Shadow tute & some freebies

If you need help with your shadows, ScrapMatters blog has a "Shadow Spectacular" post, a detailed tutorial with settings.

Really like this free font from CK.

I love MyFourHens' photo actions. My photos are usually so technically sucky that they look weird whenever I use actions but that still doesn't stop me buying her actions whenever she has a major sale :) These freebies aren't new but in case anyone likes them & missed them.

Great free alpha from Holly Designs

Just saw DSA has a designer contest. Presuming most people know about it by now but I wanted to share my favourites.

Night now.. :)

091027 Freebie & Sales

Thanks, Karen!! Much apprec your continued visits & comments! :)
Grace, missing you.... Hope you're having fun on your seaside trip? :)

Still havent managed to catch up all the blogs. I got side-tracked as usual. First, I just remembered that I'd done 2 LOs for my CT last month which I wanted to post here & when I went looking for the links from my gallery, I was horrified to realise that I HADN'T uploaded them at all. This was just before my trip home & I'd rushed to get them done on time but I must've been distracted while uploading & it never got done. And here I had been patting myself on the back for finally getting them up on time! Anyway, I quickly uploaded them before I forget again. I suck!

Credits: Safari Park: Shien Designs, also misc stuff from Kitty Designs, Helena Jole, Kate Hadfield, Jen Wilson [template] & a Manda Bean-Zoe Pearn Collab

This photo's absolutely horrible but I only have a few from my pregnancy. Wish I'd thought to take tummy shots or at least a photo every month.
Credits: Magnifique: Daniela Austen

Following that (actually during that too!) was the usual distraction, Mac :) He made a 'remote control' from his magnetic blocks & asked me to play. I *think* we're enacting an imaginary video game, me on the controller & him manipulating the 'fighters' Megatron & Bumblebee. That game took a little while :) I think Bumblebee won but it's hard to tell. Mac's games are a little like dreams - you start doing one thing in one place & then suddenly you're doing something else somewhere else :D


Sigh, I have a messy child! I used to tidy up a few times a day, now I leave it till the end of the day & sometimes even 2 days. He would clean up when asked but since his idea of cleaning up is picking up ONE item & then go back to play again & then pick up another item when asked again, repeat ad-nauseum, I've given up.


It's hard to get too mad with him though when I get moments like this.
"Mama, look! I'm Megatron. But I'm not the bad Megatron. I'm a good Megatron. I'm a love-er, kiss-er, hug-er, sayang-er Megatron" [punctuating each description with action :D)

btw, for those who don't know, Megatron & Bumblebee are Transformers. And Mac's obviously crazy about them :D

---SALES & SPECIALS---
- The Lilypad $1 Tadpole Tuesday
- The Digichick $2 Tues
- GottaPixel $1 Tues
- Vera Lim $2 Tues
- Scrapartist 20% Totally New Tues.
- Shabby Pickle Tues 20% New Release. Tues
- Little Dreamer Designs Tues 20% New Release.
- Stuff to Scrap $2 Tues
- Ahhh Scrap! $1 Deals.
- The Little Scrap Garden Dollar Week
- Gina Cabrera Oct Idea Notebook $3 at Digital Design Essentials

---FREEBIE FINDS---

BLOG TRAINS / MULTI-PARTY / MULTI-DAY DOWNLOADS

1. Stolen Moments A Little Spacey Blog Train

2. Sweet Tomato Designs Blog Train

3. [No Prev] Trick or Treating down DSP Lane

Note: I usually only post the link for multi-day downloads once so pls check the reminders section below for any ongoing ones.

ALPHA
1. Mira at Digiscrap4all
2. RebeccaB
3. The Scrapping Sisters

ELEMENTS
1. Angelica E
2. Ziggle
3. Doodelle
4. Raspberry Road
5. Raspberry Road
6. Digi-Designs by Nicole

ELEMENTS
7. Bohemian Art
8. LDrag Designs
9. Creative Art Design by MA [CU]
10. Welli Designs
11. Carly

KITS, PAPERS, ETC
1. Kit part 4 from Soval & Joey at the French Frog store
2. Wild Dandelions
3. Kit papers from Scrap U
4. BZB Designs
5. Becca

