Saturday, February 29, 2020

Awesome Animal Hybrid Mini Album With Full Tutorial Start To Finish in 30 Minutes

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

Last week, I promised a hybrid using Clever Monkey Graphics and Meagans Creations, Cold Blooded Love Collection.  I've got the full tutorial with pictures ready for you along with some more pages of inspiration with the new goodies from Clever Monkey Graphics and JoCee Designs found at the Sweet Shoppe.

Get your hybrid on with The Cherry!  It's a super way to save money, scrap fast and it's maybe even eco friendly.

But first...I couldn't wait to show you the pretty pages I have with last week's templates and JoCee's Bright, Bold and Beautiful.  You're going to get all giddy and want to add this winning combination of collection and template to your stash, today!

 Fantasia Templates
Fantasia Templates and Big, Bold and Beautiful from JoCee

 Fantasia templates

I've got a few gorgeous pages from my awesome team using this week's templates, With Love and Jo's new collection.

 With Love Templates


 With Love Templates

 With Love Templates

 Bright, Bold and Beautiful

If you zap back to yesterday's blog, you'll see a lot more page inspiration and I've posted some seriously awesome links to freebies, too!

Now, on to our tutorial with Cold Blooded Love from Clever Monkey Graphics and Meagan's Creations.  Ya don't even have to be into cold blooded creatures to love this kit.  It's texture rich, awesome natural colors and really cool goodies that you can use for anything.

 Cold Blooded Love

I'm showing off the entire collection because I will be using a few things like papers and just a few extra elements.  I'm also using Tracey's, Affixed To The Board which is a sweet set of frames, fasteners and backgrounds.  It's a great supplement to your stash, for sure!  You'll see in just a sec.  I'm also using Tracey's Wood Frames #1.

 Cold Blooded Love

How awesome is the word art in this collection?!  Meagan is a genius.  Such great colors and texture! Your pages are going to come to life.  I was very inspired by the word art and new exactly what I wanted to do with it.  Word art or title art is an excellent way to scrap FAST.  Just let me show ya how I designed a mini album in 30 minutes.

Now go get your good glasses or magnifying glass and follow along with our tutorial on how you can quickly scrap up your mini album by using the word art and frames from the shop.

In order for me to print from home, I have to use a smaller than 12x12 format.  My go to size is 8x8 inches, but it depends on the project.  6x6, 4x4 are also great and easy to print right from your home.  If you're needing more details about printing from home, I've got another blog for that.  Go to this blog and get the 411 on how to get the best printing results.

Starting from the beginning, you'll need to start a new document.  Go to File, New and click, Blank...


Then either choose from the selection or type in your own.  I used 8x8.  I can just get it to print on our A format paper.  You'll be able to do the same on a standard U.S. paper and it's why I go to this size, too.


I slid in a frame from Tracey.  You can see a small selection in my gallery, on the image.


Then I changed the position of the frame to go vertical and added the cluster, shadowed it, using my styles from "Snickerdoodle".  Styles make scrapping insanely fast and interesting as well.  Then put in a paper for the background.  Easy so far, right?  

I'm using PSE.  There are shadows that come with the program.  You can get to them by clicking on the "effects' icon at the bottom right.  You can also customize those which I always do.  If you quickly double click on that tiny "fx" icon in your layers bar, you'll get all kinds of options to change your shadows.




For me, it's always super, super easy to make a kind of template for papers and pictures.  I'm going to show ya how to do that.  It's the easiest way to not distort your images and it's really fast.  For this page, I want to add a photo, obviously.  All I do is duplicate the background layer then move that layer to where I need it and size it as needed.  Remember to use the corners when resizing or you'll distort your image.

Now, all you'll have to do is slide in your photo, go to the layers and right click, create clipping mask and use those corners to get it to fit just right.


Here's another page, following the same steps as the first page.  To get the paper just right for the second layer I used the exact same process as above, but instead of clipping in a picture, I clipped in a paper.

Watch those shadows!  These particular frames come with shadows so ya don't have to add yours, but if you do, you may have to tweak them.  Especially, if you go smaller than 12x12.  The shadows are completely different in other sizes.


Moving on to our third page.  I'm sure it's not easy for you to see, but my first screen shot was taken at 9:31 and now we are at 9:42.  So we've got two pages done in about 10 minutes.  Not bad, eh?

