Mindless Scrap

This week's tutorial was rather fun! I disliked the original when I saw it. I couldn't appreciate the tube that was used. So when I was jumping around looking for a tube of my own choosing, I ran across my favorite little hippie of Popeye Wong's. I love this tube. After that, the tutorial became much more enjoyable. I kept messing with the colors. I didn't like the red black orange theme on the tut. This was probably too colorful, but that's okay with me. It went well with her tshirt, lol. I liked the noise effect on this. I hadn't used that before. (And it was in my new Eye Candy! I love getting the opportunity to play with that!) I would use that again. During the tut, I got hung up a bit. The directions called for using the checkerboard pattern fill that comes with PSP. The only problem is, it didn't come with MY PSP! A kind person on one of my boards shared hers with me. What a nice gal! I do have an itch to redo this tag, making it look...

Okay, you're probably wondering why I would do a Christmasy tag just before Easter. Actually, I was rather bummed out because the weather forecast here calls for six to eight inches of SNOW. Yes, snow. I know it probably won't add up to that much, and even if it does, it won't last that long, but still, it's a real let down. I want to be thinking about crocuses and tulips and magnolia blossoms. Not shoveling. Blech. With that in mind, I created a sort of Easter tag, complete with snowflakes, LOL. I love the bunnies on this! I just love bunnies in general, so I had to make this. I also rather liked that font! I'll have to use that again. I'm fond of decorative script fonts. I tried to find a more Easter-like mask, but I didn't find one yet, so I stuck with the snowflake mask. I guess I could have dropped the red bow, or added eggs, but what the heck. Maybe I'll reuse it at Christmas time, lol! I had a lot of frustration with this tutorial. ...

I was looking for an excuse to use my new Keith Garvey tube, Bunny. I finally found an Easter tutorial. So far, I haven't seen a whole lot of those that don't use a lot of cutsey little chicks, bunnies and birds. This one did too, but it wasn't quite as bad as some, and I took out some that I wasn't fond of. The little bunny I found a long time ago, but I no longer know where. He wasn't quite as cartoon-like as the ones I've been finding. I liked the squirrels; they came with the free kit for this. This is not the style I was hoping for, but it turned out better than I expected. There was something about the tube the tutorial used that kind of creeped me out, LOL! I like my tube better. After I finished making the tag, DH said he wanted some animation in it. He was disappointed that it was just a jpg image. So, at his request, I added the butterfly on the fence. I started to mess with colorizing it, because it was a very faint blue to start with, and...

Tried something a little different on this tutorial. It's not the typical style I normally go for, but it caught my eye. I kept finding myself going back to this design, so I had to give it a go. I just really like this image. I didn't get to creative with it, because I liked it just as it is. I might play with these ideas again. I tried the constellation feature in Xenofex. Geez, I love that plugin! I didn't realize it could do this. I would have liked to have done that on some other designs. There was something about the fonts I liked too. I liked the contrast of the grungy font behind the pretty script. And the black vs red contrast, too. Very appealing to me. I learned a new technique, too! This tut called for using a greyscale version of the main image, and using MM copies plug in, set to wallpaper. Cool! On top of that, the wallpaper image then was used for the mask! I liked that very much. That may get used again somewhere. A fairly simple tut, but fu...

Finally, I'm catching up on my postings here. This is for this week's Tut Challenge. I like the looks of this kit a great deal. And it gave me a chance to use one of my Janesko tubes. I really like her artwork. Beautiful. It must be wonderful to be able to create something so lovely. I learned something new! I love when that happens. I had been trying to figure out how to duplicate the coloring that was used on the font in the tut. Fonts are often sadly ignored in tuts. I've found several that don't even tell you which font they used, let alone how they got it to look that way. On this one, the colors appeared to reflect the colors within the elements. So I opened up the flowers in a separate image, and then turned them into a gradient. Whoopee! It was very close to the effect I was trying to duplicate! Close enough for me, anyhow. That was exciting. The rest of the tut was incredibly simple. But I love the look. And I love that it taught me a new tech...

