Weekend Whimsy: Boys of Fall

I'm not really sure what it is that first attracted me to Football. Maybe it was always the "hot" guys, perhaps it’s the sweat, the passion, the fight, the grit, or maybe even the smell of the grass. Whatever it is, I know one thing - I’m a total football girl. From Thursday - Monday Night from August - January the only thing I think about is FOOTBALL.

It started at a young age, watching my brother play while my Mom & Dad volunteered our Saturdays away. Now I am the one volunteering my Saturday’s away for the local Pop Warner Football league. I often tease and say it’s my Legacy. On any given Saturday from September - November, I can be found lying in the grass taking photos as the kids swoon past me scoring touchdowns, stopping plays, or causing fumbles. I love being the one in the end zone that the kids look at and say "Did you get it?"



That passion carries on into college football. If I can’t watch the local college teams play live, I spend my free time on Saturday Nights and Sunday’s parked in a chair next to my Daddy and his DVR catching up. Call it deep rooted southern tradition. Call it passion for the game. I call it Daddy/daughter bonding time.

On August 25, I watched my son play his first junior varsity game. The pride that swept over me as I watched him score his first touchdown was overwhelming. He has played since he was 7, but every time he takes the field, a part of me steps out there with him. I captured this off his Facebook status as he prepared for this week’s game:

"23 hours I’ll be on the field waiting for that football to be kicked off butterflies in my body but as soon as that ball is in the air they will rush out and the Brighton everyone else knows will leave with them and for the next 2 hours I will be a different person all for my 1 and only true love...FOOTBALL"

Tonight I posted photos from the game, and again my heart skipped a beat when my photos end up as the "profile" photos for the Boys of Fall!

Guest DT Jill Sarginson: How to Colour Spot your Photos

Hello fellow scrappers,

It's Tuesday again and today I am here to show you how to colour spot your photographs. Sometimes when you are using paper that is very bold and colourful, black and white photographs are the best option. Other times you may just want to accent your paper just a bit with the photographs and you can achieve that with colour spotting. In my layout below, you will notice that my photographs are black and white but I have colour on the paddle and kayak. The colours blend perfectly with the paper but everything else remains neutral.

From Flamingo Scraps: Websters Seaside Retreat patterned papers

Photoshop instructions:

1. Open one of your existing colour images. To be safe, you should do a "save as" and rename it or you run the risk of overwriting your original photograph.

2. Go to Layer> New> Layer Via Copy (you will now see 2 layers, each layer has the same photograph on it)

3. Choose Image> Adjustments> Desaturate (this makes the top layer black and white)

4. With the new layer highlighted, click on the Add Layer Mask icon (see example below: the rectangle with a circle in the middle) at the bottom of the Layers palette.

5. Click on the Layer Mask thumbnail in the Layers palette to activate it.The layer mask thumbnail is this:

6. In the Toolbox, make sure the foreground color is black (press X or click on the little curved arrows to the top right of the large color swatches in the toolbox).

7. Using the pencil (or brush) tool, go over the parts of the picture that you want the colour to show up on. In my example above, I chose to colour the paddle's and boat.

TIPS!

a) Blow up your photo. I typically blow it up to at least 200%, if not more (ctrl ++). The pencil/brush tool can be played with a bit. For example, if I am doing a larger area (i.e. the shirt), I will use a "master diameter" of 30 (this is big so I can cover a larger area very quickly). For the edges, you can either reduce the master diameter or leave it if you have a steady hand. With it blown up, you will quickly realize what you are comfortable with.

b) You can adjust the hardness on the pencil/brush tool as well - this softens your edges.

c) Yo undo something, press Ctrl+Alt+Z. It will undo your last step. To erase something (i.e. restore it), just click on the eraser tool.

8. Save the file.

If you do not have Photoshop, you can easily do this by downloading Google's free image editing software: Picasa. You can colour spot your photos with their tools. Just open Picasa, click on the photo you want to edit and then select effects. All of your options will be there! (Just a note that it's not as precise as Photoshop - you can do an area, but not specific elements.)

Have a great Tuesday!

To view more of Jill's work, please visit her blog!

