12 Days of Halloween

I love advent calendars. I love counting down the days - especially when I get to do something fun on each of those days!

But I don't have a ton of storage space in my house, so I had to come up with something that would save room when it came time to pack it away.

I decided to use an ordinary muffin tin as my base, and I made 12 circles to cover each of the compartments. I debated on using my mini muffin tin, but my hubby said it was better to use the regular sized one so I could add a piece of candy for everyone inside. I scrapbooked and laminated my circles because I want to be able to reuse them, but you could just as easily cover your muffin tin in orange or black tissue paper and let your kids punch out the compartments each day.

I stuck my circles on with removable adhesive putty.

I also made up a list of fun "Halloweenish" things to do to get in the spirit. I printed it on orange paper, cut each idea apart from the others, and stuck one in each compartment. I also made sure it was general enough that we could reuse the list every year.

Here's my list:

• Go to a Pumpkin Patch
• Make a Spooky Gingerbread House
• Paint or Carve Pumpkins
• Watch a Scary Movie (Check out this list of Not-So-Scary Children's Movies)
• Go to a Halloween Party!
• Bake a Halloween Treat
• Play with SLIME!
• Go to a Corn Maze
• Barnyard Boo at Thanksgiving Pointe
• Make a Halloween Craft
• Visit the Cemetery (reverently visit and learn about relatives)
• Go on a Halloween Scavenger Hunt

Do it with me!! My advent calendar will start on the 20th (and end on Halloween).

Need more ideas? Check out my list from 2012, some ideas from 2013, the Kids Section, or scroll down to Halloween in the Holiday Section.

Scrap Saturday - Punch Out a Shape

When I used to paper scrap, one of my favorite techniques was to punch a hole and have something peeking through from the other side.

Today, I'll show you how to punch a shape in Photoshop!

1. Create a new layer by typing Shift + Ctrl + N.

2. With that layer chosen, select the Custom Shape Tool, (make sure the box "fill pixels" is selected at the top - third over from the right) and draw the shape where you want on your layout.

3. Select the layer you want to punch. I created a clipping mask, because I wasn't sure on the papers I wanted to use, but you could punch out one of your papers as well. The teal layer on my layout is my clipping mask, and the black dotted paper is clipped to it.

4. Hit the delete button - and the selected part of your layer will disappear. Now type Ctrl + D to deselect. Find your shape layer (the one your first drew) and delete it.

** Now you can add a shadow to this layer, and it will look just like a paper-punched layout.

Here's my finished layout:

Here are the other layout's I've made this week with the new releases:

Scrap Saturday - Journal Inside a Shape

This week's tutorial is one of the main reasons I decided on Photoshop CS3 over Photoshop Elements. I LOVE that you can journal inside any shape and Photoshop makes it fit just right.

My layout this week is about my delivery of Harvey, so I wanted some round shapes in there to symbolize my pregnancy. How better to do that then to put my journaling in the same shape?

Let's get started!

In my layout, I already had a shape drawn (the red half circles in the layers pallette) to clip my beige paper on. If you don't have shapes on your layout already (or a journaling mat, etc.) then you'll need to draw one. Use the custom shape tool.

1. Right click your shape in the layers palette and choose select pixels. You should see marching ants around your shape.

2. I didn't want my text to go right up to the edges of the beige paper, so I made my selection smaller. To do this, choose Select > Modify > Contract. Another window will open asking you how much, I contracted by 50px, and you can see my new selection in the print screen.

3. Now click the little tab at the top of the layers palette that says Paths. All the way to the right (under the little x) is another tab that has three lines and an arrow. Click that, and a dropdown menu will open. Choose "Make Work Path...", then click the Layers Tab again.

4. Choose the text tool.

5. Click directly inside your selection/shape. This will create a text outline that follows the same selection you had. Start typing! (Remember to choose the little green check mark at the top when you are satisfied.) And you can adjust the alignment as well - I set mine to right-align.

**Tip: When you choose complicated shapes (hearts, stars, etc.) watch for weird word breaks. Either use the space bar, enter to another line or make your font smaller to help compensate.

Here's my final layout:

And here are my other layouts using the new products this week...

And WOOT!! This layout got recognized as a Gallery Stand Out! I'm so excited!!

