Pixel Scrapbooking

April Stickers P365

2010-03-28T21:20:00.003-04:00

Well, April is almost upon us. I'm looking forward to it, as my youngest will turn 1... :) Took a little first-ish step tonight. Aaaaw!

It starting to look like spring now. Only one small patch of snow in my yard, where the sun never goes, and the tulips are now starting peek through the soil.

This is why the April daily digital scrapbooking stickers are sunny yellow. Like little suns for your layouts!

You can find the previous stickers here.

Download April Stickers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

April Stickers by Pixel Scrapbooking is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at heart-scrapbooking.blogspot.com.

Hawaii Papers

2010-03-26T22:40:00.010-04:00

A set of digital 4 scrapbooking Hawaiian themed papers. They imitate a painted print on heavy canvas. All digital elements are 12 inches, 300 dpi.

Download HawaiiPapers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Credits:

26 Hibiscus Brushes by ~goddessoffangirls

Palm Tree Brushes by =Rawox

Hawaii Papers by Pixel Scrapbooking is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at heart-scrapbooking.blogspot.com.

Creative Commons Licenses - Wanna Work Together?

2010-03-23T14:53:00.000-04:00

Creative Commons Licenses are a way to protect your copyrights of your digital scrapbooking and photographic creations. As shown by the graph below, they are more and more used as the years go by.

source: Creative Commons Metrics

I'm now jumping on the bandwagon, and hope fellow digital artist do too.

Why choose CC license? In a few words, it allows you to protect your work and make sure it is shared in a way that is acceptable for you. We spend many hours making digital products, in my case freebies, and while we're happy to share our work with the world, we have the right to retain certain rights to our work. We can decide if we allow our work to be sold or not, altered, etc etc. But then again, we don't want to make it hard for others to use our work as well, so that's why these licenses are used.

In the world of digital scrapbooking, 'scraplifting' is sometimes considered a flattery. With photo editing softwares, there is no limit to what one can do. I personnaly don't mind it as long as proper attribution is given. And I state that in my license.

If you want to license your work, it's really easy. First, make sure your work is copyrightable. Graphical arts are, as well as digital pictures, so if you are in digital scrapbooking, there is no issues there. Then, make sure you have the rights to the creation. If you're the original artist, then you have those rights.

You want to see my license I just created for this site??

This work by Pixel Scrapbooking is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

From now on I'll put my license in the footer each of my freebies page, and will provide the source code for easy and proper attribution... (because we love easy!) as well as in a text file in the download package....

What about you guys? What do you think of copyrights in the digital scrapbooking world? Do you use a license, or do you intend to use one??

March Stickers P365

2010-02-26T21:46:00.000-05:00

Here are the March 2010 stickers dates for your digital scrapbook layouts. You can find February here and January here if you don't have them already.

As usual there are all 31 days in the kit, all in png files 300 dpi, so they can be printed and won't lose quality.

On a personal note, this is the last post before I head for vacations. We are sending the kids to relatives and my hubby and I are off to the Big Island - Hawaii (anyone been there? Any recommendations?). So I'll be back posting freebies in a little while, all rested and hopefully with a tan and a head full of memories! :)

Download March 2010 Stickers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Cats

2010-02-23T23:03:00.001-05:00

For all cats lovers out there (and especially to reader Valérie), here is a Cat digital scrapbooking mini kit.

Included is a journaling book with cat doodles, a polaroid frame with cat paws, and two little cat buttons.

Credits:
Cats and birds Photoshop brushes by BSILVIA from Graphics-Illustrations
Paw prints Photoshop brushes by Obsidian Dawn
Font is Scriptina

You can have more polaroid frame in my Polaroid freebies, and I also have the Chocolate papers in a brown tone.

Download Cats | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Medals

2010-02-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

Today's digital scrapbooking freebie is a set of 3 medals: gold, silver and bronze. Of course I'm influenced by the Olympics Games!! I had some requests on my facebook fan page for more Olympic stuff so here you go!

All files in .png 300dpi, suitable for printing.

Speaking of the facebook fan page, you can go there and upload pics of your layouts made with freebies from here... I'd love to see them!

Download Medals | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Little Journaling Notebooks

2010-02-16T22:22:00.002-05:00

These are two freebies digital scrapbooking journaling embellishments made with yellow lined papers. The first is binded with rings, the other one with a clip binder. They are in .png format, 300 dpi, transparent, and pre-shadowed. I made them big enough so you can put quite a bit of journaling, but they look great also when scaled down.

Download Notebooks | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Olympic spirit

2010-02-13T23:11:00.001-05:00

Are you watching the Winter Olympics Games??

Here is an Olympic Games inspired mini kit. You'll find 2 embellishments, both with and without shadows. They are on a transparent file, 300 dpi, .png file.

You can also download many country flags and buttons, world maps and travel related themes here.

Download Olympics | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Little Monkey kit

2010-02-10T22:50:00.001-05:00

I have three boys, all under 5 years old, and today all of them were little monkeys! Full of energy, happy, and using the sofa as a tumbling mat... (grr, I hate when they are doing that, but, well, they are boys!)

So in their honor, a Monkey kit! 4 papers 12", a monkey chain, a monkey hanging upside down from a banana (not sure what was going on in my mind!) and a Little Monkey word art. All in 300 dpi, ready for your digital scrapbooks.

This kit is color coordonated with the Chocolate papers, so feel free to download them as well. Also, more zoo related kits here.

The font used for the word art is Boyz R Gross free font.

UPDATE: You can download this kit at 72dpi as well. The size of the file is much smaller (4MB instead of 15), allowing faster download and using less space on your computer. Use this format if you intend to view your layouts on a computer. If you intend to print, use the 300 dpi.

Download Little Monkey 300dpi | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Chocolate papers

2010-02-08T22:50:00.002-05:00

Today's freebie is a set of 4 papers, 12 inches, 300 dpi (suitable for printing) and word art Chocolate - Chocolat ( according to google translate that should cover English, French, Spanish and Portuguese!). With Valentines Day fast approaching (are you ready yet?) the stores are full of chocolate treats so that's the inspiration behind this kit. I'll publish more elements during the next few posts with this color scheme. Collect them all, you can have the email updates here if you don't want to miss them :)

The font used is Cameo Appearance.

Download Chocolate | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

February Round-Up P365

2010-02-06T22:07:00.001-05:00

Are you all continuing your projects 365? I'd love to hear more about them! A few readers sent me links to pages they created with the January template, it's always amazing (and motivating) to see your work with them :)

So today I'm releasing the February template. It can be used with the February date stickers here. Like the January template, I've included the Quick Page, and all other elements as a mini-kit. Have fun :)

Download February RoundUp | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Zoo Animal Word Art

2010-02-04T23:00:00.001-05:00

I'm still playing around with the Xenography font and went ahead creating some zoo related word art. So I created a Zebra, Tiger and Snake texture to the font.

For those doing zoo related layouts, I have more freebies available for you:
lions, koalas, elephants, penguins, the Africa kit, and why not admission tickets.

The paws print brushes used on the cover picture are from Obsidian Dawn.

Download Zoo Words Art | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Some letters!

2010-02-01T21:56:00.000-05:00

This freebie is some letters I created using the font Xenography as a template, and added colors to them so they look like little scraps of papers...

The letters are in .png files, there are the 26 letters of the alphabet in capitals. They come in vivid colors. Hope you live them! I also included the word love, as February is the love month so it may be useful.

Download Alphabet | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie Hearts

2010-01-28T22:24:00.000-05:00

With Valentine's day being the next 'holiday', there is no getting around them! Hearts are everywhere! Do you feel the love yet???

Here is a set of 4 hearts with decorations. These were made with the Flower Frames brushes by Generosa. Beautiful, worth the download!

If you want more love related stuff, visit my Valentine's day gallery.

Download Hearts2 | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: February Date Stickers

2010-01-26T13:54:00.000-05:00

Here is another set of date stickers (January stickers are available here). In this set you're getting all 28 stickers. Nice for journaling or for Projects 365.

The font used in this freebie is Stencil Std, which comes with Photoshop CS4. You can find a very similar free font at TradeBit: Stencil Std Bold

Download February Stickers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Scrapblog: a reader's review

2010-01-24T22:29:00.005-05:00

A guest post by MrsPeel, from Enjoying the Simple Abundance, reviewing Scrapblog. You can also read her review of Smilebox here.

