Author: CynthiaY2
I'm a Disney fan who loves all things Disney. I'm married to my soul mate and best friend. I have 3 children Ian my step-son who is 25, my son John Wesley 12, and my daughter Adrianna age 9. We also have a tri-color sheltie named Minnie. I've been an amature photographer for quite some time which lead me to become a member of Shutterfly. The quality of their books and other items is a amazing! Now believe it or not on average I take over 5,000 photo's on a Disney trip PLUS I always get the Disney Photopass CD. What to do with all those photo's but to put them into a treasured Shutterfly book. After our first few trips I started learning more and more about Digital Scrapbooking and it exploded over night. I first began following Natalie on the DIS and her creative designs where so inspiring. It then led me to a link I found on the DIS to MouseScrappers. The combination of Shutterfly, Natalie, and MouseScrappers has allowed my capabilities to grow and inspire others. I now scrapbook every Disney trip which for the past 3 years has been an extreme challenge. With my love for Photography, Shutterfly, Digital Scrapbooking and Disney through my books I will ALWAYS have the magical memories of our family time together! We are a dual working family and mult-task daily the chores of each day. Disney World is our escape and provides our family with quality time and wonderful magical memories.
Well it’s time for another Designer spotlight. I’m so excited and pleased to bring you…
Natalie from Natalie’s Place Designs.
I will admit that I’m a little partial to Natalie as she is totally responsible for “ME” and my scrapbooking addiction. Several years ago I basically stalked her on the DISboards and her amazing talent and generosity to all us less fortunate. She created journal pages, T-shirt designs, thank you cards, autograph pages, and so much more wonderful and amazing designs for FREE!
She is the reason I began digital scrapbooking. She has been so inspirational to me. When I created my very first Disney Shutterfly book in 2007 it just didn’t have that “Disney” feel. It was her designs that lead me to take the leap!
Shortly after she left the DISboards she contacted me about her new adventure as a Digital Scrapbook Designer and asked if I wanted to be on her creative team! I was thrilled she was using her wonderful talent to create amazing kits to share with all of us. As you can image I said YES!! I guess my favorite part of her kits is the depth and texture to each and every paper, element, and alpha. She creates her designs from scratch and they are simply amazing to me each and every time she does a release.
So without further ado let’s do the Designer Spotlight “Must Do” (Sound familiar?…he-he)
Let’s take a peek into Natalie’s Little Corner of the World!
Where do you find your inspiration for designing?
Inspiration, for me, can come from almost anywhere. I see patterns and color combinations and random shapes in the world… ideas spring from there. I bounce a lot of design ideas off my daughter…..She has a very interesting take on most things. It amazes me where our brainstorming sessions sometimes go!
What got you started in designing?
I have been an artist all of my life. I graduated from college with a BS in Art Education and taught art for a few years before my kids were born. I had to leave teaching altogether after my kids were diagnosed with autism. For therapy purposes, I started using the computer to create graphics, flash cards and communication cards for them. After I got my first digital camera, I began digital scrapbooking. Because I couldn’t seem to find the things I wanted for my pages… I used what I learned to create papers and elements for myself. It has all kinda grown from there!
What do you find to be the biggest challenge with designing?
Creating papers….. it’s a love/hate kinda thing! If I have a kit with 15 papers….. I have probably created 30 along the way. I am constantly changing them. I may spend an hour on a pattern and then just toss it into the maybe file because, I am just not happy with it!
What is your favorite Designing tool?
I love BRUSHES!!!! Between the brushes that I have collected and the ones I have created, I probably have over 5000 brushes on my hard drive.
How many hours a week do you spend designing?
Probably about 15 hours average….. unless my son is going through one of his insomnia phases!
Do you have another “real” job besides Designing?
I am a full-time manager for a major retailer. My husband and I work opposite shifts, so that one of us is always home with the kids….
How do you balance your time?
Designing is my relaxation outlet…… but it comes after family, home and work. My husband is a HUGE help with everything. He is great with the kids and is very supportive of me & my designing.
What is your favorite kit?
If you put a gun to my head and made me choose it would have to be Jungle Party. The Jammin’ Jungle Parade is one my favorite things at Disney (it is even my ring tone!) and this kit was inspired by this parade!
Who would you love to collaborate with?
I would love to do a collab with Paula and Melissa from Keystone Scraps. I love what they do!
What is a piece of advice you have for those that are trying their hand at designing?
Don’t fall in love with everything you do. Even if you have spent a great deal of time on an element or paper…. It may not be that great or right for your kit. Save it for later however….. you can go back and tweak it.
Who are some of your favorite scrap artists?
I find inspiration in almost every layout that I see. I have a great appreciation for different styles…. So I don’t really have favorites. I am partial, however, to the work of my CT. Cynthia….the photo guru, Linda…..the composition guru and Lisa… the technique guru make up the best CT a gal could ask for!
What is a piece of advice you have for scrappers?
Scrapping… to me, is about the story you are creating with your photographs.
If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
ITALY!!!!! The food, the art, the culture, the history, and the landscape……what more can I say!
Besides scrapbooking, what is one thing you are passionate about?
I love baseball! My husband and I are huge Phillies fans!!! I used the watch games with my Dad and my Grandpa as a little girl and now it’s something fun to share with my husband. And now, if the Phils would just start hitting…………..
Tell us something no one else knows about you?
I love the color black….. when I paper scrapped, everything was on a black background! I actually have to stop myself from adding black to every kit that I make!
I hope you enjoyed getting to know Natalie. She has a wonderful gallery of her layouts so be sure to check them out for further inspiration…HERE.
Here is a small sampling of her most recent and my favorite kits.
During our most recent Disney Vacation in March I was totally inspired by the new video from One Republic’s “Good Life.” We listen to the song often and we close our eyes and envision ourselves riding on Big Thunder Mountain, skipping through the park with Mickey or playing the drums with Donald. My inspiration was all the live footage inside a “photo frame” with live footage. I thought this would be a terrific idea to do with our photos in each of the 4 parks. This is what I finally came up with…
I posted these on my facebook page as we were vacationing and had a lot of people asking me “How did you do that?” Well, it’s not as tricky as you think. So let’s get started with doing your own little magic…
First have your family members stand on each side of the landmark and have them “pretend” they are holding a frame. I’m going to show you how we did our Hollywood Studios family magic. What is important here is that you want four fingers in the back and your thumb in the front like below:
Take this photo a few times both horizontal and vertical so later you can decide which photo is going to work best. Then take a photo of all of you in the same spot as a group.
Now comes the fun part of creating your family magic photo.
Step 1. Decide which “Pretend” and “Family” photo you like best and open them both in your preferred digital creative software. I use Photoshop Elements 9 so the screen shots you see below are from this software program.
Step 2. You will need to create a “NEW” page with a transparent background. I always create a new 12X12 page but for this purpose a photo size would be perfect. Let’s call this our “canvas” to make it easier to understand.
Step 3. I then re-colored the canvas to a bright green but you can recolor as you desire to makes it easier for you to see and work with.
Step 4…. result
Step 5. Take the canvas and drag and drop it onto my “Pretend” photo and resize the width to fit in the fingers of my subjects. In this case my son, John Wesley and my daughter, Adrianna.
Step 6. I like to also reduce the opacity to about 60% so I can see how it fits over their thumbs but not too much into their hand.
Step 7. Now you need to resize the green background to fit into their hands like below…
At this point it’s time to save your work as a .psd file so you don’t overwrite your original photo but yet can still continue to work on your project. I will call mine Good Life AK Magic.
Step 8. After saving you now need to grab the “Family” photo and drag and drop it over your canvas.
Step 9. You need to hit Ctrl-G which will group your photo in the shape of the canvas. If it doesn’t work then you need to go back to your Good Life AK Magic and ensure you have selected the canvas before dropping your “family” photo.
Step 10. I then resize the photo to fit inside the shape as I desire. Now it might not be tall enough or too tall so select your canvas and play with the height but be careful to monitor your width as you don’t want it to move from the fingers of your subject.
Step 11. You now need to hide the family photo by clicking on the eye which then disappears just like your photo.
Step 12. Now you need to click on your Canvas and reduce the opacity to 60%.
Step 13. Now it’s time to use your eraser and start erasing over the finger. I selected 8 px with the solid brush.
Step 14. As you can see below I erased the green that was over each finger. It’s important to take your time and do a little bit at a time and stop that way it’s easy to undo if you accidently erase to much you don’t have to start over with the whole finger just the last item you erased.
Step 15. Now you can increase the Opacity on the Canvas back to 100% to review your work.
Step 16. Click on the “eye” next to the Family Photo to reveal your family photo.
Step 17. Now you you’ll notice that it looks like they are holding a free floating family photo.
If you want you can stop here but if you wish you can add a frame as I did. I selected this great frame from Natalie’s Place Designs – Not So Spooky kit. It has great layering and I love the look it created for me.
Step 18. You now need to drag and drop your frame onto your project.
Step 19. Resize it to fit over the photo/canvas. I like to reduce the occupancy at this point as well because again we want it over the finger properly but not too much to give the right illusion.
Step 20. You might have some of the photo exposed either above or below the frame so you will need to get rid of it.
Step 21. Make sure you select the canvas before you start to erase. As you see below as you erase the bottom disappears. Be careful not to go above the inside of the frame.
Step 22. When finished you can see that the bottom is gone below the frame.
Step 23. Now you need to select the frame and erase over the finger.
Step 24. I selected 13px and what I call the fuzzy brush to erase the frame to expose the fingers.
Step 25. Repeat for the other finger. I adjusted it to 8px for her finger.
Step 26. Now increase you opacity on your frame back to 100%. Now it looks like they are hold a framed photo.
When complete simply save as .jpg and you’ve now created your very own “Good Life” Magic Shot! Hopefully I didn’t lose anybody through the process. Sometimes I never know if I provide too much information or not enough so I try to do too much just to be safe. Here is my cover for using my “Good Life” Magic Shots.
I can’t wait to see all those wonderful “Good Life” magic shots! Let the Memories Begin! Wishing you all a magical day!