Scrap Saturday - 2 Page Layouts

I used to scrapbook the "traditional" way - with paper, scissors, and glue. And almost all of my layouts were two-page spreads. After I made the switch over to digital, most of my layouts were just one page. And I do like it that way.

But sometimes, I have so much "stuff" (pictures, or journaling, etc.) that it would look better on two pages. Instead of designing one page at a time, I do them at the same time - just like I would be able to do with all of my paper supplies laid out on the desk.

Let's get started:

1. Open a new file...

2. ... and set the width to double what you normally scrapbook. I scrapbook at 12x12 so my width is set to 24. Set your height at the usual size. Make sure "inches" is selected in the dropdown menu, and set your resolution to 300 pixels/inch for optimum printing quality.

Scrapbook as you normally would. Fill up the two pages with all your paper, elements, journaling, pictures, and don't forget your shadowing! Keep in mind when you are filling everything in where the seam will be after printing. Don't put anything important right in the center. 

When you are satisfied with your 2-page spread, save the layered file. Now we will save each page as a separate flattened file for printing.

3. Flatten the whole image. Choose Layer>Flatten Image.

4. Choose the crop tool and enter half the width of your document (mine is 12 inches), and the same height as the document (also 12 inches).

5. Start at the top left corner, and drag a crop square until it reaches all the bounds of your first page.

6. Click the green check mark at the top to crop. Then "Save AS" a .jpg in the destination folder of your choice.

 7. In the History, choose "Flatten Image" and it will take you back to your two-page spread - before you cropped the first page.

8. Choose the crop tool again, double check to see that your width and height are still where you set them, and crop starting at the top right corner of the document. Drag to the center until all the bounds of your second page are selected. Then choose the green check mark again, and "Save AS" a different .jpg in the destination folder of your choice.

See how easy that was? Now you can send both pages off to be printed separately, but they will coordinate and line up perfectly. Or if you are printing your pages in a book - each page can be uploaded with ease.

Here's page one of my finished layout:

And here's page two:

Checklist Placemat

Last year in my Family Fun Magazine there was an idea to create a placemat with checklists on each side: one to do at home before school, and the other for things to take when the kids go. I love lists, so when Wendy released her new School Days kit I had to make some for my nieces. Hopefully their mornings will go a little smoother with the placemats.


The Family Fun website also has their checklist placemat tutorial online.

(credits & comments)

I printed three copies on 8.5 x 14 inch paper, then laminated them for durability. Aren't they cute??

Scrap Saturday - Blurred Backgrounds

If I had a great SLR with a great portrait lens I would have beautiful portrait photos with my subject in focus and the background blurred out. And I would be happy.

But I don't have an SLR. I do have a pretty decent point and shoot camera and I have Photoshop, so that will have to do. This week I'm going to show you how to blur out the background of your photos if you have a point and shoot camera like me that likes to keep everything (even the distracting background) in focus.

In my photo, I wanted to focus on the sandcastle and have my nieces blurred in the background.

1. Duplicate your background layer (the photo) by holding the ALT key and dragging your layer up. Then, create a new Levels Adjustment Layer by clicking the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of your layers palette and choosing "Levels". Just click OK in the window when it opens.

2. Next select the gradient tool. Click the little black arrow next to the gradient picker to open the window, and choose the "foreground to transparent" gradient. In the options bar - make sure the Linear Gradient (the left square) is selected, the mode is "normal", the opacity is 100%, "reverse" is not selected, and "dither" and "transparency" are selected.

3. Make sure the Levels and Adjustment layer is active (highlighted), and click on your photo where you want the blur to start (I clicked around the bottom of the sandcastle because that is where I wanted my photo to be focused), hold, and drag your mouse to the top of the photo.

The gradient will appear in the mask thumbnail of the Layers and Adjustment layer: white reveals, where the mask is black, the blur will be concealed. As the mask fades, more and more of the blur will be revealed.

I want the sandcastle to be entirely in focus, while the ground around it gradually fades into the blur - just like a portrait lens would capture it (if I had one). So I need to add the sandcastle to the black portion of my layer mask.

4. Use the quick selection tool to select your item to be in focus (sandcastle, face, etc.).

5. Select the paint bucket tool and make sure your foreground color is black. Then click on your selection until you've "painted" over it's entirety. Check the layer mask to be sure - it will turn black.

6. Here you can see in the layer mask that there is a black space where the sandcastle is. Black = no blur.

7. Click the background copy layer to activate it. Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter a radius figure. I used 11 pixels. The entire picture will become blurred.

