Feature Friday | Miss Tiina

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Hello! It’s Friday, and time for another edition of our Feature Friday series here on The Digital Press blog!

This week, we’re excited to feature the incredibly talented Tina Raparanta of Miss Tiina. This is her second feature here on the blog (you can find her first feature article from January 2017 HERE)… and whereas this past year we used our feature series to help you get to know some fun trivia about your favorite designers, now we’re using our designer feature series to give you a little peek into our designers’ creative spaces and more insight into their creative processes.

With that in mind, here’s a peek at Tina’s creative space…

We can’t get over how much Tina’s work space mirrors her design personality! Clean, graphic design… bright colors… highly organized… with little bits of fun sprinkled throughout! 🙂

We mentioned this in our last feature article about Tina, but for those who missed it — our favorite bit of trivia about Tina (which you may have even found yourself wondering, on occasion)… why does her design name of Miss Tiina have 2 “i”s in it? You will be amused to know that it wasn’t a purposeful decision and there really isn’t any deep meaning behind it. Instead, it all dates back to a spelling error that her bank made when she set up her business banking account, years and years ago. So… she just went with it!

As you click through Miss Tiina’s shop at TDP, you’ll find yourself smiling. Her designs are bright and cheerful, clean and simple… and almost exclusively dedicated to getting us all organized! Her shop is the perfect place to stop to set up an amazing organization system for your busy life… and possibly supplement your memory-keeping stash, as well (as she has a few different pocket card and paper sets available, in addition to her signature line of printable planner items).

Here’s a look at just a few of my favorite products by Tina…

We’ve also asked Tina to provide us with a Top 5 list that is representative of herself at this point in her life… and she chose to share her “Top 5 Things I Love That My Kids Do”…

  1. They do their chores without being told
  2. They go to bed on time
  3. They use their manners almost always
  4. They make handmade birthday, Mother’s Day, etc. cards
  5. They snuggle with me like they are still my babies 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Tina a little bit better today! If you’ve been looking to get yourself organized and would love a fantastic, simple planner system that you can print at home — I have great news! Starting today, there will be a 30% OFF SALE in her store throughout her entire feature week (the sale will end at 11:59 pm ET on Thursday 6/22), so it’s the perfect time to stock up!

One last thing! Tina also has a very special Free-with-Purchase offer for everyone this week! You can snag this really fun set of printable note pad pages for FREE with any $10+ purchase in her shop — this week only!

 

Laura Passage

About the Author  Laura Passage is the owner of The Digital Press, and also the designer behind Wishing Well Creations by Laura Passage (WWC). She works now as a graphic designer in both the digital and paper scrapbooking industries, but previously spent over a decade working as a college soccer coach. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two young sons (affectionately referred to as The Tiny Terrorists), and will rationalize eating coffee ice cream for breakfast to anyone who questions it.

Tutorial Tuesday | Summer Bucket List

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Summer is officially here next week in the Northern Hemisphere. A lot of the kiddos are already out of school and a few weeks into their summer break, however. For me, that is when summer actually starts. Well, the fun activities of summer, anyway! 🙂

Every summer since my kiddo was about 5, we sit down as a family and make a fun-filled and jam-packed summer bucket list! What is a summer bucket list? A bucket list, itself, is a list of goals, achievements, activities, etc. that a person wants to complete during their entire life. A summer bucket list is exactly as it sounds: a bucket list for your summer!

Today, we’ll cover how to create a fun summer bucket list that has been created using digital scrapbooking supplies, and printed out in order to post in your house for the whole family to see and use all summer long.

