Did you know that every year Pantone – THE color authority – releases their “Color of the Year” prediction? It’s the color they believe will most heavily influence many things in the design industry from fashion to home interiors, and scrapbooking is no exception. Sometimes the color saturates the market, like 2010′s Turquoise, which is still going strong. Sometimes it’s less prevalent, but still visible, like 2011′s Honeysuckle, a personal favorite.

The color they think will be big this year is Tangerine Tango, which they describe as a spirited reddish orange.

I love this color, but I’ll admit that orange is a tricky color to work with, and probably not one of the first ones you reach for when you’re scrapbooking! I’d love to show you some great color schemes to get your ideas flowing.

One thing you might notice… I’ve put an awful lot of blue in these. There’s a reason for that: If you think back to your art class, orange and blue are complementary colors on the color wheel, meaning they are across from each other. With a bold color like Tangerine Tango, blue (being its’ opposite) is the best way to bring it out that gorgeous hue.

Ready to jump in? Feel more like dipping your toe? Check out these great kits available here at Design House Digital, perfect for adding in this fun and trendy color.

• A Life Recorded by Audrey Neal and Karla Dudley (grid in top graphic)
• Rocketman by Deena Rutter
• Scarborough Fair Open Air by Deena Rutter (floral in top graphic)
• Ever After by Gennifer Bursett (stripe in top graphic)
• Sunny Days by Karen Funk
• Kraft – Brightsv1 by Robyn Meierotto
• Sunlight’s Delight by Tiffany Tillman (distressed solid in top graphic)

Do you see yourself using Tangerine Tango? Will you wear it? Decorate with it? Stay far away from it? I’d love to know what you think about Pantone’s choice, and what you would pick for 2012′s color of the year.

What I’m trying to say is I’m a master at making impossible situations possible on my layouts. And today I’m taking you behind the scenes of two my layouts. So you can see the magic too!

I’m fond of my Souvies layout’s color and design. But I chuckle each time I share the page because you’d never guess that sitting behind the barrage of photos is a very cut-up photo frame.

I duplicated and butchered that frame into a million pieces just so the textured edges would peek out from behind the photo grouping. Not so much magic as is “I’m going to fit this square peg into the round hole or else.” When I want an embellishment on my page, I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Here’s another example.

Again, smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors! Would you have guessed that sitting under my photo grouping were three journaling blocks plus a multi-photo frame? Maybe not, maybe so. But the point is to look at your elements as more than just a single object. Explore the edges, the center, the bottom and the top. Chances are you can make use of your elements in unusual ways. You just might need to think outside of the box. Or cut them up … literally!

Valentines day is right around the corner, no better time to get your little Valentine treasures all ready to give.

This free template is available on my blog at www.deenarutter.typepad.com .

Here I will show you how I used the template to personalize my little owl.

I used some paper from my SCOOT collection as well as the template.

Open up the paper you want to use.  I used SCOOT-hills-white for the box.

Place the pillow box template and make a clipping mask.

Place the other paper you want to use for the wings.  I used SCOOT-dots-white.

Make a clipping mask with the wings too.

Place the rest of the images as layers on your canvas.

I put my owl face directly onto my pillow box.

Print.

Get scissors, glue, scoring tool, pencil, and ribbon.

Cut around images.

Trace box template on back side of pillow box.

Score where you traced and crease.

Glue flap onto the inside of the owl.

Glue wings onto the back of the owl.

Punch a small hole through the top of the pillow box.

Thread the ribbon through and tie at the top.

Fill pillow box from the bottom with your goodies.

Flaps will fold right up into place if creased correctly.

Thanks for checking out this little tutorial.  Personalize your owls and add them to the DHD gallery!

Are you a paper scrapper? Did you used to do most of your scrapping using paper, glue and embellishments? I used to be a paper scrapper and sometimes I still get that itch to be crafty with my hands. I have a lot of friends who paper scrap too and I wanted to give you all a look at what can be done using paper and digital supplies.

First, I picked out some papers that I wanted to use, Robyn Meierotto’s Vintage Holiday. I printed out strips of papers and then I also printed out some embellishments from that kit as well. You’ll see that I used the tags but then I put the red snowflake on them before printing. That snowflake would be super hard to cut out by hand.

Then, once I had my digital supplies printed, I dug around in my stash of embellishments and pulled out some buttons, gems, twine and glitter glue. I cut out all my paper strips, stars and tags. Then I started making some flower embellishments by folding my paper strips like an accordion.  Once folded, the strip can be stretched so the ends meet and it forms a flower shape.

Next, I attached the flowers to my tags with a dab of hot glue and then embellished each tag with a star, a few gems and a button. I also wanted my banner to have a little more bling so I put some glitter glue on the felt letters and on the star. The stars are popped off the tags with foam adhesive squares. The tags were then attached to a string of twine and the little red polka dot flags went between each letter tag.