8. Move the background copy layer above the Level and Adjustment layer and clip the background copy to it. (CTRL + ALT + G) Now you will see the blur start at the top and gradually fade toward your focus point.

Here are the before and after photos:

Here's my finished layout:

Scrap Saturday - Weaving String

The technique I'm going to show you today is one of my favorites. I like to make my pages look somewhat traditional - like a tangible, paper layout - and being able to weave strings in and around other items on the page helps to give my pages that look.

So let's get started, shall we?

First, put your string or ribbon on top of whatever layers you are going to weave through. I'm going to have some of my string go under the white mat around the photo, and some stay over the photo. Position the string just where you want it and decide what parts you want to go "under" the other items, and which you'd like to stay on top.

Next, add any shadows you'd like on your string layer, then duplicate your string, and move the copy just under the items you are weaving around. Like I said, my string will go under the white mat but over the blue one. (A shortcut to duplicating layers: hold the Alt key while you click and move the layer you want to duplicate.) Now you have two copies of your string.

Now - on the top copy - just use the eraser tool to get rid of the parts of the string that are "under" the other items. One little tip to erasing exactly the right parts is to select the pixels of the items you are weaving around. Right click the layer (I chose the white mat layer), and choose "select pixels". You'll see marching ants around that item.

Now choose the layer with the top copy of your string, and the eraser tool. While your marching ants are there - you can only erase inside of those pixels. The nice thing about this is that you can be sort of "messy" with your eraser, and you still get a nice crisp line of where the string would actually come out from under that item.

If you have more than one item you are weaving around, just follow the same procedure - select the pixels of that item, then choose your string layer and erase within the bounds. When you're happy with the weaving... we can move on to the shadows.

The only problem with shadows with a duplicated item, is that they are transparent - so both shadows show up, resulting in a shadow that is usually too dark. Sometimes, I'll just turn off the shadow on the top layer and it looks just fine - like a string that was resting very close to the paper wouldn't have a large shadow anyway.

But this time, I think it looks better with the shadow, so we just have to erase parts of the bottom string layer to get rid of the double shadow. If you still have marching ants (pixels selected) great - we are just going to select the inverse: Ctrl + Alt + I. Now you can erase anywhere outside of the box, and it won't erase anything on the inside. Make sure you choose the bottom string layer, and you'll see the shadow lighten as you erase that bottom copy. To unselect the pixels push Ctrl+D.

Here's my finished layout of my cute little niece enjoying her mini cupcake...

Scrap Saturday - Layer From Cut

Sometimes, when digitally scrapbooking, you will come across an element that you wish was separated into more than one layer. This week's tutorial will show you how to split it via: Layer From Cut. I often use this technique to tweak little parts of an element. For example, if I add a bead scatter onto my layout and some of the beads are covering an important part of my photo or text, I can just select those beads, put them in a separate layer and move them out of the way.

However, in my layout for this week, I want a design with a large photo on top and several small squares at the bottom. Instead of drawing one small square and making copies then organizing them, I'm going to make one large piece, and cut it into separate squares.

I've already drawn two large rectangles - one for the large photo on top, and one to split up at the bottom.

1. For my layout, because I'm doing a blocked design, I turned on the grid. To do this, click on View - Show - Grid.

2. Choose the marquee tool.

3. Draw a marquee around the part of your image you want to erase. I drew a long skinny space - using the grid to make sure my squares would be about the same size. Instead of drawing a new box each time, I just moved the same marquee over by using the arrow keys. To erase the selection, just hit the delete button.

Now these are the steps I follow when I want to split an element into two separate layers (such as the bead scatter).

4. Make sure the layer you want to split is chosen in the layers palette. Draw a marquee around the selection.

5. Click Layers - New - Layer From Cut (Shift + Ctrl + J). Now you will have two layers - one being the original layer, and the second with only the selection.

For my layout, I repeated the last two steps for each square, until I had 15 separate layers. This way, I could use each square as a base to clip my paper and photos. Here's my final layout of Harvey's first time at the beach last week:

Scrap Saturday - Realistic Drop Shadows

The fact that Photoshop automatically does drop shadowing is great, but their basic drop shadow can look pretty fake. This week I'll show you the things to tweak to make your shadow look more realistic.

