Thursday, March 28, 2013

New Release - Just Basics: Mists

It's Thursday again!  This week I have a basic pack of eight mists for you.  As usual, they are 30% off today only!!

This are one of those handy basics that you will reach for time and time again!  They can add a little something to any digital project and work great as background stamps on your digital layouts.  Rotate, resize, layer, and recolor them!

Tip: In Photoshop when you bring a .png file into your layout that you want to recolor, you need to rasterize the layer first before you can apply a fill to it.  By right-clicking on the layer and choosing "Rasterize Layer" you will make it editable.  Then choose Edit - Fill and select your color. 


Thursday, March 21, 2013

Fly Away With Me

Happy Thursday everyone!  Or Happy new release day at DHD.  Today I am pretty excited about the latest kit to hit my store - Fly Away With Me.  I hope you will enjoy the fresh, contemporary look of this kit with hand-drawn illustration.  It's perfect for many every day occasions but specifically for documenting your aspirations and accomplishments.  I think the colors are pretty universal too, and just great for scrapping pictures of my little boys.  And as with every new release, it is 30% off today only!

This kit has 16 digital papers and 46 elements.  It's filled with stickers of hot air balloons and kits, arrows, tags, eyelets, flair, frames, stamps, and more. 




Layout by Krystal Winn

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

DHD Blog Hop!!

Hello & welcome!  I'm glad you've made your way to my blog as part of the Design House Digital Blog Hop!  If you are starting here first and have no idea what I am talking about, you can head to the beginning at the DHD Blog.

In order to snag the free collaboration kit below, you must collect a part of a code from every blog you visit.  Put the items together in order and you will have a coupon code to redeem on the site for your free collaboration kit, Sweet As Spring.

Twelve designers contributed a total of 67 elements, 51 papers, and 4 alpha sets to this gorgeous
kit, and the treasure is worthy of the journey. But, in addition, everyone who downloads the kit before
Wednesday, March 27, will also be entered into a drawing for a $15 gift certificate to the Design House Digital shop!


We have a challenge for you, too: build something amazing of your own! Using just the Sweet as Spring collaboration kit (and your own photos, of course), create your own project and put it into our Sweet as Spring Challenge Gallery. If you post your project before April 17, you will be entered into another drawing for a $15 gift certificate to the Design House Digital shop, but the challenge gallery will remain open afterwards, and we would love to see your layouts any time.

And that's not all.  If you want even more goodies that coordinate with this kit, be sure to "like" DHD on Facebook (here) and to sign up for the store newsletter.

Before I get to sharing my part of the code, I want to talk to you a little bit about ombre.  The ombre trend has been budding all around us for a while.  From fashion to home decor, from food to craft, adding a bit of ombre can really add some fun to your life!  I've created a board on Pinterest to give you some examples too so take a look.

And I'm going to show you one simple way to add a little ombre to your layout using the gradient fill tool.  Here's what you need to do:
1) Choose a background paper
2) Choose something to overlay onto the paper (ie: a background overlay, a brush, or even some text)
3) Create a layer above your overlay layer
4) Set your foreground and background colors.  These will be the two colors that the gradient blends.
5) Use the gradient tool to fill the layer (ombre is generally top to bottom but you can mix it up if you like)  You can also play around with your gradient tool as much as you want.  Go from the background color to nothing, fade to a lighter shade of that color, fade to another color completely, or even add additional stops with other colors.
6)Clip the fill layer to the overlay layer and presto!

Here are a few examples using a paper from Be Bold and a damask pattern from Just Basics Distressed Overlays.
 In the first example, I fade from the background color of the paper to a lighter shade, top to bottom.
In this example, I set the foreground to a hot orange and the background to the paper color.
In this final example, I added in a bright yellow by adding another stop on the gradient.  I also used the tool at a diagonal.














These are just a few of the ways you can add a little ombre to your layouts!  What other ways will you use it?

Well, thanks for stopping by! You can visit as often as you like, and you can also like me on facebook for more inspiration and updates. And finally, here is the item you are looking for!!




You can use the list below of all of the stops in the blog hop, or you can jump directly to the next blog:http://scrapznbitz.blogspot.com/
Design House Blog- Start here!
Sarah Sullivan
Vanessa Fenton
Inkling and Wit
Diane Rooney
Mary Moseley
Kristin Damon
Imaginenation
Courtney VanSickle

Kandy Caballero
Krystal Winn
Tracey Allen
Qadirah Gomez
Kelly Birrell
Amy Lanham
Sweet as Spring – a blog hop treasure!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Winter colds...uck!

Alas, my household has been under attack.  The intruder...a vicious winter cold!  It started with the toddler.  And if you have had a toddler you know it won't end there!  The poor kid suffered for many days though but it finally hit me, dad, and baby brother.  And it hit us hard!  Unfortunately, it's hard to get over a bad cold when you are up frequently to care for a baby with a bad cold!  Alas, after a weekend of as much rest as we could manage, we are all on the mend.  Slowly, but we will get there!  Spring cannot come fast enough!!

All that sick time leaves me a little behind on design time so I won't have a new release for this Thursday; however, I will be bundling up some kits that were released during dollar days over the next month or so giving you a chance to snag them at a reduced rate (and 30% off on the Thursday they are released!!).

This Thursday look for the A Little Beachy collection with it's sun worn feeling.  There are twenty papers, sixty-four elements, and eight brushes in total.  Be sure to snag it on Thursday at it's lowest rate!
 And if you haven't already, be sure to like Little Birdie on Facebook so you can stay on top of new releases, deals, and inspiration!

Until later,
Sarah

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Now on Facebook!

I've got a facebook page up and running.  Go ahead and "like" the page for Little Birdie Digital Designs to stay on top of new releases, special freebies, and special savings!