Dec 2015 Blog Train - Comments

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@Sarah P: I'm glad you love it so much! It was a lot of fun to make. I've always loved the bold mid-century designs--they just exude the fun, optimistic outlook of the era.

@Chitra: I'd be glad that people love your stuff so much, but I'll suggest using Google Drive, Box, Copy, and Mediafire for big blog train kits because Dropbox has that awful bandwidth limitation on free accounts. As far as smooth edges on extractions, the best I've found is a custom shape layer used as a clipping mask for the photo you want to extract. There's a tutorial on my personal blog HERE that'll help teach you how, if you've got a little time to play around and learn.

@Steph K: I'd noticed a distinct lack of Hanukkah stuff in the shops, and I know there have to be SOME people in the scrapbooking world who aren't Christian and therefore don't celebrate Christmas. I may expand the Hanukkah stuff to a mini kit at some point, using the same palette.

And to EVERYONE who designed for this train: WOW! What a fabulously varied and useful collection we've all made! Give yourself a well-earned pat on the back and indulge in a mug of your favorite warm beverage!

Everything is so amazing what a gorgeous huge collection! You all put in so much effort and inspire me to one day have a go at some basic desiging, too. Thankyou all smiley

@Pauline I just wanted to mention your cute glitter dot frames, they jumped out at me for just how versatile they are.

Sherry, thank you for your kind comments! I use image extractions of purchased and public domain images, templates, CU elements I've purchased, re-purposed and/or modified, plus a few hand-drawn ones thrown in for good measure. Also, I do use my own photography at times (like my Boom Booms paper pack and Floral Beauty kit that are in my thread in the Freebies Forum). I use PSP the majority of the time, but do use Photoshop some, mostly for styles. I was gifted PSP X16 so that is the version I'm primarily using. I've developed a few tricks of the trade when extracting over the course of the years that I've scrapped digitally, for myself and for others. This is because of using so many Victorian and vintage images. There are an abundance of public domain images to use but most of them are not extracted, cleaned-up, or they need to be recolored to fit whatever color palette I'm using at the moment. One of my little tricks is that I used the magic wand, then expand or contract around the edges of a design. This also works to remove shadows on some images. I guess you'd say I just have a lot of practice! There are times it has taken me quite a few hours to extract or adjust just one image! Thanks for asking, Sherry.

Holly, I had the intention to do some Hanukkah, Kwanza and winter solstice stuff, but time got away from me. At least I was able to recolor many of the images I did use to reflect different races. I really felt that this was important, especially for the Santa images. It must be hard to be African-Amercian, or even Hispanic, and try to do layouts with images that reflect one's own culture/appearance. I did make a few rainbow ornaments for my own use but, because I used the colors of the kit, I also included them when sharing for diversity's sake. My stepfather who passed away in the spring was Caucasian, African-American and Cherokee. I grew up knowing that diversity was a good thing, even though it cost me my mother for a few years as she was declared an unfit mother for marrying Mel, and I and my two younger sisters were taken away from her by my pitiful excuse of a father. In 1962, even way up north in NE Ohio where I am from (and now live once again), intermarriage between the races was not accepted or tolerated. Prejudice cost me my a great portion of my childhood. However, I still strongly believe in the power of accepting and respecting our differences and acknowledging our similarities.

Thanks for the suggestions to Chitra for hosting sites. Even though I am a paid Dropbox customer, it seems every month lately on the 1st or 2nd, I get comments from blog readers that they can't get the links to work. They are almost always okay, but Dropbox can't seem to handle that beginning of the month rush without problems. I like it for the ease of use for the downloader, but it's becoming more of an issue lately.

Oh, and BTW, thanks for your comment on my blog. Yep, except for my hand issues, my health hung in there while I was creating an over-abundance of elements! LOL I still can't believe there were so many. As I said before, it really helped me during what is a very trying and emotional time of the year for me (and many others, I know).

Hope you're doing okay. Saw you were having hand issues while extracting also. Also, I noticed you mentioned jewelry-making in the thread for January's BT. The longer we know each other, the more I think we have in common. Kinda nice.

