12.19.08 Dear Santa Mini Kit + A bit of a RANT and a TUTORIAL!

Ok, first off - I know that I said that I should kill two birds with one stone and make my freebies some of the stuff that I'm working on for my new venture with Digital Candy, but I've been working on this Santa for some time now for a page of my mother on Santa's lap as a child and I was SOOO thrilled with how it came out that I had to share it with you. I also made a few items to go with it - a plaid page that matches the color of Santa's coat, a distressed parchment page, a little book with santa on one page and "Twas the night before Christmas..." on the other, and an ornate frame that seemed to me to go well with Santa - which brings me to my rant (in a weird sort of backwards way) I also made a photo template for the ornate frame which, IMHO (in my humble opinion) NOT enough designers out there do! And a quick page using most of the kit. Oh! And I also threw in the santa with NO coloring - in case you would prefer it that way! (here comes the rant part).

I've only been part of this community for a couple of months now, but I've found quite a few things that many designers don't do, and I'm a bit frustrated! When I started digital scrapbooking, I began to buy a few (OK OK, lots) of stuff from several stores. I quickly learned that quite a bit of the freebie kits out there were pretty hard to work with, and a few of the kits I purchased were too for that matter! There is only so much that a person can do with ribbons, bows, buttons and square frames! In addition, when I found a pretty frame that I liked, it was next to impossible to get my pictures to fit it (ergo, I assume the multitude of simple square frames). Why not put in the little blob that they used to "cut" the frame with? It wouldn't be that hard would it?
And in a kit, with some cute elements, quite a few of them were colored in such a way that I could only use them with certain papers, as they were too hard to re-color or "take apart" to use them with different kits etc. Can't they just "throw in" a blank frame or element, so that I can use it more often? (example - with my beaded ornaments, If I were a reader of this blog, I would have loved the little ornaments, but I think half the fun of downloading that little freebie would be to play with the beads and see what I, as a scrapbooker, could create with them) Whew! done with the rant LOL

Ok, so the good news is that I am going to try and NOT follow in the footsteps of those designers... I mean, anyone can re-color a ribbon or button right? (if you cannot, for goodness sake email me! You are spending WAY too much money on elements if so!! LOL)

Ok...back to the freebie (sorry for that...LOL...had to get it off my chest!!) Anyway, I put in my little "blob" so that you can use it as a template for your photo, that way it will fit in there perfectly with no overhang. If you don't know how to use the template feel free to email me with questions. I am really only familiar with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, but it is really easy in those two programs. Simply use a clipping mask or, put the "blob" (hereinafter to be known as the template LOL)in its own layer and load the selection by clicking on the thumbnail of the template (Command+Click on a Mac, or Ctrl+Click on a PC) that creates a selection the shape of the template, then click SELECT>INVERSE. Then place your photo, or paper or whatever on another separate layer and activate THAT layer, then click Delete or Clear. By inverting the selection of your template you are telling PS or PSE to erase everything outside of that template. So whatever layer you activate, and then click delete (with the selection, or "marching ants") still active on, with end up in the shape of the template. A clipping mask is MUCH easier but as I have have only done this in PS CS3, I'm not sure that the directions for that are the same otherwise.

If you still need help, PLEASE feel free to email me at PineapplePlantation@gmail.com!

Ok... enjoy my little hand painted Santa, I REALLY do love him, (he's perhaps one my favorite elements I've ever created) and as always...if you would like to share a layout made with my stuff, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE email them to me!! (Please??)

Much aloha my friends,

Shauna

*Sorry! This Link has been edited to be removed*