Creating Digital Paper on the Fly

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My goal for this year is to reduce my dependence on pre-made digital paper and elements.   Instead I want to create a toolbox of skills, or quick procedures, to create paper and elements on the fly, as part of designing a  page layout.

I found a quick and easy method of creating solid colored, textured, digital paper being demonstrated in a video on YouTube by Chris Beasley of DigitalScrapbookingPages.com.

Watch the video (it's nice and short!), learn the technique, then use my cheatsheet notes below to refresh your memory when needed.




Cheatsheet notes:

1.  Open a new 12x12 blank document.
2.  Fill the background layer with the color of your choice.
3.  Create an adjustment layer, select Pattern, and choose "Gouache Light on Watercolor" from the "Artist Surfaces" group of patterns (load these, if needed, as shown in the video). Increase the scale to 1000%, or as desired.
4.  Change the layer's blend mode to Overlay.
5.  Reduce the opacity to 40%, or as desired.
6.  Create another adjustment layer, select Pattern, and this time choose "Dark Coarse Weave." Increase the scale to 125%, or as desired.
7.  Change the layer's blend mode to Soft Light.
8. Reduce the opacity to 30%, or as desired.
9. Save as a .JPG file.

DONE!

I recommend keeping the .PSD file as well as the .JPG.  As CB mentions at the end of the video, if you have the .PSD file (or .TIF, if that's what you prefer), you can open the original file and experiment with different blend modes, scales, and opacity on the adjustment layers.

You could also swap out the Patterns and experiment with those, trying different combinations of patterns for endless possibilities.

One of my favorite things about having the .PSD file handy is that I can use the Paint Bucket and simply fill the background layer with a different color (pull a color from your photo or from a patterned paper that you are using) and instantly have a coordinating paper with the same texture to use in my layout. How about orange?

Or experiment with the Gradient tool:

 

How cool is that????

I'll be collecting more fun techniques for creating digital paper On the Fly, and writing them up in Cheatsheet format.  Feel free to copy and paste to your own blogs, share my Cheatsheets with your friends, print them out for easy reference, they're copyright-free.  (A link back to me is appreciated, but not necessary.)

Put that in your Digital Toolbox and Use It!

FREE-Webajeb's First LAYERED Quick Page!!!

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Introducing...the very first....LAYERED QUICK PAGE!!!  WOOT!

This is not just a template, and it's not just a quick page - it's BOTH!  Each element is still on its own layer in a .PSD or .TIF file (download either or both!) and has NOT been flattened to a .PNG file.

You can choose to either pop your own photos into the spaces provided OR move any of the elements around, resize or recolor them, change the title, swap out the elements with your own or another designer's, pull the individual elements out to use in other layouts, whatever your little heart desires!  The paper and elements are created by me, and are copyright-free, so have fun with them!  Giving credit to me is appreciated, but not required.  {The ONLY thing I ask is that you do not rename them and sell them as your own.}

I'm VERY excited about these . . . even though they are going to take longer to create than regular templates . . . hm, they'll take longer to create than regular quick pages, too . . . still, I'd love to have found something like these out there in digital-land myself, especially when I was a beginner digital scrapbooker (and in many ways I still am since there's always so much to learn).

The inspiration for this first layered quick page came from a layout I did for a client a year or so ago.  I've always loved the bright, pastel colors and the sticker look of the sun and title elements.  The fun background paper is one I created using a photo of my Mom's parquet entryway floor as a texture, then playing with color overlays.  The sun is a standard Photoshop Custom Shape and the font is Flowerchild, available free at urbanfonts.com.  To make them look like stickers (with the white border) I added a size 16 white stroke on the outside.  Add a drop-shadow and you've got the sticker look. It works with pretty much any custom shape and or text.

Here's the original layout:

I do have a problem, though, and I need your help.

I don't know what to call these!  I don't want to just call them "layered quick pages."  Boring!  So that's where you come in.  If you've got an idea for a fun & catchy name, please leave a comment, or send me an email.  If I pick yours, you'll NEVER pay for a Webajeb "Layered Quick Page" - Ever!  I'll simply send you each new file in an email when I post it!  I'm hoping that bribe will prompt you to put on your thinking caps and hook me up with an awesome name.

The other thing I'd love is feedback after you've tried using this.  What worked, and what didn't?  What should I do differently?  I want these to be as useful as possible for you, so any and all critique will be welcome!

Download the file from 4shared as a .PSD here, or as a .TIF here.

The Cat and the Hummingbird Digital Page Layout

Just a quick and fun layout to document my cat, Scout, who loves to hunt birds. Digital papers and brads are from my digital scrapbooking kit, "Fresh As."