Supplies Needed:

  1. Your list
  2. Digital scrapbook supplies of your choice
  3. Printer*
  4. Laminating machine & sheets*
  5. Dry erase marker

* if you don’t have access to a printer and/or laminating machine, you can also take your digital file to a professional printer to have it printed and laminated; here in the United States, businesses like Staples, Office Max/Depot, etc. provide these services at a relatively cost-effective rate

When it came to choosing digital supplies to make my list, I had a lot of options! There are so many great items in the store here at The Digital Press. I chose to use a product that was created specifically for this purpose — a kit called Summer Bucket List that was designed by Laura Passage as a collaboration with Amanda Yi Designs a couple of summers ago…

Instructions:

I use Photoshop Elements (PSE) 13, but most of the following steps will be the same (or similar) in most versions of PSE or Photoshop (PS). That being said, this project is more of a “make it as your heart desires” kind of thing. There are no set rules on how your list should look, or how you go about completing it. It is your bucket list, after all! 🙂

For mine, I started out with an 8.5″ x 11″ canvas in PSE. That is the standard-sized paper here in the states; therefore, it is easier for me to print at home and laminate. You can use whatever size canvas you like best, however (and/or whatever size is easiest for you)…

Next, I chose a patterned paper from the digital kit I was using, and opened it in PSE to use it as a background for my list.

It’s important to note that there are 2 ways to go about importing a 12″ x 12″ paper into a 8.5″ x 11″ file. You can drag the paper into your canvas after you open it separately in PSE — and because it’s bigger than your canvas (1″ taller, and 3.5″ wider) it will cover the entire canvas area and overlap the edges. This is fine; when you save your final image, you’ll only “see” what you can see on the canvas area that you’re working on.

Alternatively, you can open the paper straight into your canvas, which is smaller than the paper, and it will fit itself into the width of your canvas (but won’t be tall enough to cover your entire canvas). You’ll see what I mean in the following image (it fits nicely horizontally, but not vertically)…

In this second situation, you don’t want to stretch it out to cover the entire page (i.e. re-size it by stretching it vertically but not horizontally), or else you will distort the pattern. Instead, another solution is to copy the paper layer, lay it on top of the original paper layer, and then scoot it down until the blank area at the bottom is filled up.

As you can see, however, this will cause a visible line if the digital paper has any distressing around the edges (most do)…

This can be easily remedied. Choosing your Eraser tool, you set it at whatever size you like — big enough to cover the line, but not so big that it erases the entire paper. I set my opacity at 50% and then erased over the distressed edge area that created the visible “line.” Simple as that! You end up with what looks like a solid 8.5″ x 11″ page, as long as you’ve lined up the pattern between the two paper layers…

Now comes the part we all know and love so much — using elements and scrapping!

There are no rules here; you don’t even have to use the same size as I am showing. You can make a list, pocket scrap it, cluster and journal, add photos, and more.

Here is a look at the finished digital copy of my 2017 Summer Bucket List…

Once I was done creating the image of the list itself, I sent it off to a local printer to be printed. I chose 65lb cardstock and had it printed via a color laser printer (it’s personal preference, but I find that a laser-printed finish often not only looks better, but it usually holds up better in the long run, as well). I had it laminated with 5ml laminate. Here is the completed finished product…

As you can see from the photo above, there was a reason I chose to use a list format and to laminate the final product after printing it off — my 9-year-old son thinks it is his job to mark off each item as we complete things throughout the summer. He is determined that we will get through every single one of these this year!

You can do bucket lists for just about anything in your life: vacation bucket lists, “30-before-30” bucket lists, and pretty much anything you can list and label. Most of us have busy summers. Making a list (of even the simplest variety) and marking those fun family things off each time you complete a list item can make it just a little bit more fun — and also ensure that you remember all of your fun summer goals! It is also a great yearly keepsake to add to your album at the end of the summer, because it will go along with all of the photos will be taking and scrapping!

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About the Author  La’Shawn Castings is a creative team member here at The Digital Press. She is a 30-something, full-time working, nerdy, somewhat lazy, digi-scrapping, photo taking, college football loving, panda obsessed, yellow wearing, Harry Potter nerding, Doctor Who watching, historical fiction reading, southern wife & mom.

Feature Friday | Anita Designs

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I love Fridays for so many reasons — one of which is that we get to “meet” and learn more about our amazing designers here at The Digital Press!

Today I am excited to share more information about Anita Designs here on The Digital Press blog! This is not the first time we’ve chatted with Anita here on the blog (you can find her feature from November 2016 HERE)… and whereas last year we used our feature series to help you get to know some fun trivia about your favorite designers — this year, we’re using our designer feature series to give you a little peek into our designers’ creative spaces, and more insight into their creative processes.

