Aussie Scrapbooking

Manufacturer Watch 3rd May

Jill — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:50:37 +0000

After a refreshing hiatus from all things scrapbooking, I’ve taken a quick look at what the scrapbooking manufacturers have been up whilst I was otherwise engaged.

Hambly Screen Prints is seeking members for its 2010 Design Team including cardmakers, scrapbookers, altered artists and multi-media designers. DT members are expected to produce 3 projects per month. Submission deadline is 31st May 2010.
Helmar has some answers to common adhesive questions. Find out which Helmar adhesive works best in certain situations.
Cosmo Cricket shows you how to make a shadow box out of a book. There’s a video demonstration to view at the link. On a separate note there’s also a sketch idea for a single photo.
Jillibean Soup shows off new mini collection Summer Squash Soup – delightful and not too over the top.
GCD Studios gives us a look at the design concept of visual triangles. Although fascinating, I don’t think I’m any the wiser on how to create them myself. No light bulbs going off here. Hmmm. Might have to read the post a few more times and mull it over some more.
Reminisce has a paper flower tutorial. I guess many people have their own method. This is yet another variation.
Pebbles Inc has an interesting sketch idea for a single photo.
Imaginisce also has a sketch…I love this…for FOUR photos. Mmm…mmm.
Graphic 45 features one of their design team members – Jane Tregenza. I’m not in the habit of mentioning individuals normally, but in Jane’s case she’s a fellow Aussie and I love to give fellow Aussie a shout out if I can.
Studio Calico has a Sunday sketch to try out. Single photo.
Banana Frog shows us another masking technique with inks and stamps. I only wish I had a gorgeous enough stamp to try it out with (love the ones in the example – yum yum YUM!)

Ok that’s it for today. Enjoy.

Kaisercraft 2010 Design Team Call

Jill — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:47:33 +0000

Aussie scrapbooking manufacturer, Kaisercraft, is currently seeking new people to serve on its design team for the period July 2010 to June 2011.

Kaisercraft DT members will be expected to blog on a weekly as well as create projects. The call is open to both local and international crafters. Applications close 30th May 2010.

Read all the finer points of the call here.

Bazzill App For iPhone or iPod Touch

Jill — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 02:21:41 +0000

Ok who has an iPhone? On Friday I stumbled upon a Bazzill Basics scrapbooking app available through iTunes. I’ve held off posting about it for a couple of days whilst I learnt more about it.

The app was released on 13th April 2010 and boasts “Over 500 Cardstock Colors at your fingertips!” Reading this I got a little excited and went ahead and purchased the app for myself.

Features

You can pull up virtually any Bazzill color by name, or search by a general color scheme (say pink) or by cardstock family (Bling, Burlap etc).

Each color is listed with:

Bazzill name
RGB and CMYK values (handy for use in Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements etc)
Cardstock family (eg Bling, Burlap etc)

If you search specifically by name, you’ll also get monochromatic, complimentary, triadic, analogous and split-complimentary color suggestions. Awesome when you’re not sure what colors to use on a particular project.

The “Colormatch a Photo” feature allows you to match Bazzill cardstock colors by sampling areas on a target photo. You sample the photo by touching the screen. The area you touch magnifies in a circle. Drag the circle with your fingertip to magnify different areas. There’s a little square at the centre of the magnification circle which acts as the selection point (or “crosshairs” if you like). Once you have your selection point hovering over a color you want to match, just remove your finger to select it. Your sampled color will appear in the currently selected slot at the bottom of the screen. Tap the next slot before sampling another area of your photo.

Here’s how the color match feature looks afer sampling several areas of a photo.

Once you’re done, you can save favourite color palettes for use at a later time.

Cons

1. Photo/color matching – A fantastic feature but at times I found it difficult to select areas of my photo right at the edge of the screen.

2. Price – This is a relatively expensive app. It will set you back US$10 in the United States, or AUD$12.99 here in Australia. The most I’ve paid for an app previously is about AUD$3-$5.

Conclusion

Sure it’s fun to look through all the Bazzill colors and to play with different color combinations, but by far the most important feature of this app is its photo/color matching ability. Imagine being able to match a Bazzill cardstock color to any photo – anywhere, any time? You can with this app. Very cool indeed!

Something else I would like to see in the app, is the ability to load a photo and have the app suggest a palette of colors at the bottom of the screen. (In addition to the ability to sample and select your own colors.) I’ve suggested as much to the author. Hopefully, he might think about adding it. Fingers crossed.

You’ll have to consider on an individual basis whether the heftly price tag fits within your budget. I’d suggest as a once off investment, it’s worthwhile.

