WINNER NEON CROCHET FLOWER GIVEAWAY!

Thanks everyone for your kind words and compliments on my crochet flowers aswell as the beautiful projects Géraldine made with them. I can tell you it put a HUGE smile on both of our faces.

There's was some confusion on where to reply to be entered in the draw so I decided to add all the names of peeps that replied in the TLP forum to the list of people that replied on the blog. From that complete list of people that left a comment I let my dear friend Mr. Random pick a winner:

Congratulations JOHANNA!
I will contact you so you can give me your address and I can send you your selection of handmade by me neon crochet flowers!

Until next time!

SUPER TRENDY HYBRID CARDS WITH NEON FLOWERS GIVEAWAY

I think one of the HOTTEST fashion trends is the Neon Trend! I love that it has also found it's way onto scrapbooking pages: digital and hybrid.

When I ran into a bunch of skeins in bright neon colors I knew I had to make a bunch of crochet flowers and ask our hybrid wonder Géraldine to do her magic with them.

Wondering if she was able to rock this trend? I say, ABSOLUTELY!

When I received Mirjam's flowers in the mail I knew exactly what I wanted to make with them.
I started with this hybrid page, combining the neon flowers with kraft paper, and after that I made some pretty cards that I am going to send to friends!

detail

For the photo matte on the layout I printed a paper from Drawn To You Papers.  Apart from the neon flowers I also embellished my page with leaves that I cut with my cuttlebug [dies from Kesi'art] and I added a cute wooden butterfly and a fun stamp.

I changed the photo from the top post card from color to black and white in Photoshop to really make it stand out against the kraft background and the bright colors of the crochet flowers and leaf.

I picked this landscape picture of Clermont-Ferrand [a city in France] because I wanted to mimic the old fashioned postcards that we used to sent back home of our vacations and holiday trips back in the days that we didn't have internet and mobile phones yet.

After I tweaked the pic I printed it and stuck it on a matte of white Bazzil cardstock thus giving the photo a nice frame while strenghtening the card at the same time.
As you can see I also used leaves made with my cuttlebug and here I added a little wooden bird.

For this second card I created my background in Photoshop. I simply added two orange ink splatters [Splatter Brushes no.2] in a blank file and printed these on a kraft paper.
Then I drew a frame and embellished the card with crochet neon flower, black ink splatters, black wire and leaves cut with my cuttlebug [dies from Kesi'art].

Are you as smitten with the NEON trend as Mirjam and I are? Then you probably want to make a comment on this post because Mirjam will be picking a winner tomorrow that will get a set of real life handmade crochet flowers and leaves sent to her home address.

Make sure you leave a link to your gallery, FB page or e-mail address so she can contact you! GOOD LUCK!

JULY BLOG CHALLENGE

With a teeny tiny delay I am thrilled it's time to share the new Pink Reptile Designs Blog challenge! Yay!

I hope you enjoyed The recipe challenge as much as I did. I can't wait try all your yummy suggestions! You can find all the challenge entry pages [including the recipes] on my Facebook page. The ones for February are right here if you want to have a look. Believe me, it's very much worth your while!

I let Mr. Random choose the winner of the June challenge and here's who ended up at the top of his list:

Congratulations Agnes !! I have sent you a PM on your TLP account.
All other participants received their 25% discount coupons via their Lilypad gallery accounts also except for Judith whom I emailed. Please make sure you check your messages everyone!

Pam I wasn't able to send you your coupon because I don't know where to send it to. Please can you reply to this post with your FB or a gallery address so I can pm you your coupon?!

Here's Agnes's fabulous layout:

This month's challenge is another template challeng and again the template is by my own hand, I am starting to get the hang of it, or at least a little! I made it in .PSD and .TIFF format and of course I also added all the .PNG's. So again NO excuse not to grab it and play!

- IMAGE IS LINKED - 

ONE random winner will receive a 10 dollar coupon to the Pink Reptile store but really everyone is a winner as all other participants receive a 25% discount coupon to my TLP store, so all the more reason to join in on the fun, right?! 

Use the template provided, make it  yours, twist it, shake it, turn it around. Let your creativity take flight. You can even pick your own subject as long as you ALSO use at least 75% of Pink Reptile Design products.

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 August 15.

FACEBOOK

Off course there's always a little something for free under the Free Gift Tab at the Pink Reptile FB

Here are a few samples made by the Pink Ladies for inspiration. I cannot wait to see all of your entries! Good luck to all!

by ellen

by géraldine

by madlen	by manuela

by nini

Wishing you tons of fun and Happy Scrappin'!

JULY CHALLENGE STARTS A LITTLE LATER

In case you are wondering...YES...the template in the preview is the one we will be playing with and it's absolutely FREE! See ya Saterday with a super fun new challenge!

