Free Blog Background

I've made a new blog background free to everyone!

Go to http://bgtestsite.blogspot.com/ to see how it looks on your computer and go to http://kimraskreations.blogspot.com/p/free-blog-backgrounds.html to get the code



Special thanks to Delicious Scraps at DeliciousScraps.com for some of the design elements!

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Grownup Chore Board!

I was able to go down to my parents' house for the past week and as a result, I got a craft project done! First off, this was inspired by flylady.net My cousin mentioned fly lady on her blog one time and I had no idea what she was talking about so I googled it. She has this list of Beginner Babysteps to keeping your house and life organized. It was exactly what I needed!

http://www.flylady.net/pages/begin_babysteps.asp

So I wanted a way to organize my chores so I would actually do all of them. Enter my chore board!

I've been hearing everyone talk about Habitat Restores so I checked it out and found one semi-near my mom's house. We went down there and they had such cool stuff! I settled on an old cabinet door to use as my chore board. I REALLY lucked out with the paint color and how well painted it was so I didn't end up having to paint the cabinet door! Here's what I started out with:

Ignore the big hole where the handle originally was; it will be covered up later.

So first off I sanded down the edges some, although that didn't turn out to be too important of a step. I had some Dark Walnut stain (can't remember which brand) and rubbed it on the frame part.

One layer wasn't dark enough so I did two and it was perfect. I think this next picture is after one coat

While that was drying, I stained some mini clothespins with the same Dark Walnut stain. I ended up just using cotton swabs to put the stain on and it worked great.

I had some natural jute and some wicker baskets from hobby lobby and nailed them on with some half inch nail tacks like so:

Notice how the basket covers up that huge hole? Now onto the chores. My mom is a HUGE scrapbooker. I don't mean SHE'S huge but her scrapbooking's huge :). So the easiest thing to use for the chores was scrapbook paper and her cricut. I didn't care too much about what they looked like. The goal is to get them off the board as soon as possible! I ended up laminating them for extra protection and I made some blank ones and laminated them so I can write non everyday chores on them like doctors appointments, etc.

And the final product.......!!!!!!!!

I keep the chore cards in the basket on the right and the index cards (with kelly's missions written on them - look at day 13 of beginner babysteps) and clothespins in the basket on the left. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! It turned out exactly how I imagined it! I was going to put some hooks along the bottom to hold keys, name badges, etc but ended up deciding against it because I didn't have the stuff I needed to paint them the right color.

Let me know what you think and what you would do differently to make it better fit YOUR needs.

TFL and Lots of Love!

Kimra

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TUTORIAL and 2 sb pages

First off, the tutorial. I'm gonna show you how to customize digital scrapbook items to fit your needs! All of my stuff is done in Photoshop CS5. I'm going to be using a piece of background paper that looks like wood from the kit "Working Overtime" by MT Lane Designs. Apparently she no longer has a blog so I will link to the image in my own photobucket. Save it and use it to go along with me in the tutorial if you like.

Background Paper

*note: I always start off with a new document 12x12 inches at 300 dpi

I wanted the wood background, but I needed it in different proportions and in a different color. Here's what I did: (Click the photos to see larger image)

Original file:

First, I transformed the image to make skinnier wood planks. To transform an image, go to Edit>Transform>Free Transform and drag the points however you desire. Here's a tip - holding down SHIFT while dragging a corner point keeps the image's proportions. I did not want to keep the proportions so I simply 'squished' the image.

Next, I duplicated the layer.

Now I have 2 layers of the same image. Move one of these layers so that the last and first planks of wood overlap (this way you still get the dark line dividing the planks in all the right places). I highlighted my second layer green so you can see where I moved it.

Now, for that layer you just moved, you're gonna want to mess with it so it doesn't look like a repeating pattern. All I did was rotated it 180 degrees.

Repeat the duplicating and rotating until your page is filled. Here's what it looks like now

You're going to want to merge the layers together so it's just one image again. Select the layers by holding down control (PC) or command (Mac) and clicking on the layers. Right click then click Merge Layers

Now we're going to work on recoloring it. There are a thousand ways to go about doing this. Here's how I did it:

Desaturate the image to turn it to grayscale

Now create a new layer

Fill that layer with a color close to what you want the wood to be

Change that layer's blending mode to Multiply.

Here's what I got:

Now for the final customization! Click on your desaturated wood layer. Go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast

Play with the brightness until you get the final color you want.

Thanks for stopping by! This was my first tutorial so let me know if I can clear anything up. And don't forget to visit my SITE!

Now for my scrapbook pages. One of which uses this new and improved background paper. I'm not sure yet if I like the swimming pool one. I was in a 'just get it done' mood rather than a 'make it perfect' mood. You might be seeing a remake of that one in the future.

^credits:

background - Working Overtime by MT Lane Designs

clothespin - Americana by Ziggy Fan Scraps

string - Buddy Boy by CuddleBeez Scraps

^credits: Splash Kit by The Scrapping Sisters

clip - Daditude by Peppermint Creative

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