Thanks a lot Chitra and Sally for replying.. smiley
Your works are really beautiful and extractions are professional.. I am inspired and may be should try extracting an image using Holly's tutorial..I use Illustrator because I love it's method and the magic's we can do with it..Anyway, once again thanks to both of you..
I love each once's work so far..All the contributions, small or huge--are really precious.. smiley

Just want to thank each and every one of you who contributed to this blog train! All the time, effort, and generosity that each of you put into your part is so very much appreciated and they are all beautifully done! smiley smiley

You know, Sally, I totally spaced making Santa non-Caucasian; thanks for covering that!! smiley I might be a child of the nations, but I guess I've spent too much time around white folks again since I've been here in the South.

I know how prejudiced people from that era and before could be about other races--my grandmother seemed to be CERTAIN that every Hispanic or African-American or Native American was going to rob her if she so much as talked to them or passed them on the street. I suspect a lot of that has to do with being told that by someone else and taking it as gospel truth, rather than risking being civil to someone and finding out they weren't so different after all. Good time of year to think about that one!

It's awesome that your health hung in there while you were designing this month. Hopefully December and January will be positive as well, health-wise.

I do a little jewelrymaking, but nowhere near as much as I used to. There was a point where I didn't wear any jewelry I'd bought except for rings--the rest was all my own work. But I don't have a decent source anymore for stones to wrap or string that don't cost a small fortune. I've also been known to do a bit of crochet, tatting, tablet weaving, cord weaving, leathercrafting, counted cross stitch, embroidery, silk ribbon embroidery, candlewicking, quilting, costuming, papercutting, origami, and flower arranging, but haven't done most of those in several years due to lack of funds for supplies and due to my swollen hands. I've been debating how much it would kill my back and hands to break out the sewing machine and dig out some of the fabric and other things to make myself a custom portable art bag to carry a clipboard with some bristol board, a mechanical pencil and pen, some colored pencils, my Android tablet and stylus, etc. The nearest thing I can find to what I want is $137 on Amazon, and it's not even a perfect fit for my needs, so I'm inclined to make the attempt once I manage to get the apartment cleaned up, but that'll be a little while yet. Of course, if I dig out the supplies, I'll find something neat to shoot for extraction and have to do that while they're out, too. smiley

Thank you to everyone for their wonderful contributions to the blog train everybody's parts are amazing!

Hi Holly...thanks for the compliment and taking care to advise...yes, I have to think seriously about uploading to other sites also so I don't face this problem every time. Next time I'll do that.Also, am planning to look into your extraction tutorial seriously during the holidays. Also, if I'm not bugging you too much, can you please tell me how to get that crisp & clear previews that you and many others seem to get for your previews while mine always look blurry. I would really be grateful. Take care now.

Chitra, I don't really do anything special to mine--Photoshop does it all.

  1. When I'm making a preview, once I've got everything on it that I want, I save the layered file. That way I can do the next steps and still have the layered file for editing if needed.
  2. Then I flatten the image. My previews seem to come out better when I flatten before resizing.
  3. I resize the preview to 1000px using the "Image Size" dialog and the "Bicubic Sharper" method. That applies just a little sharpening to it. Some people say to resize to 600, but my previews seem to come out less clear with that much less information in the image. I leave it at 300 pixels/inch rather than using the "Save for Web" which makes it 72ppi.
  4. Then I save it as JPG on around quality 10. Sometimes you can get away with 9, but 10's a good guideline for even the busiest preview.
  5. And the last step is really important: close the file WITHOUT SAVING over the top of your layered file. Then if you discover you've made a typo or forgotten to shadow something, you can fix it easily.
  6. Of course, this is one of those tasks that's got a lot of steps which take time but can be easily automated. It's not a bad idea to make an action for it.

Chitra, thank you! You are always very kind to me!

Thank you, Steph!
A great Christmas to you and your family!

Thank you so much for the blog train!! I have downloaded some and can't wait to use them. I absolutely love this site smiley Thank you for all that all of you do smiley

@Andene Sailors, Beautiful Christmas kit, thank you smiley

@Phyllis Storm, Beautiful...all 3 of them, thank you for creating & sharing smiley

Holly, I've done just about all the crafts you mentioned at one time or another...except crocheting which I never learned although my grandmother was a master crocheter and tried to teach me. I've never learned to knit either. I sold jewelry at craft shows and at eBay for years but, as you said, the hands become an issue. Every year at the nursing home they had a craft show and I sold quite a bit of my remaining stash. This will be the first time in many years that I haven't given the women and girls in my family jewelry that I made. Have you ever checked out Fire Mountain Gems? It's a great place for reasonably priced beads, stones, supplies, etc. They also have sales frequently with special items that aren't in their huge main catalog, which is free by the way. The funny thing is that I don't wear what I make. I wear a lot of rings and some bangle bracelets occasionally, but hardly ever do I wear necklaces or dangling earrings.