I've got my new document.  I've added Tracey's frame stitch from the collection.  There were not a lot of frames in the collection so Tracey's were an excellent addition.  The stitch frame will work great, too.  Because they are light colored, use an intense shadow to make them pop.


If you come up short of frames in a kit or collection or the ones included are not exactly what you are looking for, you can always make your own.  Let me show ya how.

I thought a circular frame would look great with this word art.  Simply go down to the bottom right tool bar and click on Graphics, then scroll through to get the one you want and click or slide it in the document.


It will automatically come out the color that is in your color picker at that moment, but you can change it to anything in a variety of manners.  We'll be clipping in a coordinating paper.  Slide in your desired paper, right click in the layers column and choose create clipping mask.


Voila!  There is your perfect frame totally customized!

I'll show ya another way to get a layer for your photo.  You can duplicate the background like we did previously as shown.


Then you can go to the cookie cutter and or crop tool in the left tool bar and choose the shape you want.  We need a circle shape.  Use your mouse and get the size you need or of course, you can just drag in a circle from the graphics like we did above.


I slid in a pretty paper, doubled up the stitch frame and even clipped a paper over the stitch frame so it shows up better.


On to the next page and we are at 9:49.  Whoo hoo!  We are not only scrapping at lightening speeds, but our pages are really pretty.

This is some epic word art, here.  We are going to let it take over our page and center it.  Because the designers have left their goodies at a nice, large size and we are using small pages, there is absolutely no comprise in quality.

I'm going to use more shapes from the custom graphics in the program and make some more custom frames for this page.  Yip, two!


Slide the desired shape onto your page, clip in the papers you want over your frames, add your favorite paper to the background and shadow it all up to your fancy.


I felt like it looked a little bare.  You might be pleased with a result like that so move on to your next page or...

Make another frame for around the edge as shown.  Slide in the skinniest frame from the graphics for this because you'll have to increase the size and it will expand.  This frame is too thick for the space.  Let me show ya how to quickly fix that.

Got the marquee tool as shown.  It's to the left in the side bar, at the top and make sure it is on the square.  There is also an elliptical option.  Using your mouse, get that square exactly where you want it on or over our frame to get the desired size. Make sure you are on the correct layer (the large frame) and when you've got it just right, click your back space button.  It will erase everything in that space.


Now we've got a nice, slim frame that fits better.  Use the same papers for a nice cohesive look. Our frame matches the wood in the title and it looks really good like that.  Using all kinds of different design or pattered paper can make a page look too busy.


Now ya know how to get the rest of your pages finished.  I pulled in a few papers and sized them exactly as I wanted with the corners from the move tool, slid in Tracey's frame as well as another square from my graphics for our photo spot, plopped over the word art, gave it all a shadow and we're finished!  5 pages in just under 30 minutes.


Don't forget!  Most digital products come in png format so you can make some adjustments and run them through your cutting machines.  It'd be really cool to run the titles through your machine and paste them over your printed pages with some thick glue dots or foam tape for extra dimension.

Last week, I showed a mega simple, fast and cheap way to bind a book like this.



I do all kinds of scrap.  Hybrid, traditional, digital....It depends on the project at hand.  Hybrid really is a great option.  I invite you to give it a try or show us your latest hybrid project in our group.

Thanks for hanging with The Cherry.

Happy scrapping!





Friday, February 28, 2020

Digital Scrapbooking Templates Made With Love From The Cherry On Top

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

We're chock full o' scrap-a-liciousness, today in the form of page layouts, new releases, oldies but goodies and so much more.

Thanks so much for giving us a part of your day!

I've got a pack of seriously versatile templates ready for today.  The little critters from GS Creations are so darn cute.  Keep scrolling to find out how to scrap super fast and turn these templates into texture rich pages for your memory keeping.

 With Love Templates

Hello, gorgeous page!  I often post which shop to purchase and or a designer name. If you ever need more information, pop over to our group and we'll get ya linked up.

If you're new to The Cherry, I often give tips and tricks and I use italics for that.  So if you want peruse quickly through the blog, they are easy to spot.