This tutorial was kind of disappointing to me. It used templates, which I'm fining more and more frequently. It's starting to feel like cheating, in a way. This was a fairly simple layout, and it seems like we should have been able to do it without the huge amount of help the template provided. Even the animation was simple. Oh well. That's okay. I played with styles outside of my normal range, so that's a good stretch. I changed the word art on this tut. Something about the phrase "Me & My Girls" that didn't seem to fit me. It either felt like a gang, or like a brothel, LOL! Either way, I wasn't feeling the love with the word art. So I returned to the Cyndi Lauper phrase. Yeah, I realize I've used it before. But I do like the song. I guess I'm dating myself, LOL. This tutorial was for a voting challenge. I don't think I have much of a chance in this one. That's okay. I don't participate to win. I participate ...

I admit it, I'm just dying for a chance to practice with my new plugins! Eye Camdy has this neat smoke feature, which I love in this tutorial. Something about that little whiff of steam that just fascinates me. I had to buy the artwork, just to be able to create this tut. It kinda spoke to me, LOL! Why two? I didn't own the scrap kit, and it's PTU. They used a kit called Chocolate Mint, which is nice and all, but I'm not that big on light greens, so I didn't think I would get enough use out of it to justify purchasing it. Besides, I should be able to come up with something on my own, right? So that's where the brown sample came from. I love the brown tones. It just felt coffee-ish to me. It also felt warm and cozy. I was pretty happy with it, until my DS said he liked the green one in the tutorial better. Hmph. Okay, I felt sure I could create a reasonable reproduction without purchasing the kit. So I set out pulling from my freebie collection. I...

This is from last week's tutorial challenge, About Girls. I discovered a whole bunch of free artwork on MPT, so that's where the art came from. I liked the look of this tube on this tutorial. I'm not sure why. I guess it sort of took that whole girly girl idea and gave it a sexier tone. And I liked the necktie amongst all the makeup and shoes. Something about the contrast, I guess. The tube is a bit racy, so I wonder if I will bring the censors running. Oh well. It got through challenge week. What more can I ask for? I sure would like to be able to find a site like photobucket that allows for a bit of nudity, and in a gif format. If you know of one, let me know, okay? I didn't really learn anything new with this tut, so this was for practice. I love practice, lol. Tutorial Used: http://sites.google.com/site/kylietutorials/aboutgirls .

Okay, I'm behind here, LOL! I haven't been very timely in my postings this week. I'm sorry. But I do have good reason. First off, my birthday was last week. So that was a big distraction from my online responsibilities. Especially when DH gave me the Eye Candy bundle for my birthday!! WOOHOO!! (I've been playing, lol!) Then, my MIL came home from the nursing home, for good! Quite a lot of work. Quite a lot of celebration. And quite a lot of wondering what we've gotten ourselves into... But I digress. In summary, the past week has been crazy. I'm going to do some posting here to catch up. This was done as a tutorial. I've been getting a lot of experience at color changing, especially with all the St. Pat's stuff. I don't know why, but much of the tuts out there are a pale green. I prefer the darker tones. So I fiddled with the colors to get different elements to match better. I love that manual color adjustment!! LOVE it! And I...

During the Valentine holiday, I saw a siggy that had falling hearts in it, and I was fascinated with the look of it. I wanted to do something like that myself, but I was a bit too green to know where to find the animation, let alone how to apply it. But today I saw a siggy that had falling shamrocks in it, and I decided to tackle the concept today. Once I saw it, I then had to figure out where to find all the supplies for it. Yikes. My biggest problem is that I was looking for the wrong name. I thought they were falling shamrocks. What I should have been looking for was "Floaties." I finally stumbled across some similar designs, but not shamrocks, and was thrilled to finally have a better tag to search for. Once I knew what they called them, they weren't so hard to find. Then I just had to find one that was to my liking. I wanted a good size, and I wanted a more 3D look, not just flat. And I didn't want them to pile up at the bottom of the tile. I also saw...