After using Smilebox I came across Scrapblog.com and, this, by far, takes all the prizes, an absolute winner.

An online program, Scrapblog is free to use, lets you play around with elements, backgrounds, edit your photos, crop & resize,include links and videos,music, transitions....the features are amazing and it is really, really easy to learn, with many tutorials on video and the blog & forums always there to help.

Now, for us, who started as the site was starting, a small team running the ship, a small community,everything was free for almost two years.

Early 2009 though, the Market Place started. Of course we knew this one day would have to happen, none does anything for free these days (or almost none!) they have to earn their living as the team grew, the program developed...

With the program still free to use, and LOTS of stuff for free (one could make a 20 pages scrapblog without needing to pay a penny (or cent!) is still really difficult to resist temptation with all the fabulous designers who have stores there...so I started spending a bit of money...after all, I was making my daughter's year books and it was worth it...

The way it works: You register in in a very, very simple process. You will then will have a page for all your creations, click on the Create new which will open the builder (working area)
when you click in "get stickers" or "backgrounds", it will take you to the Market Place

There you can choose "Least Credits" and all the free stuff will come up, or browse by tag, color, theme, even go to each designer store without leaving Scrapblog.

If you click on a priced item,(just slightly moving your mouse over the item will tell you) the window will open to ask you to credit your account.

Every thing you buy it's yours to use for ever, goes into the "purchased items* area of your builder, but, contrary to elements and papers bought in designers online stores,or anything we get through file sharing, these cannot be used outside Scrapblog. Remember you also need to have a good working net connection for the program to work.

U$10 will buy you 500 credits, U$25 1000 credits, and so on.

The cheapest sticker (element) is 10 credits and the most expensive is 30 credits. Backgrounds go for 25,50 and 75 credits.

One can also choose to start with a theme: there are free and priced themes, and one can either leave it as it is or move everything around, switch between pages, very much freedom for creativity.
They lately introduced the Quick-Mix, which are Quick Pages in which you need to do nothing but upload your photos....the program will allocate them into the pages, with freedom for you to change anything you aren't happy with.

The printing available is ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL....I have printed cards (U$1.99 per a 3 page card) calendars (U$24.99) and a diversity of books, well priced and (I repeat) absolutely wonderful quality. I had a calendar printed for my mum, then soft covers books, but the winner has to be the keepsake book...this are a bit bigger than an A4 page, in hard cover and the quality is superb. In these kind I am making my daughter's year books, every year one keepsake book.

They are U$34.99 for 20 pages, with the possibility of adding pages for an extra 90 cents or so. My books are never less than 50 something pages, the longest reaching almost 80....still, not only the pleasure of having composed them entirely, but the happiness in my daughter's face...every penny is well worth it.

If you are in the UK though(or further, as they are based in the USA), delivery can prove a bit expensive, especially because they don't have an "add to cart" feature, so one ends up paying about U$40 delivery per book...but no need to panic: do what I did.

Get a friend in the US to receive them for you. You will still pay delivery per book but only within the US (much cheaper), then ask your friend to go to a post office,,send you all the books together...it works a bit cheaper that way. (or so I think!)

Another really good side of Scrapblog. com is the community and the team, they are pretty good at listening to customers needs, will always go the extra mile to help, there are forums, challenges and always new features and general stuff.

So why, I hear you asking, did I go for the other programs if Scrapblog is the winner?

Well, you see, once I discovered the magic of PNGs, the wonderful world of DigiFree(recently renamed CraftCrave) and people like our dear Rosemarie here @ Pixel Scrapbooking, I had so much beautiful stuff I wanted to use, and I had payed nothing for it....
Scrapblog may prove that tricky.

They do not stop you using your own files, but to do so, you will need to bring them in through Photobucket, otherwise they will show the transparent layer as a white square. Sometimes it works just fine: you click "get photos" click Photobucket from next menu, get them, fine. Many, many times this just does not happen. Why? it puzzles me too.

Never mind the free stuff in Scrapblog, I was getting so tempted by new stickers and backgrounds, I started spending money in the Market Place....soon I realized I had spent over a U$100...and then I remembered about making calculations about a program I saw advertised being around U$50.....problem being that in the past year I had switched from PC to Mac.

So this program was ScrapbookMax V2.0, and after that I bought Digital Scrapbooking Artist by Serif, both on the same price line,both allow you to use your own , designer or freebies PNGs,but will be telling you more about them later, as I can see this went a long way already!

(Rosemarie's note: stay tuned for MrsPeel upcoming ScrapbookMax review).

MrsPeel is an former performer, eternal traveler, a warrior of life and of course, an avid digital scrapbooker. Follow her at Enjoying the Simple Abundance; you can also visit her Scrapblog gallery

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Smilebox - a reader's review

2010-01-24T22:28:00.003-05:00

A guest post by MrsPeel, from Enjoying the Simple Abundance, reviewing the Smilebox.com program. You can also read her review of Scrapblog here.

In scrapbooking, like most of other stuff to do with technology, I had to find my way on my own...
My start was knowing nothing and developing into a knowledge hunger which sent me investigating, so I thought I would share my findings with you, trying to avoid my Latin vein, I will try to make this short and to the point (which, if you know me, will know is NOT an easy task LOL)

So, I have tried a few programs, starting with Visit Smilebox.com: this is perfect for those who look for a quick solution: just choose the designs, they have hundreds and hundreds, stick your photos in, some text...choose music, in some cases color scheme...presto! ready to send to friends and family, and, allegedly, print your creations. This proved wrong with me, we could not print a single page, though we had payed for the annual subscription which at the time seemed reasonable. It was early 2007 and I knew nothing about scrapbooking, so a year for U$44 worked out (at the much better exchange rate then) £22.

I was happy until later in the year the system messed about with one of my photo folders, I contacted them and they did...nothing.

I was terrified of messing up another folder so I left it alone, never touched it again: another mistake.
If you do get a subscription and do not longer want the program, contact them to cancel, otherwise they will take your money out the following year without prior notification.
Available for both PC & Mac.

Mrs Peel is an former performer, eternal traveler, a warrior of life and of course, an avid digital scrapbooker. Follow her at Enjoying the Simple Abundance

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Freebie: Stars and moon papers

2010-01-22T22:44:00.001-05:00

I was having a look at some scrapbook layouts made by some of you and space seems to be a popular theme lately... So I made these two papers, created with elements from past kits: moons and charms (both free). One paper is with a moon man, the other is just a starry paper. Both are 12inches papers, .jpg, 300 dpi, suitable for printing.

Download Papers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Digital Charms

2010-01-22T00:01:00.001-05:00

A bit of bling-bling for your layouts! 2 stars-and-chains charms, one in gold and one in silver. They are 300 dpi, png files, transparent background. Shadows for preview only.

If you need more charms, check out my metallic tags.

Download Charms | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Journaling papers

2010-01-20T22:29:00.001-05:00

This digital freebie consist of 5 pieces of journaling papers. A little texture was added to the lined papers, along with flower doodles. These doodles were made using the free photoshop brushes called Flower Doodles by harisenpower.splinder.com. All files are 300 dpi, png files. Shadows for preview only.

Another freebie with journaling papers can be found here.

Download Journaling papers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie Dotted Flowers

2010-01-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

Today's freebie is a small set of 2 geometrical dotted flowers. They are both transparent (only the dots will show), in .png 300dpi.

If you like flowers I have another set of painted flowers available here.

Download Flowers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Organize your digital scrapbooking collection! QuickTip1

2010-01-17T22:05:00.008-05:00

Today I wanted to share a quick tip tutorial to help you organize your digital scrapbooking files. If you're like me, it doesn't take too much time before the scrapbooking kits piles up in a folder or two....

Did you know there was a nice way to have large thumbnails of your kits, so it makes it easier to locate the files you are looking for?

Note: I'm using Windows XP, but you can probably do the same thing with newer windows versions.

First, I wanted to show you the final result screenshot:

Here's how you can have those big thumbnails.

First, go your main digital scrapbooking folder, and select the thumbnail view:

The default view will be like this:

Now right-click on the file thumbnail and select properties:

Select the Customize tab, and then Choose picture

Select the picture you want, then click Open, followed by Ok.

You're all done! No more searching through files with obscure names!!! I started including the Cover picture in my freebies so you can use them as thumbnails. Let me know in the comments if you found this little tutorial useful!

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Folded heart freebies

2010-01-17T00:06:00.001-05:00

Love is in the air!! I loved the LOVE freebie tag made a few days ago, and wanted to expand on the theme a little. So I came up with these paper folded hearts, and added the tag and a nice bow to hold it :) Feel free to use them with the pictures of your loved ones! I've also included the blank paper shapes in the kit.

Download Folded Hearts | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Metallic Tags Embellishments

2010-01-15T00:34:00.001-05:00

A set of metallic tags to use on your digital scrapbooking layouts.

All in .png, 300dpi.

Download Metal Tags | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Stamps. And a bonus for friends!

2010-01-13T00:13:00.000-05:00

Dear Reader,

Here is a set of stamp frames. You can use for travel scrapbooking layouts, or with penpal themes. Or you can write a letter, of course.

And to my dear friends, you also get envelopes to go with the stamps. If you're not a friend yet, you can become one by subscribing to this blog (it's free!!) and you'll get your password in the email. Don't forget to activate your subscription!

Photoshop users can complete this kit with free postage brushes available at Brusheezy. Click on the thumbnails to go to the designers pages.

Download Stamps | Download Envelopes (password needed) |
Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: January RoundUp

2010-01-11T23:50:00.000-05:00

Today's freebie is both a kit and a quickpage; use as you wish! You've got the quickpage all ready for you, but I also included separately the wordart, paper, stitches and journaling paper so you can really customize to your needs... I was inspired by friends doing Project 365 (taking a picture every day for a year! I wish I was that dedicated.). Now if you don't have pictures for every day of the month, you can do like me and stretch pics over a few calendar squares, add embellishments, extra journaling.....

The font used on this template is Know Your Product. You can also get the January dates stickers here.

Download January RoundUp | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: January Stickers dates

2010-01-10T00:30:00.001-05:00

Here is a collection of stickers to put dates on your pictures. It can be very useful for those of you doing some Project 365 or monthly roundups.

Of course all days of January were included, I just couldn't fit them all on the preview picture.

Update: The font used in this freebie is Stencil Std, which comes with Photoshop CS4. You can find a very similar free font at TradeBit: Stencil Std Bold

Download January Date Stickers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Polaroid frames freebies

2010-01-07T22:32:00.002-05:00

Here is a set of polaroid frames, there are 3 of them, one single polaroid, and stacks of 2 and 3 polaroids. They can give a bit of retro feel to any digital scrapbooking layout. The files are in PNG and the centers are transparents so you just have to layer the frame on top of your picture and you are done.

Download Polaroids | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Paper embellishments

2010-01-05T23:18:00.001-05:00

A small set of papers to use for journaling on your layouts. There is a square grid, a lined paper, a polar one and a ledger.

Download Papers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Perfect Summer Day

2010-01-04T23:34:00.001-05:00

I'm very excited with this new digital scrapbooking freebie!!
16 papers with texture, word art in French and English, 5 tabs, a color swatch and .ase file, flowers, a set of 5 strait stitches and photo corners. Papers in 12x12 format, everything 300 dpi.

Below is a page I did with it:

( Layout Credits:
Becky Fleck, author of Scrapbook Page Maps: Sketches For Creative Layouts)

Download Perfect Summer Day | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Perfect Summer Day

2010-01-03T22:36:00.001-05:00

This layout was inspired by the Van Gogh palette created for the color swatch tutorial. The colors were so lovely I just had to do something with them :)

Credits: Layout: Scrapbook Page Maps: Sketches For Creative Layouts

Everything else is by me and is now released as a freebie!

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies!

The 5 Most popular posts of 2009!

2009-12-30T22:46:00.001-05:00

Please note the comment form is now fixed so you can all leave me some comments love :)

Well well, 2009 is almost gone it's a great time to reflect on the past....

First of all, I would like to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to visit this site :) You've been 5,250 visitors since this blog was created. Together you downloaded 6,500 freebies. When I first started the blog I was wondering if my little designs would interest anyone.... So thanks again you all.

The 5 most popular posts of 2009 were:

Christmas Tree Background

Africa

Old maps

Race cars

Star Shapes

Goals and aspirations for 2010

Well, I want to keep this blog alive and growing. I want to connect more with you readers, within the comments (now fixed! Thanks to reader Lucas for the heads up!) or via facebook. Those of you who have a blog, drop me a link in the comments and I'll go visit you :)

So for the new year I wish you all a healthy happy fun year. And plenty of scrapbooking opportunities! Cheers!

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Tutorial: using a color swatch in Photoshop

2009-12-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

Using a color swatch in Photoshop is the best way to have all your color at hand when doing your layouts.

In this tutorial I'm using Photoshop CS4 but I'm quite sure it works with other version as well.

Steps:
To obtain a swatch usable in photoshop you can use the BigHugeLabs Color Palette Generator.

Here I'm extracting a palette inspired by a Van Gogh painting. Click the download button and save the .ase file on your computer.

In photoshop, find and open your swatches tab. Mine is on the upper right corner.

Click on the little icon shown below, it will open a menu. Select Load Swatches

Use the dropdown menu to select .ase files. You can now select your BigHugeLabs file you downloaded earlier.

Once done, all the colors from your palette are placed in your swatch. You can now use them at will :)

Don't miss a post, a tutorial or upcoming freebies!

Photoshop Tutorial: star shapes

2009-12-28T23:09:00.000-05:00

This post is a tutorial showing you how to have shapes traced with stars. I'm using Photoshop CS4.

Here is the final product; also, you can have a few shapes already made for you as a freebie.

So here we go:

Open your original picture in photoshop. (Note: in this tutorial I'm using a black background as it's easier to see the shapes, rather than my original picture).

The first step is to setup your star brush. Select the star brush as shown below; the star brush is in the assorted brushes panel.

2. Click on the brush edit button (mine is on the right of the screen). Select brush tip shape, and play with the spacing slider until you get some distance between each star.

Go in the shape dynamics panel. Now set up the size jitter and angle jitter so each star will have a different size and angle. Play around with different values.

Now the scattering panel. This affect the distance between your stars and the path you'll create a few steps later.

Now it's time to create the path. In this example I used the ellipse path

ON A NEW LAYER above your picture, draw your shape.Right-click your selection and select Make Work Path. Select 1 pixel as tolerance.

Then select the pen tool

Right click in your work path, and select Stroke Path

Make sure Brush is the selection in the drop-down menu. The Simulate pressure is up to you. If you check it, the stars will start very small and will become bigger along the path. If you un-check it they will be roughly the same size (depending on the size jitter you selected earlier)

You can stoke the path once or multiple times if you want more stars. I stroke mine 3 times. Once done, right click again on your path and use Delete Path.

Last step, with the eraser, remove any unwanted stars. I removed the ones that were on the antlers and hats, so the stars seems to go behind us. You're done!!

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies!

Freebie: Shaped stars paths

2009-12-27T22:29:00.003-05:00

Today's digital scrapbooking freebie is a set of shapes created with stars paths. They can be used as overlays for your layouts. You are getting a heart, two ellipses, a star, a moon and a swirl. All files are in PNG format, 300 dpi. You can see how I used the ellipse below. I also created a tutorial so you can recreate this effect.

Here's how I used an ellipse to create a bit of magic on a Christmas picture:

Download Star Shapes | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Nepal - vintage layout

2009-12-22T23:32:00.002-05:00

Back in 2003 I did a trek in Nepal; one of the most amazing place on earth. For a few days I was walking into another world. Often times we could walk all alone along the single path leading to Mt. Everest, in the Himalayas. And we came across this grazing yak. It's like a furry cow with big horns. Very impressive, especially that at high altitude we didn't ofter see animals. I felt like an adventurer, in the 1900's. That's why I choose to do a vintage styled layout.

(to view full size click on the image)

Credits:

Brushes: Office Tools by Inobscuro
Layout: Scrapbook Page Maps: Sketches For Creative Layouts

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Paisleys freebie digital scrapbooking

2009-12-21T23:20:00.002-05:00

Here is a nice set of 5 paisleys doodles to use on your digital scrapbooks. Two of them are .png overlays and the other three are brightly colored paisleys. They will give a nice ethnic flavor to your layouts!!

