Scraps Of Mind

Archive for the ‘Video Tutorials’ Category

Posted by karooch on

September 22, 2008

Wonderful Word Art

Most scrapbook designers get a real buzz when someone who has used one of their products contacts them to say “Hey come and have a look at what I made with your product!”

Well I’m no different and so when Egel dropped me an email to point me to a layout she had posted at A Cherry on Top I was totally stoked.

Click on the Image to see the layout full size

And I particularly liked how Egel has coloured part of the word art so that it matches the colors in the rest of her layout. For me that’s one of the many joys of digital scrapbooking: being able to customize elements so that they coordinate with whatever layout you’re doing.

Anyway, full praise to Egel and if you have a liking for word art and haven’t signed up to my fortnightly Word Art Newsletter, why not put your details into the box at the top of this blog and you’ll receive my newsletter with a ramble from me, updates on Scraps of Mind and three pieces of original design word art for you to use in funky ways, such as Egel has.

Or you can subscribe here. Just remember that you will be sent a confirmation email to check that you are a real person and not some robot thingy. So if you don’t see the confirmation email in your Inbox within an hour of subscribing I suggest you check in your junkmail folder as it can sometimes end up there. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by karooch on

June 30, 2008

How to White List your Emails

Today we’re going to look at how you can ensure that you receive the email newsletters that you sign up for.

Have you ever signed up to receive a newsletter and then found that nothing happens?

Well you might have typed in your email address incorrectly, and that’s a whole other story. But if you did type your email address correctly then chances are it’s because your email system think that it is unsolicited, unwanted advertising email and in its efforts to protect you, it has tossed your newsletter confirmation email in the junk mail. Let’s face it most of us never think to regularly check our junk mail, so there it will sit until your junk box does its regular clean out.

And all the time you’re thinking “What a dodgy newsletter that was. They didn’t even bother sending me one copy.”

Frustration for you and frustration for the newsletter producer. And I speak from personal experience here. I could weep when I see all the would be subscribers to my Word Art Newsletter who are listed as Unconfirmed because my email to them requesting confirmation of their subscription has been considered spam by their email system.

So here’s a tip if you sign up for anything and you want to receive their emails:

White List the email addresses of the Newsletters you want to receive.

What does that mean?

Well most email systems have a way that you can identify an email address as a ‘good guy’ so that they will allow emails from that address to get through.

First add the email address that you want to White List to your address book. For example,

karooch(at)scrapsofmind(dot)com if you want to receive the Weekly Word Art Newsletter.

Unfortunately all email systems are different (wouldn’t you know it?) so it might take a bit of checking in your menu bar to find the way it works for yours. But here are some instructions for some of the more popular ones.

Yahoo

Open your Yahoo mailbox.
Click Mail Options.
Click Filters.
Next, click Add Filter.
In the top row, labeled From header: make sure contains is selected in the pull-down menu.
Click in the text box next to that pull-down menu, then enter the address in the “From” line of the most recent email from the site you want to white list.
At the bottom, where it says Move the message to:, select Inbox from the pull-down menu.
Click the Add Filter button again.

Hotmail

Click the Options tab.
Select Safe List. (It’s under the heading Mail Handling.)
In the space provided, enter the address in the “From” line of the most recent email from the site you want to white list.
Click Add.
When you see the address you entered in the Safe List box, click OK.

Gmail

Add the email address of the site you want to white list to your contacts list by choosing Add Contact from the list of options on the left.

AOL

Go to Keyword Mail Controls.
Select the screen name that your emails are being sent to.
Click Customize Mail Controls For This Screen Name.

For AOL version 9.0: You need to add the sending address to your “People I Know” list.

Open your latest email from from the site you wish to white list.
Click the Add Address button (over on the right) to add
to your “People I Know” list.

AOL version8.0: Select Allow email from all AOL members, email addresses and domains.

Click Next until the Save button shows up at the bottom.
Click Save.

For AOL version7.0: In the section for “exclusion and inclusion parameters”, include the site you wish to white list.

So I hope that has helped some of you who might be feeling a bit annoyed with newsletters that never arrive.

And if you’re someone who has signed up to the Scraps of Mind Word Art Newsletter and not received one, then please try again and white list my email address to I can break thought your email protection shield.

Step by Step Digital Scrapbook – learn how to digital scrapbook

I have been making mention over the last couple of weeks of a new website I’ve set up to help beginner digital scrapbookers learn how to digital scrapbook.

So I thought it was time I ‘came out of the closet’ and told you all about it.