TEMPLATES
1. Michelle Filo
2. Krystal Hartley
3. Trish H Designs
4. Time to Scrap by Denise
5. Time to Scrap by Denise
6. Time to Scrap by Denise
7. Sweet Shoppe forum
8. Digital Scrap Cafe forum
9. Oct Calendar Bragbook from SBE forum

TEMPLATES
10. Polka Dot Plum forum
11. Red Leaf Digiscrapping
12. ScrapMatters
13. GavinsMom
14. Lindsay Jane
15. Divine Digital forum
16. LorieM
17. Petit Lips
18. Le Pinguouin

QPs
1. Sara Ellis
2. Silvia Romeo
3. Designs by Helly
4. Vero
5. Nolae
6. Pixel Gypsy Designs store

QPs
7. Digital Scrapbook Art
8. Mary31
9. Vero
10. Vero
11. Vero
12. Lisiel

NOV DESKTOP QPs
1. Traci Reed
2. Amanda Heimann
3. Chelle's Creations
4. Dani Mogstad
5. Roben-Marie
6. Digital Scrap Cafe

WORDART
1. Meagan
2. Meagan
3. NinaScraps
4. Jodiann
5. French WA Merepoule at Digiscrapbooking.ch
6. Annie's Little Footprints
7. Bethany
8. Bethany
9. Bethany

WORDART
10. Bethany
11. DigiVickie
12. DigiVickie
13. Michelle Moss
14. Michelle Moss
15. Michelle Moss
16. Michelle Moss
17. The Scrapping Sisters

WORDART
18-20. Jacquie
21. Bethany
22. Rina Kroes at Scrapbook-Elements forum
23. Carly

MISC
1. Glitter Edge Styles from The Scrapping Cop
2. Real Felt Layer Styles from The Scrapping Cop
3. Textures from Fanette
4. CK Buzz Font from Creating Keepsakes
5. Banner Template from Sus Designs
6. Blog Template from Seni

REWIND [These aren't new, check your stash before dl-ing]
- All from Vera Lim store

---TUTORIAL/TIPS---
1. Using Layered Templates with Bonus Template from Shellyrae
2. Loading Files into Layers [PS] Misty Cato
3. Extractions & Custom Drop Shadows from Bren Boone at DigiscrapAddicts [not new]

---REMINDERS [from prior posts]---

SALES
- Digitalfreebies 50% Sale. Till end-Oct.
- Digitalfreebies Oct Club Kits from AnjaJ & Vivayne. 2 kits for $5, subscription also available.
- The Digi Files 8 $5 at The Daily Digi. Till end-Oct.
- Wenchdgrafix 43% Birthday Sale. Till end-Oct.
- Peppermint Creative 20% off Halloween items. Ends Oct 31 EST.
- SBG Studio Collective Retiring older collabs & albums $1-2. Ends Oct 31.
- Gotta Pixel Fall Clean Up Sale. Retiring by end of the month.
- Patricia Amaral at DigiscrappersBrasil. 50% temporary retirement sale. Ends Oct 31.
- Roben-Marie at Paperbag Studios. 50% Moving Sale. Ends Nov 3, 09
- Zigzag Scraps 40% Masks & Brushes. Ends Nov 15.
- Janet Phillips at The Daily Digi. $4 Grabbag.
- Danielle Corbitt Hangin' Up My Hat Sale 50-60% at PickleberryPop & Scrappity-Doo-Dah or Buy the Store for $30 at Danielle Corbitt Designs
- Stacy Carlson 50% Sale.
- Tracy Ann 31% Spooky Sale

OCT DAILY DOWNLOADS
- Inspiration-Lane Oktoberfest
- GottaPixel A Vintage Halloween. Get it from Marta van Eck's store Oct 1-7, Silvia Romeo's store Oct 8-14, Heather T's store Oct 15-21 & Lara Payton's store Oct 22-28.
- ScrapMatters Get A Move On. Oct 1- Nov 3.
- 3Scrapateers Autumn Rose.
- Brownie Scraps Wicked!
- goDigitalScrapbooking. Varies daily.
- Scrappity-Doo-Dah Snow Me Your Love by Fryske & Digi Overdose
- Digital Scrap Garden
- Scraphead
- Divine Digital Falling into Autumn. Daily Download Oct 16-31.

