Welcome to the Oscraps DSD Blog Hop! This week we are celebrating digital scrapbooking!! Any of you who read my blog on a regular basis know that I am addicted to digi-scrapping and Oscraps.

Your word here at my BLOG is {the world}. Collect all of the words to form a quote, e-mail the complete quote to bloghop @ oscraps. com to be entered into a drawing for the grand prize!!

As a thank you gift for stopping by my BLOG, I have this FREEBIE for you!! It is a Quick Page using the Oscraps’s Collab Kit, Otono

You can download it here: Autumn Days Quick Page

Here is a preview to the full kit- just amazing as always:

Thanks for hopping around our O-Team Blogs. Your next stop is here at the gorgeous Holliewood Studios!

If you need to get to the  the start of the Blog hop, go here! Ohhhhhhh…start here for the fun!!

Happy Digital Scrapbook Day (so we like to party a bit more at the O, and made it into Digital Scrap “Week” )

I am on the Creative Team for Nina Scraps Designs. This lady, whose designs are sold exclusively at Oscraps, is not only a total sweetheart, but amazingly talented. One of her new things that she likes to include in her kits are photo masks I love the way a photo mask  makes your photo looks vintage or edgy, depending on what style the mask is.

I am going to show you how easy photo masks are to use in Photo Editor.

First, select your photo, a background paper and a photo mask (also called clipping masks). Drag them into your Image Basket. Open the background paper and save it with a new name and as an apd file.

Next, drag your photo onto your paper. Place the photo mask over the photo.You can resize the mask to make it fit better over your photo, if you wish.

Select both Objects in Object Palette, by Ctrl-Clicking both layers. Them click “Trim to Shape.”

And now you have a cool, grungy feel to this photo:

I love how the background shows through the photo. All I need to do now is to add in some elements and a title.

Credits:
cozy.days

http://bringraynahome.blogspot.com/

This girl is a scrapper friend’s friend- not a hoax.

I am posting this to help get the word out.
Rayna Ashlee Korbus
DOB- 3/20/1994
Height- 5″5″
Weight 125
Hair- Blonde
Eyes- Blue
Complexion- Fair
no piercings, tattoos, or birthmarks
Medical Conditions- Chronic Asthma, Pulmonary Disease, Allergies

Last seen on 10/19/09 at 8:00 am wearing- Light Tan Uggs, Black Skinny Jeans and Gray Hoodie with Hollister written across the front in red. Believed to be with 15 year old hispanic male- Kevin Linares. Could possibly be headed to Mexico.

Please call 803-230-1343 with any information or York County Sherrif’s Office 803-628-3059.

Oh wow, I have really been slacking on posting my gratitudes here. I have been posting them over at Oscraps so what I am going to do is make one big post of them- this should be interesting. Anyone want to guess how many times I say “coffee”? Do you think I will say that I am thankful for coffee or sleep more than I say that I am thinkful for me family?

9/29
I am grateful for:
1. A few hours of relative peace and quiet
2. two Lo’s scrapped!
3. My O-Fam
4. The smell of roasted garlic to go with my roasted chicken
5. a low cost trip to the grocery store

9/30

1. that the meeting with Scott’s teachers/school admin is over.
2. Bone scan is over.
3. nat’l Coffee Day!
4. Home made soup- that everyone enjoyed!
5. a nice glass of red wine with dinner

10/2
1. TGIF
2. That things with Scott were better than we expected.
3. TGIF
4. Wine and brownies
5. TGIF

10/4

1. Grateful to sleep a bit late
2. Scrapping time!
3. A new Oscraps Kit to play with (sshhhh, its coming soon)
4. good books

10/6

I am grateful it wasn’t a heart attack

10/7

1. That I got an extra hour of sleep
2. That Caitlyn made it into Gifted and Talented Art!
3. That I didn’t have to work today
4. That I able to work tomorrow and Friday- that my schedule is flexible
5. For my friend Kelly- who cooked my family a big tray of ziti and brought it over so I didn’t have to cook tonight
6. for everyone who loves me, thank you for helping me to realize that I am love-able

And that catches me up to today!
Thank you for reading, and thank you Sally for keeping me going!

I loved being able to walk other Photo Editor users through the process of making a cool digital layout. Here is my second layout that I am going to scrap with you, step by step.

The first thing I decided to do was to make the photo a bit more interesting. It is one of my favorites and I have scrapped it before. To make it a bit different, I am going to selectively keep the color of the pumpkin, and put the rest of the photo in gray scale.  It  looks like  it should be a really tricky technique, but actually it is so simple.

Open the picture you want to use in Photo Editor. Duplicate the photo with Ctrl-D. The top photo is the one  I am going to change to black and white. To do this, click on the top photo or click on the top layer in the Object Palette.  Depending on your layout, you can do this in one of several ways.  You click on Adjustments| Color and then you can use:

• Gray scale- for an automatic grey scale conversion
• Hue/Saturation- if you want to have more control over the saturation level
• Sepia- if you prefer an antique tone

I chose plain old gray scale for this one, but the other options would have worked as well.