Two of my fave things: birds and cats. Getting them to co-exist together can be a bit of a challenge.

A few years back, after losing a cat to a car, we put up cat-fencing to enclose part of our yard and provided a cat-door into it. The cats come in and out but can't roam escape the enclosed garden. It has also, finally (though only after a few modifications involving trees and an arbor), solved our raccoon problem. (The little rascals used to come right into our house through the cat-door and eat all the cat food, not to mention make a huge mess with water and muddy feet.)

The Cat Garden, as we now call it, is right outside my kitchen window, also a prime location for bird feeders and we had a number of them out there. It wasn't long before I was finding dead or dying birds in the house and feathers scattered around. It hit me that we were luring birds straight to the cats!

We moved all but two of the birdfeeders to locations outside the Cat Garden. The two we left were the thistle feeder for finches and the hummingbird feeder, which we hung high on a shepherd's crook. We figured that these two types of birds would be safe since finches rarely, if ever, feed on the ground, and as for hummingbirds, well, everyone knows they are so fast a cat couldn't possibly catch one.

You know where this is going, right?

One day I came home from work and there was a dead hummingbird in the dining room. Wha'?

Ok, I thought, must be a fluke. Maybe the bird was ill or dying or very young and not too smart, maybe one of the cats just got darn lucky. No way could that happen again.

The next week when I came home there were TWO dead hummingbirds in the house. I could NOT believe it. And there was Scout sitting guard over one of the birds, looking all smug and pleased with herself, and she even had a tiny iridescent feather or two stuck to her orange fur. The little bird-murderer!

It looked like we were going to have to move the hummingbird feeder out of the Cat Garden. I pondered where the new location should be, where I could still see and enjoy them. I went outside and walked around the backyard, considering each window as a possible new location. Near the Cat Garden I looked through the mesh fence and watched Scout strolling toward a huge bush heavy with scarlet trumpet-shaped flowers.

There were two hummingbirds hovering at the feeder near the window but she didn't even give them a look. I thought that quite odd until I realized she had a destination and a plan. Moving silently and smoothly she slipped into the jumble of branches of the flower-laden bush and disappeared.

No sooner had she vanished than I noticed one of the hummingbirds zip over to the bush and begin feeding from the bright flowers. The bird zigzagged from one flower to the next, working its way down toward those blossoming near the ground.

That was when I understood how Scout had caught the hummingbirds. She'd ambushed them! I threw open the gate and strode toward the bush frightening the hummer away. Then I shooed Scout out from her hiding place and gave her a scolding which she pointedly ignored.

Within an hour I had trimmed away the branches closest to the ground leaving a gap of about eighteen inches. Now if she sat under that bush Scout would be in plain sight of the birds. I crossed my fingers and hoped my hunch was correct.

That was a couple years ago and we've had no more dead hummingbirds. I think we've finally figured out how to have cats and birds in the same garden.

New Digital Template Plus FREE Pre-made Pages

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The second Webajeb page layout template is here!
$1.49

(If you missed the first one, which is a FREEBIE, you can get it here.)

These are so much fun to use, and easy, too. As mentioned when I posted my first layout template (here), Webajeb templates are layered .PSD files with a "Plus." In Jessica Sprague-style they feature a plus sign on each layer that is clippable, making it super-easy to identify which layers are made especially for clipping digital papers.

I use Photoshop but I know tons of digital scrapbookers use Elements or other programs, some of which may not support the clipping technique. Please know that these layered files are still appropriate for you!

You don't have to use clipping on these layers. You can use any method you like to recolor, select and cut, or apply styles and textures to the layers. These .PSD files work like any other, with each element on its own layer, making it easy for you to add your own papers, elements, titles, and journaling.

Here is the template with photos, digital papers, color added to the fibers, and some text:

Thanks to DigiTreats for the January-themed paper (slightly recolored to match my photos). If you don't already "follow" the DigiTreats blog, you need to jump on that bandwagon right now. There is a freebie nearly every day plus a huge shoppe (currently having a Grand Re-Opening sale) full of great digital, well, TREATS!

I love the DigiTreats flowered paper so much that I also created a version of my finished page without the 5 small photos at the top, so that more of the flowered paper is visible:

Another really great look, don't you think?

Now, for those of you who prefer pre-made pages I am making each of my fully layered templates available in that format as well.

Introducing Tumble Templates by Webajeb!

(no longer available)

(no longer available)

You can be among the first to use one of these templates. Simply click on either of the template images to download it. Download both, if you like!

