One of my all-time favorite hybrid projects is the hybrid mini. They are quick to make and oh-so-cute! I especially love those that fit in the palm of your hand like this tiny mini book (“sweet day”) that I made about my girls enjoying some Valentine’s Days chocolates and other goodies.

Here’s how I did it.

1) To make the background pages, I used a clipping mask to cut my papers into a die-cut shape.

In Photoshop, place the patterned paper you want to clip on a layer above your clipping mask. Your clipping mask could be a purchased element you have in your stash or you can create your own shape using the Custom Shape Tool.  For example, let’s say I want my pages to be oval like the “hoop” in the Junk Drawer kit. I would open and drag the hoop onto a 8.5 x 11 document. Then open and drag a patterned paper onto the layer above the clipping mask. With the patterned paper selected, I would hit CTRL + ALT + G (in Photoshop) or CTRL + G (in Photoshop Elements). Repeat this with different patterned papers until you get something that looks like this. (For my mini, I used a clipping mask already in my stash.)

Alternatively, you could print out your papers FIRST and then use a punch or die-cutting machine to cut out your shaped pages.

2) Now it’s time to add your photos and the digital elements you want to print out. I opened the photos and other digital elements I wanted and dragged them onto my document. I re-sized them so that they will fit my foundation pages. For my mini, I used elements from Honeychurch, Schoolbox Alphas and bingo cards from Odds and Ends: Bingo Cards.

An easy way to “frame” your photos is to add a stroke. With your photo selected, hit EDIT >STROKE.  Change the width to about 20 pixels. Choose your color. I sampled the color from kR’s schoolbox alphas to get a vintage looking frame. “Location” should be “outside.

For my cover photo, I added part of my title “sweet” using Schoolbox alphas, which I cropped to show only one side of the alphas. Later, I would spell out the rest of the title “day” using tiny alphas stickers.

3) Once your document is filled with digital goodies, print it out on the paper of your choice. I used matte photo paper. Then cut each element out.

4) Now for the fun part! Assemble all your pages, adding bits from your stash like alphas, ribbons, trim, distress ink. Don’t be afraid of crumpling up your printed elements for added dimension or using pop dots. For the photos that I added a stroke, I distressed the edges a little with distress ink and a distress tool.

Then glue your pages back-to-back. Punch holes in your pages and bind your mini using baker’s twine and you’re done!

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Credits:

Digital (all by Kenner Road):

Honeychurch

Odds and Ends: Bingo Cards

Schoolbox Alphas

Physical:

Kenner Road Garden Party Add-on

Matte photo paper: Epson

Tiny alphas: Making Memories

Distress ink: Ranger

Distress tool: Heidi Swapp

Hole punch: Cropadile

Other: Trim, staples, baker’s twine

Like so many of you, I am a huge fan of our sweet design team member Debee Campos and I have always wanted to lift one of her many gorgeous layouts.
So that’s what I am going to do today! Here is the stunning paper layout simply titled *D by Debee Campos:

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So get comfy as I walk you through a few digital tips on lifting Debee’s layout using Photoshop.

1. Creating a Digital Sticker/Die Cut

I began by extracting some of the flower from the overlay in the Honeychurch kit by using the polygonal lasso tool with the feather set to 0. I altered the right side of the flowers so the edges didn’t look so straight.

I want the flower to resemble the paper flower on Debee’s page so I turned the overlay into a digital sticker/die cut by adding a new layer to the flower overlay and flood filled that layer with white. Drag this white layer below the flower overlay and click on the flower layer preview window in the layers palette to select the flower. Go to Select > Modify > Expand by 25 pixels. Go to Select > Inverse and select your white layer in the layer palette, then hit delete. Right click on the top layer in your layer palette and select Merge Down. Now you are left with a digital flower sticker/die cut.

NOTE: I have added a drop shadow to the overlay so you could see the edges of the sticker/die cut.

2. Cutting Out Pretty Paper Pieces

One of my favorite things to do digitally is to cut out assorted paper pieces and layering them on a page. As you can see on Debee’s layout she has skillfully hand cut strips of paper and layered them on top of each other and then machine sewn them to her page. We can easily replicate this using the polygonal lasso tool in Photoshop.

With the polygonal lasso tool selected and the feather set to 0, I simply made a selection of the paper strip shape I wanted. Once selected, right click inside the selection and click on Layer via Copy from the drop down menu.

Drag your custom made shape over to your layout and position it to your liking. Repeat this step with any other papers, overlays or even the KR bingo cards as I have done on my layout.  By using your polygonal lasso tool, you can create any shape you can think of. I treat the lasso tool as I would a pair of scissors, I am not fussed at all if the lines or shapes don’t appear to be perfect. I can never cut a perfectly straight line with a pair of scissors any way…lol

3. Ink Splatters Without the Mess

If you are a die-hard Debee fan then you know she rocks a can of spray paint like no one else! Well, you too can spray like a pro in Photoshop with just a few brushes. For those of you who have no idea what a Photoshop brush is, the easiest way I can explain it to you is to imagine a paint brush. Now imagine that paint brush has interchangeable tips and the interchangeable tips can come in any shape, size and pattern imaginable. You could even say it is very similar to a stamp. There are loads of websites that offer free brushes and one of my favorite sites is Brusheezy. I chose a few brushes from this site called Splatters and another called Splashes.

Once you have downloaded your brushes and saved them to your computer, all you need to do is select your brush tool from your toolbox and click on your brushes tab to open your brush palette. Click on the drop down menu in your brush palette and select Load Brushes from the menu. Locate where you saved the brushes you downloaded and click on them to load them into your brush palette.

As you can see by my layout I chose to keep my ink spots black. Feel free to experiment with color to suit your needs! I added a little definition to the ink spots by using some grunge type brushes. Instead of selecting the brush tool from the toolbox, I selected the eraser tool and lowered the opacity to 71%. With your eraser tool, you are still able to use your brush presets from your palette which allows you to alter any flat color or object by erasing some of it. Experiment with different types of brushes and opacity’s to achieve so many different effects!

To finish off my layout, I simply added some digital stitching and a few Kenner Road digital elements from Honeychurch Kit, Junk Draw V.1, Tin Flowers, Swallowfield Elements and Bingo Cards as well as the gorgeous background paper from the FREE kit Swallowfield. I love the effect of the digital brushes I used on this page and the best thing is, I didn’t even get my hands dirty!

For those of you who still haven’t given digi a go……please tell me pretty paper pieces and fuzzy mess-free ink splats doesn’t get you a little excited to give it a try! Go on, you can do this!

As always, we love to see what you have created using Kenner Road digital goodies and paper kit goodies, so don’t forget to upload to our flickr group so we can all ooohhh and aaahhhh over your creative talents! Thanks for hanging with me today, I hope I have helped expand your creative thinking!

Diana xo

One of the beauties of digi-scrapping, is once you buy a digital element or paper you will never “run out” of it. Much like a rubber stamp, you can use the digital element over and over again – in various colors and on various papers. Unlike a rubber stamp, you can easily change the size and shape of your digital image. You can even cut-up your digital element and use them in ways not originally intended.

Take for example, this all-digital layout “3 of us”. Notice the stitching that I used as stems for the flowers (from the tin flowers kit by kR) and as stitching on the blue mat for my photo (from junk drawer v. 1 by kR). Then notice the subtle floral pattern on the kraft paper. Each of these elements were cut apart from one of the  12 x 12 overlays included in kR’s Honeychurch digi kit.

Click on any image to see larger view.

Here’s how I did it.

To “cut out” the stitched lines, I used my RECTANGULAR MARQUEE tool (looks like a rectangle of dotted lines on your Tool palette), to select a portion of the overlay I wanted.

Then I hit CTRL + C to copy and CTRL + V to paste on my layout. You can now use this portion of the stitching again and again on your layout. In the layers palette, select the layer with the stitching on it and RIGHT-CLICK. Select DUPLICATE LAYER. A copy of the stitching will be created on a brand-new layer. (OR you could go back and select another portion of the stitching on the original overlay.)

To cut out the floral pattern on the overlay, I  used a different approach. I went back to the original overlay. Hit CTRL + D, to get rid of the marching ants that you used to copy the stitching. Using my ERASER Tool I simply erased the stitching. It was easier for me to do it this way rather than try to select the floral pattern. Then I dragged the floral pattern on to my layout. To make the floral pattern more subtle and blend it into the background paper, I lowered the opacity of the layer to about 30%.

You can also play with the color of the element by selecting IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > HUE/SATURATION (or CTRL + U) and playing with all three sliders to get a look you like. For my layout, i wanted the flowers a bit more on the purple side so I played with the HUE slider, moving it slightly to the left.

NOTE: Just remember when you go back to your original file, in this example, the 12 x12 overlay, DO NOT SAVE CHANGES. You want to keep your original intact. Better yet, you can DUPLICATE your image before you start playing and leave the original alone.