Since papers usually have a small dense shadow because they sit really close to the paper, but strings, ribbons or tags sit off the paper and have a light and wide shadow. Here, I'm adding a drop shadow to a string in my layout:

(First, if you're not even sure how to add a drop shadow, click the FX at the bottom of the layer's palette and choose drop shadow.)

Basically, there are four different things to tweak:
1. Color. Black is the default in Photoshop, which is fine for small, dense shadows but a brownish color is more realistic. It's better to choose a brown hue for drop shadows that are larger like we are doing here.

2. Opacity. Like I said, the closer your element is to the paper, the more dense it will be (higher numbers). If it is an element that pops off the page, you will want to move the slider to a lower number.

3. Angle. Wherever the line points - that is where the light is coming from. I usually try to keep this uniform throughout my page, because it seems logical that the light is all coming from the same place. But sometimes there is an element that doesn't look like it's popping up because the shadow is hidden under another element, so I'll change the angle for that one element.

4. Distance. The higher the number, the farther away the shadow will reach. If you have a taller element, or it's "popped up" you'll want to increase the number a little. Make sure you keep this number and the opacity in check: usually, the higher the distance, the lower the opacity.

5. Size. This makes the lines of the shadow softer or harder. It all depends on your taste, but typically a realistic shadow will be harder for items closer to the page, and softer for items further away.

For my string, I used these numbers:

Or if you can't read the image...
Opacity: 67
Angle: 131
Distance: 26
Size: 35

Once you find settings you love - create a style so you can use them over and over with just a click of a button!

Here's my finished layout:

Scrap Saturday - Creating Groups in Photoshop

This week I'm just going to show you a simple little thing I do to keep some order in my layers palette. I love creating groups - not just for order - but so I can move groups of things around or apply a drop shadow to multiple layers at the same time.

For example, on this layout I used an alpha for my title. Each letter is on a separate layer, but I want to be able to move and re-size all of them at the same time. So let's put them in a group.

Select all the layers you want to include in your group, then drag them to the little folder icon on the bottom of the layers palette. All of them will be moved into a nice little folder called "Group 1". To rename it, just double click on the name. If you create a new layer you want to add into your group, just drag it into the folder.

Super simple, but it makes things much easier! I like that you can click the little arrow next to the group and it will minimize. This is especially helpful on layouts where I have a ton of layers. Here's my finished layout:

Scrap Saturday - Blending Masks in Photoshop

This week I'm going to show you a technique to blend two photos together. This is useful when you have two similar photos and you want to use some of both - like swapping a person, or "opening" eyes of someone who blinked, or changing a head of a blurry child. It's actually really easy. Here we go:

Open your two photos side by side and make sure they have the same lighting and coloring. If not, do some tweaking. For this tutorial, I'm going to assume they look very similar. I have two photos of my cute hubby and Harvey gardening, but Harvey is pretty blurry in the first. I want to swap him out.

1. Choose one photo to be your base, and drag the other on top of it. Change the opacity of the top layer to about 45%. This is so you can see both pictures at the same time.

2. Rotate or resize your top photo and move to match exactly where you want to replace. For example - I matched up the plant since Harvey had moved for the second photo. If you are changing two parts and both don't match up in the same photo - duplicate your top layer and turn one off while you work on the first.

3. Change the opacity back to 100 percent on your top layer.

4. Turn on a layer mask by clicking on Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. Now it will seem like the top layer is turned off, and you will only see the bottom layer.

5. Choose the brush tool.

7. Click the little arrow next to the black dot to open the brush preset ticker. Move the hardness slider all the way to zero. This will make your brush strokes blend from one photo to the other.

6. Brush over the spot you wanted to change and your top layer will show up. You can change the size of your brush in the preset ticker or by using the shortcut keys [ for smaller and ] for larger. The brush tool will make your top photo show up, and the eraser tool will make it disappear again.

8. Use the eraser tool to make parts of your top photo disappear again. Play around with the eraser and brush tools until your photo looks close to how you want it. If there are parts that you can't blend - like the top of Harvey's head in my photo below - you can use the cloning tool in just a minute.

9. Merge the two photos together by clicking Layer > Merge Layers (or just hit Ctrl + E).

10. Choose the clone tool, and choose a point to copy by clicking while holding the Alt key. Brush over the last spots you need to fix, and you're all set!

Here is my finished photo in a layout: