Atomic Cupcake’s “Frosted Glass” action on the frame and flourish. And, I used “Pencil Sketch” on the frame and the flower. Since this is meant to be a masculine slide I wanted to downplay the floral aspect so I also used Photoshop’s “overlay” blending mode on the flower. He is in Hawaii though with flowers on his head after all, so I figure this works.

This is what the layout looked like before I started applying Atomic Cupcake actions. What I love is that you can take existing elements that you already own and make them look totally different. The actions added dimension and interest, all with one click of the button….literally.

Products Used

• Flower and : Jofia Devoe
• Paper: Franziska Altman
• Flourish: Christina Renee
• Frame: Banner Woman
• Beach Chair: Bisontine
• Cloudy Breeze: Kasia Designs
• Sand: MFisher

I’m finding decorative brushes a little unpredictable to work with in Illustrator, but when they work, they work! In this case they were the perfect finishing touch for two slides in my latest video demo. I forgot to mention in my last post that this video features Neal’s grandmother, Velma Detmer who went to be with Jesus in 2007. In the first picture she is with her daughter and only child, Joyce. In the second photo she is with her second grandson, Eric.

The base of the first slide template is a wide petal flower that I drew in Illustrator. I created a solid shape by filling it with black and then exported it to Photoshop and used it as a clipping mask. Once in Photoshop I applied several layers of papers with different blending techniques. But the edges needed something to finish it off, so I went back to Illustrator and applied the decorative brush to the outside edge and again exported it to Photoshop where I applied a color burn filter.

I used the same techniques on the Easter egg slide. The egg is a simple oval I created in Photoshop. This time exporting the egg slide to Illustrator and then applying the decorative brush in the same manner.

Graphics Credits:

Flower frame-Ruth Davis

Pink cornered frame, hinged butterfly, glitter accents, papers- Tracy Ann

Brown ribbon and cord- Christina Renee

Gingham flowers- Lynn Grieveson

Shoe lace wrap and silver frame-Katie Pertiet

Decorative brush- Mujka

This is a slide from my third video scrapbook theme, a work still in progress. I thought I’d quickly share how to create and “cut” your own shape for a digital scrapbook page using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. If you do not have Adobe Illustrator I have seen lots of templates like this for sale at online digital scrapbook stores.

1. First In Illustrator, I used the pen tool to create the wavy shapes, each on their own layer. There are two wavy shapes used, with straight lines on three sides and a curvy line on top. Draw each shape on it’s own layer and make sure your artboard is the same size as the Photoshop document you will use it in.
2. Then on the bottom layer draw a rectangle the same size as your artboard. Select that rectangle and select “Object>>Crop Area>>Make” on the main menu. This will make sure that your shapes land on your Photoshop document correctly placed.
3. Export your Illustrator file as a “PSD” file.
4. Open it in Photoshop and duplicate your two shape layers into your digital scrapbook layout file.
5. Now you can use these objects as “clipping masks.” Place the paper you want to “cut” in a layer on top of the shape. Select both layers by shift clicking. Then place your mouse over the line between them, holding down the “Alt” key (assuming you have a PC) and click. Wa-la, your shape is now “cut out” in your pretty paper.
6. Finally, I loaded the shape as a selection, inserted a new layer above the paper, and with the selection still loaded I “distressed” the edge of my shape. Do the distressing on its own layer so that you can adjust the opacity if necessary.

The shapes can also be saved individually as “PNG” files in Illustrator and “cut out” in applications like Creative Memories software. I’m sure there are many ways to accomplish this, with other applications, or even with the ones I used! But, this was pretty easy once I figured out the workflow.

Materials Used:

• Frames, Floral Charm, light lavendar paper: TracyAnn
• Photo Wrap: Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals
• Spotted paper: Christina Renee
• Floral/Diamond paper: Ruth Davis

I could not really find the art I wanted so I drew my own vintage baby. Not perfect, but luckily it fits with the distress look I’m after.

I used the “wet paint” feature on my Photoshop brush when coloring the baby stamp. It is really neat how it mimics real life effects of “working wet”.

If it seems like I’m a little MIA right now it is because I’m working on a rather large project. I have scanned in 50 photos of my Grandmother and am currently retouching them and designing a video slide show.