Flamingo Five: Hallowe'en in Wonderland

Welcome to our very first Flamingo Five!!  We picked five products then challenged our September Guest Design Team and ourselves to use all five items in our project or layout!!  So without further adieu... here are the five items:

Up first, Graphic 45 Hallowe'en in Wonderland,Wonderland Classifieds patterned paper:

And for our second item, Graphic 45 Hallowe'en in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass patterned paper:

The third item is Prima's new Craftables Flowers:

Fourth is one of our favorite staple items -- Prima Pearls & Crystals Ice bling:

And finally, the fifth item is the Flamingo Scraps Vintage/Steampunk Embellishment Grab Bag:

Full of Tim Holtz Grungeboard, watch pieces, clock hands, keys, metal gears, vintage ephemera, navy scallop ric rac, white ball trim.... every grab bag is different!!

All items available at Flamingo Scraps (limited quantities on hand!).   We all started with these supplies and the instructions to make something using all five items.  Any other items could be added to complete the project. 

Are you ready to see what we made?! 

Cindy's take:

 

I have to admit- when I opened the package containing the Flamingo Five, I had a moment of panic. My style is simple, so it is unusual that I use five supplies on a single project, let alone five that someone else picked out!

 

Fortunately, it didn't take long before I realized that these items would make a great Halloween wall hanging. I found an old wooden plaque, inked the edges with black Staz-On, and then used Mod Podge to adhere the dotted paper. I cut out Alice from the othersheet of paper and gave her a bunch of coats of Mod Podge too. With a coat of paint inside and out, and a smear of Stickles on top, the glass dome transformed into a full moon. The grungeboard pumpkin got a coat of paint and Stickles as well, and I backed it with a scrap of black paper. Then I punched out the negatives from the grungeboard butterfly and sprayed them and the Prima flowers with Glimmer Mist to make the pumpkin leaves.

 

 

 

To make the green vines, I sprayed the off-white trim with Glimmer Mist. When it was dry, I wound it around the handle of a foam brush and sprayed it with Krylon. Perfectly curled vines!

 

Supply list:  Flamingo Five; Staz-On - Jet Black; Stickles - Star Dust; Glimmer Mist - Key Lime Pie; Mod Podge; Krylon Acrylic Spray; Paint Delta (yellow) and Americana (brown, orange)

 

Jill's take

 

 

I used both pieces of paper. The flowers are in the upper left corner.  The pearls and crystals in ice are on the letters, the centres of the flowers and are the stars around the moon.  From within the vintage/steampunk bag, I used: ribbon, Tim Holtz grungeboard (moon/pumpkin).  I used my own: piece of cardstock (Bo Bunny), piece of purple pattern paper (Basic Grey) and the lettering.

 

Amanda's take

 

I don't have too many Halloween related pictures, so I ended up making a layout for my husband's book about his bike riding!

Flamingo 5 items, Bazzill cardstock, font is 1942 Report, charcoal Maya Mist and navy Tattered Angels mist.

 

What I love most about this layout is really hard to see... if you look closely to the picture above, you'll see a really subtle watermark effect on the cream cardstock.  I used my new 7 Gypsies gear stamp from the Steampunk stamp set and iridiscent pearl Maya Mist to "watermark" the cardstock with a shimmery pattern.  Just wanted something a little more than just plain cardstock!  

Susan's take

 

When my daughter Jessica was young, my Mother-in-law bought her an Alice in Wonderland dress from the Disney Store because she thought Jessica would look like Alice, at least Disney's version of Alice. Of course, I had to augment the dress with the white tights, black Mary Janes and a Headband to complete the "Alice" look!

 

I've been waiting for the right opportunity to scrap this photo of Jessica and Flamingo Five for September gave me the resources!

 

I used a Border from the Wonderland Die Cut Borders at the very top of the Layout. Bazzill card stock is the base of the Layout and the smaller photo mat. Everything else is from the Flamingo Five Set as follows:

1. G 45's Wonderland Classifieds - The fussy cut Alice, the dotted frame and the bigger photo mat
2. G 45's Through the Looking Glass - The fussy cut Mad Hatter and the horizontal paper strip under the photo.
3. Craftables Flowers - I used Bronze Glimmer Mist on the bigger bloom and Blue Raspberry Metallic Maya Mist on the smaller bloom, then layered them.
4. Pearls & Crystals Ice - Large Pearls used as flower centers
5. Steampunk Embellishment Grab Bag - Grungeboard Moon, Vintage Key, Navy Blue Velvet Ric Rac Trim and Vintage Clock Hands emanating from one of the flowers.

This was a lot of fun!

 

Suzanne's take

 

I have to admit I was worried about this first Flamingo Five challenge!  I'm an "organic" scrapper, could I work with pre-determined products?  Well, the answer is up to you, but I am pretty happy with the result!  I have wanted to scrap these silly pictures of my cat and was inspired by the Cheshire Cat in the Jack o' Lantern. 

 

 

I used both sheets of Hallowe'en in Wonderland patterned paper (1,2), the Prima E-line pearls and crystals in Ice (3), the Prima Craftables Flowers (4) and the lace, rick rack, clock hands, tiny paper bag, gear, and grunge butterfly from the embellie grab bag!  It must be said that Tim Holtz Distress Inks and a teal water color pencil helped me pull everything together!  Now I can't wait for the next Flamingo Five!

Now that we've made it to the end, we hope you enjoyed our very first Flamingo Five and you'll come back and join us on the 15th of each month to see what we made with a new batch of five goodies from Flamingo Scraps!  We hope that we have inspired you and we'd love to see what you make if you do, so please stop by and share it with us!

Are You Ready For Some Football????

Here at Flamingo Scraps, we take our college football very seriously!! Susan and I are rabid, diehard University of Florida Fighting Gators football fans, and well, so is my 80 year old mother! My dear Mama is one of those immaculate people who does not allow ANYTHING on her refrigerator -- or so she thought. A couple of years ago, I started sending her altered Gator Football Schedules and she will allow those on the fridge!

This is Mama's 2010 Gator Football Schedule

Here in NE Florida, so close to Gainesville (home of the U of FL), we can find a plethora of Gator themed scrapbook papers, stickers, and ribbons -- and Tim Holtz Stormy Sky and Dried Marigold Distress Inks just happen to match the Gator colors of Orange and Blue!!!

However, if you are a football fan and can't find patterned paper in your team's colors, you can still try this little project with plain cardstock, letter stickers, and patterned ribbon.  I have to say that when I saw the Teresa Collins NOEL collection (coming soon to Flamingo Scraps!), I thought of the Georgia Bulldogs!  Black Soot and Fired Brick Tim Holtz Inks would be fabulous for the Carolina Gamecocks.  And LSU fans -- gold and purple are big colors in collections this fall and winter.

Whatever your team allegiance -- high school, college, pros -- have a little fun this season and try an altered schedule for your fridge!

One parting comment -- IT IS GREAT TO BE A FLORIDA GATOR!!!

A Soccer Mini Album

Sports and extra-curricular activities are a big part of a child's life.  I know I have boxes of photos for band, orchestra, dance, scouts and soccer.  Here's a quick and easy way to commemorate your child's soccer activities.

Maya Road makes these adorable coaster albums.  They are small (approx. 4" diameter) and versatile.  Six pieces of chipboard bound together with a ball chain.. The cover chipboard piece is embossed.  What I love about this soccer album is the reverse side is embossed as a basketball!  How's that for value?  Use it for either sport!

To begin, I used a black sharpie marker to color the black spaces and edges on the soccer ball.  I then painted the white spaces with acrylic paint.  Once dry, I sprayed it with Iridescent Pearl Maya Mist.

 Next, I covered the coasters with patterned paper; the coaster itself was used as a template.  I distressed the paper edges and inked with green and black pigment ink from Maya Road







 To finish, add embellishments and photos!  Wouldn't this make a great gift for your child's soccer coach?

These soccer coaster albums are available from Flamingo Scraps for the low price of $2.49.   We also have owl and house coaster albums!  Also available from Flamingo Scraps are Maya Road pigment inks.

Happy Scraps to you!