I was playing around some more with my new Xenofex 2 plugin, and enjoyed this puzzle feature. It even allowed me to choose a setting called "Almost Done," which applied the puzzle piece look, with some pieces missing. Perfect feature for someone involved with Autism Awareness! (Puzzle pieces are the universal symbol for autism.) This was a tutorial I did just for fun. I rather like this design. The original was created with Gorjuss artwork, and as you know, I'm not fond of those. So I put in a Garvey tube that I particularly relate to. I do think another design might have worked a little better, but I haven't figured out which one yet. When I see one, I'll redo this. I added the Pieces of my Heart word art. They weren't part of the tutorial, but I liked this tutorial name, and wanted to be sure it stayed with the design. I hear the phrase "missing pieces" a lot, in relationship to autism awareness, but I hesitate to use it sometimes becaus...

Again playing around with the new Xenofex 2. This time, working with the Constellation feature, as well as the Bling Bling feature. I like this. And I've been teasing DH that he's the only husband in town that gets St. Patrick's Day valentines, and he's not even Irish, ROFL! (I am Irish.) I still haven't found a St. Patrick's Day kit that I'm thrilled with. I want darker colors, for one. (I had to darken this one up a bit before I was happy with the color.) I also want elements that have a more Celtic flair, with some knots and such. I don't see much of that. I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for, but I know I haven't quite hit it. Still, this kit IS cute, and I do like what I can do with it, it just isn't what I envision in my head when I think of this holiday. Maybe I'll just have to learn to make what I want. Oooo, now that would be a bummer, wouldn't it? Having to learn some more techniques, and spending more ...

I asked someone to make this for me, but I liked it so well, I wanted to learn to make it myself. So I jumped in and bought the PinUp Toons holiday pack, and had some fun. Another reason I wanted to make this tutorial is because I finally got my purchase of Xenofex 2! YAY! I love this plugin, and I'm having a blast with it. I was scoping out tuts that used it, so I could get some experience, and this one gave me the chance to work with the cloud feature. This is great. (And DH is hinting that I might get Eye Candy for my birthday, so that purchase has been put on hold for at least a week. Yippee!) Oh, with with that purchase of the PinUp Toons pack, I am also now licensed with CILM. So I'm eyeing some Janesco tubes next. We'll see. There isn't a full pack that I really want, the way I wanted the one PinUp Toons pack, but I've discovered I can always do a custom pack. Wish I'd noticed that earlier, lol. Tutorial Used: http://josbits2-tuts4u.blogspot....

Here's my submission for the weekly challenge, Spring Colors. I couldn't get the plug in to work with this, which is very frustrating. I run into that a lot with Vista. Instead, I applied glitter to the doodle. I'm kinda bummed. My tutorial for the Xenofex 2 has finally expired. Ah, but at least I have the real thing on order! It should come this week. Yay! In this tutorial, I had to use a little color manipulation on the flowers to get them to look okay with the tube. That is such a cool trick! I just love it. Tutorial Used: http://designsbyirishlass.blogspot.com/2009/03/spring-colours.html .

I did this siggy for the forum that does not vote. They posted a tutorial they wanted us to do, and I really didn't care for it. Odd, because I normally like siggys in the rose shades. But the tube on this kinda turned me off. So, I had no qualms about substituting it with another. I just grabbed one of my free tubes that I got at a different forum, and went at it. I didn't expect to like this siggy, but now I do! Once I got rid of the pinup in the fur, and toned down the elements a tad, it was rather cool! There was no animation on this tag. I was a bit bored, and I found inspiration in the elements of the kit. They included a feather. In a previous tutorial, there was a feather too, which included an animation that wrote out "SWAK" with the feather. But in that tutorial, they just gave you the animation. You didn't have to create it. Well, I had intended on playing around with that idea and creating my own animation, where the feather wrote out my ...