BLOG TRAINS / MULTI-PARTY / MULTI-DAY DOWNLOADS
- Michelle Batton Rawr-o-saurus Rex papers & QP Blog Train.
- ScrapOrchard Honey Bee Blog Train. 2 bragbook sets.
- Faith Sisters Homecooked Happiness Blog Train
- Connie Prince daily giveaways till Halloween on her blog & also Ad Ladies
- Susan Robinson Halloween Blog Party. 7 days of freebies starting Oct 25.

Have a great day/evening! :)

090913 Freebies & Sales

Grace & Yin, thank you :)
Kristine & Christine, you're very welcome :)
Beth, we'll be picking up the cake later today for our early celebration with friends, we'll see if I have a possible entry :) Re PR, we've only watched Operation Overdrive so far, not sure if Mac will like the other series as he has a tendency to stick to the familiar & the others might look 'wrong' to him. Can you sing the PR theme song too?? :D Or do the morphing? You should see me do the "Overdrive Accelerate!" action.. not a pretty sight :D

---SALES & SPECIALS---

- Gotta Pixel $1 Gotta Grab It. Ends Sept 16 EST.
- Gina Miller $2 Kit Specials
- Weeds & Wildflowers 50% Weekend Specials.
- Joyce Paul at Shabby Pickle. 20-80% Moving Sale. Ends Sept 17.
- Scrap Team Shop 40% Sales. Sept 11-13.
- Sunflowerscrap 15-15% storewide. Some designers more. Sept 12-13.
- Inspiration-Lane Retiring Products. Some $1. Ends Sun night.
- E-scape and Scrap Nifty99. Ends Sun.
- Two 25ct items at Designer Digitals. Sun & Mon.
- Sunshine Studio Sunny Sunday. Select items $2, some $1. Sun only.

---FREEBIE FINDS---

*****FYI, I understand there are problems on 4shared (I think they've been hacked or something) & not sure if that will be resolved soon. I captured these links through yesterday when things were still ok & as usual, the links go directly to the relevant blog post with the freebie. So I'd advise for those freebies with 4shared links to check if there are any current posts as well in case the designer has uploaded to another site & made it a new post.

- Mini kit from Digitalfreebies

- Free download in memory of 911 from Lettering Delights

- Scrapmuss FALLen Blog Train

- Stone Accents Studio Next Designer Contest freebies

1. Kit part 3 from Digital-Crea
2. Papers & alpha from Digiscrappers Brasil
3. Kit addon from Tempus Fugit
4. Sampler from Aprilmouse & Hanulienka
5. Kit addon from Jennifer Barrette
6. Kit from Raspberry Road Designs

1. Textures Pack from Gali Scrap at Digital-Crea
2. Kit from HM ScrapShop at The Daily Scrapper
3. Kit from Nicole Young
4. Kit from Michelle Underwood

1. Alpha from Manu
2. CK Rough Script Font from Creating Keepsakes. Limited time.
3. Alpha from LorieM
4. Alpha from Cintia Tavares
5. Alpha from Purple Tulip Designs
6. Wordart from Valarie Ostrom

1. Wordart from Annie's Little Footprints
2. CU Halloween Dingbat from The Scrapping Cop
3. Alpha from Laurie's Scraps
4. CU font from Droopette
5-6. Wordart from Bethany
7. Wordart from Bethany at ScrapOrchard.
8. Alpha from Simoni Grigoli
9. Alpha from Mag Designs

1. QP from ksharonk
2. QP from Wenchdgrafix
3. QP from Magical Reality
4. QP from Lliella
5. QP from Holly Designs at The Daily Digi
6. QP from Raspberry Road

1. QP from Vero
2. QP from M Designs
3. QP from Valorie Wibbens
4-5. QPs from Mumure
6. QP from GavinsMom
7. QP from Michelle Underwood
8. QP from Donna Duncombe

1. Template from Lindsay Jane
2. Template from Colie's Corner
3. Template from Bella Gypsy
4. 2-pg template from Yin
5. 2-pg template from Midnight Scrapping
6. 2-pg Template from Tiffany Tillman at CK

1. Hybrid Thank You Card from Dani Mogstad
2. Ribbons from Tinette
3. Cluster frame from Danielle Engebretson
4. Tags from Katie Pertiet at DesignerDigitals
5. Block Stamps from Katie Pertiet at DesignerDigitals
6. Freebie from Lynn Grieveson at DesignerDigitals