Download Paisleys | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

How to put text in a shape with photoshop

2009-12-18T22:59:00.001-05:00

This tutorial was created using photoshop CS4. It is in two parts, to create two different effects. It is an intermediate level tutorial, assuming you have a basic knowledge of photoshop. Also, the pictures files are downloadable as a freebie :) You will get both Circle of life texts with shapes, and also some heart shaped texts with a Shannon Crown quote saying The best thing about me is you.

Tutorial: Text in a shape with photoshop

Step 1: Open a new file. I used 6x6 inches, 300 dpi

Step 2: Create a new layer by clicking on the New layer icon in the bottom right.

Step 3: Create your shape. In this case I selected the ellipse shape tool to make a circle (to make a perfect circle, hold the SHIFT key while tracing it).

Step 4: With the magic wand tool, highlight the shape you just created. Then right-click it, and select Make work path. When prompted, set the tolerance to 1 pixel. (if you're having issues here, you might be in vector mode..... rastarize your layer if it's the case)

Step 5: Create a new layer as in step 2

Step 6a: If you want your text to fill in your shape, hit the Text button, then hoover your mouse well within your shape until your cursor gets a little dotted circle around it, left click and type in your text. In my case I used the lyrics of the song Circle of Life, by Tim Rice.

Step 7: Once your text is in your shape, you can play with the text size and color to get the effect you want. When you're happy with your text, click on the shape layer to hide it, so only the text layer is left. You can also hide your background layer and save as a transparent .png file. You're done!

Alternate step 6b: If what you want to do is to have your text on the outline of the shape, do as in step 6a but instead of clicking IN the shape, click on the BORDER of the shape. Your cursor will have a wavy line to show you are at the right place. You can play with the text settings to adjust to your liking, then hide your shape layer.

I hope you found this tutorial useful, if you have questions or get stuck while doing it drop me a line in the comments. And if you succeed, send me a link of your layout or upload it in the Pixel Scrapbooking Facebook Fan page so I can have a peek! I'd love to see your creations!!

Download Text in Shapes | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Ginger Society Freebie

2009-12-16T23:31:00.000-05:00

Here is a fun little kit to add humor to Christmas scrap pages!

It's a set of 6 ginger cookies, all in 300 dpi, so printable as well for hybrid scrappers as well as digital scrappers. I left one blank so you can decorate it as you like.

Download Ginger Society | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Weather doodle freebies

2009-12-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

Where I live, weather is usually a conversation starter, because it varies so much... from -30c to +30c, snow, rain, heat waves, fog, we've got it all.

So I was in the mood for little crayon doodles, as that's what I did today with the munchkins. In the kit you will find a sun, a cloud, a snowflake, a rain drop, a lightning bolt and a sun-n-cloud doodle. They are in .png format, with transparency.

Download Weather Doodles | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

14 Digital Scrapbooking Sites To Discover

2009-12-14T23:20:00.001-05:00

Here is a collection of hand picked websites to discover, especially if you are starting in digital scrapbooking.

A lot of these sites could enter many categories. I selected the categories I thought was the best fit!

Freebies:

DigiFree
DigiFree is a blog created by a computerized search engine that looks for blog postings which contain freebies.

The Blog Train Blog
Every month a new blog train filled with freebies. All aboard!

Digital Scrapbook Faves
Digital Scrapbook Faves is the free digital scrapbooking place to find hundreds of new digital scrapbooking freebies, tutorials, tools and promotions, updated several times daily

Free Digital Scrapbooking.com
Great digital freebies, information, and tutorials.

Forever Free Downloads
A place where digital designers and layout artists could stop in and pick up a free resource every week

Creative Buzy Hands
A digital freebie search engine

Polarfuchs Treasures
Original freebies by Chris

Bethany Elegant WordArt
Elegant word art to add to your scrapbooks. Bethany knows how to put words together!

Tutorials:

Gotta Pixel
Gotta Pixel is an outstanding and comprehensive digital scrapbooking community that provides a wide range of services for your digital scrapbook and hybrid projects.

ToNoodle
Beginner to advanced Photoshop video tutorials for digital photographers, digital scrapbook lovers and anyone who just wants to know how to use Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS3 better than ever

Forum:

DigiscrapAddicts
As of today: Threads: 6,794, Posts: 49,355, Members: 17,644. That's a lot of addicts!

Inspiration Galleries:

Flickr Digital Scrapbooking groups. I like to use the diaporama link (on the upper right corner), sit back, relax, and be inspired!

Digital Doodlez Scrapbooking
Digital Scrapbooking Magazine
Scrapbook

| Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Digital scrapbooking Old Map freebie

2009-12-12T23:44:00.005-05:00

It's been a while since I haven't produced something special for my scrapbooking friends!

So today I have 2 sets of digital scrapbooking maps to download!!
Credits: I used this excellent Waterlogged Map Brushes by ~Arbenting. Wow!

The first one is a world map available for anyone to download.

The second set is a series of maps... but only for the blog subscribers!! (you can become one here to get your password... and it's free!) Americas, Europe, Italy, a location unknown (if anyone knows tell me in the comments please!!!) and the blank paper so you can use it as a background for text or old pics. Hope you enjoy them!!

Warning: the files are huge, as the maps are highly detailed.

Download World Map (all) |Download Maps (password needed)|
Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Compass and other wood inlays

2009-12-10T23:29:00.003-05:00

This freebie consists of 4 different wood inlays (or marquetry). All made with high resolution wood textures, ideal for old feel digital scrapbooking projects.

Download Wood | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Smilebox: Software review

2009-12-08T21:01:00.006-05:00

Publisher info:

Smilebox is a fun and engaging service that connects you with family and friends using your photos and videos. It's free, easy to use, and the results are amazing. With Smilebox, you can create animated scrapbooks, photobooks, slideshows, postcards, and ecards for any occasion, and email them to anyone. You can personalize and email or blog any design for free. You can also do more by purchasing the premium version of a design or joining Club Smilebox.

Who is this software for?
Anyone looking for layout ideas and design inspiration
Absolute beginners who wants to see what can be done with digital scrapbooking

Pros:
Very inspiring, new templates are constantly added.
Great content, quick and easy way to add photos, video and music.
Very simple and fast sharing mechanisms.
Those you send to don't need the application to view your creations.

Cons:
Not available in other languages.
Ads in the free sharing.
The free version doesn't allow you to print or save as .jpg file.

Smilebox is the software that got me started in digital scrapbooking. I was happy to be able to download the free version, even if there are less sharing possibilities (or sign up for the free 14-days trial). You can view a few pages I made here.

As with many trial version of softwares, you get different features with basic, premium or club versions. Here are the main differences:

The catalog, which holds tons of design templates, has five project categories: Scrapbooks, Slideshows, Photobooks, Postcards, and Greetings.

With this software creating a scrapbook is a matter of a few minutes. Download the design of your choice, upload your images to the left holding area, then use drag-and-drop to place them on the pages. You can zoom, rotate, center, black-and-white and remove photos.

Each template lets you choose music that will play when anyone views the scrapbook. Or you can select none (personally I'm not into music & scrappin'...). Some templates let you select background colors and also add text.

To e-mail your design, you just click Send, then enter the address and a personal message. Smilebox automatically remembers addresses you previously entered. Those you send to don't need the application to view your creations.

So, with all that being said, I think Smilebox should be the first step to anyone starting in digital scrapbooking. However, it's real hidden power is to be a source of inspiration to any seasoned scrapbooker because the layouts are truly amazing..

You can get this software at Smilebox.com

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Beginners Guide to Digital Scrapbooking - Part 1

2009-12-08T11:09:00.006-05:00

Digital scrapbooking is a different way to capture memories and creating personal art that transforms your memories into treasures.

If you want to explore the possibilities of digital scrapbooking, then the following series of posts will be very useful to get you started.

Image credits larskflem

Basics

It goes without saying that you need a computer with memory space. Not necessarily tons of memory, but some images are large in size. One 12x12 digital paper file can be 1-2 MB depending on the quality of the image. Some kits are between 10-12 MB.

Step 1: Getting digital pictures

The foundation of scrapbooking - be it digital or traditional - is pictures. For digital scrapbooking, you need to get them onto your computer. There are a few way to do that.

Digital Cameras

The easiest way to have digital pictures is to take them with a digital camera. In the past years the prices have dropped significantly. $100-$300 can get you a decent camera. A good place to shop and compare them are at Amazon: Amazon Digital Camera Bestsellers list. Download photos from your camera to your computer following the instructions that came with your camera.

