May 1: Mixing Edges [SHEDULED]

Hi Everyone!  It’s Jenn, aka jk703 here for today’s post.  Today, I thought I would share a fun technique that I have loved since I figured it out in 2011.  We all love our digital scrapbooking papers, and Mirjm has some awesome ones!  Here is a way to mix up the papers and get a cool effect for your backgrounds.

Step 1:  Open up a new document and then one of the background papers.

Step 2:  Using the Rectangular Marquee tool, select the area that you would like to have show a different background paper. This should leave a border on your paper with marching ants.  Here is the tool and my chosen selection.





Step 3:  Click on Select > Inverse from the Menu Bar.  This will inverse the marching ants to the edge instead of the inner part of the background paper.





Step 4:  Next choose Select > Modify > Feather.  We are going to soften the edges on the selection.  A menu will pop up, and you can choose any value you like, but I found that it works nicely when between 100 and 250.  For my example, I chose 150.



Step 5:  Next, you will click on the half black/white circle on the bottom of the Layers Palette. Choose Levels (or from the Menu Bar you can choose Image > Adjustments > Levels.)  When the adjustments menu appears, you will slide the middle GREY triangle toward the right.  You will see the paper change all on the selection.





Here is what my plain background paper looks like after playing with the adjustment level.



Step 7:  Now, to incorporate more background papers, you can layer them and clip them to the adjustment layer. After you have opened another background paper, make sure the layer is above the adjustment layer.  Next, right click and choose Create Clipping Mask. Clip the paper, and then you can play with the opacity of the top background paper.  



After playing with the opacity of the top pattern layer, or blend modes, you can really get a nice mix and blend. Here my Pattern has a Hard Light with an Opacity of 77%, and the Adjustment Layer is a regular normal blend mode and a Fill of 54%.



Play with the adjustment layer, moving the slider to different areas - left or right, as well as blend modes and opacity. You can always UNDO! :)

So, after I created the tutorial, I scrapped my page, and didn't use my original intended photo with a sunset.... I've got one of my son, Shayne. My tones needed darker colors, and my page uses a mix of Time Flies, Then & Now, and Blue Skies! They all work well with one another! My edges are a super small lined pattern, almost a tiny plaid. I mixed it with a solid paper, and changed up the Blend Modes. I love it.



Easy peasy, and super for making your stash stretch out! Hoping you learned something new, and found it fun as well!
Happy Scrapping!

Thanks for visiting,
Jenn | jk703

That's really nifty!!!

Thank you both!

Just Updating it's ready and I added my layout. So, originally it was a sunset picture. My page wasn't working, so I scrapped my son using the technique. Hope that will work.

Jenn - so cool! I commented on the blog! Your page is stunning! Your photography and ultra clean pages have been making me swoon!

Thanks, Jenn! I really appreciate the feedback! I was sitting there... adding, taking off, adding, taking off for forever it seemed.