BLOG CHALLENGE MAY

Hello friends!!! Welcome to the June blog challenge! This month, we are so excited to bring you another team based challenge, but before we share the details we need to announce the winner for May's Tag Template challenge!!! You can take a look at all the amazing entries HERE.

The lucky winner for this month is Psychozoe!!!

Congratulations Psychozoe aka Susie!!! You have a notification on your TLP account.
All other participants also received their 25% discount coupons via their Lilypad accounts. Please make sure you check your messages everyone and if your coupon didn't come through send an e-mail to pinkreptiledesigns at gmail dot com!

Here's Susie's gorgeous page:

Who’s ready for a Round Robin Recipe Challenge?

The way this will work is you will be put in teams of three to work on a scrap recipe. You each will work on individual pages on your own, but you will be directing each other as to what goes on the page. Each of you will take a turn and decide on three “ingredients” (or instructions) to add to the scrap recipe. Your team will have a name, and when you post your instructions here in the forum thread, please make sure you indicate your team name in bold first, followed by your three instructions. This way your team mates can find the instructions that they need to follow to complete their pages. As a team, make sure you have the "essentials" covered. For example someone should give instructions for at least one photo and someone should include instructions for your background paper(s). Once each member of your team provides their instructions for your scrap recipe, you can begin working on your individual page!

All teams can add:
- a date,
- a title and
- journaling if they wish.

These are optional/extras to add to your page as per your preferences and do not need to be part of the instructions. But if you wish to instruct your team to do something challenging with a title you can! ***But nothing else beyond these 3 optional items and your team's instructions should be added to the page!

So for instance if I am on Team Patterned Paper. I will post my set of 3 instructions for my team like this as an example:

Team Patterned Paper
1) Add three papers (any kind- solid/patterns) to make up your background – how you arrange them/layer them is up to you, as long as we can see 3 papers.
2) Add 3 photos – 1 large rectangle (this will be the focal photo), 2 smaller squares.
3) Add a frame around the large rectangle (focal) photo.

Everyone on Team Patterned Paper, including me, will follow these instructions along with the 3 instructions by the other members of Team Patterned Paper. At the end you can reveal your pages so we can all see what everyone came up with.  Sound Fun? Then join us! Sign up in this Designer Challenge forum thread at The Lilypad.

And as an example, three of our CT decided to play along. They were Team Washi. Take a look at what they did:

Ellen's instructions:

Team Washi Tape

1  Start with solid color background.

2  Add 5 different layers (or pieces) of patterned paper.  Any shape, any arrangement.

3  Add some lace or flowers, or both.

Gaelle's instructions:

Team Washi Tape

1- add some paint

2- add a frame

3- add some washi tape

Carrie's instructions:

Team Washi Tape

1. Add One Photo

2. Add some stitching

3. Add some word art

And their pages following the Team Washi Tape recipe:

by Ellen


by Gaelle


by Carrie


Now it's your turn! We can't wait to see what you all create!

Make sure you use at least 75% of Pink Reptile Design products on your page. Once completed, just upload your page to one or all of your galleries and post a link to your layout in the comments section of this post before the next challenge goes live on July 15th.

ONE favorite page will be chosen as the winner to receive a 10 dollar coupon to the PRD store, but really everyone is a winner, as all other participants receive a 25% discount coupon to the Pink Reptile Designs TLP store. So all the more reason to join in on the fun, right?!

FUN WITH FONTS | GIVE THOSE GLYPHS A GO!

Hey scrapping friends. I'm here with a new series Fun with Fonts where I'll share some quick tips and tricks for making the most of all those fonts I know you are hoarding! Today's tip is all about using the gorgeous glyphs that come with so many of our fonts.

I don't know about you, but I get excited when I download that perfect font with all those beautiful extra characters with the fancy flourishes. So, I install the font, but when I go to type out my beautiful title I often am left feeling let down. Why? Because I need to remember to use those glyphs! Photoshop now has a special Glyphs Panel that makes it so easy to find and actually use those pretty special characters! (I think the Gylphs panel was introduced in the full version of Photoshop with the CS release? Not sure.) But to access it, go to your menu bar at the top of the screen, click on Window and then select Glyphs to open the panel.



I'm using Andara Script and just playing around with the word Script to see what I can come up with. To start, type your text. As you can see it isn't flourishy or anything overly special. But in the Glyphs panel type in the name of the font to see all the special characters that are available for this specific font.



You can highlight the letter you'd like to change, in this case let's see how we can jazz up the "S", and then scroll through all the beautiful choices in the glyph panel. When you find what you like, simply double click it and it will replace the original S in your text. Here is what my S looks like after choosing a fancier S from the glyphs panel.



You can also highlight the character in your text and just hover over it and the Alternate Glyphs box will appear (providing you didn't play around with your preferences options) giving you all the alternate choices for that specific character. Just click the one you like and it will replace it. I also changed out the "t" in my text. Here's that little alternate glyphs pop up window:



And here's the word Script with the pretty new S and lovely little t. Adorable right?



Here's another example with a word, maraschino, that I am actually going to use as my title on my layout. I have it typed out as is, followed by an example where I used glyphs for the M and the o, and then the last example I used the Character Panel to increase the height of the "o" so it wasn't quite so close to the dot on the "i". Have a look:



To change the height of the "o", highlight it and then open the Character Panel. The Vertical Scale tool (the icon looks like a T with an up/down arrow in front of it). Increase the size to slightly higher than it is already to create some space between the flourish of the "o" and dot of the "i". You can also highlight the "i" and scale it down to create a little more space. Here is the Vertical Scale tool in the Character Panel:



And here is my fancy glyph-tified title on my layout!



So please, if you have a gorgeous font that you want to use for a title, consider digging out those glyphs and seeing how you can fancy up your page and make it just a little more special.

If you don't have Photoshop you can still get to these glyphs. These tricks should work in Photoshop Elements and other programs that utilize fonts. Try them and if you are having difficulty do a little googling for your program or try a different font. Here's what I found when googling how to get access to glyphs in Windows:

From your start menu, search for Character Map and open it up. Select the font you want to work with. Click on the new character/glyph you'd like to use. Click the Select button, then the Copy button. Go to your program and select the character that you want to replace by highlighting it. Then press Control + V to paste it in. You should have the fancy new glyph character instead of the original character you typed.

For Mac:

In Finder search for Font Book and open it. Type in the name of the font you are working with. The tool bar up top has a row of icons. Choose the 2nd one and this will give you every option available for that font. When you see the special character/glyph you'd like to use, select it, then press CMD + C to copy it. Go back to your program and highlight the character that you want to replace. Press CMD + V to paste in the new glyph.

Give it a try and jazz up those titles!

TUTORIAL | STARTING A LAYOUT

Hello everyone! Happy June, I can't believe it's the middle of 2018 already. Today is my son's 10th birthday... and I can't believe he hit the double digits! Time flies so fast! Do you ever wonder how so much time has lapsed when it doesn't seem as if that amount of time actually passed!? Sometimes scrapping has done that to me. Many times, its because I don't know how to start my layout. Today, I'm going to give you some tips on how I've started layouts, in hopes that when you are in the same position, you can give them a try!

Know that there isn’t a single way to start a layout. You will figure out over time how you like to start or what inspires you to create. Start with what you are comfortable with – photos, kit, template, even the title or journaling. Remember to work in the direction you like – from the top layer down, bottom layer up, or a random order to your creations. It doesn’t matter if you like to place the background papers, and then go to frames. If it is working for you – that’s a good thing! Relax and let creativity lead you… you don’t have to conform to a style or template. Scrap how you like. You will like your pages better, and you will scrap faster.

Many people use them, including me, and many people don't. What are they? Templates!!! It's each scrappers choice. When I get stuck, this is a great time saver. I don't have to worry about paper placement, photo placement, or design. It takes the pressure of off the whole layout. Mirjam has some fantastic templates in her store to get you started! If a template has too many layers, but you love the basic design, delete those extra layers. If a template doesn’t have enough layers, add more. Templates are a starting point. It doesn’t matter if you twist, turn, shrink, flip or duplicate – as long as you like what you are creating! Add more, then delete. If you like something on your page, leave it. You can always remove or hide it later.

Take your time, and work toward your goal, but don't stress. If you need a break, take it! Use the gallery as inspiration, product layouts, and product previews have inspired me! It's harder to do in real life than typing it here, but go with the flow!

Like these:

For me, my CT work kinda nudges me to scrap. Most of my layouts are for CT – as the deadlines, schedule, and expectation gets me to scrap. lol! I scrap for my designers, but my pages have to be useful for me too! Sometimes, having a push to get a layout done is an extra push to get scrapping - use challenges - TLP Challenges, Designer Challenges or even Blog Challenges to get your scrapping started.

Most times, I start from the bottom paper and work up into my layers. I usually choose two templates, and work them into my double layout – 12×24. I copy all the layers of each template into my “Working Copy,” and save as I go. Once the templates and layout basics figured out, I jump to photo selection. I try to scrap a certain year, but jump around within that year. This way my pictures work for various kits, and I’m continuously working on my yearly album, If I don’t have the right themed pictures, I look for color. After my pictures are selected, I start with the papers, elements, and all the little extras. I add my shadows after most of my elements are placed. I then add journaling. Next, I settle on my title. Every one my pages have at least something written about the picture, and/or at least the date. After all the details are noted, I save both an album copy and a web copy.

How do you like to scrap!? What tips can you share?
Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your side of the topic!

Jenn | jk703

NEW: JUNE BYOC | BON VOYAGE

Happy June everyone!

Wow.. almost half the year is gone with this month arriving! With June here, Summer is at our doorstep and with that it usually means VACATION!! I love going on vacation. I don't care if it we drive to our destination, go by boat or if we are fly... I just want to go!

With that in mind I created 4 brand new packs for this month's BYOC that are 20% off through June 3rd but of course there's special offers for newsletter subscribers!!! Not a subscriber yet? Click HERE to join the gang!

BON VOYAGE | ELEMENTS
A great set of 58 quirky and unique elements in all kind of shapes, sizes, textures and styles [70 in total]. Totally inspired by travel and/or vacation. Perfect for scrapping your trips wether they take you away from home for a long time or just an afternoon. Everything you need to put it to paper is right here!

BON VOYAGE | PAPERS
A great set of 10 beautiful patterned papers, 10 alternate color combinations and 1 bonus color combination PLUS 11 beautifully textured matching solids. Which makes this a fantastic pack of 32 papers in total!!

PATTERNS & ALTERNATES

BON VOYAGE | ALPHA
A fun dymo alpha with numbers and a bit of punctuation that comes in 10 easy to use and re-use colors! Perfect for mixing and matching and creating eye catching titles. Also cute as tiny monograms.

BON VOYAGE | TEMPLATESRejoice in the little things, give in to whatever tugs at your heart...and off you go!
Let these 4 amazing 12 x 12 templates help you capture all your adventures nearby and abroad [Contains  PSD, .TIFF and .PNG files. Shadows are included in all file formats ].

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and Happy Scrappin'!

PRETTY PAGES FROM THE PINK REPTILE GALLERY | by KAREN

Hi everyone!
Here we are at the end of May – I don’t know about you, but it has been a very busy month – we had a wedding, short trips, many school functions and a small car accident that was more painful in dealing with insurance companies than the actual crash itself (no one was injured at all – car was a write off…) And finally, this weekend a workshop for teaching literacy to adults. So plenty of scrapbooking subjects but no time to actually sit down and scrap!
Luckily for me, I can indulge by admiring the works of others and pass on the gems I have found – so many talented people!

Firstly, such a fun page using one of my favourite kits. Girls Day by @Heidi Nicole has the perfect photos for the ‘Silly’ kit. Love the floral background with the painted border so much! Having the black and white photos as well as the colour photos adds so much pop! A subtle design feature the colourful number stamp running vertically besides the photos and the yellow sprinkles in the centre that ties all the photos together so well.



Next we have a sweet page from@Love it Scrap it, Birthday 2015 for Dakota. I would never have thought to use Tales of Spring for a birthday page but it works so well for a darling girl. The floral theme is picked up on the birthday cake (looks sooo yummy) and the central bunny is so cute and funky, a perfect touch. If you look carefully, the 3 beautiful white butterflies are used to bring the classic triangle design feature to a square template and along with the foliage softens the page. Gorgeous!



Lastly we have a page with such clever title work. Sewing Mends the Soul by @Cinderella is a photoless page that any craft enthusiast will appreciate! Please check out the title work, no alphas there, just clever use of elements, stitches and the tag used in this month’s challenge to make a tile that suits the pages theme perfectly. I could see a real life framed version of this working in a sewing room. Time for a bit of scraplifting of that idea I think! The more I study this page, the more I find to love – the needle and thread along the split between the two different papers, the subtle stamp on the left, the stitching, scissors and tape along the top – all makes up a very cool page.



Thanks everyone for making such wonderful pages to inspire us all. Don’t forget to play along with this months challenge and I look forward to seeing more of your creations ext month – love and hugs, Karen x

BLOG CHALLENGE MAY

Hey there!!! This month we are super excited to share a new idea for a freebie with you, but first we need to announce the winner for April's Round Robin challenge!!! You can take a peek at all the amazing entries HERE.

The lucky winner for this month is Bobbie!!!

Congratulations Bobbie aka bjc!!! You have a notification on your TLP account.
All other participants also received their 25% discount coupons via their Lilypad accounts. Please make sure you check your messages everyone and if your coupon didn't come through send an e-mail to pinkreptiledesigns at gmail dot com!

Here's Bobbie's gorgeous page:

For this month, we have another freebie template for you ... but it's not your typical template freebie. Gaelle came up with the idea to create a tag template for you!! Your job is to use this tag on a project! Of course you can twist it, shake it and/or turn it around! Put it on a page, use it as is, or create a hybrid project with it ... birthday gift tag, place it on a card, the possibilities are endless.

Just click on the image to grab it, it's FREE!

Here's what the talented Pink Ladies created using this month's template freebie:

by mcurtt


by chigirl


by dvhoward


by RikkiD


by Gaelle


and by KarenW


That's some awesome tag inspiration! Now let's see your rocking digi skills!

Make sure you use at least 75% of Pink Reptile Design products on your page. Once completed, just upload your page to one or all of your galleries and post a link to your layout in the comments section of this post before the next challenge goes live on June 15th.

ONE favorite page will be chosen as the winner to receive a 10 dollar coupon to the PRD store, but really everyone is a winner, as all other participants receive a 25% discount coupon to the Pink Reptile Designs TLP store. So all the more reason to join in on the fun, right?!

Wishing you tons of fun and Happy Scrappin'!