Thursday, December 17, 2009

Clipping Masks

I've just begun experimenting with clipping masks.  What's that, you ask?  Here's an example of a clipping mask I found online:

You stick in in Photoshop and "clip" a photo or paper to it.  The results look like this:


You can use this technique with any shape your heart desires!
Here's a random clipart image I had on my computer:

Here it is after clipping some digital papers to it:



What do you think? 

Monday, December 7, 2009

Day 1

My husband hasn't even been gone for 24 hours.  He helped put the kids to sleep last night before he left.  It lasted for about two hours before the first alarm went off.  

Literally.

The smoke alarms decided to start chirping at 10 minute intervals.  I'd get up and take one down, wait 10 minutes, and take another one down until the chirping was silenced.  For a small house, there were a lot of smoke detector options.

Last night, I also went deaf in my left ear.  The ear hurts and I had trouble getting any sleep for the rest of the night.  This morning, I got the kids dressed and off to school, got myself to the clinic, and waited for  prescriptions for sudafed and zyrtec.

I then took myself to a dentist appointment where he numbed half my face and my neck and tongue. 

I'd just fallen asleep for a nap when the phone rang. 

I realized I hadn't eaten anything today and made blueberry muffins.

I picked up the kids, sold their plastic playhouse, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and got the kids in the tub.  While they played in the water, I tried an internet remedy for my ear- it didn't work.  They took the opportunity to splash so much that (even with the shower curtain closed) they flooded the bathroom.  I got them in pajamas and sent them to bed.

Not even 24 hours....

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Edges

As long as I'm thinking about scrapbooking, allow me to share one of my favorite tips. 

Sometimes, when you've cropped a photo and you put in on a background paper, the white edges stand out and detract from the picture.  To eliminate the contrast, simply run a marker along the edges of the picture.  Now you'll have a nice clean look.

Happy scrapping!

To store or not to store...

I am currently obsessively scrapbooking.  I'm trying to finish any albums that could be stored instead of mailed to MD.  I can store our wedding and honeymoon albums, the kids first year albums, and the Halloween album.  If I can get it up to date, I can also store the Thanksgiving album.  If I finish that I'll move on to the Disneyland album.  I still have plenty to take with me, don't worry.

Last night, I also photoshopped the backgrounds of a bunch of the kids' school pictures.  I used techniques I've already blogged about.  I simply desaturated most of them, making a light gray background. 

Just touching base.  What are you working on?