Thursday, August 11, 2011

the fastest blog header i've EVER made!

my dear friend june knows how much i love both a design challenge AND playing with my digistuffs, so when she asked me if i felt like playing around with some ideas for a new blog header, of course i said, "YES!"

she was happy to leave the whole thing to me, but i asked for a little wishlist, just to get me started. she wanted something a little "trendier"; (her last header was made by our friend kristie and was totally BEAUTIFUL, elegant and understated... somehow june KNEW mine probably would not be, lol!!!) plus i already knew her favorite color is red, and that she likes polkadots, A LOT! unfortunately i couldn't find the email with the other ideas until after i finished my first draft. to my shock and amusement, some of the other things june had mentioned were pennants, stitching, and scallops!!! clearly my SUB-conscious memory is much better than my CONSCIOUS ONE!

(red paper & doily: cherry kit, pink trike designs, design house digital; blue paper: love bandits kit, mindy terasawa, designer digitals; banners: house of 3 sampler kit, rhonna farrer, house of 3; scallops: you are awesome kit, crystal wilkerson, jessica sprague.com red ribbon: back2school free pea kit, shannon freeman, two peas; rick rack: memories kit, sweet shoppe designs; ticket: love word labels, katie pertiet, designer digitals; flowers: prisian holiday kit, o'scraps; font: manuscript)

i did most of the laying out on my laptop, during two almost-an-hour car trips, in which LHJ was driving! :) then i came home and let it simmer for a little bit, and to my surprise, it was looking good enough that i sent the "draft" to june. and then it turned out she loved it too, and i was DONE! well, obviously, i had some FAB products to work with, so that really helped!!! :)

here's my number one digi-tip for ya, free of charge, lol: if you only want to investigate *ONE* digital technique, learn how to add drop shadows to your elements. it's the difference between something that looks good, and something that looks WONDERFUL, imo. here is a second version of june's header. the only thing i've removed are the shadows. all the same products are there, and they are still *utterly lovely*... but it's not the same, is it?



i have to confess that although i love photoshop for editing photos, and you absolutely can not beat it for filters, blending modes and many more "artsy" effects on photos and digi-products... when i'm just "laying out" a digital project with pre-made elements my fallback software is STILL broderbund's printshop. i just prefer the way layers work. and yeah, there's a comfort factor because i've used it for years, but even when i first started with it, the learning curve was a lot less steep. and as i say, i would definitely not want to part with photoshop because it is an amazingly useful and sophisticated program. luckily, my hard-drive... and my heart... have room for both! ♥

8 comments:

  1. I love June's new bloggie banner...wow what a difference the shadowing makes...

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  2. So FAB! I'm in AWE of your SKILLS!

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  3. Lovely!! I think the only thing that I would change and this is only because I'm a sicko who would just love to see this in a version to see if I liked it better would be to change the front smaller flower to that turquoise blue color. Might look odd when done, but I'd love to see. hehe. yes shadows are Awesome!!

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  4. OMG, I have Broderbund Printshop, probably v1.0. Seriously. And I love the drop shadows. :)

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  5. Very professional looking job, Lauren. The shadows do add the pop-factor and I love the bright colorful bunting. Awesome art!

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  6. Holy moly, so glad you know about these drop shadow thingies...it takes the original from great to fantabulous!!! I see what Gina means about the turquoise flower, but red is my fave :)

    I love my blog banner, Lauren. Thank you so much for the much wanted blog-face lift!

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the *BEST* part of blogging is the comments, dontcha think? thanks for taking time to leave one! ~♥~