I like this one a lot! I'm very happy with how it came out. I enjoyed playing with the glitter, both in the name and in the mask. And I enjoyed putting the words on the balloons, lol. It was also fun to seek out Irish fonts. Happy St. Patrick's Day! Tutorial Used: http://myrtlestutorials.blogspot.com/2009/03/irish-eyes.html .

I'm Irish, so I have been looking for St. Patrick's Day tutorials. I've found some, but they often use pay kits, which is a bummer, since money is tight. I'll try to play around and see if I can do some substitutions, and come up some Irish siggys. This was a tough one. I didn't have a super close up to use, and when I tried to get one large enough to fill the frame, it got all fuzzy. So I backed off the close up a bit, and misty'd it up a bit. I then gave it a gold wash, using the gold paper underneath and a legacy luminance. Creating that frame was a challenge in itself. It wasn't actually a frame, but a shield, and they wanted me to erase out the center. Because of the design, I couldn't just use a magic wand. Rats. But I think it came out okay in the end. I was going to use the kit's pot of gold, but the one in the tube worked better. I like this Garvey tube. If I do this one again, I'll do it differently. I don't like how ...

This one was a bit of a challenge. The person who requested it said that she didn't like the kit that was used, she felt it was too gaudy. Yikes, then what do I use? Well, I tried to find a paper with a bold pattern, hopefully one that had colors a little more subdued than brown and gold. The kit I used had very bold patterns, but they were softer tones. I hope it was to her liking. Tutorial Used: http://www.chaotichousedesignz.com/index.php?pr=Truly_Elegant .

I love doing this. And I feel like I'm learning something new every time. Someone posts a tag tutorial that they would like for you to make them, and then you post a tutorial you want someone else to make for you. It's a lot of fun. I usually make one for myself as well. Hey, if I don't like it enough to use it, I shouldn't be giving it to someone else, right? I got a kick out of this one! I loved the champagne bubbles!! I would love to use that effect again. It just delights me every time I look at this. And DH, of course, is delighted with the Garvey tube, ROFL. The tube used in the original was very cool. I liked that one too. It also matched the colors in this a little better. Maybe I'll look into getting that one, one of these days. But at least this one still looked pretty neat. This is one of my favorite tags so far. Tutorial Used: http://www.chaotichousedesignz.com/index.php?pr=Champagne_Sparkle

This one I liked doing. This is just coloring in the picture like a coloring book. You can add texture (in this case glass) to the individual panels, but not to the entire picture. I'm not sure if I'll keep up with the coloring book challenge. I don't really feel like I'm learning anything, at least not yet. Maybe I'll start to learn from the others, but I haven't seen a whole lot to inspire me yet. I'll give it some more time. I did see some neat stuff last week, so maybe I'll see more to come. .

Okay, this purple really came out more pink than purple. It didn't look far off of what the rest of the girls were using, but I guess it's kinda pushing the limit on the purple color. But what the heck. I got a kick out of this challenge. I found a kit with colors I could work with, and I found a great tube. When I was all done, I went searching for a mask, and I wasn't really happy with them, until I tried animating this one, that is. I thought it gave it a kind of sizzle look, with I loved here. It fit well with the sexy cute theme. (That was the name of the kit I used.) Dear Hubby really likes this tube. Can't imagine why. ;) Tutorial Used: None .

This was the first scrap kit challenge that I liked a lot. The colors are so vibrant and happy. We were to use this kit, and nothing added from any other kit. We can add tubes, so I added my Griffin fairy. I added a mask as well. This challenge left me feeling happy and bright. :) It was after I submitted this siggy that one of the list moms contacted me. She gave me some advice about resizing my siggys. I've been sizing them down for this blog, but I haven't for the challenges. I guess that's not a good thing, lol. So I'll be resizing now. I'll make most of my siggys the same size as will fit in this blog, for consistency. By the way, she was very very nice to me, and complimented me on my work! It really felt good to hear that from someone who is much more experienced with this stuff. Made my day! :) Tutorial Used: None .