With that in mind, here’s a peek at Anita’s creative space…

Anita says that there are a few things you’ll always see in her work space…

  1. Her speakers — because she likes to listen to music while designing or scrapping (her favorites are 70s, 80s, and 90s music).
  2. Her coffee — She says that she can’t live without it!
  3. Her “big furry friend” (the teddy bear, shown above) — which was a birthday gift from a fellow designer; just having him there while she works makes her smile when she looks at him.
  4. Her cookbook — you’ll almost always find that in her work space because she loves to cook, and it provides inspiration for her daily meals.
  5. Her camera — she always keeps her Nikon camera nearby to capture those “perfect photo moments.”

We’ve also asked Anita to provide us with a Top 5 list that is representative of herself at this point in her life… and she chose to share her Top 5 Favorite Places to Travel. She loves to travel, and has traveled all around Europe — including Vienna, Paris, London, Belgium, and different spots near castles in Germany. Her Top 5 list actually comes in two parts — 2 places she has already been and wants to visit again… and 3 “bucket list” places that she hasn’t yet been, but really wants to visit….

Anita’s Top 5 Places to Travel…

  1. Venice, Italy — “I’ve been there and fell in love with the place and want to go back soon.”
  2. Scotland — “Soooooo beautiful, and not a place I’ve completely explored yet. I can’t wait to go back soon to explore more.”
  3. Africa — *BUCKET LIST* “I would definitely go for the full experience – the wildlife and rivers, and the coast and sea.”
  4. Iceland —  *BUCKET LIST* “I definitely want to visit Iceland because of the volcanoes, but also for the landscapes and scenery, the waterfalls, and of course, to experience the famous Blue Lagoon.  I love spa and wellness trips, so that would be high on my to-do list in Iceland!”
  5. The United States — *BUCKET LIST* “Specifically New York City, and then Hawaii.”

As for Anita’s designs… she creates a wide variety of digital products in her signature clean & simple style, all with an exceptional eye for detail and beautiful pattern work. In her kits, you will find realistic and delicate detail in her textured and patterned papers, as well as stickers, buttons, flowers, ribbons and string, frames, and many other classic elements. Often her kits also include pocket cards… word art phrases in solid, distressed, and “sticker” formats… and wonderful paint splatters, stamps, and other delightful little details.

Here’s just a tiny sampling of some of the products you can find in Anita’s store at The Digital Press…

Anita’s products are super versatile and easy to use for all kinds of projects. Here is a sampling of some of my favorite projects that use Anita Designs…

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Anita a little bit better!  If you love her products as much as I do, or even if you’re just “meeting” Anita for the first time, I have great news! Starting today, there will be a 30% OFF SALE in her store throughout her entire feature week (the sale will end at 11:59 pm ET on Thursday 6/15), so it’s the perfect time to stock up!

One last thing! She also has a very special Free-with-Purchase offer for everyone this week! You can snag this gorgeous brand-new kit (just released today!) for FREE with any $10+ purchase in her shop — this week only!

calitenAbout the Author  Carrie is a creative team member here at The Digital Press. She and her family enjoy spending time outdoors, year-round, near their home in Colorado. In addition to scrapbooking and the occasional hybrid home decor project, Carrie also reads voraciously, accumulates fabric, makes soap, brews beer, grows hops, and tries to keep indoor plants alive.

 

Tutorial Tuesday | Digital Artist Trading Cards

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Have your ever looked at an artsy scrapbook page and thought, “Wow, I wish I could do that!”? I’m here to tell you that you can! If the thought of tackling a full 12″ x 12″ layout seems daunting, however, then my advice is to start on a smaller scale. Let’s talk about digital Artist Trading Cards!