FOLDED FLOWER

We all love to place flowers and other items into our clusters of elements to accent a favorite photo. Sometimes the flower/element may be too large and by transforming the size, really doesn’t quite work for the affect you are going for on your layout. Here is a fun little tip to help with that, and almost give the flower/element a 3D look that will appear as if it is jumping off the page and you can physically touch it!

**Note: For this tutorial, I am using Adobe Photoshop CC, but this should work pretty similar in all graphic software.

Let’s start with choosing 2 basic items. I have chosen 2 Pink Reptile Design elements:  A clip from PRD’s “http://the-lilypad.com/store/About-Elements.html” elements, and the flower from PRD’s “http://the-lilypad.com/store/On-Cloud-9-Collab-with-Alisson-Pennington.html“ Collab kit with Allison Pennington.

Open up your workspace and place both of these elements on your “canvas” (or whatever clip or flower of another PRD design).

Using the Rectangle Marquee and the flower layer selected in your layer pallet, cut the flower directly down the center, as shown in example below.

With “marching ants” still active, (still on the flower layer), go to your toolbar and select Edit > Cut from the drop down. Then select Edit > Paste and you should now have this:

When you paste, it automatically places the pasted portion on a separate layer. Locate & select the top layer of the flower that you just pasted.  Now go to your toolbar and select Edit > Transform > Vertical to flip.

(should be Transform not Transfer)

Once it is flipped, using the mover tool, move the newly flipped portion of the flower above/overlapping the lower portion on the flower.

In your layer pallet, select both portions of your flower. (Click on the lower layer and with your left mouse button still held, using the shift button, click on the top half of the flower to highlight both the flower layers at the same time. If the are not one above the other in the pallet, instead of shift, use Ctrl on a PC or Command on a Mac and click the other half of the flower in the layer pallet.)

Once both parts of the flower are selected, from the toolbar go to Edit > Transform > Rotate, and rotate them to the angle of the clip or the direction you want the flower and clip to be. (- If you want it to remain as is (straight across) this step could be eliminated, or rotate the clip so it will work for your layout.)

If your clip is below the flowers in your layer pallet, just move the clip up by selecting the layer of the clip and drag it above the flowers as shown in my layer pallet in the screenshot below. (You can also arrange the clip to the top of the layer pallet by going to your toolbar, choose Layer > Arrange > Bring to front)

Now we are going to add shadows. (If you wish you can also lightly burn the edges or making them lighter in areas by using the burn & dodge tools.) Select the layer and add your favorite shadow style by selecting the fx at the bottom of the layer pallet. It will bring up a dialog box. Select Drop shadow. My style is set at Linear Burn 75%, 120 degree angle, Distance = 4, Spread =0, Size=4 and Noise=0 (You can add noise if you want for a fun kind of shadow!) Before selecting OK to apply, select the New Style to add this style in your style pallet.

TIP ALERT

If this is not a “preset” style for you, or you forgot to save as a new style, you can also use a copy & paste style. To do this, you would select the layer style effects already applied to your current layer. Right click with your Mouse and choose copy style. Then go to the next layer in your layer pallet you want to apply the same layer style to. Right click with your mouse and select paste style. This will give each layer selected the same style so you don’t have to keep redoing!

If you wish, you can also separate the shadow so you can warp it or make it more lifelike. To separate the shadow from the element, in the layer pallet right click with your mouse on the layer style. From Dropdown list, select create layer and this will place the shadow on a separate layer for warping. (I have created separate layers for the shadows on the flowers.  I also warped them and then used the burn & dodge tools to give my flower some dimension.)

Now all there is left to do is to complete the rest of your layout. You can place things in between the layers, or under the flowers so it looks like it is attached under the clip.

Voila! A simple layout to show how the folded flower may be used. (Journal card is from PRD’s “http://the-lilypad.com/store/About-Elements.html” elements and the background paper is from “http://the-lilypad.com/store/Forget-Me-Not-Papers.html”.)

I do hope you enjoyed this simple and easy tutorial and will give you some ideas for your own layouts!

Happy Scrapping!!

Christa

JULY BYOC | A LOT OF STRING AND HAPPY BRIGHT PAPERS

Okay, so where did June go? Wow time is really flying by! We are half way through the year...I do hope my Canadian friends had a wonderful Canada Day celebration, and for my US friends, Happy 4th of July/Happy Independence Day!

It is now July, and you know what a new month means... The July BYOC is live at the Lily Pad! It really is a cheery color scheme this month and I have made the cutest items to accent your layouts. They not only match the July BYOC, but a lot of what's already in your Pink Reptile stash too! Lets get on to the details!

STRING THINGIES

String elements and crocheted flowers to embellish all of your pages and give them that "homemade" touch.

IN STITCHES | ALPHA

A super fun, realistic looking stitched alpha that will definitely jazz up your pages. Use these cuties to create your titles or as eye catching monograms! Either way they will give that extra oomph you were looking for!