Hope this gives you a few ideas on how to make your digital elements a bit more versatile for you! Please let me know if you have any questions!

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LAYOUT CREDITS:

white fence, blue file:  kenner road’s odds & ends -  junk drawer v.1

stitched overlay: kenner road’s honeychurch kit

flowers: kenner road’s tin flowers kit

title alphas: kenner road’s schoolbox alphas

We are having a ball playing around with all of the Kenner Road Digital Elements (available here).  Check out what we’ve been creating!

Gretchen created some gorgeous cards with Honeychurch plus her February kits.

amy created this gorgeous layout using the new tin flowers & junk drawer elements that were just released yesterday.

Cathy created a lovely photo hanging using the frame from the Honeychurch digi kit and some goodies from the February add-on. That frame is so realistic looking, it screams to be printed out! She layered the photo behind the frame in Photoshop and then printed the frame and photo together as one piece. If you don’t have Photoshop, you can print the frame and photo separately and assemble the pieces afterwards.

Diana crafted this piece from an old shoe box lid. After covering the lid in strips of vintage book pages and inked muslin, she added a paper from Honeychurch digi kit as her background. She added other KR digi goodies from junk draw elements, tin flowers and the flashcard alphabet which were attached to tiny wooden blocks and more vintage book page strips wrapped around them.

and kL designed this beautiful layout featuring her grandparents house using oodles of stacked elements from the newest junk drawer & tin flower releases as well as various pre-released kR kits:

what have you been up to with the Kenner Road Digital goodies?

Have a happy day!

xoxo

gi

For my very first post {woohoo} I have put together a super basic tutorial for those of you who would like to give digital scrapbooking a go. For those of you who already have a grasp of the basics, you may want to scroll down to a little inspiration towards the end.

Create the base of your layout in Photoshop by opening a new document of 3600 x 3600px with the resolution at 300.

Locate paper 9 from the Honey Church kit and open this in Photoshop. With your move tool selected, hold down the shift key and drag the paper over to your new document.

TIP: By holding down the shift button whilst dragging any paper or element to another document, places the layer in the center.

Open your second paper which will be paper 7 from the same kit and resize the paper to 3480 x 3480px by right clicking on the top of the document and selecting image size. With your move tool still selected, hold down the shift key and drag the paper over to your new document.

Now open the Honey Church overlay from the kit and resize it to 3485 x 3485px as we did in the previous step. Holding down the shift key again, drag the overlay over to your new document. Now let’s zoom into your document at 100% so we can get a closer look.

As you can see in the above screen shot, the overlay needs to be moved over to the right to line up with the second paper. Use your arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge your overlay to the right of your document to align the overlay with the edge of the top paper.

Let’s add some dimension to the second paper by giving it a drop shadow. Go to your layers palette and double click on layer 3 to bring up the layer style dialog box. As you can see below in the screen shot, I have given you the sizes and color I have used for my drop shadow for the purpose of this tutorial but feel free to play with the settings to achieve a drop shadow to your liking.

This concludes the beginner tutorial on creating a basic digital background. Feel free to add some photos or more digital embellishments from the Honey Church kit to finsh a complete digital layout.

I am going to take this a step further by using more Kenner Road digital goodies such as the flash frames and the bingo cards to customize a frame for my photo to print out and turn this digital background into a hybrid layout. I simply printed out the digital background on a large format printer as well as my layered frame and other pieces I created in Photoshop. I added some Kenner Road paper kit products from Madeleine (February main kit) and Milk & Honey (February embellishment kit) to finish off my layout.

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Ready to see some more digital eye candy using Kenner Road goodies? Click on the hearts to take a closer look!

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Do you need one more reason why you should give digital scrapping a go? One of the best parts about digital scrapbooking is that if you make a mistake in Photoshop, all you have to do is hit the step backward (Alt+Ctrl+Z) button and the mistake is no more!  Don’t be afraid to play around with your goodies, you may surprise yourself with what you come up with. To show you how versatile the Kenner Road digital goodies can be, I want to share with you my blog banner I created for my blog make over. I simply extracted bits and pieces from all of the products and mixed them together in loads of layers. Seriously, you can’t go wrong!

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Click on the heart under my blog banner above to have a closer look at how I decorated my blog with all this divine digital vintage goodness. I hope I have tempted you to give digital scrapping a try, it really is so much fun {and without the mess} Don’t forget, if you have any questions or you want to share what you have created, please leave a comment and link us up we would love to see!

Have a creative day and try something new!

Diana

xo