---REMINDERS [from prior posts]---

FREEBIES
- Renee Pearson Super Colossal Back to School Digital Event. Register & download a free goodie bag everyday this week. Only avail noon to midnight EST.
- GottaPixel Sept Daily Download. Get it from Julie Marie Designs store Sept 8-14.
- Ellie Lash Daily Download
- Inspiration-Lane Daily Download
- Daydreamer Designworks Express Blog Train. Expires Sept 18.
- Designs by Anita Blog Train. Ends Thurs.
- HM ScrapShop Blog Train

SALES
- Sausan Designs Products Close Out Sale. 20+ items. $1 & $2.
- Scrapbird 35%. Sept 7-13.
- Christina Renee Designs Closing Sale. Ends Sept 13.
- DesignerDigitals 30% Quarterly Sales. Sept 10- 15 6am EST.
- Ellie Lash Retirement Sale. $1.50-$2.50. Ends Sept 30.
- Some Moving Sales at Scrapbook-bytes Diamante 30% Ends Sept 30 ; Shellyrae Up to 50% Ends Sept 15 ; Lindsay Jane Marked down items will be retired Ends Sept 21.
- Kristen Rice at A5D Retiring Products 50%
- The Shabby Shoppe 25% Sale. Gift with $10 Purchase. Ends Sept 13.
- Ztampf Quadruple Shopping Spree. Spend $25 for $100 worth of products. Ends Sept 15.
- Monica Larsen all items $2. CU & PU. Till end Sept.

---TUTORIAL/TIPS---
Text within Paths PS Tutorial by Cen's Loft
Ideas for using Brushes by Sweet Shoppe
Layer Masks by CoffeeShop Photography

090826 Freebie & Sales

I got a new camera recently & have been looking around for an everyday handbag that can fit it as well as my things & Mac-stuff. The free camera bag it came with is too conspicuously a camera bag & besides it couldnt fit anything much & I can't find anything locally that's big and protective enough. I went through Etsy and was considering this

Then I found these Jill-e bags.
It looks like it'll be roomy enough & I've almost decided to get it but still looking around in case there are other options. Anyone have any suggestions for better bags?

---SALES & SPECIALS---
- Digitalfreebies 30% New Releases. Tues to Mon.

- Digiscrappers Brasil Dollar Day Wed.

- ON Designs Grabbag $3.
- Enchanted Studio Scraps $1 Fairy Finds. Wed to Fri.
- ScrapNFonts $1 Sale. Ends Sept 15.
- Little Dreamer $1 Wed. Not up yet at time of posting.

---FREEBIE FINDS---
1. QP from Sunflowers
2. Kit from Gypsy Couture at The Digichick
3. PS Photo Actions from My Four Hens
4. Addon Kit from Michelle Filo
5. QP from Connie Prince
6. Template from ScrapMatters
7. QP from Sueli Colbert
8. Template from Scrap'Anges
9. Kit part from The French Frog


1. Buttons from Scrap Stew sue
2. 8 Templates from Mandagirl
3. QP from Danielle Young
4. Sept Desktop from Heather Roselli
5. Template from Scrap'Anges
6. Addon kit from Joey

---TUTORIAL---

How to Change Blog Owner from the Blog Doctor

I'd tried searching for a while for a way to move my blogger from under my old pop3 email account to my the3chickens account but all the blogger help says a blog cant be transferred. I found this tute which gives a simple workaround for it. I've tried it and it works, the bummer is that I didnt realise all the profile info would be lost when it transferred which makes sense I guess since it's now technically a new and supposedly different user. But anyway, in case anyone's looking for a way to move/consolidate their blogger account, this is a good alternative. Just be aware that you should never delete an account if you can help it as you can never get the name back.

Have a lovely day! :)

090825 Freebie & Sales

Sorry I never came back, the Panadol I took knocked me out more than I'd expected, I slept the entire night & woke up at noon!

Grace, Catherine, Kim, photocrazy, Toni, Linda, Sarah - thanks so much for your messages & for 'coming back', so glad to know there are still some of you around :)
Sarah, your website looks great, good luck with your business :)
To those of you who are new here, welcome & hope you can find something of use here.

---SALES & SPECIALS---
[fyi, those with pictures are for illustration only or show my personal picks and not directly clickable. I wont always have pics, I'll add those whenever I have time]

- Lilypad $1 Tadpole Tues

- Lindsay Jane at SBB Retiring Products.