I still am cross-stitching a bit here and there, but it is really slow-going as I have trouble holding the needle and get frustrated with it. I really miss it. Many years ago I made and sold tons of macrame items, then went on to cinnamon brooms and the like, then got into candle and soap-making. Seems I've always made something and sold it. I'm not a happy person if I'm not doing something creative.

Hope you're doing well!

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Wonderful Train... downloading with Spotify Holiday songs. SO FUN ...
Special shout out to ..... Sally, Erin C, Marcela, Erin P, Holly W , Phyllis S, and Chitra.... lots of work and well appreciated!

Yeah, Sally, it's been a decent day, even if my back has been making it difficult to walk. I just finished the first of my layouts with this train--not quite on the theme everyone expected when making this kit, as it's about a birthday party, but I think it turned out well.

Thanks to all of the designers whose work went into this!

Aw...such a cute little girl...and the layout isn't half bad either! LOL Loving her name. My great Aunt Ann named two of her girls Anne Marie and Marie Anne. I need to get some scrapping done also; I've got tons of old pictures and, along with the newer ones, have plenty to work with. I promised my great niece, who is going to the concert with me on Monday, that we will have a scrap day and paper scrap the pictures we take. She's coming on Sunday after church, staying the night here and we leave on Monday and will spend the night in Cleveland, coming back on Tuesday. It will be so good to get out of the house for that long, even if it will be physically taxing. Of course, I'll be swept away during the concert and not feel any pain until it's over! Have a good weekend...I probably won't be on the site again until I get back. It's always good "talking" with you, Holly.

Holly, thank you for the help...but can I say it sounds very complicated?!?...Its going to take some time for me to learn it smiley !
@Marcela, not really smiley ...I do like & admire your work tremendously smiley !

@Holly, Nice LO!

Chitra, most likely what you're running into is that your preview is saving at 72dpi if you're just using the "Save for Web" script built into Photoshop. It's really not that complicated of a process to do it yourself, just details that aren't the defaults, done in a step-by-step process, and you've seen the difference it makes in the previews. The most important are to check for Bicubic Sharper when you resize, and one when you save as JPG at quality 10. Those two steps will get you 90% of the way there; the other two don't make as much of a difference, but you need to do all 4 to make the preview look its absolute best. Give me a day or so and I'll get an action recorded to take a layered preview at 3600px and make you a 1000px one at the same size and save it in the same folder.

Fantastic work ladies! Thank you.

Chitra, I had a blurry layout post on here once. The problem was where I copied the URL from to post here. Make sure you click on the largest image. On blogger that means you have to click on the image and open it in a new window before you copy the URL. Then, when you post the image in here, make sure the pixel size here is the same or smaller than the pixel size of the image you are copying the URL from.

Hi Marisa I think I know why so many people accidentally post in the blog train section instead of the comments section. I only know this because I also misread the directions. The link to comment say use "this post" and even though it was pink, I choose not to click on it but go to the end of "this actual post" (the blog train) and post my comment. Maybe the directions could say click "here" to go to the comment section and post your thoughts or something similar. It may be less confusing. Don't mean to overstep but I hope it helps.

Also the train is awesome! Everyone is so creative! Thank you many times over and have a joyous holiday season!

Oh Erin, thanks for that bit of info. I'm really new to blogging and had no idea there were different sizes. After a couple if my images linked to my blog were blurry here, I started putting the images in a private album on facebook and reposting from there. I will have to look at the size and try again so I don't have to do all the extra posting on facebook first.

Thanks so much Sarah, and everyone else who downloaded.

Thank you all so much ladies!!! You are generous beyond measure, and some of you have such health issues and yet you still give so much .. I am beyond grateful for all that you do! I am at a loss for words at how beautiful all these gifts are and am very excited to start unzipping it all smiley I wish all at DigitalScrapbook.com a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2016. God bless all of you xxx

Olesya, I'm glad to help smiley I just hope my explanation made sense.

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