Life is Wonderful!

And as some comedian once said: It beats the hell out of the alternative!

I love life.

Everyday brings something good . . . even if sometimes you have to search a little to find it.

Anyway, for no reason in particular I’ve decided to celebrate Life today with some free Word Art.

Click here to download the full size PNG file.

Click here to download the full size PNG file.

Click here to download the full size PNG file.

And here’s an extra one that epitomises my philosophy of Life.

Click here to download the full size PNG file.

Hope you’re enjoying your Life today.

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Word Art Freebie

Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

Here’s another Scrapbook Freebie for you

Although you can use it for cards or anything else you want.

Last year I ran a fortnightly newsletter which many of you subscribed to. I gave away three original pieces of Word Art in each newsletter.

Well life is a tad more hectic this year and I don’t really have the time to put together a regular newsletter. But I still enjoy making Word Art.

So I thought I might offer some Word Art Freebies to you from time to time on Scraps of Mind.

Here’s the first. I hope you enjoy it.

Right mouse click on the Word Art and select Save Link As… or Save Target As… to downoad the full sized Word Art in PNG format.

I love this quotation, by my good friend Anonymous. Sometimes I think we need to be reminded that life is not just about the passing of time. We really do need to stop and smell the roses.

Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy the free Word Art. And if you have any favorite quotes or sayings that you’d like me to make into Word Art, just let me know in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do.

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Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

…or do you just leave them as the default?

Did you know that you can change the look of your drop shadows in your graphics editing program?

It’s very simple and frankly, I think it makes all the difference to your digital scrapbook layout. Anyone who is part of my Step by Step Digital Scrapbook Mentoring Program will know how much I love to customize my shadows. I think it makes for a more authentic look for the shadows. And sometimes (especially for titles) it can be a funky way of giving the text and extra color boost.

What do I mean?

Well when you click on any drop shadow in your Styles Pallet your graphics editing program will apply a shadow that’s a standard size and distance from your element and is black with a level of opacity reduction to make it look gray.

But in real life, shadows are not all gray. they take on the tone of the item that they are shadowing. And by the way, I’m not talking about the shadows thrown by the sun on the ground. I’m talking about the small shadows that surround an object if you put it on a surface. Look at the shadow of an object sitting on a table and you’ll see what I mean. I’m looking at an envelope sitting on my desk as I write this, and the shadow thrown on the desk is brown, not black or gray.

If you click on the layout above, you’ll see what I mean.

And the good news is that in most good editing programs you can control the parameters of your drop shadow.

So how do I do it?

I use Photoshop Elements 5 but the principles for doing this will remain true for PSP or CS I would think, although the terminology might be different. So here’s how you can customize the drop shadows in your own layouts.

• First activate your element layer in the Layers Pallet and then select a shadow from your Styles Pallet and click to apply it to your element.

• Now double click on the little ‘sun’ or circle’ icon at the right of its layer in the Layers Pallet.

• You are presented with a Style Settings dialog box that allows you to play with the size of the shadow, the distance it sits away from your element and it’s opacity. You can vary these parameters by using the slider bars or by typing pixel sizes directly into the appropriate fields in the dialog box.

• You can also customize the colors of your shadows to match the color of your element or to create a funky effect. To customize the color of your shadow do this (note: this feature is not available in PSE4.
  • Click on the small color swatch box to the right of the size parameter in your Style Settings box.
  • The color picker box will open and you can move your mouse over your layout (it will turn into an eyedropper) and click on an area of your element which is the colour you want for your shadow.
  • You can click in the Color Picker to choose variations on this if you like and when you’re satisfied, click OK.
  • Note: For the most authentic look, always choose a darker tone of the color for your shadows.

• By playing with the Opacity slider in the Style Settings box you can make the shadow lighter or darker.

• When you have the shadow look you want click OK.

It’s as easy as that. And your shadows will look a lot more realistic.

A note to users of PSE versions earlier than 5. You don’t have the ability ot change the color of your drop shadows in these earlier versions. When I used PSE4 I used to make a duplicate of the element and apply the shadow to the lower layer. Then I reduced the opacity of that layer so that shadow would look softer.

Don’t forget, you can also use this technique to go to the other end of the scale and make your shadow totally unrealistic by picking a contrasting color, just to spice up your title a bit. This can be a very cool look for your title and I often use this technique in my Word Art for the Weekly Word Art Newsletter (see the top of this page to subscribe to this free newsletter).

I hope you find this scrapbooking tip useful. And if you did, why not share it with other scrapbookers by telling them about this article (you are very welcome to link to the article), or Stumbling it, bookmarking it in Delicious or giving it a vote on Kirtsy.

So back to the original question: do you customize you drop shadows? Leave a comment and let us know.

Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 303–312

William Shakespeare

Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

Transparent scrapbook layouts have been a feature of the paper scrapbooking world for a year or so.

They’re a cool scrapbook idea. You make them by creating your scrapbook layout using a transparent plastic sheet as your background. Like the ones used for overhead projection slides.

And there are a few things you need to consider when you plan your layout design.

First you need to think about how it is going to look from the back. Remember with a transparent background, the back of all of your elements can be seen on the reverse.

One of the ways around this is to think about doing a reverse layout on the other side of the transparency. To make this successful, it’s probably a good idea to keep your layout design relatively simple with large shapes dominating, that are easy to work with when you design your reverse layout.

And make sure you exploit the transparent aspect by leaving plenty of space to see through.

Transparent layouts can look very cool and there’s a certain sense of satisfction in creating one, because they present challenges that are different from ‘normal’ scrapbook layouts.

But can digital scrapbookers create transparent layouts too?

Answer: Yes!!

The real value of the transparent technique is in it’s physical form, not it’s digital form.

It’s easy to just colour the background of your layout white and it looks like a transparent layout on the screen. But once you print it out, there’ll be nothing transparent about it.

The trick for digital scrapbookers is to save the layout file as a PNG rather than a JPEG. That way you can print it onto a transparent sheet and all the transparency will remain intact.

In fact you can even take it one step further and add a couple of ‘real’ elements to your printed digital transparent layout. Say a ribbon or a border of buttons. Brads are not so good as they look pretty ugly on the reverse side.

Once again digital and paper scrapbooking techniques come together to result in great scrapbooking.

I love Hybrid Scrapbooking.

And don’t forget, if you are interested in getting started in digital scrapbooking, there’s a bunch of information and videos to get you up and running over at Step by Step Digital Scrapbook – the site that’s especially for the beginner to digital scrapbooking.

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Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

On the weekend my sister said to me ” I really love the Word Art in your Weekly Newsletter, but I don’t really know what to do with it. It looks great but I just don’t know how I can use it in ‘real life’ ”

So I thought I’d provide some examples of Word Art in action and also show you how to use it as greetings inside your cards.

And for those of you who don’t make your own cards, you can still do this and use it in cards with blank insides to make them a bit more spiffy and personal.

Word Art on Scrapbook Layouts

Word Art can be used in two ways on scrapbook layouts.

As your Scrapbook Layout Title.

Coming up with a knacky title for your scrapbook layouts can sometimes be a little challenging. Using Word Art as your title is a handy little scrapbook idea that can meet the challenge. If you’ve been collecting a library of Scraps of Mind Word Art you should have quite a few potential scrapbook titles in your stash by now.

You can see how June from Cen’s Loft has used the Host of Golden Daffoldils Word Art (from the Scraps of Mind Weekly Word Art Newsletter) quote on her layout here.

For Digital Scrapbookers it’s as simple as opening the Word Art file and dragging the Word Art onto your layout. You can then adjust the size and colour to suit your layout and you’re done.

For Paper Scrapbookers you can print out the Word Art onto paper, cut around the edge and chalk the paper in a complementary colour. Then matt it onto a piece of coordinating cardstock, cut it out, ink the edges and you have a cool scrapbook layout title element.

You can use Word Art as journaling on your scrapbook layouts too.

The Word Art that is based on quotes is particularly good for using this way. Just follow the same steps outlines above for a cool journaling alternative.

Word Art in Card Making

In the same way as for scrapbooking above, you can use your Scraps of Mind Word Art as part of your hand made card design. Just resize to suit the smaller card size and follow the same techniques as for scrapbooking.

Word Art is particularly handy to use as messages for the inside of Greeting Cards.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Open your Word Art files and drag them onto a New File that’s set up for 300 dpi and is A4 or 8.5 x 10 inches (whatever is the size that your printer takes).
   1. If you don’t use a photo editing software program you can still do this in Word by selecting Import Picture.
2. Resize your Word Art by dragging it in by the corner handles until it’s the size that would fit your card.
3. I would suggest that you repeat this with two or three pieces of Word Art so you can print off a few at a time.
4. Print out your Word Art on good quality white printer paper. Allow the ink to dry thoroughly.
5. Now rub some coloured chalk gently over the surface of the paper And blot with another piece of paper to set the chalk.
6. You can then cut out the Word Art either cutting around the edge of the design or adding a few doodles or scrolls to frame it.
7. Fix it to the inside of your card either with glue or with brads and you’re done.

I hope this article has given you some ideas to help you get the most out of your Word Art.

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Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure.

There is no end to the adventures we can have

if only we seek them with our eyes open.

Jawaharal Nehru

Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania some time of the night,

Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight

William Shakespeare (A Midsumer Night’s Dream)

Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

I farewelled a good friend this week.

He fought a long tough battle with Cancer and almost won. But it was not to be.

This one’s for you David.

Everything is created from moment to moment, always new.

Like fireworks, this universe is a celebration

and you are the spectator

contemplating the eternal Fourth of July of your absolute splendor.

Francis Lucille

Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

some say ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Scraps Of Mind - All about scrapbokking, digital scrapbooking and hybrid scrapbooking