It's easy peasy lemon squeezy to set the default font for text boxes in StoryBook Creator 4.0 (US|CAN). Go to Help (it's that little question mark icon in the top right corner of the screen) and select Options. Click Text style. Choose the font, font size, justification, color, etc., that you'd like to use as the default, and click OK.
Ta da! All text boxes added to projects moving forward will use those text attributes by default.
Efficiency and consistency are two of my very favorite things, and the Sample tool in StoryBook Creator 4.0 [US|CAN] is a mini-miracle when it comes to both of those.
I know I’m not the only one who tweaks and re-tweaks (ok, and re-re-tweaks ...) the font being used in a project. I’m also guessing I’m not the only one who wants the font formatting to be consistent throughout a project. Here’s a hint for making that update quickly:
1. Select the text box with the style you'd like to apply to other text boxes.
2. Click the Sample button on the Format Text ribbon. When you click the Sample button it saves the style attributes of the selected text box, including font, font size, font color and justification.
3. Move throughout your project (or even to a different open project!), select the text box to update, and click the Apply button on the Format Text ribbon. (NOTE: If no style is sampled, the Apply button won’t be enabled.) When you sample the style, it's saved to be applied again and again until you either sample another element or close StoryBook Creator.
Imagine how easy it will be to update the font throughout your next project created using Predesigned Pages [US|CAN]! Be aware, however, that applying the style won’t change the size of the text box being updated, so pay attention that no text gets cut off when the new style is applied.
The Sample tool isn’t just for text boxes: to duplicate the frame style from one photo to another, select the photo and click Sample frame on the Format Photos ribbon. Then select the desired photo and choose Apply frame.
You can also sample the style of a calendar element, copying all the formatting associated with that calendar. Select the calendar element to mimic, then right-click and choose Calendar style > Sample calendar style. To apply the style, right-click on the desired calendar element and choose Calendar style > Apply calendar style.
Enjoy!
Welcome to the third installment of Creative Memories’ ongoing series of blog posts highlighting quick and easy Memory Manager tips for using the software to its fullest potential. Check back often, and be sure to share the information with your Memory Manager loving friends!
This month we invited Robyn Foss, Creative Memories Unit Leader, to share how she uses Memory Manager’s Album Planner feature for more than just PicFolio™ project layouts. In this guest blog Robyn outlines how this technique, introduced to her by Senior Unit Leader Mary Logan, helps organize photos for both digital and traditional projects.
The Album Planner feature in Memory Manager 4.0 (US|CAN) has some great benefits:
Let’s step through the process for using Album Planner to prepare a StoryBook Creator 4.0 project.
Create the Album
Open Memory Manager 4.0 and click the My Albums tab.
Click the New Album button.
Give your album a title, choose the bookshelf on which it should be located, and select Album Planner for the layout type. Click OK.
Your empty album will now appear as a new tab.
Select Photos for the Project
Click on the Media Library tab to select photos for your project.
To find the right photos I filter them by clicking on the category I set up for the project (in this example, “Spring Break 2013”). This takes the items from the 50,000+ in my media library (yes, I am a photoaholic and proud of it!) to 858 items.
I also use the Timeline to show only items imported during the time of the event.
I further filter the pictures using the Rating feature of Memory Manager 4.0. After I edit my images, I give the images I want to use in a project a 4-star rating in the Item Properties area. Then I select 4 stars in the Ratings area of the Organizer panel. This brings my item count down to 344 items.
Select the first group of pictures (click on the first picture and then press Shift and click on the last picture of the group you want to select) and drag them into the work area tab on the right.
Using Album Planner
Return to your album by clicking on the tab with the album name.
Create one journal box to use as a place marker (mine says TAB), and then create additional journal boxes to serve as section dividers (for example, Trip to Hilton Head). I do this before adding images to the album, but these boxes can also be added after.
I make the TAB distinct so it is easy to find.
To add all the images from the work area to the album click Add images from work area.
If it's easier for you to only move small sections of images from the work area into the album, select the photos by holding down the Ctrl key while you click on them in the work area, then drag the selected images into the album. This method allows you to create journal boxes/section dividers, drag in the images for that section, create another section divider, drag in the images for that section, etc.
Repeat this process until you have added all items from the work area to the album planner. When you have finished with these photos, click the Clear icon at the top of the work area to remove all photos from the work area.
If you have additional photos to add to the album, return to the Media Library tab and repeat the process of adding photos to the work area, adding them to the album, and clearing the work area.
When adding photos from the work area to an album you can place them anywhere you like in the album. Drag them over the album planner to the spot they should be placed (you will see a black line) and let go. You can also rearrange photos in the album by dragging them to another location.
You can add a bunch of section dividers at once if that works best for you. Sometimes you might want additional sub-dividers within a section. So, you can adjust those sub-dividers to make them look different by clicking on the journal box, then adjusting the color in the Style section of the Journal tab. To make other journal boxes match this style, click on Sample, select the rest of the sub-dividers, right-click and select Apply.
Send the Images to StoryBook Creator
When you have finished arranging the various sections of your album, send them to your StoryBook Creator project. Select the first group of photos, right-click on one of the selected photos and
select Share > Send photos to SBC.
Click OK.
You can add the photos to a new project or to an existing project that's already open.
After you have added the photos to your StoryBook Creator project, return to the album planner and move the TAB place marker so that it is after the last photo you added. This helps you keep track of which photos have been added to your project.
Tip: For traditional scrapbooking the process is nearly identical, but rather than sending photos to StoryBook Creator you can upload them to be printed. Select the photos to be printed, right-click, select Print > Print at CM Digital Center. This saves you time later.
Welcome to Creative Memories’ ongoing series of blog posts highlighting quick and easy StoryBook Creator 4.0 tips for using the software to its fullest potential. Mike Pleice, Creative Memories Go Digital Facebook Fan Page Admin, has agreed to share fun tips like this with us monthly - yay!
Check back often, and be sure to share the information with your StoryBook Creator loving friends.
A paper is a paper is a paper. Not always. Papers can be used in other ways than simply just the backdrop for your digi page. Below are a couple of ways that I use them that are simple to do and hopefully will enable you to get more out of your papers and enhance the look and feel of your finished pages. (NOTE: Mike used the Tattered Flannel Digital Kit (US|Canada) in his sample below).
PAPER AS A BORDER
I use this technique a lot actually. It is easy and gives you numerous options for different looks that really can help your page stand out.
To use a paper as a border simply “Add a paper” to your page, but DO NOT set it as your background when asked, just add it to your page.
Next, grab the paper by the corner and set the length and width that you would like to have as a border.
From there, you can play with the temperature and color controls to get the color and tone that you wish.
You can also use the filter or surface options on it as well to change the look of it in numerous ways as well. Just play around until you get the look you want and viola! You have a one of a kind border!
Duplicate the process as many times as you like to give your page that unique look.
PAPER AS A FRAME
Looking for that perfect frame to make your pictures really pop? Have you thought of using a paper? Papers as frames can accent a picture extremely well and again, it is simple to do. Once you have the picture sized and set where you want it on your digi page then “Add a Paper”.
As previously mentioned, do not set it as a background. Place the paper over your picture and click “Arrange” “Move Backward”. Once the paper has successfully been moved behind your picture then simply resize it to the desired height and width. As with the border, from here you can experiment with the temperature and color controls or filters to get a desired look.
Surfaces, color tones and temperature can completely change the look of your page. Once you have a look you like then have fun with embellishments to complete your page.
Hopefully these few simple tips will help you get not only the most out of your pages but the most out of your digi kits as well. The most important thing is to just have fun experimenting. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, that is what the “Undo” button is for. The more techniques we have in our digi page trick bag the better! It will aid in making your overall work look more exciting as well as the process itself far more enjoyable.
- Mike
Welcome to Creative Memories’ ongoing series of blog posts highlighting quick and easy Memory Manager tips for using the software to its fullest potential. Check back often, and be sure to share the information with your Memory Manager loving friends!
We field a lot of questions from our Memory Manager 4.0 (US|CAN) users asking for suggestions on using the facial recognition feature to its fullest potential. There are slightly different approaches depending on whether or not you already have a memory vault with existing tags. However, both new and existing users can benefit from using facial recognition for the same reason: it’s a relatively quick way to tag important people in your photographs so you can easily find pictures of those people later.
During the facial recognition process the software does two things:
Let’s start with the part of the process that both new and veteran users have in common: running facial recognition at the time photos are imported into Memory Manager. There are two ways to accomplish this:
Identifying the faces in those photos is a bit different for newbies (those without existing vaults and tags) vs. veterans (those with existing vaults and, likely, an established organizational structure of categories and tags), so let’s branch out here.
Newbies
The first time you import images into Memory Manager you won’t have any tags. You will need to create a new face tag for each person you want to categorize this way. However, once the tag is created, you can identify the face in other pictures by selecting that existing tag. Keep in mind that you don’t have to tag every face in every photo – see the section below on Ignoring faces.
For specific information on how this works, click here to see a facial recognition training video specifically for new Memory Manager users.
Veterans
If you have a large memory vault, chances are that you have existing tags that also happen to include the names of important people in your life – because even before the facial recognition feature was added to the software, categorizing people by their names was a pretty logical organizational approach. If this is the case here’s the most important information for you (and I’m indenting it and putting it in bold, green type so you really pay attention):
When you are identifying people you can select an existing non-face tag and it will be converted to a face tag. And “converted” simply means that the icon in front of that tag in your category list will change to an image of a person, rather than a blue tag icon. For example, if you have an existing tag called Bob, and for years you’ve been tagging photos of Bob with this Bob tag, you DO NOT need to create a new facial tag for Bob: just choose the existing Bob tag you’ve been using for years.
Need specifics? Click here to see a printable PDF with detailed instructions for users who already have memory vaults; click here to see the corresponding video.
Do I need to run facial recognition on the pictures already in my vault?
So the next big question for users with existing vaults and tags: If you’ve already got all your photos of Bob tagged with Bob, do you need to run facial recognition on all those existing photos? No, you certainly don’t. Our Memory Manager training documentation suggests that you do, but it’s certainly not necessary.
The benefit of identifying Bob through facial recognition is that the software starts to recognize Bob and suggest his name with increasing accuracy on future photos; but you’ll always be able to pick Bob’s name, even if the software doesn’t suggest it. If you’re finding facial recognition overwhelming, start small. A reasonable collection of photos that aren’t tagged with anything might be a good first batch of photos to use. You might not love it. You might find it’s great to use on new pictures being imported, but that you’ve done such a fabulous job tagging pictures in the past that it’s not worth the effort to run old photos through facial recognition. It’s ok to use it (or not use it) in whatever way that makes sense to you.
Ignoring faces
Your photos are riddled with strangers in the background, and if you’ve never noticed those random faces before the facial recognition process is going to make it obvious … perhaps even painfully so. I mention above that the process of identifying faces happens picture by picture. So, for example, if you have 100 pictures of the crowd at the graduation ceremony, and you ignore a face in the background, that face has only been ignored for the single picture being referenced at that time. If the same face appears in the other 99 photos, you will need to ignore it 99 more times. Therefore, you may find it easier NOT to run the facial recognition process on huge batches of photos with a lot of background faces. Instead, manually tag the important people in those photos. (See the training documents noted above for information on manually tagging faces.)
Well, THAT’S not a face
Sometimes the magical combination of math, science and fairy dust comes up some pretty funny suggestions for what might be a face. Silly math! (Don’t tell my sister the math teacher that I said that.) You will occasionally be asked to “identify” odd things in background. Even more amusing is when the software suggests a name for the random face-like arrangement of objects. Apparently I resemble the bumpy textured surface of our cubicle backgrounds, and my daughter (much to her delight!) looks like an animated princess. Try not to take offense if your name is the one that pops up. And feel free to share that goodie with us on our Creative Memories Go Digital Facebook Fan Page ... everyone at the Creative Memories Home Office appreciates a good laugh.
Welcome to Creative Memories’ ongoing series of blog posts highlighting quick and easy Memory Manager tips for using the software to its fullest potential. Check back often, and be sure to share the information with your Memory Manager loving friends!
One of the most useful and common methods for organizing photos is using chronological order. Memory Manager automatically does this for you -- as long as you have the time and date set correctly on your camera! If you don’t, take 2 minutes RIGHT NOW to correct this problem. Not kidding. Go now. Skedaddle … I’ll wait for you to get back.
[Time elapses. Insert tick tock noises. Apply lip gloss. Check cuticles.]
Oh, good, you're back. You’ll thank me for that later. Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog:
When photos are imported into Memory Manager, any metadata stored on your camera/camera phone is automatically stored with the photos. Examples of this information include the time/date the photo was taken, saved pixel size, camera manufacturer or model, whether the flash fired, ISO speed, focal length, even GPS coordinates if the camera has such functionality. To the average photographer this is a lot of gobbedly gook; to the advanced photographer this information can be a gold mine.
The amount of metadata saved will depend on your camera (or camera app, if you’re using a smart phone), but you can almost always count on this including at least the date and time the photo is taken. I say “almost” because there ARE some smart phone camera apps that don’t store this information. Be mindful of this. One way to check is to take a photo with the app, wait a bit (even for a few minutes to pass) and then import the photo into Memory Manager. In the Item properties panel look at the Item information. If the information in the fields Imported on and Original date are different (and Original date is the correct date/time when the photo was taken), you should be safe.
Ensuring that your camera date information is set correctly will save you tons of time and work in Memory Manager. Upon importing the images, they’re automatically organized by date, and can therefore be filtered by date using the Timeline. In other words, if there’s a particular image you’re looking for, and you know the general time frame (or even specific date) in which it was taken, the image will be much easier to find.
The Timeline appears along the bottom of the Media Library. It can be hidden or displayed by clicking the up or down arrow in the top right corner. The bottom axis is labeled with some type of time frame (this example shows individual years).
The timeline is a bar graph of all your photos. Hover over one of the bars to see how many image, video or audio files there are within that time frame:
Click on one of the bars to display only the images for that time frame. If you’re looking for an image in a category or tag that you know was taken in a specific time frame, you can first select the category or tag, and then further filter by selecting a date range. Remember that the filter parameters are displayed at the top of the Media library.
You can adjust the span of years displayed across the bottom axis of the timeline. Hover over the double right-facing arrows:
The Timeline Options appear:
Move the Scale slider to the right to show individual months or days; move it to the left to display decades.
To drill down further, click More … in the Timeline Options window. You can then select specific date ranges of images to display. Select Media date to show images taken within the specified time frame; select Import date to show images imported into Memory Manager within the specified time frame.
The fastest way to get rid of the filters and display all the images in your Media Library is to click the All button on the toolbar:
Interested in learning more Memory Manager tips & tricks? Tune in next month ... we plan to make this a regular blog post topic. Post your questions or comments in the comment section below, or pop on over to the Creative Memories Go Digital Facebook page.
See you next month!
Annette
I totally dig Nick Kelsh's photography style, and he's always got the perfect advice for us that's sound yet very, very funny. He's not afraid to be silly (which I find awesome) and I think that's why SO many Creative Memories Consultants adore him.
I had the pleasure of working in Nick's booth on Friday at the Showcase Expo, and my job was to explain to folks these new fangled cards (the Going Manual Mini-Manual) that Nick has come up with. Oh, and he's had the foresight to also create a DVD that goes with the cards, explaining exactly what the cards mean and how to use them. After having greeted hundreds and hundreds of excited Consultants when they entered the booth, I had the script of how I could explain these beauties memorized to a tee. And here's what I said:
"These cards are wonderful little laminited manual photography tip charts - they fold in half and fit perfectly in your camera bag or purse. They teach you how to use the manual setting on your camera. They explain f-stops, ISOs and things like when to use your camera handheld or when to use a tripod. And THEN, the backside of each card is jam-packed with super fun and useful general photography tips written by Nick."
Then I explained the price to folks, and nearly every Consultant who came through the line decided these were a must-have. To our delight, on his website howtophotographyourlife.com Nick has extended this awesome Showcase pricing out a while, so the more you buy the more you save! The cards are $10 for a pack of 20 (just 50 cents a piece), but when you buy more, you score big! Buy five 20-packs, he'll throw in one pack free for a 20% discount (that's $40 for 100 cards!). When you buy ten 20-packs, you'll get THREE FREE packs for a 30% discount (that's just $70 for 200 cards!). Perfect little giveaways at workshops, parties or team meetings!
And the best part is the video I mentioned - it explains everything on the card and how to use it. They're just $5.
Because we're all about celebrating memories through photography, this sweet little product is something that will become your best friend as you venture through your life photographing both the big stuff and the very little stuff, too. Having this at your fingertips, that big letter "M" on the setting dial won't be such a scary place to stop when you're out shooting around. And who knows... you may eventually end up shooting EVERYTHING manually and poo poo the days when you used to set your camera on "auto". ;)
Enjoy!
Jenny Dammann
In a past life I used to enjoy traditional scrapbooking...loved to get my hands in it, rub, rip, fold, print, layer, tack, and of course filled my dining room table with IDEAS that I just hoped to come to life. I left this out for weeks at a time because... I could. Now little fingers are a factor, as well as the fact that now I have a family and life is a tad bit different so I USE my dining table – FOR EATING.
That past life comes to mind when I get out the stickers, play dough, scissors, puzzles and any other activity for today’s playtime for my kids, which of course is followed by the take down and clean up. A task I do for my kids but couldn’t imagine having time for in my own hobby. I was so thankful for digital scrapbooking when it came to be. A way I could scrapbook, come to and from a project with so little effort.
As much as I am thankful for digital scrapbooking, I do miss traditional some times. I love the look of hybrid scrapbooking (when you combine the two) but still I don’t do it often because of lack of time or energy.
Because of this new (again) found love I have been playing around with Creative Memories Storybook Creator software. It has such great tools, that with a little effort and creativity you can make your pages pop much like they do in traditional or hybrid scrapbooking.
In this page, I created a frame which can be made using SBC cutting tools, surface tools and shadowing tools. I'll show you how in the instructions!
I learn so much by fiddling around (so my Husband calls it) in StoryBook Creator! I have spent many hours trying out the different techniques – tried, failed and have been shocked at my success. Getting used to the tools is your first goal...and then play...try new things...and have fun!
Nancy O’Dell Recipe Digital Kit
Vintage Romance Sewing Room Digital Embellishments
Stitching Digital Embellishments
Serene Digital Kit
Elements Digital Embellishments
Office Supplies (Gold) Digital Embellishments
Insert O'Dell RecipePaper18. Rotate the paper so the words are no longer in the top right but move the paper until the words are in the top left. Add VintageRomancePaper5 and using the cutting tools, cut the paper with a rough rip to expose the top of the paper. Copy and paste that paper onto the page. Change the color of the paper, sampling the blue from the top paper. Rip the top of that paper and slide it just below the Romance paper. Apply a shadow to the papers to show depth.
Add VintageRomSewRm31 which is the large thread-like paper from the Vintage Romance Sewing Room Digital Embellishments package to the top left portion of the paper. Add this 3 more times to the top left of the page. Select Vintage Romance Paper5 and ‘fill the selected shape’ of two of the papers on the top left. Add VintageRomSewRm26 (straight stitch) and VintageRomSewRm25 (curly stitch) in several spots in the top left corner on top of your papers.