Photos and Slides Scanners

If you want to use old photos in your scrapbook layouts, a scanner will be needed. Many models are now built solely for this purpose; they can scan pictures, negatives and slides. It does take a bit more time but in my opinion it's well worth it. Amazon Bestsellers in Slide & Photo.

Photo Lab

Your local photolab, such at Wal-Mart or others, can develop your photographs and include a copy of them on a Photo CD or post them online. It will cost you a few extra dollars. Some also have self-served scanners for existing pictures.

In upcoming posts we will cover the next steps:
Step 2: Photo Editing Software
Step 3: Laying Out Your Pages
Step 4: Sharing

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all Beginners posts

Freebie Admission Tickets

2009-12-07T22:47:00.002-05:00

A set of 12 admission tickets, a bit old and worn out...

Today's digital scrapbooking freebie is ideal for movies, fairs, amusement parks, zoos, concerts, or any event that needs an entrance ticket. Each ticket is made with 3 colors, green, brown and pink, and have the words: Admit One, Ticket, Carnival or blank.

Download Tickets | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Announcement! New look!

2009-12-06T23:15:00.002-05:00

As you can see, we've been having a make over. Hopefully navigation will now be easier, with thumbnails with all posts, excerpts and improved labels.

Unfortunately, by dropping the Intense Debate commenting systems, all the previous comments were eaten by gremlins. I contacted their support only to find that it was impossible to get them back as they are having bugs. Grrrr. I do have a printed copy I kept for my personal enjoyment so thanks to all of you who took time to comment and please continue to do so! I'm sticking to this now tried and tested and loved commenting systems and there will be no switching back.

You can also see on the main Home page that there are a few categories empty. I intend to fill them in the upcoming weeks. There will be beginners lessons and softwares reviews coming up.

I hope you enjoy the new look, let me know in the comments if there are issues. I tested it in a few browsers and it looked fine from my side.

Freebie Candy Canes

2009-12-06T23:07:00.004-05:00

A yummy selection of 4 candy canes digital scrapbooking elements. All in PNG format, 300 dpi, printable.

Download Candy Canes | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Koalas Freebie Zoo Digital Scrapbooking

2009-12-03T22:46:00.004-05:00

Koala Digital Scrapbooking Freebies

The zoo theme is still going strong! You can get today these cute koalas to go with the zoo collection. Hope you like them!

On a side note I will be away from the blog for a few days. My son Simon turns 3 tomorrow! Will see you all back on Monday, and there is a strong possibility that this blog will have a new look by then! Just a makeover, as they say: New look, same great taste!

Download Koala | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Announcement!

2009-12-01T23:38:00.003-05:00

Pixel Scrapbooking is now on facebook :)

You can join by clicking on the widget in the right side bar; looking forward to meet you there!

On the facebook page it will be possible to upload your scrapbook layouts made with the freebies from this site, and have space for discussions, feedback, requests, etc etc. And making new friends along the way.

Make way for the elephants!

2009-12-01T23:30:00.004-05:00

Digital scrapbooking freebie: Cartoon elephant stickers, buttons and badge. 300 dpi printable.

Well well, these elephants are so big I can't hide them anymore! And they are very friendly with the lions and the penguins :)

Download elephants | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Zoo Animals 2 : Penguins

2009-11-30T23:33:00.004-05:00

This post is part of the Zoo Theme currently going on. Last post was all about lions, and there will be more zoo animal digital scrapbooking elements to download soon! Don't miss them!

Today you are getting Penguins! I was inspired by the weather since we had snow today. The perfect kind of snow to make snowmen :) So that's why I chose an animal from a cold climate. As with the previous set, you get 3 papers, stickers (with and without shadows), buttons and a badge.

Download Penguins | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Weekend Link Love

2009-11-29T22:52:00.006-05:00

(Note: there is a video embedded in this post; if you read it through a reader or email, you can view it on the blog).

As a complement to the Christmas Ornaments freebies, the following video tutorial made from The Scrappin Cop explain how to thread something in a photo editing software. In her example, it's a ribbon threaded through a charm, but this technique can be used as well with the ornaments, if you want them to appear as if they were hung. Please visit her site, and you can also grab her ribbons and strings freebies!

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Zoo Animals part 1: Lions

2009-11-29T00:53:00.003-05:00

Over the next few posts you'll be able to download a few sets of zoo animals digital scrapbooking elements. Stickers, badges, buttons, and doodles. Today our featured animal is a cute lion..... Elephants, giraffes, monkeys and more to come! Be sure to collect them all !

Each kit also contain three digital papers, 6x6 inches, 300 dpi, suitable for printing.

Download lions | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Christmas Ornaments

2009-11-26T23:08:00.002-05:00

Freebie description: A set of digital scrapbooking Christmas themed ornaments. 300 dpi, printable.

Following last post Christmas Elegant Papers, today there is a small collection of tree ornaments digital scrapbook elements available for everyone to grab:

Also today there is a little bonus for the blog friends. Another set of ornaments, this time with glitter! You'll need your password to download the file, if you're not a friend yet, you can become one here. It's free!

Download Ornaments |Download Glitter Ornaments |
Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie: Christmas Backgrounds

2009-11-24T21:39:00.002-05:00

Here is a little set of 5 elegant Christmas tree backgrounds.

In this kit you get the backgrounds as shown, also the Christmas tree on a transparent layer and the blank backgrounds as well. All backgrounds are 12 inches square format, 300 dpi.

Download Christmas Tree | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

4 online tools to create digital scrapbooking backgrounds

2009-11-23T23:10:00.005-05:00

A good background is the foundation of a good scrapbook. Here are 4 online tools to make unique, customized backgrounds that will match perfectly your pictures.

Be sure to check this post on how to create color palettes from your pictures. You can then use your color codes to create the backgrounds.

BgPatterns.com
BgPatterns is a tiled background that let you create patterned backgrounds using 2 colors, and a nice selections of patterns. You can tweak things like scale, image rotation, and opacity for controlling how much of each element you can see.

ColourLovers
At ColourLovers you can create both custom palettes and generate patterns from them. It's also a great community and you can browse what others have created. And you can export your palettes in a variety of format.

TartanMaker
If you need to create a tartan pattern, TartanMaker is the best site! Select the number of bands that you want to use and each of their colors, specify the orientation, choose the yarn size, and click make it to create a downloadable image.

Stripe Generator 2.0
Finally, if you need stripes, you can get them at Stripe Generator. All kind of stripes can be created, horizontals, diagonals, etc. Set the spacing, colors, size, background and orientation, then download your stripes to use wherever you want.

So these are a nice little collection of tools for the digital scrapbooking enthusiast.

If you know about more free online tools, share them in the comment section :)

Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies!

Rainbows Quick Page

2009-11-21T00:19:00.003-05:00

A digital scrapbooking quick page with a Rainbows and Umbrellas theme.

This QP is sized as a regular page (8.5" x 11"), 300 dpi, in PNG format.

If you like this page, you can become a Pixel Scrapbooking subscriber (it's free!) and have all freebies delivered strait in your inbox!

Download Rainbows | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Digital Countries Badges - Set 4

2009-11-19T23:06:00.002-05:00

Here is the set 4 of the digital scrapbooking countries badges collection (view set 1, set 2, set 3).

In this digital scrapbooking kit you'll find the following countries flags and buttons:
Columbia, Croatia, Denmark, Grenada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Jordan, Peru, Puerto Rico, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam.

If you want badges from countries that aren't there yet, leave your request in the comment section, and as soon as there are 10 or so countries requests I'll do a new kit :)

Download Countries 4 | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebies Archive

2009-11-18T21:07:00.021-05:00

Freebie Archive has been relocated here: Freebie Archive

Countries Flags and buttons - Set 3

2009-11-16T22:29:00.003-05:00

Phew! A new set of flags and buttons digital scrapbooking embellishments are available for download. This time it's Sweden, Thailand, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Greece, Slovakia, Norway and Argentina! This time you get both flags and buttons in the same download.

You can still download Countries Badges Free digital scrapbooking embellishments 1 and Countries badges 2.

Download Countries 3 | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Race Cars!

2009-11-14T23:07:00.006-05:00

Life in the fast lane!! Today's digital scrapbooking freebie is a set of race cars, flags and word art.