I started talking about the power of mindfulness in our newsletter and promised that I'd give a bit more of an explanation over on the blog. It really is a life changing practice that you should start, today.  I'll chime in throughout the blog about that as well.  This way, you'll leave here full of scrappy mojo and tips to make your life even more awesome!

  With Love Templates
With Love Templates and goodies from the Sweet Shoppe

Cherry's page is just so beautiful.  Take a minute to let your eyes wander around her pretty page and enjoy that lovely picture as well.  Nature can be so beautiful and inspiring, too.  It's a great place to escape if you're feeling out of sorts.  Step outside at least a few times a day and just breathe in the air and absorb all that's around you.  Push out anything else that tries to creep into your mind and ruin the moment.

 With Love Templates

 With Love Templates

I told ya the templates were very versatile.  Any occasion will do!


 With Love Templates

 With Love Templates

 With Love Templates
With Love Templates and MLDesigns

With Love Templates and Clever Monkey Graphics

 With Love Templates
With Love Templates and Arizona Girl

 With Love Templates

Sometimes we can be surrounded by those we love and forget to really dive into the moment and not let anything come along and take that moment away.  Mindfulness is all about letting go of everything except everything that is happening right now.  For example, I'm typing in a near fury, then I remember!  Stop!  Chill, take a deep breath and just enjoy the process of designing this blog.  Uploading all of these fabulous pages full of faces that I've watched grow over the years with designers goodies that I've also come to know and love.

 With Love Templates


Tip: Here's that page I was telling you about.  It's just the template with a picture cropped into the mask and all I did was add some texture throughout with the use of SnickerDoodle's styles.  You can have a fun, texture rich page finished in under 5 minutes!!  Maybe under one minute!

Go through your templates with a scrutinizing eye and see which ones will make great quick pages.  A lot of ours will.

 With Love Templates

Here are a few more new pages with our Fantasia templates from last week.



What you'll learn from being mindful is that your efficiency will increase greatly and you'll even start to enjoy or at least not mind some monotonous chores, like ironing or the dishes.  Yes!  Im's serious!  Hehehe...

The quality of work will also be much better.  I used to suffer terribly from anxiety.  Those evil wicked thoughts still seep into my mind on a daily basis, but I've learned to be quick to push them the frick out of there!  Hehehe...I might assume and excuse me if this is not accurate, that depression might be the same.

Just look at all of the different things you can do with our templates.  I love how Theresa ditched the wreath and just made a gorgeous mega cluster.  Really, she only used our unicorn!  That's the whole point of templates.  They are there to give you a start.  Someone pointed out they like horn in the middle of the ears and I think I like it better, too.  It's easy to move, if you want to do the same.





More new pages with our previously released templates.

Got Ink and goodies from the Sweet Shoppe

Got Ink and more goodies from the Sweet Shoppe

Got Ink and goodies from the Sweet Shoppe


 Fashionista
Fashionista and Shutterbug from JoCee Designs

 Love Only
Love Only Templates and goodies from the Sweet Shoppe

So if you find yourself rushing through life, remember to take a breath, slow down and really focus on what you are doing.  I promise, it's a life changer!  Everything will become more clear and you'll feel so much better.  Remember to give yourself time.  Time is truly a gift.  It's even a gift we can give ourselves if we plan properly. Stress can cause serious illness even in people who live otherwise healthy life styles.



These last two pages are from our previous $2 Tuesday deal.  Make sure to stay tuned to each week's amazing deal.  Either keep up in the GingerScraps Group, our Group or in the shop.


 Jovial Templates
Jovial templates and goodies from the Sweet Shoppe

Let me leave you with some cool freebies from around the web and an amazing new collection from HeartStrings Scrap Art.  We share freebies nearly every single day in our group and on our page.  So don't forget to visit those places, too.

 Free Template

 Free Template

 Free Journal Card

 freebie
An awesome freebie from HeartStrings Scrap Art

 Slightly Strange
 One amazing collection!

Here's the page I made with it.  Bryony adds really fabulous paints and graphics.  She's got such an amazing artistic talent.  You'll love her products.  They are truly unique and beautiful. Make sure to click on my page and look closely at all of the details.  It started off with just this black stamp...



 Freebie!


Thanks so much for checking out The Cherry.  We'll see you around our social spots.

Happy scrapping!