Finally, I strung my banner from a little shelf above our piano and love to see it displayed with all of our Christmas decor. You could make your banner say anything that you want…Merry Christmas, Believe, Joy to the World, etc. I hope that this has given you another way to use your digital supplies!

]]> http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/classroom/holiday-banner-20-days-of-christmas/feed/ 1 http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/blog/hybrid-calendar-20-days-of-christmas/ http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/blog/hybrid-calendar-20-days-of-christmas/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:32:43 +0000 Carey http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/?p=8182

A personalized calendar makes a great gift for those on your Christmas shopping list (and of course yourself!). By creating a hybrid calendar, you can easily reproduce several copies of the same design. Follow along as I show you how to make a quick and simple hybrid calendar for 2012, made even easier by using a digital calendar template.

For this project, you’ll need the following supplies:

• Digital Calendar Template
• Digital Paper and Embellishments
• Software
• Color Printer, Paper
• Chipboard – 2 pieces cut to 4 1/4 x 6 7/8 inches
• Adhesive
• Binding Machine and Coil
• Distress Ink (if desired)

I used the following kits:

******************************************************

Step One: Open January template, desired photo, paper and embellishments. Click on the dark gray background layer at the top of the template. Then, drag and drop your photo into that area, moving and resizing as needed.

Step Two: I resized the paper and moved the ribbon and bracket to show more of the photo. Use the Move Tool and select the ribbon, bracket, bracket border and month layers by holding the Shift key as you click on each one. Drag these layers lower on the template. Then resize the paper layer by clicking on the handle and dragging so it is behind the ribbon layer.

Step Three: Add paper and clip to the paper layer by clicking CTRL-G. Repeat for the bracket and bracket border layers. Add paper or embellishment over the ribbon layer.

Step Four: I moved and rotated the bracket and month to cover a distracting element in the photo. Add shadows and other embellishments as desired.

Step Five: Flatten image by selecting Layer>Flatten Image. Crop page to remove any items extending beyond the edge in preparation for printing. Select the Crop Tool, then for Aspect Ratio choose “Use Photo Ratio” and crop the image.

Step Six: Open new file by choosing File>New>Blank File, then in the dialog box choose Preset “U.S. Paper” at 8.5 x 11 inches at 300 dpi. Drag and drop your January page onto the new file and rotate it 90 degrees in order to print two pages per sheet of paper.

Step Seven: Complete your February page as above and add to the 8.5 x 11 sheet for printing. Align the two images for ease in cutting. Leave plenty of space for the binding punches at the top of each image (to the right as shown above).

Step Eight: Print your sheet on matte presentation paper or white cardstock. Trim to leaving 3/4 in. at the top of each page and 1/8 on all other sides (your page should be 4-1/4 x 6-7/8 inches. Ink edges if desired.

Step Nine: Punch and assemble the calendar.  If you don’t have a binding machine, you can punch three holes and use binder rings. Use chipboard as your front at back cover, which also allows the calendar to stand upright. You can paint the chipboard or design a digital cover, print it out and adhere with strong adhesive.

Now you’ve got a great gift to give (or keep) that can be displayed on a desk, a shelf or even hung on the wall. To see the rest of the calendar pages, check out my gallery later this week.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season and take a little time to do something crafty!

Today I’d like to show you an adorable paper Christmas Tree.

You can make these trees as an ornament, a gift topper, or a standing decoration for a mantel, shelf, or teacher’s desk!  Also I know things are really hectic in December so I’ve tried to help you out a little by providing a free template to get you started with today’s project!

For this project you will need the following:

• Digital Scrapbook Paper Kit and software
• Color Printer, regular weight paper
• Bone Folder (or ruler)
• Scissors
• Bamboo Skewers (found in the cooking aisle)
• Tape
• Ribbon (optional)
• Stamp pad (optional, for distressing)

I am using Robyn Meierotto’s Vintage Holiday Digital Paper Kit

and a free layered template (.psd file) I created for this project which you can download here for letter size or here for 12″ wide printers. (patterns not included, template has solid colors so you can choose your own papers.)

Clip patterned papers to the circles in the template and print onto regular printer paper.  NOTE: Be sure to check the “Scale to Fit Media” box before printing so that it will resize automatically to fit your printer.  I did try this first with printed cardstock but it was too hard to fold, so just use regular weight paper.  Cut out the printed circles.  If you like the distressed look, distress the edges of the circles now.

Fold each circle in half, and half again with the printed side facing out.  Fold it in half two more times until you have a cone shape.  Use the bone folder or ruler to get really nice creases in your folds.  Do this for all the circles.