If you’d like to go ahead and check out all the details for yourself, you’ll find them here at the Bazzill Basics Paper website. Enjoy!

Free Argentella Quickpage From Kaisercraft

Jill — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 04:01:16 +0000

Just a quick heads up – Kaisercraft is giving away a free digital quick page using the Argentella Collection.

You can snag it here. (Filesize is 9.59 mb).

It took me about 30 seconds to throw together this example (pictured) in Photoshop.

Video Of The Week 15th April

Jill — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:33:16 +0000

Today I watched a video by Stephanie Barnard demonstrating bubble stamping, or rather stamping with bubble wrap.

Admittedly, it’s not a new technique to me, but Stephanie adds interest by using different coloured inks, using individual bubbles, not to mention being very excited about the whole process! It makes for a fabulous looking page or card background (pictured), don’t you think?

For those reading from the website, click to the right of screen to play the video. Otherwise, visit the related blog post to access the video there.

Running time: 3 mins 40 secs.

Manufacturer Watch 14th April

Jill — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:17:13 +0000

Just a quick look today at what some of the scrapbooking manufacturers are up to:

Studio Calico has a Sunday sketch for three photos. Unusual. I like it.
My Mind’s Eye challenges you to Dream Big. Use the song in any way you like, PLUS there’s a sketch for two photos to go with it.
Imaginisce has some tips about maintenance of their iTop tool. Important to read if you own this tool.
Prima has a April Build-A-Page Sketch for two small photos. Gorgeous.
Glitz Design is looking for new design team members – 3 layout artists and 1 altered artist). Call closes April 16th (still a couple of days left!) New team members notified April 20th.
Banana Frog has an April Sketch for 3 photos.
Shimmerz features a video demonstrating a drip technique using Shimmerz Vibez. You could use this technique with any mist or spray product really. It involves spraying the product close to the paper and holding the paper vertical to let the product run (or “drip”) down the page. Interesting. If you’re reading via the website click to the right of screen to play the video, otherwise access the video via the related blog post.

That’s it for today. Enjoy!

Prima Design Team Call

Jill — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:40:30 +0000

Prima is looking for new design team members in the following categories:

Cards/Tags
Altered Art
Layouts
Video

The number of DT members required is not specified.

Call is open to all countries and closes on 3rd May 2010. Details can be found here on Prima’s blog.

Journalling Challenges April 2010

Jill — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 04:36:53 +0000

I haven’t done this for a little while, so today I thought I’d take a look at some of the new journalling challenges available in April:

Journal Challenges suggests you jot down some facts on a layout.
Journaling Junkie challenges you to create a layout based on an Easter memory.
The April category over at Category Stories is my world.
At The Creative Type, the challenge is repetition. (Pick one word or phrase and repeat it on your layout.)
Scrap That Poetry asks you to scrap an Easter poem. The poem is found here.
The Good Grief Blog suggests you report simply on a loved one.

Hopefully there’s something inspiring amongst these challenges for you. Enjoy!

Should Provocraft Be Suing Make The Cut?

Jill — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 02:55:07 +0000

By now you’ve probably heard that Provocraft, makers of the Cricut, recently filed a court action against the creator of a software program called Make The Cut! (MTC). MTC makes it possible to cut virtually any shape with the Cricut, effectively removing the Cricut’s dependency on cartridges. (There is also a second program that does the same thing called Sure Cuts A Lot – or SCAL – which is not currently being pursued by Provocraft.)

Provocraft has an extensive list of complaints against MTC, but I believe it all boils down to two main points:

Whether or not Make The Cut! breached copyright laws by introducing a “cartridge backup” feature.
Whether or not Make The Cut! facilitated and encouraged the sharing of copyrighted Cricut cartridge designs.

Cartridge Backup Feature

MTC users have attested to the fact that the backup feature within MTC only works with a fully licensed version of Provocraft’s own Cricut DesignStudio (CDS) software and an original Cricut cartridge. Since CDS already has a cartridge backup feature, it’s unclear why you would need a second program such as MTC to do this.

The other important factor is whether backup files created by MTC are decrypted and result in unprotected backup files. I’m sure you’ll agree, if users began sharing unprotected files, this certainly would constitute piracy and breach of copyright.

Use Of Cricut Copyrighted Cartridge Designs

MTC allows you to import and trace images, so does SCAL. Any vector drawing program worth it’s salt will allow you to do the same. So why is MTC being singled out by Provocraft? Why not SCAL, Adobe Illustrator or any other vector drawing program?