I’m sharing a sneak peak, just in case my siblings want to see the work in progress. To see full resolution you’ll just have to come say hi!

I created this video for Chuck and Janice Bookout as a favor for my mother, Jenni Bates. She is very involved in several Tulsa Square Dance groups. Chuck and Janice are the President Couple for the Oklahoma Square Dance Federation this year. Chuck appointed my mom to do the directory this year and after helping her with the cover I also volunteered to do this video.

Special thanks to George and Shirley Hazlett who were in charge of the video and made it such an enjoyable project! And to Chuck and Janice’s daughter who collected the pictures for the surprise video presentation. They set up the stage like a drive in movie theater and Chuck and Janice rode in a “convertible” (modified golf cart.) There were around 4,000 attendees and I hear the video was a hit!

Each slide was created in Photoshop with digiKits from Rhona Farrar, “Boys Will Be Boys”, her number 9 brush kit, Erica Hernandez’ “Matted Brush Set“, and Veronica Pounce’s ”Sketch Fettish“. Next I brought the slides into Adobe Premiere with music from the Back to the Future Trilogy. I had a lot of fun setting the slides to music. Unfortunately YouTube stripped the music.

My ”ad” lasts for about a minute at the end of the video, so when you see it you’ll know the show is over. I just didn’t have the heart to cut off the song’s finale!

If anyone is interested in using me for your next ”Pictures to Video” project feel free to contact me via my blog!

Hobby Lobby is having a great sale this week with all of their paper at 50% off. The perfect time to take a chance on a new product and experiment. I bought the Core’dinations ”Spell Caster” pack. It is black on one side and has twenty shades of “vintage” color on the other side. The black side is indeed magic, and it LOVES the Cuttlebug! It was so fun that I just had to create a quick video. When people see what you can do with Cuttlebug folders and a piece of sandpaper this stuff is going to fly off the shelves!

As the image started to pop it just screamed for my new Prima Panda stamp. I love how the colors of the card are seasonal, on a non-Christmas card. The reds, greens and black make my little Chinese Panda feel right at home. And the shiny red ribbon is reminiscant of a classical Chinese silk dress.

The Panda’s body is shaded with Copic W1 and W3 markers with R02 in the nose and ears and YG63 on the flourishes. The background was done with W1 as the base all the way around and YR00/RV21 and YG63 applied to the tip of the colorless blender and worked into the top and bottom respectively. As I worked my way outward my strokes became more loose with white space showing through. Then I drew some branches with the same colors on the top bottom. But it was a little overpowering so I went back over the branches with a colorless blender which was exactly what it needed. After cutting the Panda out with Spellbinder Nestabilities I used a Copic Multiliner to draw loops around the scallops and filled them in with the pinks and green.

The caption box was cut/embossed with long rectangle Nestabilities then colored with the Copics and topped off with Diamond Stickles. “Thanks” is a Cuttlebug die. I colored it with R02, then applied red Liquid Pearls in a “sponge-like” pattern with my fingertip and finished it off with Glossy Accents.

The flowers are Prima’s Essentials 5 “Make Me Happy” and they coordinate perfectly with the Basic Grey’s Urban Prairie paper and brads.

There are several techniques that Marianne showed us where you touch the tip of one Copic marker to another. You might do this if you need to blend two colors together but have a very small area to work in and you need to blend and color in one motion. Or, if you need a paler version of a color than you have on hand, you can touch it to the tip of the colorless blender and color with your blender instead of your marker. You may have to re-apply the color a few times.

The amazing thing is that it does NOT muddy your marker tips! All you do is “scribble off” the excess color.
As for the wide marker, you can use this technique to get perfect stripes, or even plaid as Marianne demonstrates on her blog. How long of a stripe you can make depends on how much you saturate the wide marker tip with the second marker.

I’m not sure that this video will quite match the ah-ha moment I had of trying this for the first time, but I’ll go ahead and share since I promised a (very quickie) video!

I used a rich minty green with the tan colored wide marker so that you can see the brown does not muddy the applied color whatsoever. The resulting stripe reminds me of an after dinner mint!

The wide markers come in 12 colors but you can buy empty markers and fill it with any of the 322 colors of ink.

Note: I figured out how to use the White Balance feature on my camera and it WORKS with the video feature. Sorry for the boring background music, I’m just not sure about using more fun, but copyrighted music.