While you still have the paper folded, snip off the very tip.  This makes a hole in the very center of the circle that allows us to slide it onto our skewers.

Unfold the circles.  Some of the folds will have to be folded back the opposite way to make the accordion shape we want to end up with.  So just use your fingers to make sure you have the folds alternating all the way around.  These are now your “branches.”

Slide your largest circle down onto the skewer, holding the skewer upright so you can see about where you want your bottom branch to sit. Wrap tape around the skewer at that point, underneath your branch.  This keeps the bottom branch from sliding off.

You can tape the other spots on the skewer as well, or you can just let them sit on top of the bottom branch.  After you’ve added all the layers, you can tie a bow at the top of the tree, or you can add a bead or some other cute decoration.  Use your scissors to start a cut all around the skewer and then just break it at that spot to get rid of the excess, or raid your husband’s toolbox and find something sharp to cut the skewer with.

Your tree is finished! 

Either add an ornament hanger to your bow, or find something to use as a base for the trunk of the tree.  I found a small candle that I had with a metal lid, and I used an awl to poke a hole in the lid.  You could also use a wooden spool or block from the craft store.

I hope you liked today’s project.  Merry Christmas to all of you!

Every year for the holidays, we buy about a case of wine and give a bottle to co-workers and certain family members. Usually my husband just purchases the foil bags to put the wine in and calls it a day. This year I wanted to try something a little different. I emailed Lori Whitlock and begged asked her if she’d create cutting files for wine bottle labels. She graciously agreed! Along with her awesome digital kits available here at Design House Digital, Lori also designs cutting files that she sells in the Silhouette store as well as SVG files that she sells on her site. She created six different shapes for me. The shapes are available for purchase at her store or in the Silhouette store.

To get started, I cut all of the tags using Kraft cardstock. I like to think of Kraft cardstock as the nude pantyhose of the scrapbooking world. It’s a neutral and it goes with everything! By using kraft, I really didn’t have to match the colors in the kit to my cardstock stash. When scrapbooking or papercrafting, any decision I don’t have and make saves me time is a bonus! If you don’t own a digital cutter,  you could cut a piece of cardstock to 8.5 inches by 3.5 inches. Then fold about 3 inches from the top then use a large circle punch to punch out an opening for the neck of the bottle. Now you’ll have a perfect canvas to get started on.

I decided to use Lori’s Christmas Day digital collection. I love the fun color palette and knew that the elements would be perfect for my tags. I selected a few papers and elements from the kit and printed them out on Epson Premium Matte Presentation Paper. The presentation paper really holds the colors well, much better than plain cardstock which absorbs a lot of ink. Be sure to buy the brand that works with your printer!

I created five different tags. I plan on writing messages on the back of the tags. My favorite is probably the pocket tag. A bottle of wine and a gift card to a favorite restaurant or cooking store; what a great gift for a foodie! You can see that I photographed the tags above on water bottles. We didn’t have five bottles wine on hand. I think the water bottles would be really cute as party décor as well!

For the banner tag, I used the banner from Lori’s kit. Then I layered a couple of patterned papers, cutting the notch into them using the bottom of the tag as a guide. I only adhered the top of each layer so they can curl up a bit and add some dimension.

I thought the saying Eat, Drink & Be Merry was perfect for this next tag. Notice how I pop dotted up the holly and berries to give it some dimension. By adding text to this tag, I was able to add “from the smiths” as well!

For the scalloped flag tag, Lori provided an extra triangle layer. So I cut my patterned paper out using that layer. Then I cut out the snowman from Lori’s kit. I dug around in my paper stash and found this black text paper and made him a jaunty little hat! I think this one is adorable!

I absolutely love the blue doily paper in this kit and felt I had to use it on my last tag! I simply cut out the ornament and because the hanger in the kit wasn’t long enough I made another using some kraft paper. Then I added a little bow using a glue dot to the front of the ornament.

Now my bottle gifts look so much more festive and personal! If you give these tags a whirl, be sure to share in the gallery. I hope you and your family have a lovely holiday season!

December is here and it’s time to decorate!

I hope you are feeling festive today because I have a really fun way to decorate your indoor lights! We will be creating Christmas Light Covers! I originally saw the idea for a Halloween theme on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect to use for Christmas as well!

So here we go! It’s really easy! The first thing you need to do is pick a bold colored Christmas kit – I chose Shannon Hegartys’s Peppermint Papers because, well,  they looked so yummy!

Additional supplies:

*small paper cups (I used dixie-type cups)

* a string of Christmas lights

* craft knife

* scissors

* black marker

* double sided adhesive

I used PSE 7 for this tutorial.  So here’s what you do:

Choose three different patterns from your paper stash.

Open a letter size document (8.5×11) and drag the first pattern to it.

Save as a .JPG and print the  image.