If you like this kit, I have a ever growing collection of digital scrapbooking freebies available for download. Consider becoming a friend of Pixel Scrapbooking so you don't miss any of the upcoming freebies!

Download Race Cars | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Free Digital Country Badges 2 (and a bonus for friends!)

2009-11-12T22:45:00.005-05:00

This is part 2 of the Countries Badges and Buttons series. You can get part 1 here.

Today it's Belgium, Italy, Russia, Mexico, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Poland and New Zealand turn to get their free digital scrapbooking embellishments.

Next in line are: Sweden, Thailand, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Greece, Slovakia, Norway and Argentina!

Again, Pixel Scrapbooking Friends gets the buttons as well! You can download here once you have your password

Download Badges 2 | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Easily create color palettes from a digital picture

2009-11-11T22:01:00.007-05:00

One of the challenge of digital scrapbooking is to create backgrounds, embellishments and word art that will highlight our pictures. But thanks to digital pictures and the web, creating a color palette that match a picture is now easier than ever.

These online tools are huge time savers.

Let's find what colors match this picture:

DeGraeve.Com
The tool will create 2 distinct palettes, a dull one and a vibrant one. Each of these palettes will contain 5 colors extracted from your picture, along with the color codes.

Color Hunter
To use Color Hunter you can use a tag code, hex code, your image url or upload your image from your hard drive. You get 1 color palette built with 5 colors, along with the color codes. The generator works better if you use a small thumbnail of your picture. Clicking on the little sun icon below the palette will swich from dull to vibrant colors.

Big Huge Labs
To use the Big Huge Labs Color Palette Generator, you can upload a file from your hard drive, or from Flickr or Facebook. You can also download these swatches in Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) format for Photoshop or compatible applications. This generator will generate more than 5 colors (if applicable) for your picture.

When you have your color codes, you can use them in your digital scrapbooking software to create custom backgrounds or embellishments that will make your picture really stand out.

If you found this post useful, get more of them by email updates!

Free Digital Country Badges (and a bonus for friends!)

2009-11-10T23:31:00.004-05:00

I was checking the stats for Pixel Scrapbooking and was surprised that people from 62 countries came so far. Wow!!!!! I have traveled quite a bit before the kids came along, and I miss it a lot! And all those travel pictures does make some of the best digital scrapbooking pages.

So the freebie for today is a set of 10 embroided badges embellishments, from the 10 most popular countries that came on this site. So for today we have USA, Canada, France, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Czech Republic, UK and Australia. I intend to make badges for every single country that came over here, so don't miss the upcoming posts! Belgium, Italy, Russia, Mexico, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Poland and New Zealand, you're next!

Also, for friends of Pixel Scrapbooking are countries buttons to go along the badges! If you're not a friend yet, here's how you can become one! (hint: it's easy, free and painless!). Once you have your password you can download here

Download Badges 1-10 | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Moons Freebie!

2009-11-08T23:05:00.003-05:00

Today's digital srapbooking embellishments freebie is a set of 5 moons. All of them are on a transparent background, in .png format.

Download Moons | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Link Love Friday.... Ocean... from around the web

2009-11-06T21:40:00.002-05:00

Every Friday Pixel Scrapbooking is featuring great digital scrapbooking elements available for downloading. Today I would like to continue with the Ocean theme.

The pictures will bring you to the designers blogs.

Don't miss a post, a tutorial or upcoming freebies!

The Ocean Stickers are here!

2009-11-05T23:11:00.004-05:00

These digital scrapbooking stickers were designed to go along the Ocean QP, Starfish and Origami fish embellishments. In this kit you will find a few octopus, whale and starfish stickers (all with googly eyes because I love googly eyes!). Also included is a 'pen' doodle of a coral reef. These fish and sea creatures, even if they are digital, need a hideaway!

Download Stickers | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Freebie! Starfish embellishments

2009-11-04T22:52:00.004-05:00

To continue on the ocean digital scrapbooking theme, we need starfish, don't we??

So here are 9 of them in different colors. They can be used as regular stars as well!

In my next post I'll give away cute cartoon digital stickers... Starfish, octopus, crabs, shells... Don't miss them!

Download Stars | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Free digital scrapbooking embellishments: origami fishes

2009-11-03T22:40:00.004-05:00

This digital scrapbooking kit is part of the Paper Ocean Kit. You can find a quick page here.

This kit include 5 embellishments, one 12in background and a pattern.

Download Paper Ocean kit | Don't miss a post or freebie! | View all freebies

Free Paper Ocean Quick Page

2009-11-02T21:47:00.008-05:00

You'll soon be able to get a free full digital scrapbooking set with an Ocean theme. All the elements are going to be mimic paper, so you will see torn papers, origami fishes, and some bic ballpoint pen doodles. As a taster, here is the first quick page. I will release the elements in the upcoming posts, so make sure to come back soon if you liked this quick page. It is 12x12 inches, 300 dpi, in .png format.

Download the Paper Ocean QP | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

6 Halloween themed digital scrapbook freebies! Last Call!

2009-10-30T22:08:00.010-04:00

Are you ready for halloween? We are! Today the boys and I made 5 pumpkins costumes, we will be a pumpkin patch family :)

Here are a few more halloween freebies gathered from all corner of the internet. Don't be too scared and get inspired!

From the folks at SmileBox, template Frightful. To use this template you need their free software, but there are so many high quality templates to choose from it's just crazy!!! Download SmileBox here.

From Just Mommies.

From Free Digital Scrapbooking

From Polarfuchs Treasures

From ScrapGirls

From the folks at SmileBox, template Scared Silly.

Don't miss a post, a tutorial or upcoming freebies!

Create an old feel photograph with cyanotypes

2009-10-27T10:24:00.006-04:00

This tutorial is part of the Turn your Photos into Artwork series.

Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that gives a cyan-blue print. The process was popular in engineering circles well into the 20th century. The simple and low-cost process enabled them to produce large-scale copies of their work, referred to as blueprints.

This was a simple process allowing them to bypass the dark chamber and allowed them to do 'photocopies'.

From Wikipedia:

This effect can be reproduced in photoshop with only a few steps:

Here is my original photo:

Open your file in photoshop.

Select Image - Mode - Grayscale:

Then Image - Mode - Duotone

When prompted, click Discard colors. The duotone options box will pop up. For my color I chose Pantone 424 CVC. Then, click on the curved graph on the left of your blue color.

You can now adjust the curve to your liking. I used the settings below, giving a grayish tone to my blue color.

When your happy with your cyanotype, convert your file back in RGB mode. This will allow you to save your picture in all format (jpeg, png, etc etc).

And you're done! You can obviously crop your picture, play with brightness/contrasts, add noise for a more distress look....

Don't miss a post, a tutorial or upcoming freebies!

Exclusive! Free China Kit

2009-10-25T23:16:00.008-04:00

Download here with your password

This full China kit is a thank you gift for current Pixel Scrapbooking Friends.

How can you become a friend? It's easy and it's free! All you have to do is to sign up to receive posts by email or RSS feed. You can do it here. This provides a great deal of convenience for you, because you won’t even have to visit this website to access all the latest freebies or tutorials. And from time to time exclusive freebies will be available to grab.

You can still download the free for everyone China Mini Kit, containing the tiger and panda stickers (these are included in the full kit as well).

Free China Sneak Peak - Mini Kit

2009-10-22T22:21:00.008-04:00

I'm currently working on a China themed digital scrapbooking kit.

As a taster here's a mini kit of 2 embellishments: 1 panda and 1 tiger stickers.

A full kit will be available soon for free... but only to email or rss readers, as a thank you for reading gift. Don't miss it!

Download the Mini Kit | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

Little Known Ways to Write Captivating Journaling

2009-10-20T10:00:00.015-04:00

Before I started digital scrapbooking, I didn't care what my writing skills were like. I wanted to be clear and understandable. Translating emotions into writing, however, is not always easy. My quest to become a better scrapper led me to the lost art of rhetoric. Rhetoric is, simply put, the effective use of language.

There are many rhetoric techniques, or rhetorical devices, that can give a greater understanding, making your journaling more memorable, in an interesting and entertaining way.

Let's use simple rhetorical devices to enhance and improve the journaling on this (work-in-progress) digital scrapbook layout.

Here's what I typically come up with:

September 2009. We went apple picking at the orchard. Mathias tasted his first apple.