To make the frame, first add pre-made frame from one of the kits with straight lines. If you don’t want to use an already made frame, simply add a paper and make it the shape of a rectangle and cut out a rectangle for the center. Change the color of the frame to white. Highlight the frame you are using. Using the Format ribbon on the top of StoryBook, select the surface button under effects. Add a wrinkles2 with very low contrast. To manipulate the frame to look as though the corners are folded up or curved, you must add your own shadows. Do not shadow the whole frame using the shadow tool. You must add a long triangle (like a wedge) to the page. Make it a dark grey or black. Use the format ribbon and select soften edge. Soften the edge dramatically to make it look more like a shadow rather than keeping it actual shape. Fit this triangle along the top left corner along the side and bottom left corner and just shy of the bottom right corner. This is something that you may have to play with to get the right effect, as its hard to explain via words the shapes and specific spots to place your shadows.
From the Serene Digital Kit select "I" white tag and place this on the top right of the top frame. Also add this tag to the page using the cutting tools - cut out the letter "I" and fill it with a sample of the white from the tag. Flatten this new tag. Copy and paste this 3 more times to the page. Inside your second tag, type in ‘love’ using Adler font. And add ‘you’ in the third tag and ‘Smile’ in the fourth. You can manipulate the size of the tag to fit the words you are inserting. Once your words are placed in the tags as you wish, flatten the tags so you can move them around and increase/decrease their sizes.
Place the I - love - you tags along the right side of the homemade frame. Add a small amount of shadow to the tags just so they stand out. Find the VintageRomSewRmEmb3 (the blue button) from the Vintage Romance Sewing Room Digital Embellishments package. Place this button to secure the tags to the side of the frame. Add another text using the shape ribbon. Using LaineyDaySH font insert a ‘&’ symbol in a light green color (color sampled from the page). Also using LaineyDaySh font, insert "your beautiful" text in a white color. I often add a fractal map (noisy) to my text to add a worn look. I did this on "your beautiful" for this page.
Now slide the "smile" under one of the papers on the page. Using another one of your shadow triangles (copy and paste one you used for your frame), insert the long edge along the bottom of the tag but exposing both sides of the point so it looks as though you have indeed lifted the tag from the page (A REALLY COOL LOOK). Another way to make the tags look 3D is to darken the edges using the edit image, select touch up brushes when right clicking the image. I also darkened the top right edge. Add a HINGE from Garden Sunset Digital Kit to secure the frame to the page and add shadowing to the hinge. Behind the hinge and frame, add ElementspaintedBubbleWrap from the Elements Digital Embellishments package.
Add OdellRecipePaper18 to the bottom of the page and use the arrows to change the shape from square to rectangle and make it smaller to use for journaling. Along the edges of the journaling paper, add Stitch8 from Basic Stitching Digital Embellishments package. Along the top of the journaling spot, add What I Love from Serene Digital Kit. Secure it with VintageRomSewRmEmb3 (the blue button). Add your journaling.
Add frames and photos to the bottom of the page. Use GoldClip from Office Supplies (Gold) Digital Embellishments to secure the pictures and frames. Finally, add VintageRomSewRm18 (the cute little brown bow) to the clip.
Enjoy!
Jennifer Gibson
Creative Memories Design Team Member
SBC 4.0 offers a couple fun ways to use fonts. Inside the program, you can use any font and fill it with paper by going to the Insert ribbon and then in the text category selecting shape. I love doing this to add some papers and outlines to my fonts. But did you know that you can also make shapes from fonts? Making a font into shapes will allow you to fill your font with photos AND be able to adjust them just the way you want them. You probably already have some dingbat fonts installed on your computer and SBC4.0 had a few of them pre-installed as shapes to use. I have gone searching for a few additional dingbats that would be GREAT for using as elements or photo holders. DaFont is a great resource for this.
What to do to turn your fonts into shapes:
1) Find the fonts you want to make into shapes. Install them to your computer. [Instructions can be found here: PC]
2) If you already had SBC 4.0 running, you’ll need to restart the program for the font to be recognized.