Repeat above for the other two patterns.

You should have three sheets printed. This will make 12 cup covers.  If you would like a longer strand of 24, then print out three more sheets.

Take one of the small cups and very carefully peel it apart. Start with the rim at the top and uncurl it and then carefully rip the seam. You should have a nice curved template of the side of the cup. Discard the bottom piece. See photo below.

By tracing your template close together on the back of each sheet you should be able to trace four cup covers.

Cut out each one using scissors.

Each cover will fit very snuggly around the paper cup. Use strong double sided adhesive to seal.

Now slice a tiny X on the bottom of each cup using a sharp craft knife.  This will allow you to feed the light bulb through the cup cover so don’t make the X too big as you want a snug fit.

Now just string up your adorable light covers on a window or fire place mantel!

*frame from Shannon Hegarty and elements from Lori Whitlock

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Have a Merry Christmas!

]]> http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/blog/hybrid-light-covers-20-days-of-christmas/feed/ 9 http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/classroom/hybrid-advent-calendar-20-days-of-christmas/ http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/classroom/hybrid-advent-calendar-20-days-of-christmas/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:00:31 +0000 Joscelyne Cutchens http://www.designhousedigital.com/content/?p=8055

Hello DHD fans, it’s Joscie checking in with a hybrid advent calendar to help the kids enjoy the countdown to Christmas.

Here’s what I used:

Plain White Cardstock, Mini Paper Bags, Glue Dots, American Crafts Foam adhesive, Hot Glue Gun, Big Shot, Tim Holtz Rosette Die, Paper Tray Ink Label Dies, Marvy 2″ circle punch, Fiskars 1″ circle punch, Creative Charms Adhesive Gems, Canvas, Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze Tinsel Town, foam brush, Scissors, Paper Trimmer, Divine Twine, White buttons, Printer.
I was thinking about using library card envelopes and then I found these bags in my stash- 2.99 from Hobby Lobby and 2 bags of 12? just the right number for my project!

In Photoshop, I opened a new 8.5″ x 11″ 300 ppi document and added tags and labels from Deena’s Jolly Holiday kit.  I resized all so none were wider than the size of my bags.

I also printed various patterned papers from Deena’s Jolly Holiday Kit on plain white cardstock.

I cut strips 1.75″ x 11″  out of the patterned papers.

I used the Tim Holtz rosette Die to cut the strips.

I accordion folded the strips.

I adhered the ends and pushed the centers in.

I used large flat glue dots in the center of the rosettes to both hold them together and to adhere them to the bags.

If you don’t have glue dots, you can use a hot glue gun.

Hand cut the labels and tags.

In Photoshop, I added Robyn’s Vintage Newsprint Numbers over some of Deena’s Patterned Paper and printed on plain white cardstock.

I used a 1″ circle punch to punch the numbers.

I lay out all of the bags and started planning which elements would go where.

I tied some divine twine Christmas Twine in some white buttons and adhered with the hot glue gun (since it was handy).

I used American Crafts Foam Adhesive Squares to adhere all the numbers for dimension.

I added self adhesive gems from Creative charms on some labels.

I tied divine twine on mini bottle brush trees.

I used the hot glue gun to adhere the trees.

More Creative Charms adhesive gems.

I painted my canvas with Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam in Tinsel Town. It dries very quickly.

I used a laser level to beam a straight line across my canvas to help me lay the bags out in line.

I used one mini glue dot to adhere to the canvas.

I can remove the bags and add them to a december daily mini book.

I created these fun activity cards for my advent daily rewards:

You can use whatever activities or verses or story titles if you want to read a certain story each night.

I hope you like my advent calendar and are inspired to make something for the Holiday!

These instructions are for Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Elements 6. If you have a different version the menu options just may be slightly different than what I list.

First, you want to open your full size (12×12 or 8×8) .jpg file of your layout.

Next, you will resize your layout. In CS you do this by image>image size. In PSE it’s image>resize>image size. The dimensions will be 600×600 pixels and 72ppi. Change the pixels/inch first and the size second.

Next, you will sharpen your image. This is what makes it really pop on the web, instead of having that slightly fuzzy look. You’ll do this by applying an unsharp mask to the entire image. In CS you’ll find this in filter>sharpen>unsharp mask. In PSE you’ll find it in enhance>unsharp mask. My settings are as follows; amount: 150, radius: 0.3, threshold: 0. You could play around with it a bit if this doesn’t look quite right to you.

Now you will save your new file. Make sure you choose “save as” and not “save”, you don’t want to overwrite your full size file. I always save my file with the same name as my original, but I add the word “small” to the end.

There you have it! A few easy steps to really make your layouts pop when they’re uploaded to the web. I’ll end with a visual of how my layout looks before and after resizing and using the unsharp mask.

Before:

After: