BLOG CHALLENGE | FEBRUARY

Hello! I hope your new year is off to a good start! I consider a good challenge to be a good start ... and a good freebie template an even better start! But before we share the new challenge details, we have the winner for the January Happy challenge picked! You all rocked it this month as always! If you want to take a peek at all the lovely entries, you can find them HERE.

The lucky winner for this month is Shar!!!

Congratulations Shar aka SharLamb!!! 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 Shar's gorgeous page:

So, did you play along in TLP's Month of Challenges? Do you still have the stamina to keep scrapping into February? I hope so!  To keep things easy for you, this month's challenge is a template freebie! Yay! Your job is to use this template for this month's challenge! Of course you can twist it, shake it and/or turn it around! Use it as is or make it your own! Just click on the image to grab it, it's FREE!

Here's what the lovely Pink Ladies made with this template:

by jenn mccabe


by RikkiD


by marijke


by ninigoesdigi


by mcurtt


by Gaelle


Now it's your turn to rock this template! We can't wait to see what you 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 March 17th [yes that's right not the 15th but the 17th. I will not be able to change the post on the 15th so you will have a bit of extra time to join the challenge ;)]

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?!

Have fun creating and Happy Scrapping!

INSPIRATION | THINKING OUTSIDE THE SQUARE

Many years ago, I was a fully committed paper scrapper – and for the last 2 years of the wonderful messy world of paper, glue and ink, I converted to being an A4 scrapper. I found it quicker and easier to store and display finished pages. Once I came to the Dark Side (according to my paper scrapping friends anyway!) I went back to the more traditional 12x12.
Lately I have noticed more and more people going A4 – of course our own wonderfully talented scrappers Ga L and Marilyn both excel in making the most beautiful artistic rectangular pages!

Notice in the following examples - both by Ga_L, she is still following the rule of thirds, one vertically and one horizontally - as always, the eye is drawn to the focus of the pages. I also love her mastery of shadows to make the pages look 3 dimensional.






Now you may ask, what about using traditional 12x12 templates? Too easy  - Using Good Times - February’s BYOC templates from Mirjam, I simply excluded some layers, moved others to more suit the format and enlarged the photo mat a little. It allows you to add your own touch to a page, making it stand out a little from the pack!

The Original template set


I then superimposed my A4 layer onto the template and placed it where it took advantage of the design the most.


Lastly I took out the layers that didn’t suit the format, rearranged the other layers for a tighter grouping and went from there.


Eventually ending up with this – focussing on a photo of our neighbours beautiful blue-eyed cat.


Marilyn also adapted these templates -


It is also wonderful for using your special photos and adding a magazine feel to your page. This works well with travel photos. A large photo with a quote or word art and just a couple of carefully chosen highlight elements is all you need. For that clean and professional look, less is better! It looks like it should be simple but believe me – excluding elements is hard! This is certainly not a perfect example as I too am new to this game but it is a technique that I will come back to.




Give it a go, always fun to expand your horizons!

TUTORIAL | PHOTOSHOP PREFERENCES

Have you ever watched a digital scrapbooking process video and wondered how the scrapper got their Photoshop screen set up just that way? I thought I’d focus my next couple of blog posts on customizing your PS workspace. Today, we’re going to look at our preferences. (images shown from Adobe Photoshop CC 2019)



From your main Photoshop screen, click on Edit at the top and pull down to Preferences.



The HUD (Heads-Up Display) Color Picker where you will select your preferred colors can be either a strip in a couple of different sizes or a color wheel, whichever works best visually for you. One of the new features in the recent CC updates is opening to a Start screen instead of a blank workspace. I’ve personally chosen to use the legacy view because I don’t like PS closing up when I exit a document. Many scrappers import/place files as smart objects and you can set that as a default here.



Here’s where you can make a big difference in your workspace very easily by changing the color theme. Why not change yours up and see if you like a different one? It’s super easy to change back. And for others like me, having the ability to change the default font size can be very helpful.



I notice that other scrappers like the tabbed approach for opening their files for scrapping. I like to use the floating windows so that I can move things around more easily. I think it’s a personal preference. I also haven’t chosen any condensed options in my own workspace but they could definitely give you more scrapping “real estate” on a smaller screen like a laptop.



I like having the tooltips turned on especially for lesser used tools and options. I also love that “zoom with scroll wheel” option. I can’t scrap without it!



I like to have my documents at least point to their original folder when saving them. You can always change it before saving. This screen also has another must-have choice, an auto-save option. I have mine set to a short interval. Auto save has certainly saved my bacon when creating a layout a time or two! You can also set your recent file list to contain more than the default number of files.



Back when I started scrapping, it was suggested that you let Photoshop use about 70 – 75% of your RAM for less of a time lag when scrapping and I’ve continued to use that setup. I have my history states set pretty high so as to be able to go back in the history panel in case I make a mistake and need to re-do a step or more quickly.



A spot to set your default unit of measure as well as screen and print resolution.



Here you can set the color of the vertical and horizontal guides you can use to align elements, photos etc. You can also set the spacing of the lines when you choose to display the grid. This comes in really handy for even spacing of borders and gutters between items as well as when scrapping in a pocket format.

Of course, there are several more sub-menus under preferences that I haven’t discussed. I have left those to their default settings. Many of them include choices that are rarely used when digiscrapping but more for 3D graphics and graphics design.

Next month, we’ll customize our workspace with panels and tools we’ll use for scrapbooking.

NEW: FEBRUARY BYOC | GOOD TIMES

Wow, that was a fast month!!! January was gone in a flash! Welcome to February, the month of Love!

If you participated in the MOC at the Lily Pad, like I did, I hope you had fun and learned a few new techniques. I really enjoyed the wide variety of challenges and I am excited that I completed another year of MOC!

a selection of the pages I made for MOC


February is filled with love and fun.. it is the shortest month of the year too, so it will go by just as fast.

In the spirit of that, I have 4 new packs to offer for the February BYOC. The color palette is fantastic this month and will go with all those wonderful February photos. They are all set to coordinate with those date night photos, romance, family & winter fun. I have amply named my contribution to the BYOC "Good Times", to scrap all those wonderful moments in your life.

The new packs are ALL 20% off through February 3rd but of course there's special offers for newsletter subscribers!!! Not a subscriber yet? Click HERE to join the gang!

Now on to the details!

GOOD TIMES | ELEMENTS A great set of 63 unique elements [64 in total] in all kind of shapes, sizes, textures and styles. Made for scrapping the best of times! GOOD TIMES | PAPERS A great set of 12 beautiful, trendy patterned papers, 12 alternate color combinations PLUS 12 gorgeously textured matching solids. Which makes this a pack of 36 papers in total!! PATTERNS PLUS ALTERNATES GOOD TIMES | ALPHA This super fun eye catching alpha includes upper case, lower case, numbers and punctuation. All seperate .png's 86 characters per color, 10 colors in total. Perfect for some eye catching titles or monograms. GOOD TIMES | TEMPLATES Rejoice 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 scrap the very best of times!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and Happy Scrappin'!