3) At the startup screen, select “Manage Content”. In the left hand column, you’ll see “Installed Fonts”. Right click on that and select, “Add a font”. Scroll through your list to find the fonts you want to turn into shapes. Then select “Add” at the bottom.
4) Insert an Empty Frame and select it.
5) Go to the Format Photos tab and select “Select Mat”.
6) Click on the Cutout button. In the left hand column, select “Installed Fonts”. You should see the font you just installed. Select that font and scroll in the font preview area for the shape you want and select it.
7) Now,before you exit out of the “Select Mat” pop-up window, change the “Mat fill” to transparent. This will allow your shape to have no background visible on your page.
If you like horses, find a horse font. Birds, find a bird font. Install it, fill it with paper, and off you go. Find a frames font and fill those with paper and you’ll instantly have fun frames for any SBC+ project. Have fun playing. Here are some examples.
Make sure you’ll be using the font in a way that is accordance with the Terms of Use agreement from the font designer.
Happy Spring! Turning my calendar to April – I realize a good friend’s birthday is just a few days away. What to get her, I wonder? Of course, I want to find a gift that is not only unique and personal, but something she really likes. Like me, she’s a bit of a bookworm. Just having read some good books, I think, why not give her a book? Maybe I will also make a bookmark to go with it – one made especially for her with a special wish. A good book recommended by a friend – it’s a perfect and simple gift.
Using Storybook Creator 4.0 and the beautiful new Enchanted Digital Power Palette, I’ve created some bookmarks I think she’ll like. I will print them on heavy paper and laminate them. I’d like to share them with you. However, don’t think they have to be just bookmarks. S-T-R-E-T-C-H them a little bigger and add a ribbon to create a cute door hanger. Stretch them even a little more and they are a perfect border for an album page.
While creating these, I used some simple techniques I’ve discovered for editing embellishments. I truly LOVE the embellishments in the kits, sometimes though I need to change them just a little bit - perhaps the color isn’t quite what I want, or I just want to use a small part of an embellishment, or I’m looking to create something completely unique with its pieces.
For Bookmark #1, I placed the Life Is Fabulous and the Live Simply embellishments on the canvas. To “cut” a portion of an embellishment, simply select the embellishment and use the cutting tool to cut the portion that you would like to delete. In the case of Life Is Fabulous, I use the rounded rectangle shape to cut out the portion shown. I click “cut” with “keep the unshaded section” selected.
For the Live Simply, I want to delete the “LIVE”. To do this, I choose the Wand tool, highlighting each letter while holding the shift key. (Don’t forget to include the little areas of the letters under the scrolls.) I then click “cut” with “Keep the unselected area” selected.
After resizing and positioning the remains of the two embellishments together, the image below shows what I have left. (Note that when resizing objects, you need to hold the shift key while clicking and holding the button on the mouse, so the object correctly maintains its shape.)
For Bookmarks #2 & #3, I used the same Ribbon-Green embellishment. Select and place the Ribbon-Green on the page. With the ribbon selected, cut it in half lengthwise using the “straight” tool. With “Keep both sections” selected, click on “cut”. Both halves are now selected, so you will have to click off the ribbon and then back onto just one of them. Copy and paste this piece twice. Three pieces will become your flower “stems”. Cut one circle off of a stem, using the ellipse shaped cutting tool. This will become your leaf. Copy and paste twice, resizing to make different sized leaves. Please see below.
There should be one last piece. This will become the black link for Bookmark #3. Select it and color it black by choosing “Cut&Fill”, “Color”, and choosing black. Assembling the pieces, you obtain the below elements to use in creating the bookmarks.
Have fun creating!
Smiles,
Debbie
A Simple Gift Bookmark Instructions
Ingredients:
**Begin all bookmarks by cutting a rectangle measuring 2” x 5 ½” from Paper 12 and making this the background.
Bookmark #1 (Live Life simply.)
Bookmark #2 (Happy Birthday)
Bookmarks #3 (Where there is Life)
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