Okay, I promised a traditional style christmas kit AND a mid-century one with more blues. Here is the result. I'm not crazy about it. I like the papers and the frames. I'm struggling with the elements. Feedback? Is this something anyone will use? LOL.
Erin, I love the papers. The elements are perfectly mid-century, and I like that they're not purely Christmasy--it'll make some of them useful if someone chooses to use the kit off-theme. Your frames are SO beautifully not season-specific, too. I don't think you've got anything to worry about with these!
I should really stop making papers for this train...but the mid-century patterns are kind of addictive. I'm trying to keep the mid-century ones usable for everyday scrapping as well as the festive holiday layouts, and I think all but the snowflake one on the right will make good everyday papers. As far as my seasonal ones, I've tried to consider all of the December celebrations I know of and included a couple of papers each for Hannukah and Kwanzaa. (Hopefully nobody downloading will be upset that I thought to include them and took the time to make a few things each, even though I'm not visibly of either Jewish or African ancestry; I want people to have at least a couple of papers and elements specific to what they're celebrating. There will be a couple of pieces of word art each, as well.)
Wow, Holly, I love that poinsettia pattern and the ornaments!! I would love to do some mid-century designs, but not sure where to start. Did you draw those? They are so gorgeous!
@Holly, These are so wonderful. Your style reminds me of my old roommates. She had a degree in illustration and did wonderful work. You challenge me to become better.
The poinsettias and ornaments were drawn in Illustrator with the brush and then cleaned up. The mid-century ones....I generally looked at vintage fabrics for inspiration and created my own take on them using shapes and the pen tool.
I tend to draw and paint a lot of my elements in ArtRage and Illustrator. I'm mostly self-taught, with the exception of a few hours worth of video classes in the last few months. It's hard to believe I couldn't draw worth beans a year ago, but then I started using ArtRage regularly, and now it's hard to get me to stop drawing!
I've heard a lot of good things about artrage, gonna have to check it out. I eventually want to get a tablet and illustrator, but right now I have to draw and scan in. I need to find a good tutorial on how to get nice clean lines after you do that. I'm so new at all this, but so inspired when I come here!
Short tutorial on clean lines:
-Scan lineart at highest resolution your scanner can manage. That'll give you as much detail as possible.
-Once you've scanned it in (and done basic cleanup by painting over smudges with a soft white brush at lower opacity so you can just build up white over them), if you're working in Photoshop, do a Levels adjustment (Ctrl/Option + L) and move the left and right sliders about halfway towards the center. Adjust the grey (middle) slider to adjust the brightness of the overall image, if you have some shading you want to keep.
-Use a magic wand (W tool) to select the black if it's just lineart, or use the background eraser (one of the shift-E options) to erase the white if you've got shading and THEN select what's left.
-Once you've got a selection, right-click with the wand and choose Make Work Path. You might have to adjust the number to tell it how closely to follow the edges when it makes the curves, but that'll give you a very clean vector outline that you can then simply fill on a new layer, save as a custom shape, or export to Illustrator for further detail work.
ArtRage is great for raster artwork--fantastic if you already draw or paint, but it really does work much better with a graphics tablet. If you already own a smartphone or tablet that will work with a stylus, I'll recommend the Android app in combination with it (it's another $5, but lets you create on the go). Keep your eyes open; there's usually a sale on the full program around the holidays.
Inkscape's almost as capable as Illustrator, and I'm able to do pen-tool drawings in Illustrator or Photoshop with my mouse at this point, so that helps to make a graphics tablet a bit less of a necessity for vectors. (I'll still use my little Bamboo, since I have one, or my remote desktop software plus my recently acquired Galaxy Note 8 with its S-pen, but I could still work in Illustrator without having access to either one.)
I was actually going to show off word art when I logged in today, but I realized I haven't even made a proper preview of it yet, so here's a screenshot from Illustrator with all my little artboards:
A couple may seem tongue-in-cheek, but they're ones that my family will use a lot due to the inevitable holiday shipping mishaps and the challenge of multiple people with strong viewpoints gathering under one roof.