Well, it's descriptive, but a little dry, emotionless.

Then, I added an asyndeton (omitting conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses):

September 2009.
It was a sunny, clear, fresh autumn day. We went apple picking at the orchard. Mathias tasted his first apple.

Now an antithesis (establishes a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure):

September 2009.
It was a sunny, clear, fresh autumn day. We went apple picking at the orchard. The boys gorged themselves on as many apples they could; Mathias, only one.

Finally, an anadiplosis (who comes up with these names!?!) (repeats the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next. it can be generated in series for the sake of beauty or to give a sense of logical progression):

September 2009.
It was a sunny, clear, fresh autumn day. We went apple picking at the orchard. The boys gorged themselves on as many apples they could; Mathias, only one. One apple that was lovingly and carefully chosen by grandma. It was Mathias' first apple.

As you can see, using rhetorical devices not only improve writing skills, but also helps spur creativity and add emotion to your writings.

Here’s an awesome free resource that lists 60 rhetorical devices. Check it out at http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm and try using a few of them in your next journaling session.

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Use the Rule of Thirds for a well balanced digital scrapbooking layout

2009-10-15T21:29:00.009-04:00

As digital scrapbookers, we all want scrapbook pages that will make our pictures to really stand out. But having great pictures and the best kits won't achieve that without a great layout composition. With this tutorial, you will know exactly where to place your different scrapbooking elements to obtain that well balanced page.

The Rule of Thirds

This old compositional rule for artists, designers and photographers, can also be used in digital scrapbooking. Just like every rule can be ignored or bent, using it wisely can create a well balanced layout.

The rule of thirds asks to mentally divide your image with two vertical and two horizontal lines. In general, it works best if the most important elements in your digital layouts are positioned close to these lines, or even better close to the points where they intersect.

In the following example you can see that I placed the journaling, title and photo rectangles right at the intersection points. Even if it's a small layout, your eyes are naturally drawn to the important elements.

To do these grid lines in Photoshop, go to View - New Guides and enter 33,3% on the horizontal. Repeat with the vertical, and then both again for a value of 66,6%. You can save them as an action to make this process faster.

The rule of thirds also applies to photographs. When taking your pictures, don't zoom them too close to your subject. Make sure you have plenty of space around your main subject so you can crop it using these guidelines.

Original pic:

Cropped using rule of thirds:

By using this simple rule you'll have better layouts that allow all your important elements to shine.

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6 Painted flowers - Impressionist style

2009-10-12T22:59:00.007-04:00

Here are 6 flowers embellishments for your digital scrapbooking available as a freebie!
Those were made following my Impressionist Painting Tutorial, so you can make other embellishments using a similar style.

All files are in .png format with a transparent background! Leave me a comment if you like it!

Download here | Get notified when new freebies are available!

See how easily you can paint like Claude Monet - 2

2009-10-10T22:49:00.010-04:00

This is part 2 of the Photoshop Impressionism Tutorial ( read part 1 here ).

1. Open your picture in Photoshop
2. Duplicate the background layer by right-clicking on it.

3. Select the Art History Brush Tool from the menu

4. We'll now start working on the sky. Open the brush menu with the downward arrow, expand it with the right arrow, select the Wet Media Brushes palette, and select Rough Round Bristle. The actual size of the brush depends on your own pic. Experiment.

For the style, go with Tight (short, medium or long) or dab. I choose Tight Long.

5. Paint over the sky on your background copy layer.

6. With the brush Small Oil Brush, with the following settings, paint over the castle:
Mode Normal, Opacity 100%, Style: tight short Area 20 px and Tolerance: 50%

7. Use the eraser if needed to get some details back. Here I used in mainly for the windows. I also used the Smudge and went over some parts:

8. Once your 'painting' is up to your taste, only the lighting effect is left to do. Hit the Hue/Saturation layer in the Adjustments panel

9. Slide the Hue and Saturation sliders (in this example hue: -4, Saturation +54) until you get a warm sunset feel:

10. Do any brush/smudge/color touch up to your image. You're done!

See how easily you can paint like Claude Monet

2009-10-09T22:33:00.005-04:00

This is part one of the Impressionist effect tutorial. ( read part 2 here )

“I would advise young artists . . . to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly . . . . If their painting doesn't improve by itself, it means that nothing can be done - and I wouldn't do anything!” ~Claude Monet

We all have pictures that are just good. I mean, they are ok, nice focus, well centered, nice subject, but, as much as you like it, there is something missing. Oh sure, it will look nice in a digital scrapbook, but with only a few photoshop tools, it can look awesome and give you a nice background for your scrapbook layout.

From Wikipedia (because they can explain better than I can): Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

To achieve that, in this Impressionism Photoshop Tutorial we'll focus on the Art history brush and the color saturation (I'm using the CS4 version, although previous versions have similar tools also). Continue on part 2

Continue on part 2

Turn Your Photos into Artwork (tutorials)

2009-10-06T10:49:00.008-04:00

Your photos are the first, and perhaps only, foundation of a good digital scrapbook. Without that amazing photo, the rest of your layout may not even exist.

Here are some interesting statistics.

On average, 8 out of 10 people will take digital photos, but only 2 out of 10 will take the time to post-process them. This is the secret to amazing pictures, and why it so highly determines the overall look and feel of your digital scrapbook.

This 16-part "Turn Your Photos into Artwork" series will provide you with concrete guidance that’ll have you edit your pictures in no time. Stay tuned!

Impressionism
Motion colors
Pop art
United Colors
Old Photo
Cyanotype
Charcola
Sketcher
Inkify
Color Pinhole
Lomoart
Stenciler
Cartoonizer
Oil painting
Lines
Grunge

Free Halloween Quick Page

2009-10-04T00:15:00.006-04:00

Here is a quick page made with elements from my free halloween kit!

Download the Halloween Quick Page | Get noticed when new freebies are available!

New kit freebie!: Halloween

2009-09-30T00:07:00.009-04:00

Halloween is just around the corner and soon it will be time to do digital scrapbooks themed around this special day (unless you are like me and still working with last year pictures *winks*). This kit includes 6 backgrounds, 1 bat, 3 bat frames, 1 moon, 1 witch, 1 castle, 1 ghost, 1 spider web, 1 tree, 2 patterns and a color swatch! (all shadows/lighting added for demonstration only) Happy downloading!

Click here to download Halloween

Update: View the Halloween free Quick Page add-on!

Brushes Part-1: How to create a brush in Photoshop

2009-09-28T22:54:00.013-04:00

In this part 1 on brushes, we'll focus on how to create a brush in Photoshop. Creating a custom brush saves you time if you have to repeat often an element in a drawing as it will be just a few clicks away. It can also be used with paths to create frames and nice touches in your digital scrapbook.

This tutorial was created with Photoshop CS4.

The first step is to create the object you'll use as the pattern, or you can use any image (make sure it's royalty free!) Here is a little bat I made for an upcoming Halloween free kit! (stay tuned!)

I saved my bat drawing in .png format, with a transparent background.

Then go Edit - Define Brush Preset

A pop-up screen will, well, pop up, and you'll name your brush.

You're first brush is done! You can pick it in your brushes inventory

All there is left to do now is to save your brush in a set (or brushes if you are doing themed brushes). Go to your brush pallet, click the little arrow and select Preset Manager

Select the brush(es) you want to save (use Ctrl to select multiple brushes – selected brushes will be outlined in bold) and click Save Set. Name your set, now you're done!

9 Free Zoo Themed Scrapbooking Elements

2009-09-25T22:37:00.005-04:00

Following on my post with the free kit Africa (thanks to all of you who downloaded it!), I searched to find more digital zoo kits and zoo elements available freely download. It took quite a bit of digging, but I managed to find 9 zoo themed scrapbooking digital papers/elements. There is stuff for all tastes! Follow the links to hop on the designers blogs.

Kits:

By Christa from E.J. Mack Designs a zoo-themed digital scrapbooking kit including zoo animals, bright colored papers, alphabet brads, funky frames, and much more.

By Kara at Craftastical! Contents: 9 pattern papers, 1 monkey die cut.

