Answer for Julie -- using PNGs on scrapbook page

I just got a comment asking the following: Thank you so much! I am new to digital scrapbooking. I am having trouble adding PNG image to my page, I usually use JPGs. Do I need to convert PNG into JPG? Thanks! Julie Okay, the difference between a .jpg and a .png is that .png has a transparent background, so when you put the object onto your page you don't have to worry about that object covering up something with it's background. You are also better able to create realistic shadows because you are shadowing the object, say a ribbon bow, instead of a square white box with the ribbon in it. I am not sure what type of digital scrapbooking program you use, but almost every program I have tried has recognized .pngs as picture files, therefore they can be added using the IMPORT command in the edit menu (or something along those lines.) My program also allows me to "drop" a file into my workspace by selecting it in and open folder and dropping it into my document editing screen. Whatever command you are using to try to add .pngs, look at the little file type selection box, does it say "jpg only"? Make sure it says "all picture files" or "all files". Then you should be able to select the .png object you wish to add to your layout. You'll find that the transparent background allows you a lot of versatility on your layouts, you can create amazing layered effects with them. Anyone with specific questions for me can use the "Contact Me" button in the right side column.

School Spirit Freebie!

Homecoming is just one week away here in our town and so I thought it might be fun to make a school spirit inspired freebie. I found a great little book on cheerleading and used the images to create 3 papers, a pennant and 3 buttons. Our school colors are purple and gold and I grew up in a town with the colors maroon and gold, so I thought yellow was a safe bet on my color scheme, though you could adjust the colors to suit your needs. I'm not a cheer mom, but I have a 4-almost-5-year-old who I think has a promising future in that direction. I can just imagine the layouts in my future! Enjoy and Go Arrows!

Click here to download.

A neat idea, link to tutorial & FREEBIE!!

First, I have to apologize for neglecting to post anything recently. I'm not going to make excuses about how busy I am since I'm sure every other person out there has their own version of a busy life too. Needless to say, I haven't been struck by the inspirational bug in awhile.

Anyway, I am working on getting my books current for my trip home to see my family this summer. I am current on my digital work and Scrapbooksplease has a free shipping sale starting tomorrow!! I am working on a few more traditional layouts before I'll consider myself done. Right now I have some adorable pictures of my 4 year old and her friends. I decided on using butterfly themed embellishments, I'm not sure why, but I have a nice variety. Some of it are pieces of a belt that broke (some tooled leather butterflies and some metal butterflies), butterfly iron-on patches and shrinky-dink butterflies I learned to make at Girl Scout camp. Did you know you can recycle #6 plastic to make shrinky-dinks?? It's so awesome -- I never actually made shrinky-dinks before camp last weekend so chances are even the store bought ones would amaze me. So to get back on track, I needed a way to tie the butterflies to the friends on the page. I came up with this quote:

"Friends are like butterflies: each one is different, each one is special, each one is beautiful." Now, how to get it onto my page in a neat and interesting way??

Wouldn't it be cool to make my own rub-ons? Thank goodness for Google and Bing, I was able to find a tutorial on how to do just that! Check out the tutorial here. And here is my wordart freebie for this quote.

You can download the freebie here. I actually included 7 different versions of this quote, with printing them to make my own rub-ons in mind. You could certainly use them on digital layouts and cards as well. Please enjoy them, and note that if I used another designer's piece as a stepping stone, I tried to include their name in the name of the design -- sorry if I didn't get you, not all my stuff has names on it.

First a question, then another freebie.

Where or where has deco-pages gone? Does anyone else out there use deco-pages.com? I post in the gallery there and I can't connect to their site. I am starting to get paranoid and I hope their server will be back online soon. Any news anyone??

Now for the freebie! I don't know where all this creativity is coming from, but I have a theory! My husband recently asked me to stop playing all Facebook games. I played Farmville for a long time, then I quit last summer. Then I started playing Fashion World and one like civilization. But I quit back in September or October. Since then I've had a lot of extra time for stuff around the house, my traditional scrapbooking, my digital scrapbooking and of course creating freebies. I found the grayscale templates for these flowers on the microsoft clip gallery quite awhile ago and I have had them on my desktop staring at me for ages. So last night I decided to do something with them. There are 11 flowers and 4 stems in the set. I added the shadow for the preview but not to the png files. I also left the grayscale originals in the folder for you if you needed to make a flower or two in a specific color. Just add a layer over the flower of your choice and adjust it, most of these are set to Multiply or Screen, but on some I used Dodge or Color in my photo editor. I don't use Photoshop so I'm not 100% sure of the lingo to explain it to the rest of the world. Here is the result!

You can download the flowers here.
Remember, leaving me some love is free!

Little Stamp Ornaments Freebie tonight.

I'm just on a freebie roll! I was working away on my traditional book today when INSPIRATION hit me. I am working on last year's Christmas layout. I decided to make a free form Christmas tree out of a green yarn stitched onto the page. Then I wanted some sort of ornaments. I was looking around at my collection of odds and ends and I came upon some old Christmas postage stamps. Now what to frame them out with?? I found some little tiny paper stars that I'd picked up on eBay for a 4th of July page. I used some ModPodge (best stuff ever!) to decoupage the stamps onto some white cardstock and then the white and red stars onto them as frames. The only drawback was that I had a hard time framing out the best parts of the stamps with the star's shape, like on the stamps with Mary and baby Jesus, it's hard to get both into the center of the star. They dried very quickly, so I cut them out and to dress them up I wrapped a little bit of decorative wire around them. I also used the wire to "hang" them from the tree on the paper. I wish the layout was complete, I can't share it with you until it is!

In celebration of this wonderful idea, I've created basically the same thing for you, except that I warped the stars a little when I wanted to get a little more of the picture into the frame, and I made them with glitter. Oh, and just because I love you all so much, I made 4 Love stamp ornaments. These are made with scans of actual stamps, some are American and some are foreign.

To download the ornaments, please click here.