For some time I’ve been getting comments from people who are interested in the no mess, creative approach to scrapbooking that is one of the benefits of digital scrapbooking.

Some of them are paper scrapbookers who are finding it difficult to deal with the workspace and storage needs of paper scrapbooking. Some are people who would like to create scrapbooking layouts but don’t really want to get into the paper, scissors and glue scenario.

There are many tutorials around showing digital scrapbooking techniques … I’ve made some of them myself.

But none of them seem to address the needs of the absolute newbie: the person who isn’t comfortable with using graphics editing programs and who doesn’t know the terminology that has grown up around digital scrapbooking.

So I decided to do something about it.

I’ve set up a web site at Step by Step Digital Scrapbook

which is all about helping newbies get started in digital scrapbooking.

There is a whole bunch of information and videos there to help you get started. And if you want some more personal coaching and ‘hand holding’ assistance on your digital scrapbooking journey, you can join my Mentoring Program.

What’s The Mentoring Program?

The Step by Step Digital Scrapbook Mentoring Program is designed specifically to help new digital scrapbookers along their journey of discovery.

It is based on weekly eclasses which give you video tutorials to teach you new skills and show you how to apply them. All the digitals scrapbooking kits you need to make the demonstrated layouts are included with the eclass. As well as lots of extra tips and tricks and regular feedback on your progress.

The approach doesn’t bombard you with heaps of new stuff at one time. It teaches you a few key new techniques each week and helps you to build your skills easily and with no pressure. Creating great layouts along the way.

I wanted to do something a bit extra for Scraps of Mind Readers. So I’m offering the first 30 people who join my Mentoring Program some extra hand-holding help from me. You’ll 15 x 20 minute one on one sessions to discuss your particular digital scrapbooking challenges.

So if you are interested finding out more about digital scrapbooking, please click over and check out Step by Step Digital Scrapbook. And if you want to take advantage of the extra personal help from me, be in the first 30 people to join the Mentoring Program to take advantage of this extra mentoring assistance.

And if you know of others who might be interested in learning how to digital scrapbook and would like some hand-holding to help them get there, please share the link to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook with them.

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Posted by karooch on

March 13, 2008

How to Make Your First Digital Scrapbook Layout

I’ve just made a new Scrapbooking Edge Digital Scrapbooking Video Tutorial especially for Paper Scrapbookers who are considering making the transition to Digital Scrapbooking.

I figured that if you already make great looking scrapbook layouts in the paper scrapbooking world, it would be pretty darn frustrating to have to go back to creating really basic looking layouts as you start to learn new digital skills.

And many of the early learning tutorials that I have seen seem to create pretty uninspiring scrapbook layouts as your first effort. I reckon that if I were starting digital scrapbooking, I would want my layouts to be looking good right from the beginning — even though I didn’t have all the super duper techniques under my belt.

So I designed this tutorial to teach some of the fundamental techniques that you need to create lots of different layouts and also to make your first layout something that can stand proudly beside your more experienced paper layouts.

I’m pretty pleased with the result. And I think that if I were making my first digital layout, I’d be very happy to create one that looked like this. And to make sure you get a great result, all the elements used in the demonstration layout are included with the video.

So if you’d like to give Digital Scrapbooking a try and want to start making great looking scrapbook layouts right from the get go, click over to Digital Arts Cafe and pickup a copy of my First Digital layout Video Tutorial. You’ll be blown away when you see what you can create.

And as a special promotion, there’s a whopping 40% off until the end of this week.

If you don’t have Photoshop Elements you can download a free 30 day trial here.

Just think of all the digital scrapbooking layouts you could make in a month!

Digital Scrapbooking Tutorials – Create a Featured Area on Your Photo

A couple of weeks ago I published a Scrapbook Album and Story called Touring with the Travel Teddies.

A number of people have asked me how I created that raised area on the photo in the second layout. So I thought I’d make a little digital scrapbooking tutorial video to show you how to do it.

I use Photoshop Elements to create this layout but you can apply this technique in any of the photo editing software programs. Just remember the names of tools and their location may be different in different programs.

Here is the YouTube version of the video. But if you have a reasonable Internet connection (broadband) I recommend you click on the link under the video insert and watch the High Resolution version.

Click Here and view the larger sized, High Resolution version which is a much better viewing experience.

And if you like the style of this tutorial you might like to take a look at my longer, more detailed Scrapbooking Edge Video Tutorials at Digital Arts Cafe, which come with all the layout elements included with the tutorial.

By the way, if you think this is useful, please share this digital scrapbooking tutorial with others by voting for it on StumbleUpon and bookmarking it in Delicious.