BELVEDERE | PAPERS

A cute set of 10 fun patterned timeless papers. Among others there's stripes, dots, phonebook and flowers plus a great set of 10 matching solids. Perfect for any occasion !

INSPIRATION FROM THE PINK LADIES

by anja

by li li

by christa	by hana

by madlen

by géraldine

Before I forget, there are still 10 days left for the June blog challenge. We have gotten some really great recipe pages! If you haven't joined in yet do so now. Not only is there a free template to help you but seeing everyone else's pages, you may come away with a great recipe besides a chance at winning!!!

Have a great weekend and happy scrapping!

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT | BUZINETTE [HÉLÈNE]

Today I'm super excited to share with you the first in a new blog series, Customer Spotlight, where I will periodically be featuring and celebrating one of my customers here on the blog with a question and answer session, to get to know them better, and to give them a chance to showcase a few of their favorite layouts!

Please welcome our very first Customer in the Spotlight Hélène!!! I hope you enjoy getting to know Hélène a little better, both as a scrapbooker and as a person. I know I did! :)

Name: Hélène   Alias : Buzinettescrap   Country: I’m living in France   Favorite PRD Kit or Product: In fact,   this simple question is actually a very   very difficult question for me. I really love   all the kits of Mirjam and I use them all   regularly ... we'll say that my favorite at   the moment of write this is "Love the life   you live." I adore these pop colors and   the diversity of elements.

How long have you been scrapping?
I started starting scrapbooking in November 2012. In fact, I was looking for a way to make by myself the birth announcement of my daughter. It was by chance that I discovered digital scrapbooking. I bought a few kits and started making pages. In February 2013, I registered on a forum in France called digiscrap-addict .... and this is where I became addicted to scrap ... and because of Céline aka Louso [yes I say because but I think thanks to lol] addicted to Pink Reptile Designs products …. and The LilyPad products in general actually.

What is your go to product? Something that seems to find it’s way on many of your pages?[stitches, tags, patterned papers, doodles, paint, etc]
By looking through my gallery, I realize that my style has changed a lot recently. But on nearly all my layouts, I used brushes, stitches and string. In Mirjam's kits for instance, I particularly love the small elements in crochet.
For paper, I like to use a rather simple and clear paper as a background [not necessarily solid paper] and to play with patterned paper that really pops.

What would your dream kit be, if you could have any kit created for you?
This is perhaps the most difficult question for me. I love to scrap all the little details of our life. I always have my camera ready to capture our giggling… and sometimes our cry. But if I want a kit that represents myself and our life, I choose a kit that speaks about the joy of life in the countryside. We live in very small town and the atmosphere is very different from the big town. We love hiking and every Sunday, when the weather is good, we can walk to see the cows. Our daughter loves these little walks and awaits them impatiently. Recently, she has even started to give them grass. And when we get close to their pasture, she calls them by screaming out loud. This is too cute. I have many pictures of these strolls but very few pages to speak about this moment.

Best scrapbooking trick you learned.
I don’t know what my best discovering technique in scrapbooking is. In fact, I love to learn new techniques. But the technique that I use more often is to play with the layer mode. This technique has allowed me to improve my blending, but also my editing pictures to adjust the colors to the colors of kits that I use and it also helps me to work my pictures to turn them into a drawing or sketch. The deformation of shadows was also a revelation for me. I admired the technique on other pages without having found the technique but after the Month of Challenges, I found how to do this with my software and I do it very often now!

Random facts that we might not know about you?
1. The thing I'm most proud of in my life (after my daugther) is my thesis in plant biology. Writing it and making my presentation was not really easy because I had to write in English [and if you said that to my English teacher in college he probably would not believe you because I was so bad lol] but now, I am proud to say that I am a doctor of plant biology and plant breeding. Currently, this is my job and I love what I do (even if I need to release my creativity through scrapbooking lol)
2. I am addicted to all of kind of treats: candy , cake ... but since the birth of my daughter, I am much more aware because she imitates me in all ....
3. I did dance for a few years and I would like the days to have more hours so I could get back to it. In compensation, I dance with my daughter every evening before she’s going to bed.

Here are a few of Hélène's favorite layouts that she created:

Happy Moments with You

Snapshot

Aren't those pages gorgeous? I adore the flow of the journaling around the "Happy Moments with You" page, as it leads your eye from the photo down to the large word art and the pretty cluster at the bottom of the page. This layout is so well composed! "Snapshot" is an amazing page, with that awesome extraction! The arm extending outside the frame to touch the tree really plays into the idea of how curious children are and the idea that they want to feel and touch everything in their world. Brilliant page!

Thank you so much Hélène, for sharing a bit of yourself and your talent with us on my blog!
Enjoy your coupon!