What are Artist Trading Cards, or ATCs? ATCs are small pieces of art, only 2.5″ x 3.5″ in size, that are usually traded or swapped with other artists. They are like the creative version of baseball trading cards. Although you might think that ATCs lend themselves more to traditional scrapbooking because you exchange them with others, digital swaps are fun, too! Imagine opening your email and finding a handful of cards waiting for you. By allowing yourself to just “go with the flow,”ATCs might give you an artistic outlet that you had not considered — and they’re easy to do!

Step 1

Open a new canvas, 2.5″ x 3.5″ in size. I like my ATCs to be vertical, but you can also do horizontal, if desired…

Step 2

Pick a background paper (this sounds a lot like building a regular scrapbook page, doesn’t it?). I like the look of chipboard, so I’ll often reach for a kraft paper. For this card, though, I’ve selected a grid paper from Real Life by Calista’s Stuff.

**TIP** If you’re thinking of adding brushes, stickers, stamps, etc., to your ATC… then you might want to start with a neutral or more-solid-colored paper to give yourself somewhat of a blank canvas to work on.

Step 3

Now you can start layering digital stamps and brushes onto your background paper. You can choose one, two… as many as you like! Keep in mind that most digital designers create with a larger canvas in mind (for scrapbooking), so you might have to re-size a few things as you go. What I have here are two brushes — one placed just on the edges, and then another placed over the top…

Step 4

Finally, you can add some dimensional elements, if you wish. Just as was the case, above, with regard to re-sizing brushes and stamps — you may need to re-size elements, as well, so their proportions are in line with your smaller canvas size. Also, watch for shadows, especially if you are using pre-set shadow styles…

Step 5

Finally, add finishing touches like a title, word strips, or a favorite quote. I could have stopped at the previous step, but I wanted to add some word art. What I found, however, was that the black of the word art really jumped out at me because I didn’t really have anything else of that color on the ATC. I was left with one of two options: recolor the title, or add some black to the card elsewhere. I went with option 2, and voila! I added a butterfly to help tie everything together, and my trading card was finished…

Just like with any other creative outlet, how or what you design is really a personal preference. ATCs are unique to everyone, and can mean different things to different people. You don’t have to do any journaling or add photos, if you don’t want to. Your ATCs can be 100% digital, or you can print them out to create a hybrid project. Creating in an artistic style is something everyone can do. Why not give ATCs a try and see what you come up with!? Give yourself permission to play! 🙂

KatAbout the Author Kat Hansen is a creative team member here at The Digital Press. A Director of Human Resources by day, she loves the opportunity to spend a few hours each evening being creative. Vacation memories feature pretty heavily in Kat’s scrapbooking pages, as do her son and “daughter” (of the four-legged furry kind). Kat has quite the sense of humor (she “blames” her father for this), which she incorporates into her journaling and memory-keeping.

Hybrid How-to | Easy DIY Embellishments

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Hey everyone. It’s the first Saturday of the month, and so it’s time for another edition of Hybrid How-To here on The Digital Press blog! Today I am here to share some ideas for creating unique decorative embellishments using your favourite digital kit along with some dies and punches.

Like many crafters, I love using stickers, die cuts, and other decorative items… but my budget doesn’t stretch to buying lots of them. Therefore, creating my own embellishments from a digital kit is not only thrifty… but they really add a unique and original touch!

Supplies Needed:

  • Punches, dies, and/or decorative scissors
  • Foam tape, glue, and/or double-sided tape
  • Accessories such as paper clips, enamel dots, sequins, etc.
  • Digital kit of choice (for this tutorial, I’m using Feeling Happy by Anita Designs & KimB Designs)

Instructions:

I always like to start my projects by printing the embellishments as die-cuts. I use Photoshop and just drop my favourite embellishments onto a page to be printed later.

Because I will be creating small embellishments to fit into a Traveler’s Notebook for today’s project, I also scaled the patterned papers down slightly, as shown here…

Die-cutting is still a firm favourite technique and it has been seeing a bit of a revival lately. Although I own a Silhouette, paper punches and dies are really quick. The wafer-thin dies means that you can store lots of shapes now without taking up too much room!

Here’s a look at a batch of embellishments I punched out, using the printed version of the page layout you saw in Photoshop, up above. I created a little pile of interesting shapes using the different patterned papers and solid papers that came with the kit…

As you can see, circles are always a great choice for a base; you can use different sizes to keep things interesting. Ticket and tags come in all shapes and sizes, as well, and are also a must-have for me.

Now for the fun bit… once you have a selection of items, you can play around with layering them on top of each other, as shown below…

*TIP* As you can see above, notching out the end of the word strip sentiments adds a little more interest when it hangs off the edge of the design.

Next, for my attempt at a Travelers’ Notebook, I decorated the page much the same way that I would decorate a card or scrapbook page. This helped to warm up the creative juices…

I did a couple of list-style pages as a way to break the ice. The ready-made embellishments really added a little pizzazz to the page!

Then I also added some physical supplies and decorations to the pages (items such as paper clips, flair, and brads). Here’s a close-up look at one of the adorable little wooden brads and some string that I added…

See how easy and fun this is? Why not pick out a few of your punches and dies and create some ready-made embellishments for your next project? Having printed and punched a selection of papers and sentiments ahead of time, you will be able to whip up a unique layered embellishment in a flash!

I would love to see what you do if you give this a try. Share your homemade embellishments with us in the June Hybrid Challenge thread to earn Challenge points (you’ll find it in THE CROSSWORD SECTION in TDP’s forum). Hope you join in!

Morag

Morag Cutts is part of the Hybrid Creative Team here at Digital Press. She has been an avid scrapper and photographer for ten years.  Although she adores the flexibility and creativity of digital, Morag can’t resist playing with paper and embellishments — so hybrid scrapping is the perfect medium for her! Morag lives in the UK with her hubby, two kids, and recently-adopted puppy.

 

Feature Friday | Little Lamm & Co.

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Hello! It’s Friday, and time for another edition of our Feature Friday series here on The Digital Press blog! This week, I’m excited to feature the talented Amie Lamm of Little Lamm & Co. This is her second feature article here on the blog (you can find her first feature from June 2016 HERE), and whereas last year we used our feature series to help you get to know some fun trivia about your favorite designers, this year we’ve been using our designer feature series to give you a little peek into our designers’ creative spaces and more insight into their creative processes.

With that in mind, here’s a look at Amie’s fun work space…

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About her space, Amie says “I like having a light and white space since it’s in the basement and can be quite dark in the winter. We don’t have an IKEA here, so I have lots of Target cube shelving for storage. Different work spaces for crafting, sewing, and projects are a must. I still need more desk space no matter how much I get. New projects are always in the works. Until I find a setup that works best, I have most of my physical supplies boxed up. It will be like Christmas when my space is complete and I unbox everything.”

Doesn’t her work space look a lot like the products she creates? Couldn’t you see yourself creating wonderful layouts in that space?! Also, I spy a Gilmore Girls Fan! Do you see it? 🙂

We also asked Amie to share a Top 5 list with us that is representative of her at this point in her life. Along those lines, here’s a look at the Top 5 Things Amie Can’t Live Without…

  1. Coffee
  2. Amazon Prime
  3. Day Designer daily planners from Target
  4. Make-ahead meals
  5. Books on her iPad

When it comes to Amie’s products and her design style, I really like her soft colors, her pocket templates, and how full she packs her collections. Check out Lamm Lamm and Co.’s shop at The Digital Press. Here are just a few of my favorite products…

Here are some wonderful layouts I found in the gallery here at TDP that use Little Lamm and Co’s Products. You can see here how versatile her products are…

This coming week as we celebrate her feature week, you will find her entire shop at The Digital Press on sale 30% OFF (sale will run through 11:59pm ET on Thursday 6/8).

Additionally, Amie has a special Free-with-Purchase offer for everyone this week! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to stock up on your favorite products from Little Lamm and Co. while they’re on sale… and you can snag this fantastic collection for FREE with any $10+ purchase in her shop — this week only!

Krista

 

About the Author  Krista Lund is a mom of 3, married to her high school sweetheart and living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of her favorite things are brownies, chips ‘n’ dip, taking pictures, and documenting her family’s story.