Next, select the eraser tool. Choose a hard brush tip, Make sure the Spacing Setting is for 1 pixel, so it doesn’t “scatter.”

Eraser over the part of the gray scale photo that you want the color to show,using the Magnifying tool to get into the smaller spaces. Group both Objects Layers together by selecting them,  and Right Click on “Make Group.” Save the photo, and close it. It will remain in your Image Basket.

Next, I have selected  two papers for the background. The bottom paper is a relatively plain orange and peach paper. The second paper is an antique tan, with newsprint shapes cut out on it. I am going to use the “Transfer Modes” to blend the two papers into one. I select the papers while in Photo Manager and drag them into Photo Editor.  I open the plain paper first, and then the patterned paper on top. Click on the top paper to select it, then go to the top right or bottom right of the screen where it says Transfer Mode. Scroll through the modes until you find one that works well with your page. For this layout, I am using Hard Light. If you want to lower the opacity of the paper, you can use the Opacity Sliders to the left of the transfer Mode boxes.

Next I drag my photo from the Image Basket to the page, then a frame. Once I have them positioned where I want them, I can Make Group with them too. Don’t forget to keep saving your work as you go!

Add whatever other elements and word art you’d like. Then you can add your Drop Shadows ( Object | Drop Shadow) to anything that needs it, like the frame and leaves.

Here is my finished layout:

Credits: Everything is from Oscraps New Collaboration Kit Otono, coming soon to Oscraps.com

This is a great tip for anyone who is doing a designer specific challenge or doign CT work.

Right now I am working on a Challenge at Oscraps for Merkeley Designs. It is the October GOT IT Challenge. One of the requirements of this challenge is to use at least 50% or more Merkeley Designs products. I love Merkee’s designs and have a lot of them in my scrap stash.

When I organize my supplies, I use the Author Box to keep track of the designer’s name.  To easily find everything by her, I can go to the “Organize Pane” and click on the + sign next to Author.

When the Author List generates, click on the  designer’s name, in this case Merkeley Designs, and every file with that name will be brought up. If you have more than one name for the same Author, such as here with misspellings, select all  variations to get all of the files.

When the file list is complete, go back to the Properties Pane, Select All (Ctrl-A) and click in the Author Box. When the “Reset author for all selected files?” box pops up, click Yes. Type in the correctly spelled name. This will then apply the right name to all of the files.

For more information on using the Author property,  read:

• Customizing your thumbnails in ACDSee Photo Manager
• Auto Category Question: I have a misspelled author or designer name. How do I get rid of them?

Back to the Challenge….

Now that I have all of Merkeley Design’s supplies come up, I can now easily scroll through everything I have of her’s. I will Ctrl-click on each of the papers and elements I want to use in my layout, then drag them into ACDSee Photo Editor, Once I have them in the Image Basket, I can get right down to scrapping!

I love being able to use ACDSee to make Photo Disks. It saves so much room on my hard drive, but is also keeps those photos accessible to me.

I just got a DVD full of pictures from my daughter’s birthday last week from the in-laws. I know I am going to want to scrap them and there are a lot of great shots to choose from. I don’t have lots of extra room on the hard drive (who does??) so right now, as I type, I am making a Photo Disk from the DVD.

To do this, I put the DVD in the drive. After Photo Manager is done reading it, I go to New| Photo Disk. I enter “Caitlyn Birthday 2009″ as the Photo Disk Name. Then I select the Folders that I want to have cataloged in the “Specify Folder DIaloge Box.” This is a nice feature if there is more than one Folder on your DVD/CD. For example, on this DVD, there are two Folders, one with photos of my daughter and nieces, the other … I don’t have clue! I only have to have the appropriate folder checked, and the other one will not be part of the Photo Disk.

When that is done, I can go back and tag my photos. I am tagging these with the Categories of “Caitlyn” and “Birthday.” Then I Embed the Metadata into these selected files.

To use these files, click on the Offline Media Folder in your Folder tree.

When you click on the folder it will bring up thumbnails of each photo. These are not the actual photo files, but an ACDSee generated thumbnail. The “real” files are still located on that DVD. Click on the photo that you want to use, and a box will pop up telling you the name of the CD or DVD that the file is located on. Insert that disk in the drive,  let ACDSee Photo Manager read the disk and there is the photo you want to use.

woo hoo! One week down!

This is for Sunday- I am a few hours late…. maybe no one will notice.

1. For my O-Fam who loves me and and love them back!
2. For hugs from Caitlyn
3. My mom and brother who came up for lunch- and brought said lunch with them.
4. For leftover pizza for dinner!
5. For a calm day with Scott

Friday was such a bad day, that I knew Saturday had to be better.

I am grateful for:

1. Sleeping late
2. quiet day- no major plans
3. getting to chat with my brother, my sister in law and my mom
4. my yummy egg and cheese sandwich I made for breakfast (it was good LOL)
5. good tv on the DVR

ughughughughUGH!

bad day, all around.

Today I am grateful for :

1. Bedtime in 5 hours (there will be an end to today)
2. A clinician is now assigned for Scott- now we just wait for an opening….
3. Pain pills- for my back and head
4. an easy dinner
5. I get to sleep late tomorrow.