Note from Heidi: Sometimes choosing a color scheme can be the most difficult part of working on a layout. As Durin Eberhart points out in this tutorial, it doesn't have to be! Adapt these ideas for working with your digital scrapbook layouts, playing with your ScrapSimple Monthly Club products, or designing craft projects. Color is fun!

Selecting Natural Color Schemes for ScrapSimple Templates

Tutorial created using Adobe Photoshop CS2 with Windows XP.

One of the greatest advantages of using ScrapSimple digital scrapbooking products is the ability to customize the color. But choosing pleasing color schemes can be difficult. Instead of trying to create a color scheme yourself, you can take cues from nature. All that's needed is a few digital nature photos, either purchased from a stock site or something you've snapped yourself. They don't have to be elaborate, nor do they have to be perfect. Just make sure the colors in the photos are pleasing to your eye. For this tutorial, an amateur nature shot will be used.

Open a photo in your graphics program. Photoshop CS2 will be used in this tutorial, but any graphics program will work. With the Eyedropper Tool, select colors within the photo. Add these colors to the color palette for use with customizing ScrapSimple products.

When using the Eyedropper Tool to select colors, you will notice that sometimes the colors are not what you expected. That's because of the variation of colors in nature and the pixelation of the photo. Zoom in as far as possible to see the variations, which are visible as square tiles. At this view, colors can be selected more precisely, and you can see the complexity of the colors in the photo. Choosing colors from pixels in a small area can create an alternate and equally pleasing color scheme, perhaps a little more subtle.

When you have chosen a new color scheme, you will want to save it for future use. Do this by looking under Edit> Preset Manager. A dialog box will appear with a drop-down menu. Select "Swatches" and your current swatch library will appear. Take this time to edit your new swatches by deleting unwanted or duplicate swatches or drag to arrange them by color. When you are satisfied with your color swatches, click on the first color swatch of your new scheme, press the Shift key, then click on the last swatch of your new scheme. The selected colors should have a black outline. To the right, choose "Save Set."

This technique will work for any nature photo, regardless of how professional or amateur it is. Here are a few more examples of non-professional, relatively uninteresting, nature photos that have yielded beautiful color schemes.

The next time you are using ScrapSimple digital scrapbooking products and are looking for a pleasing color scheme, let nature do the work for you. This technique will work with any photo, and you might be surprised by the stunning colors that nature has to offer.

Card by Durin Eberhart
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Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Card Templates: 3.365x6.5 All Occasion, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Antiquities Biggie, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Antiquities 2 Biggie, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Antiquities 3, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Gesso Biggie, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Studio 5 Biggie, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Bella, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Broken In and ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Satin Stitch 5104 Super Biggie are also available.

Tutorial written by Durin Eberhart

P.S. Need more colors? Try this!

Colour (me) Creative eBook with 36 color swatches
Scrap Girls 2008 Digital Scrap Link Class: Understanding and Creating Color Sets

Scrap Girls, Etc. is a weekly column pulling bits and pieces from all over Scrap Girls. Stay tuned each week as Scrap Girls' Jane-of-All-Trades Heidi Dillon brings you tutorials, musings, recipes, interviews, design/software tips and tricks, layout walk-throughs, and who knows what else!

SCRAP GIRLS CLUB

Join the Scrap Girls Monthly Club and you can have fun with the newest traditional digital and printable scrapbooking looks while saving! (A $27.94 value for $9.99 or less!)

The Scrap Girls Club contents are released on the 1st day of the month (or the closest business day to the 1st).

With the Scrap Girls Club, you will receive:

1 Collection Biggie
1 Paper Super Mini
1 8.5x11 Sheet of Word Art
1 Embellishment Set
1 Assemble Your Own Zoom Page Set
1 Designer's Choice Item

Layout by Valerie Randall using May's Scrap Girls Club
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Created for you by Valerie Randall

If you prefer not to join a club, the Scrap Girls Club contents are available at regular prices in the Boutique. You can easily find them right now by checking the What's New? section of the Boutique.

