01.15 Video Tutorial: Text on a Busy Background

Welcome to the new year and another video tutorial by Chelle of Chelle’s Creations. Today she is going to give you a few pointers to ensure that you journaling doesn’t get lost on busy background papers or photos.

A couple of Chelle’s talented creative team members provided layouts using the techniques they learned while watching the video.

Lisa (kelseyll) used the outer glow method by casting a blue hue around all the text. Since the date was on a really busy part of her layout she also added a slight shadow to help it to be seen. For this cute layout Lisa used the parts of Loom Love (Sampler, Solids, and Alpha).

The outer glow method doesn’t work just on text, but it also works on word art as Jan (QuiltyMom) demonstrates with her layout. To make the black letters stand out and not fade into the black of the Liberty bell the outer glow creates the perfect contrast. She also used the outer glow method on her journaling to ensure the words didn’t blend in with the photo. For this fabulous layout Jan combined Liberty and Liberty (word art) with a template by Cluster Queen Creations.

This video features Chelle’s Creations Falling 4 U kit. Visit Chelle’s Creations store here to see this kit and her other fabulous creations.

You don’t want your journaling to get lost on the page. You placed it there to remind yourself and tell others about the experiences you had. The next time you are finding it hard to read what you wrote try one of Chelle’s tricks.

6.27 Scrap Skills: Weaving elements

Hi friends! Cheryl here. I hope you’ve been following the digital scrapbooking tutorial videos Chelle makes from time to time. You can find them all on her YouTube channel, and they are all very helpful. I have learned everything from basic to advanced techniques from her. In fact, today, I would like to focus on two of her videos regarding weaving elements.

The first one called Linking Charms was released when her Graduation kit hit the market. The kit includes a sheet of year medallions that can be cut apart and attached to the tassels in the kit to personalize any graduation page you might be creating. Her video describes precisely how to accomplish that and make your shadows look realistic. It’s the best I’ve seen at describing how to do this. Chelle’s shadowing techniques are outstanding.

The second video I want to highlight is Weaving String Through Eyelets. If you’ve ever seen scrapbook pages in the galleries with string weaving in and out of banner shapes, looking very three dimensional, and wondered how they did that, then this is the video for you. But, even if you know how to do this already, I would encourage you to watch Chelle’s video because you might be surprised by what you could learn. For example, in this video, Chelle has a screen shot of her eyelets she created from simple, flat donut shapes with all her favorite effects layered with it. It isn’t the focus of the video, but it had some very helpful information for me!

Chelle’s creative team members often use this weaving technique on their pages. Cara had a gorgeous photo of a sunset at the lake she wanted to highlight on a page. She used a string element to weave in and out of the letters in the title. The effect of the weaving really adds to the title and is more interesting than merely having the string placed underneath the letters.Carathe-lakeOphelia also used this technique on her page. She wove the string in and around the frames on her page, and again, it adds more interest than simple layering. Ophelia2010-08-07-footballpractice_sm Finally, Kairyn made a double page layout and used this same weaving idea, but I want to show you each side of the layout individually to aid in viewing. On the left side (the first one you see), she used the red cord to weave around her title alpha, and on the right side, the same element is woven around the flowers. That curly cord is practically begging to be woven like she did, don’t you think? It’s a subtle detail, but it makes a large impact in the realism of each page. Kairyn2007-07-01ArtFun-L2007-07-01ArtFun-R

Did you know you can subscribe to Chelle’s YouTube channel? When you are looking at one of her vidoes on YouTube, there is a tab above the video that says, “Subscribe.” Click on that, and you can be the first to know when she adds a new tutorial.