I tried to go for a mix of secular and sacred, seasonal and a few more generic ones. I figure even if it's a lot that I've made, it's awesome to have that perfect piece of word art available when you're working on a layout, and besides, now I've got the word art made for this year's cards for everyone I know! A nice paper, an element or two, a piece of word art with a foil or wire style, and I'm done with cards this year. And it's been good hand-lettering practice on some of them, as well.
Yeah, Sharilynn, my son laughed when he saw that one. He's in the Navy, so he gets to deal with getting crumbled cookies regularly when he gets care packages. I'm sure it'll happen at least once more this year, so I'm prepared for it. And, since it happens so often, I made sure that one is in a font that'll blend with almost any kit in any season. Can't wait to show my mother a page with it!
Wow, thank you Holly, you should teach a class! I'm going to have to study this, because I only understood about 1/2 of it, ha! I just need to play around more with photoshop and do more youtube tutorials, just haven't had time.
@Julie, I know what you mean. I haven't enjoyed these colors at all. Personally, I like a much more narrow palette and not so many bright colors. I'm looking forward to something maybe a bit more peaceful for January.
Since I will be traveling next week, and the following week is Thanksgiving, I wasn't sure I would able to make anything so I went ahead and made my kit. Since one of my favorite memories of my childhood is making Christmas cookies with my mom, I decided to make a baking kit. I added a Christmas spin as well. I might have another kit but this is the baking one for the blog train.
Gorgeous, Erin! I almost wish I was closer to where my parents live so I could be baking with my mom. Gah, now I have to try to make a sour cream cookie layer style, since that's what we end up baking most often!
Here's my part on Dea's designs
Marcela, your Alphas are always AWESOME!
Okay, I promised a traditional style christmas kit AND a mid-century one with more blues. Here is the result. I'm not crazy about it. I like the papers and the frames. I'm struggling with the elements. Feedback? Is this something anyone will use? LOL.
Wow, Wonderful work by everyone!
Erin, I love the papers. The elements are perfectly mid-century, and I like that they're not purely Christmasy--it'll make some of them useful if someone chooses to use the kit off-theme. Your frames are SO beautifully not season-specific, too. I don't think you've got anything to worry about with these!
Thank you, Erin!!!!
These all look so wonderful thank you so much for your hard work everyone I cant wait to try some of these out on layouts
I added a drawing, mixing and extractions.
Erin, your nativity is amazing! I love the whole mid-century look! And the lights are so cute too!!
I should really stop making papers for this train...but the mid-century patterns are kind of addictive. I'm trying to keep the mid-century ones usable for everyday scrapping as well as the festive holiday layouts, and I think all but the snowflake one on the right will make good everyday papers. As far as my seasonal ones, I've tried to consider all of the December celebrations I know of and included a couple of papers each for Hannukah and Kwanzaa. (Hopefully nobody downloading will be upset that I thought to include them and took the time to make a few things each, even though I'm not visibly of either Jewish or African ancestry; I want people to have at least a couple of papers and elements specific to what they're celebrating. There will be a couple of pieces of word art each, as well.)
Wow, Holly, I love that poinsettia pattern and the ornaments!! I would love to do some mid-century designs, but not sure where to start. Did you draw those? They are so gorgeous!
Thank you so much Melissa! Holly, I love them all!
@Holly, These are so wonderful. Your style reminds me of my old roommates. She had a degree in illustration and did wonderful work. You challenge me to become better.
The poinsettias and ornaments were drawn in Illustrator with the brush and then cleaned up. The mid-century ones....I generally looked at vintage fabrics for inspiration and created my own take on them using shapes and the pen tool.
I tend to draw and paint a lot of my elements in ArtRage and Illustrator. I'm mostly self-taught, with the exception of a few hours worth of video classes in the last few months. It's hard to believe I couldn't draw worth beans a year ago, but then I started using ArtRage regularly, and now it's hard to get me to stop drawing!
I've heard a lot of good things about artrage, gonna have to check it out. I eventually want to get a tablet and illustrator, but right now I have to draw and scan in. I need to find a good tutorial on how to get nice clean lines after you do that. I'm so new at all this, but so inspired when I come here!