UPDATE: 03/10/09: I have had to remove the links to these pre-made pages. After letting Pamela of DigiTreats know that I had featured some of her papers here on my blog, she wrote back to say that I could not use them to give away as freebies due to the fact that she uses other designer's products to create her own, and that those other designer's Terms of Use preclude their use in any commercial way, including as freebies. **SIGH** Sorry about that, friends! However, I will (as soon as I have time between all the traveling I'm doing this month) re-create these pre-made pages using my OWN papers and then re-post them, as freebies, of course!

Tumble Templates are delivered as flattened .JPG files. Simply open a new document in your scrapbooking software program and drag in the template. *On the template layer, use your magic wand to select the gray photo areas and delete it. You now have a hole in the template. Add a new layer under the template, "tumble" your photos onto that new layer, and re-size as needed.

(* Of course, this is just one way of adding photos; use any favorite technique.)

Save with a new name, and Done!

New Digital Scrapbooking Kit by Webajeb

Seven custom-designed digital scrapbook papers PLUS a BONUS:
a custom Photoshop color swatch with 18 colors that exactly match the papers.
(click image for a larger view)

Six custom-designed digital scrapbook elements.
(click image for a larger view)

And six pieces of custom-designed word art
(including one in both B&W and Color).
(click image for a larger view)

At long last! My first digital kit, "Fresh As," was created with Spring in mind, and Rainy Winter outside my window. My longing for spring, and my enjoyment of the rain that we desperately need here in northern California, are both reflected in the papers and elements of this kit. Included are the springlike colors of yellows, greens, and oranges; delicate flowers, a weathered picket fence, brads sporting spring-colored stripes, a pre-made title, and plenty of word art to add spring-related quotes or poetry to your layouts.

Included is a bonus: a custom color swatch with 18 colors that exactly match the kit papers. Easy instructions are included on how to load the swatch to Photoshop or Elements. With the custom colors you can easily create additional papers and elements, as well as text and titles, that perfectly match the contents of the "Fresh As" kit.

Get everything in all three previews (above)
for the special low price of just $2.99.

Can't wait to hear what you think of my first kit, and to see the great layouts you come up with.

Heartfelt thanks to Brandy of Mega-Doodle Inspired for her kit preview templates and actions. Check out Brandy's website for all kinds of cool products!

Sneak Preview - FIRST Webajeb Digital Kit!

I'm so excited!! I'm creating my FIRST digital scrapbooking kit. It's been very fun so far! I have no real "plan" as to what will be included in the kit; I'm just kind of creating papers, and as I create the papers ideas of elements and word art are popping into my head. My fave way to work. Just going where my creativity takes me.

The above paper is a sneak peek. This will be one of the papers in the kit which I've tentatively named "Fresh As." I feel really inspired by the recent rain which is bringing out full force the bright greens, yellows, and oranges of a northern California spring.

I'm also playing with styles, overlays, textures, and filters in Photoshop; experimenting and exploring until I stumble on combinations that I like. I do hope you'll like them, too.

There will be a freebie associated with this kit, which will be posted on my blog (most likely tomorrow), then the kit will be offered for sale here on my blog and also on my website.

Subscribe to my blog so you can be one of the first to get the first Webajeb digi-kit!

Digital Scrapbook Paper - Barack Obama

If you missed the freebie paper, or have already purchased one paper and want one or both of the others, here they are in a set, for just $2.49! Each paper normally sells (on my website) for $1.00 each, so this is a deal. Just use the Buy Now button below.

There is more Obama paper and Word Art to come in the next few days. I hope to also get some embellishments created, too, as well as another patriotic-style alpha, I'm thinking a more formal looking one. Basically, I'm just letting my imagination take over and seeing where it takes me.

So, if you have anything in mind, Obama-style, that you'd like to see, that would really make your Inauguration 2009 pages complete, just let me know and I'll see what I can do. I always love a challenge!

I'd love to see any layouts you make with my digital designs, so don't hesitate to email them to me, or send me a link to where they are posted.

Happy scrapping, and be sure to check back for more fun stuff!

Ladybug Digital Paper and Embellishment

Love ladybugs? Then this digital ladybug and her matching ladybug paper is for you!

Whipping up a page layout will be a snap with these! Just add your photo(s), a title and some journaling, and one or more sweet ladybugs and you're done! As an added bonus, I have also included the paper with several ladybugs already added.

This mini set is just $1.49. All images are 300 dpi. The papers are .jpg files and the ladybug is a .png.

Get these items and many more here. When you are done viewing the ladybug kit, be sure to click the Home button at the top of the page and then go to my online store. LOTS of digital products and new ones are being added daily!

Finally, have fun with ladybugs!