The reason is most people are smart enough to use such powerful technology for personal use only. If you traced a Disney image (how about the famous Mickey ears?) with Adobe Illustrator and created a SVG file and sold or shared it on the internet, I’m quite sure Disney representatives would be on your doorstep with a scary lawsuit quicker than you could say “copyright breach”. By the same token, if you used the Mickey ears in your own personal scrapbook and didn’t share the file with anyone else, who would know? Not even Disney.

Provocraft sights evidence in their complaint of MTC users sharing copyrighted images from their cartridges. Provocraft claims these images have been uploaded and shared in the MTC gallery. If this is correct, the creator of MTC has sadly erred by not ensuring his site remained clear of copyrighted materials.

I wouldn’t have believed people to be silly enough to openly share copyrighted images, much less openly discuss and encourage their use. Unfortunately, I have seen the evidence of all of this with my own eyes. One example I witnessed involved MTC users openly discussing where to obtain Cricut Cartridge Handbooks in pdf format. Originally, the handbooks included vector images of all Cricut cartridge designs. (It was strangely naive of Provocraft to make publicly available documents containing vector images of all their cartridge designs, even prior to the advent of MTC and SCAL!) Once Provocraft learned that users were misusing these pdf files they were removed and replaced. MTC users who had already downloaded the original files openly shared them on free file sharing sites. Provocraft moved to have these taken down also, only to have people upload them elsewhere.

Some users went even further and documented the exact step-by-step process of extracting the copyrighted images and importing them into MTC through written and video tutorials, so that anyone and everyone could do it. They openly shared links to their handiwork and congratulated themselves on how clever they were. Most shockingly of all, they even did this on the MTC user forums. Not smart. Inexplicably, the creator of the software again apparently made little or no effort to subdue this behaviour on his own site.

As a result, it is no surprise to me that Provocraft has taken legal action to protect their copyright. Duh.

Provocraft Lover? Not.

Now before anyone calls me out as a “Provocraft lover”. Let me state clearly – I am not. What I am is anti-piracy.

If I can digress into my own situation for a moment – I own three die cutting machines – a Craft Robo and two Cricut machines. I also own a copy of Make The Cut!

In the beginning, I bought the Craft Robo because it was impediment free (unlike the software shackled Wishblade at that time). When the Cricut came along, I was not interested because it was limited to cartridges. In the end I caved to the hype and bought one out of pure curiosity. I had zero intention of shelling out endless dollars for (what were in my opinion) overpriced cartridges, so after my inital inspection the Cricut sat there gathering dust.

Time passed and along came SCAL and MTC. When I discovered them I believed the Cricut had been “redeemed”. I bought a second Cricut (the Expression) partly to cut 12″ x 12″ size, but mainly because of the existence of both SCAL and MTC. I just happened to choose MTC over SCAL at the time.

Conclusion

When I set out to write this article, I shared the sentiments of the anti Provocraft campaigners. How dare Provocraft move to block software that actually makes the Cricut more useful! I was angry. I began researching for this article and I was startled, disappointed and dismayed by what I found.

In my opinion (which probably counts for nought since I’m not legal person), Provocraft indeed has grounds to sue Make The Cut! much as it pains me to say that. Unfortunately, the creator of MTC may have stepped over the line with a new backup feature that was not needed. In addition, a few MTC users have chosen to openly flout copyright laws (and for those that think they’ve deleted the evidence of their misconduct, it’s still in Google’s cache people!) It appears MTC is wearing the brunt of this user misconduct, since the software creator apparently did not check the behaviour on his own site.

I sincerely hope this is not the end for MTC, a truly useful program, and that a few bad eggs have not spoiled things for the rest of us.

Organising Digital Photos

Multi-Photo Layout Ideas

Jill — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:17:58 +0000

On a whim I visited Scrapbook.com today which led me to finding a couple of sources for multi-photo layout ideas.

Multi Photo Blog

The first was a blog. Not a new blog by any means, but a new one to me: Multi-Photo Scrapbook Layout Gallery. Sadly, the blog appears abandoned – the last post there dated 24th August 2008. If you’re on the hunt for multi-photo layout ideas, it’s still worth a visit to view the archives. As a quick aside, you might like to read the blog’s philosophy Why I Scrap The Way I Do to see if it fits in with the way you scrap. (I could have written a lot of those ideas myself. Glad I didn’t however, as there’d probably be a lot of tomato throwing at me right now. )

Forum

The second source I found was a thread in the messageboards at Scrapbook.com belonging to a group of multi-photo layout enthusiasts. Within it there’s a list of links to 48 online galleries of members who scrap this way. A wealth of multi-photo layout ideas there.

I hope these resources are useful for some of you. Enjoy!