Short tutorial on clean lines:
-Scan lineart at highest resolution your scanner can manage. That'll give you as much detail as possible.
-Once you've scanned it in (and done basic cleanup by painting over smudges with a soft white brush at lower opacity so you can just build up white over them), if you're working in Photoshop, do a Levels adjustment (Ctrl/Option + L) and move the left and right sliders about halfway towards the center. Adjust the grey (middle) slider to adjust the brightness of the overall image, if you have some shading you want to keep.
-Use a magic wand (W tool) to select the black if it's just lineart, or use the background eraser (one of the shift-E options) to erase the white if you've got shading and THEN select what's left.
-Once you've got a selection, right-click with the wand and choose Make Work Path. You might have to adjust the number to tell it how closely to follow the edges when it makes the curves, but that'll give you a very clean vector outline that you can then simply fill on a new layer, save as a custom shape, or export to Illustrator for further detail work.
ArtRage is great for raster artwork--fantastic if you already draw or paint, but it really does work much better with a graphics tablet. If you already own a smartphone or tablet that will work with a stylus, I'll recommend the Android app in combination with it (it's another $5, but lets you create on the go). Keep your eyes open; there's usually a sale on the full program around the holidays.
Inkscape's almost as capable as Illustrator, and I'm able to do pen-tool drawings in Illustrator or Photoshop with my mouse at this point, so that helps to make a graphics tablet a bit less of a necessity for vectors. (I'll still use my little Bamboo, since I have one, or my remote desktop software plus my recently acquired Galaxy Note 8 with its S-pen, but I could still work in Illustrator without having access to either one.)
I was actually going to show off word art when I logged in today, but I realized I haven't even made a proper preview of it yet, so here's a screenshot from Illustrator with all my little artboards:
A couple may seem tongue-in-cheek, but they're ones that my family will use a lot due to the inevitable holiday shipping mishaps and the challenge of multiple people with strong viewpoints gathering under one roof.
Great word art, Holly! You've really made a lot!~ I love the "cocoa time" and the "unto us a child is born" one, too!
Love the FedEx one Holly! it's so true!
I tried to go for a mix of secular and sacred, seasonal and a few more generic ones. I figure even if it's a lot that I've made, it's awesome to have that perfect piece of word art available when you're working on a layout, and besides, now I've got the word art made for this year's cards for everyone I know! A nice paper, an element or two, a piece of word art with a foil or wire style, and I'm done with cards this year.
And it's been good hand-lettering practice on some of them, as well.
Yeah, Sharilynn, my son laughed when he saw that one. He's in the Navy, so he gets to deal with getting crumbled cookies regularly when he gets care packages. I'm sure it'll happen at least once more this year, so I'm prepared for it.
And, since it happens so often, I made sure that one is in a font that'll blend with almost any kit in any season. Can't wait to show my mother a page with it!
Wow, thank you Holly, you should teach a class! I'm going to have to study this, because I only understood about 1/2 of it, ha! I just need to play around more with photoshop and do more youtube tutorials, just haven't had time.
Your word art is wonderful!
Ugh...I am not feeling this color palette at all....
This could be a challenge for me.
Holly I love your papers !
@Julie, I know what you mean. I haven't enjoyed these colors at all. Personally, I like a much more narrow palette and not so many bright colors. I'm looking forward to something maybe a bit more peaceful for January.
Holly - your papers are marvelous! I'm a huge fan of mid-century everything so your papers feed my soul. I can't wait to download them!!
And I'm equally looking forward to downloading everyone else's work, too - this is a really great BT!
Todas son maravillosas
Since I will be traveling next week, and the following week is Thanksgiving, I wasn't sure I would able to make anything so I went ahead and made my kit. Since one of my favorite memories of my childhood is making Christmas cookies with my mom, I decided to make a baking kit. I added a Christmas spin as well. I might have another kit but this is the baking one for the blog train.
Gorgeous, Erin! I almost wish I was closer to where my parents live so I could be baking with my mom. Gah, now I have to try to make a sour cream cookie layer style, since that's what we end up baking most often!
Erin , I love what you made !
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