I did not like this week's signature challenge at all. I disliked the tube (they used Gorjuss, and I just can't seem to warm up to them), I disliked the style, I wasn't thrilled with the type of animation. So, little redeeming value for me, lol, except that it's always good to learn new techniques, and I had never used that kind of animation before. Blinkies. Interesting. I didn't like them in this, but maybe I'll find a better use for them later. They were a pain to insert, particularly because they were TINY. But I finally realized I could zoom in and have a much easier time of it. As I said, I did NOT like the cartoon tube they used. So I played around with some free art that I had. It gave it a more adult, and more wistful feel, I think. At least that's what I was going for. And much more of a romantic look. I preferred that, and was satisfied with my results. I won't use the siggy, but that's okay. I just wanted the learning exper...

This was a tutorial challenge, where they provide the tut and we are permitted to use a little artistic license with it. I tried a couple different tubes with this one, and was finally happy with this Garvey one. It seemed to fit the Cutie Pie theme well. I tried several different animations on this. I liked the way the Cutie Pie circle came out, and my name. The butterfly was not quite the way I wanted, but not too bad. I guess I was going a little hog wild on the glitter (even the background is all sparkly, though it doesn't really show up well), because my demo of Xenofex 2 is about to expire in the next week. I was so bummed about it, DH suggested that I purchase the software! YAY! I even found it for a few bucks cheaper on Amazon. (With shipping, it isn't that much cheaper, but hey, a few bucks is a few bucks, right?) So I bought myself a birthday present a couple weeks early. I liked this tutorial. It was a cute one. I didn't think I was going to care for ...

I'm so excited! I won my first signature challenge! When I submitted my signature, I never expected to win. I was competing again a lot of very nice designs, and I'm still such a newbie at this. We were all given a tutorial to follow. There is a week for the voting to take place, then they announce the winners the following week. There are several challenges each week. I didn't expect to see my own name on the winners' list. When I created this siggy, I didn't expect it to have a chance to win, because the original used a Gorjuss tube. I don't have any of those, nor do I ever intend to. I just don't care for the look of them - they seem a bit too cutesy for my tastes. But they are enormously popular, so I knew there would be others that had the proper tube, and lots of fans who would prefer that style over my non-Gorjuss tube. I thought I had little chance of holding up to that scrutiny. And changing the tube really changes the look and feel of a ...

I did this for a game on a forum. It was the game where someone requests that you make a certain tutorial for them, and then when you're done, you request a tutorial that you would like to see done. I thought this was a pretty sig. I didn't have the kit (you had to purchase it), I didn't have the tube, also PTU (pay to use), and I didn't have the Eye Candy plug in that was needed. So basically, I had nothing to match the original tutorial piece. But I got it as close as I could. I was very happy with it, but I don't know if the person who requested it will feel the same way. In this game, you're supposed to use what you have, and not buy anything, so I doubt she expected an exact replica. I liked this one myself. Tutorial Used: http://www.suzcreations.simplydevilish.co.uk/tutorials/Heavenly%20Love/HeavenlyLove.htm .

In this challenge, we were supposed to just use the tutorial as a guide, but feel free to substitute other artwork, other masks, other elements, etc. I pretty much subbed on everything, yet used the same basic idea. Then I animated the butterflies too. I had trouble with that. They wanted to flutter exactly the same. I tried to create one that was faster, but it still seemed to slow down to the same rate when I put it into the background. Finally, I redid the flutter animation, using half the number of frames, then doubled the frames. It gave it a slightly different flutter. Finally. I'll have to play with that some more. I'm not quite sure what I did wrong the first time. This challenge is not a voting challenge. Tutorial Used: http://suzcreations.simplydevilish.co.uk/tutorials/Butterflies/Butterflies.htm .