By Teresa at Mommy Scraps This kit has 10 papers and a handful of elements. Elements are monkey, giraffe, zebra, and elephant stickers

By Rebecca at RK*Design a zoo kit designed so it could be used for not only the zoo but kid and baby photos as well

Elements

From Briar Rose at Tainted Scraps. A few zoo animals embellishments

By Lori Johnston at Scripity Scrap Contains basic grungy papers, a few animals and some frames and elements

QuickPages

From Kelly at Scrap GirlThis page is made using Karyn Robinson’s digital kit called “At the Zoo.”

By Rebecca at Rebecca's Scrapping Silliness QPs for At The Zoo!

By Fanfan at Rue des Anges

Mathias

2009-09-22T11:23:00.004-04:00

This will probably sounds weird, but I think one of the things I'll miss most when my boys will be all grown up are those cute little pj's! I don't want to keep boxes and boxes of clothes for keepsake, but I want to keep the memory alive so I'm doing layouts using the colors and embellishments from them!

Credits:
Template from FreeDigitalScrapbooking.com
Fonts Cocktail Bubbly by Font Diner

Free kit: Africa

2009-09-21T21:47:00.009-04:00

Here is a goodie for you! A free digital scrapbooking kit I called Africa. It can be good to use for a travel, safari or zoo layout.

This free digital scrapbooking kit includes:

10 backgrounds (5 solid, 5 patterned)
1 mosaic divider
3 frames
1 cartoon character
2 stamps
4 road signs
1 african flower

Download Africa | Don't miss a post or upcoming freebies! | View all freebies

How to find and use new fonts in 6 easy steps!

2009-09-17T21:44:00.008-04:00

It is very easy to get new fonts for your layouts!

Go to a font website. I like Fontspace because it's free!
Select your favorite font and click download
Open the zipped file
In your computer, open the control panel, then the FONTS folder
Drag the .tff file(s) in the FONTS folder.
You're done

The next time you'll open photoshop, your new font will be available. It will also be available in windows applications (powerpoint, word, ...).

Gardeners

2009-09-08T21:48:00.003-04:00

Here is a layout I made for a digital scrapbooking template challenge over at Stone Accents Studio.

I wanted to give the illusion that my eldest son was watering outside the picture frame. I also added flowers elements. I deliberately chose to use 'fake' flowers as I wanted to have a scrapbook feel to the picture (instead of just having a photoshopped feel).

So credits for this layout:
Template by Kimberkatt

A bit more girly!

2009-09-06T22:21:00.003-04:00

With a household full of boys I have to make an effort to do layouts with girly colors! It's a nice change for me!

Journaling says: Children learn by example. How else could I teach them about happiness, self-esteem and self-worth if not by being a playful fun energetic happy mom???

Happiness is a butterfly...

2009-09-04T23:26:00.004-04:00

Here is my entry to a sketch challenge at RakScrap. The quote (by Nathaniel Hawthorne) says:
Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

The ellipses stack was imposed by the challenge, so I tried to recreate the feel of a butterfly wing.

France 1993

2009-09-02T22:06:00.004-04:00

Back in 1993 I was a teenager on a music trip in France. It was an important trip for me: my first trip without my parents, with a group of friends (and teachers of course!) and it was the beginning of my traveling passion. I visited more countries afterwards, and honestly I can't wait until my babies are old enough to go on trips again! I miss my passport!

On this page I tried to incorporate some 3D effects. The Eiffel Tower model was made by Gilles Houdent. I used the software Vue 7 Esprit to include it in the drawing. The rest of the picture was created in Photoshop.

Brothers

2009-08-31T21:25:00.005-04:00

Here is a digital scrapbook page I made in Photoshop CS4. I got so inspired by the design called Andrew Happiness by morganfam7 and I just had to scraplift it. I really loved the rich chocolate brown. It fitted well with the biggest picture, where the background is in sepia color, with just an hint of the original color peeking through.

Journaling says:
April 10th 2009
Mathias, the first time Alexis met you he was mesmerized by all your tiny features. He would tell us every time you moved a finger or curled a toe.
More than a big brother, under your spell he became your guardian. He’s now convinced that being a big brother is even better than being a superhero.

Credits:
Layout : Andrew Happiness by morganfam7
Free kit:Sweet Pea kit by Freckles Scraps
Brothers' quote by Marc Brown

10 Free Beach Quick Pages

2009-08-24T21:09:00.018-04:00

A Quick Page is a template already created for you. All that's left to do is to insert your pics in the windows and voila, you're done!!

I scoured the web to find the 10 best and free Quick Pages with a beach theme. Summer is almost over, time to scrap those vacation pictures!

	From SmileBox, template Deep Blue Sea. 8 differents page layout available. To use this layout you'll need the free SmileBox downloadable software.
	From Rebecca at Rebecca's Scrapping Silliness
	From SmileBox, template Water Fun. 2 differents page layout available. To use this layout you'll need the free SmileBox downloadable software. Once you have your copy, you need to upload your beach pics in the interface and afterwards only drag and drop your pictures. Very easy!
	From Nydia at My Scraps Mis Scraps
	From Cheryl at The Garden of My Life
	From Justine at Justine's Scrapland
	From Nancy at Nancy's Memories and Scraps
	From Scrappers Delights
	From Shenanigans
	From Amanda at Tracy's Designs

Balloon festival

2009-08-21T23:27:00.003-04:00

Last weekend we went to a local balloon festival. It was breathtaking to see hundreds of hot air balloons take off and slowly drift away, almost in silence.
There was loads of inflatables games and the kids spent the whole afternoon jumping and running and tumbling around! I'm sure we had as much fun watching them as they had playing!

Software: Smilebox
Template: County Fair

The template comes with:

a 2-pages layout,
3 choices of songs,
4 titles layout 1 / 3 titles layout 2
Space for journaling
5 backgrounds
Skill level: Beginners
Cost: Free

Girls night out!

2009-08-13T22:29:00.003-04:00

One of my friend is getting married in a few weeks, so we had a nice girls night out to celebrate the upcoming wedding. We had a cruise to see a firework contest, it was quite impressive!!

I loved this simple clean template! It really makes the pictures stand out.

Software: Smilebox
Template: Simply Family

The template comes with:

a 8-pages layout,
3 choices of songs,
1 title + possibility to put your own
Pre-defined journaling (or make your own)
3 color schemes
Skill level: Beginners
Cost: Free

My Email NO-SPAM Guarantee

2009-08-06T11:01:00.005-04:00

Become Pixel Scrapbooking Friend!

By becoming a friend, you will receive the latest posts as soon as they are published. This provides a great deal of convenience for you, because you won’t even have to visit this website to access all the latest freebies or tutorials... and from time to time exclusive freebies will be available to grab. To access the exclusive freebies, check for your password in the footer section of all the posts emails you'll receive.

If you’re worried about SPAM in your inbox, learn how RSS feeds give you back all the control over the content you receive from publishers.

PS: I personally promise that I will never share, trade, sell, deliver, reveal, publicize, or market your email address in any way, shape, or form.

PPS: Make sure to include rosemariepixel@yahoo.ca in your contacts or whitelist so I don't end up in your spam folder.....

Thank You Card v2

2009-08-05T21:46:00.008-04:00

Another version of my Thank you cards. On these pics Mathias is 4 days old, and we were just out from the hospital. Alexis, my eldest was in LOVE with the baby (still is!). Precious moments. I loved the little fish embellishment in the bottom left corner. My husband is from a fishing town so there is a special meaning for us. It connects to our family roots.

Software: Smilebox
Template: Our Sweet Baby

The template comes with:

a 12-pages layout,
3 choices of songs,
1 title
12 variations of embellishments (one per page layout)
Skill level: Beginners
Cost: Free

Birth Thank You Card

2009-08-04T21:49:00.012-04:00

I used this Smilebox template to create some Thank you cards after the birth of my 3rd son.

What I liked about this design is it's simplicity... Sometimes, clean and simple is the way to go. The colors also complemented well with Mathias little pj, especially the brown.It's one of my favorite color!

Software: Smilebox
Template: Simply boy

The template comes with:

a 8-pages layout,
3 choices of songs,
Color or black-and-white photo edits
3 backgrounds:

Skill level: Beginners
Cost: Free

Mathias in Little guy template

2009-08-03T21:20:00.012-04:00

My son Mathias, 12 weeks old. Growing up way too fast!

This template is from the Smilebox software, template Little Guy.

The template comes with

a 8-pages layout,
3 choices of songs,
3 different titles
2 levels of embellishments and
5 backgrounds:

Skill level: Beginners
Cost: Free