- Vear Lim 1-2-3 Tues. $1, $2 & $3 items.

- A reminder Catscrap 40% off kits today Aug 24. There's a 50% Retiring Section also.

- Peppermint Creative 30% off Back to School Blowout (20% for new products). Till Aug 31.

- SPD had a retiring items sale a short while ago with a lot of $1 & deeply discounted items. I just saw they're still there if anyone's still interested. You will have to search through all the designers/categories though as they're not all together in one category anymore.

- Gotta Pixel Tues $1 Pixels

- The Digichick $2 Tuesday
- My Four Hens photo actions 50% off. Till Aug 28.
- Peta Boardman at SBG $1-$1.50 Last Chance items.
- Shabby Pickles 20% New Products
- Digital-Crea 30% CU Sale. Ends Sept 3.
- ScrapArtist Last Chance
- Pixel Canvas 30% Sale. Aug 25- 31. NZ time.
- Tracy Blankenship is retiring & offering her store for $15. Ends Aug 28.

---COUPONS---
- $3 coupon in Ztampf's newsletter
- Studio Manu 50% Coupon. Exp Aug 26.
- The Daily Digi has 25% Coupon for Kaye Winiecki [exp Aug 28] & 35% Coupon for Amber Clegg.
- Andrea Gold 40% Coupon. Till Aug 31.

---FREEBIE FINDS---

1. QP from Raspberry Road
2. Kit Sampler from Kristin Aagard. Only till Tues Midnight MST.
3-4. Cluster frame & template from Lindsay Jane
5. Sept Desktop from Dani Mogstad
6. Kit from Peppermint Creative
7. Template from CindyS
8. Kit part 9 from Inspiration-Lane
9. Kit from Fanette at Digital-Crea

1. CU items from MDesigns
2. QP from Magical Reality
3. Sept Desktop from Manu at SBG
4-5. CU Texture & QP from July Designs
6. Template from Gotta Pixel
7. Kit Sampler from KimB
8. Bracket Frame from Bon Scrapatit
9. Circle Tags (not shown) & Template from Scrapping with Liz

1. Template from Andrea Gold
2. Alpha from Katie Pertiet at DesignerDigitals
3. Template from Katie Pertiet at DesignerDigitals
4. Masks from Katie Pertiet at DesignerDigitals
5. Kit from Summertime
6. Template from FPD
7. Jan Calendar Bragbook from SBE
8. Doodles from Chriscrap
9. Freebie from NL Designs at Digiscrap'mania

---TUTORIALS---

- Taylormade Batch Resizing Photos in Photoshop
My personal preference for part 2 of the tutorial [the batching part after creating the action] is to use droplets.
To create droplet:
1. File-Automate-Create Droplet
2. Under Save Droplet In - Choose - create a name for the droplet & select where you want to save it in. The droplet is an .exe file that you can execute outside of Photshop. I save mine in a Presets Folder where I keep all my styles, actions, etc
3. Under Play - choose the Set and Action. This is where you had saved the resizing action you created just now.
4. Select 'Suppress Open File Options Dialog' and 'Suppress Color Profile Warning'
5. Under Destination - choose Folder and then under Choose, select where you want the resized files to go. You might want to use a temporary folder called 'Photo Web Resize' for example.
6. Under File Naming - you can set up how you want the resized file to be named. For example, mine is Document Name + _small + extension
7. Click on OK. That's it, the droplet is created.
8. To use the droplet, just go to where you had saved it using Windows Explorer or whatever you normally use for navigation in Windows.
9. Drag and drop the files you want to resize into the Droplet exe file and Photoshop will automatically open, process the dropped files using the action you had set up and save the processed photos to where you had set it.

So far, I've been using droplets for Resizing Kit Previews (when they're way too big, I set my action for resize to 600pixels & quality of 30) and also for changing PSD files to TIFFs. You just have to create the action according to what you want to do and then create a droplet for it.
I like using droplets because I can do it outside of Photoshop. While unzipping and organizing my files in Windows Explorer, it's easier for me to just move the files I want to change into my Presets folder with the droplet and when I have a number of files there, I just select them all and drag-drop onto the Droplet and let it run while I continue with my organizing. After a while, I just check back into the folder and move back the processed images into the appropriate kit folders and delete the originals if I dont need those anymore.

Have a great day! :)