Note: The Scrap Girls Club contents are always available for sale elsewhere in the Boutique at their regular prices once the associated club month is released. But all club contents are totally brand new, never seen before product releases for each month!

SCRAPSIMPLE CLUB

Join the ScrapSimple Monthly Club and you can enjoy the newest ScrapSimple looks while saving! (A $13.95 value for $6.99 or less!)

The new ScrapSimple Club contents are released on the 15th day of the month (or the closest business day to the 15th).

With the ScrapSimple Club, you will receive:

1 ScrapSimple Paper Template Set
1 ScrapSimple Embellishment Template
1 Brush Set
2 Designer's Choice Item

A commercially licensed version of the ScrapSimple Club is also available here.

Layout by Brandy Murry using May's ScrapSimple Club
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Created for you by Brandy Murry and Paula Wright

If you prefer not to join a club, the ScrapSimple Club contents are available at regular prices in the Boutique. You can easily find them right now by checking the What's New? section of the Boutique.

Note: The ScrapSimple Club contents are always available for sale in the Boutique at regular prices once the associated club month is released. But all club contents are totally brand new, never-seen-before product releases for each month!

ScrapSimple Tools - Styles

The dictionary describes style as: "A quality of imagination and individuality expressed in one's actions and tastes: does things with style." All I can say to that is - when I look at all of the awesome styles in the Scrap Girls Boutique - Amen! Combined with our imagination and individual tastes, digital scrapbooking styles can really take a layout into a whole new dimension - and by dimension, I mean 3D!

When added to ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates or Brush Sets, shadows, stitching, glitter, glass, ice, frost, water, paper, metal, or wood styles bring these otherwise flat elements to life. Add shadows to an embellishment, and it will give it enough of a lift to make your layout look touchable. For instance, in the image below, no styles have been added yet.

BEFORE

I used Brush Set: Leafy Green in a shade that coordinated with my papers but it needed a bit of punch, so I applied a style from ScrapSimple Tools Styles: November Sky 6301 and then applied a shadow style from ScrapSimple Tools Styles: Basic Shadows 6501. Then I chose to use ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Photo Clips to "hold" my photos and applied a metal style from ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Aged Metals Biggie to the clips and ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Wood 2201 to the base. I applied the stitching and holes style from ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Stitching 6401 Mini to the stitches around my journaling mat. Then I applied ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Blended 8201 Super Biggie to my text in order to soften it. I finished my layout by adding shadows to the elements in my layout that still looked flat.

AFTER

In the end, I used six different styles, and I think that, although they are very subtle, they made a huge difference in the way my completed layout looks!

For more great ideas on using styles to enhance your photos or other digital ingredients, check out the incredible tutorials on Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed and MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed.

Layout by Janine Buckles
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Commercial license versions of Brush Set: Leafy Green, ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Photo Clips, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Basically Bordered Circles, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Pierced, ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Reverse Applique, ScrapSimple Tools - Actions: Deep Shadows 6501 PSE and PS Biggie, ScrapSimple Tools - Actions: Stitch and Holes PSE 8301 Mini, ScrapSimple Tools - Shapes: Photo Frames 6302, ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Aged Metals Biggie, ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Basic Shadows 6501, ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Blended 8201 Super Biggie, ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: November Sky 6301, ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Stitching 6401 Mini and ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Wood 2201 are also available.

Article written by Janine Buckles

FREE STARTER KIT

Free eBook "starter kit" turns your dreams of digital scrapbooking into reality today!

This dynamite eBook is 65 pages - packed full of the information, ideas, and help people need when they are about to dive into this great hobby. It answers all of the important questions new digital scrapbookers have. They are all here for you - in one easy to use eBook!

Bonus! Download the free "Warning" Label, too. It was created for you by Valerie Randall as a little bit of extra fun!

Would you like a chance to try digital scrapbooking yourself?

Scrap Girls' Refresh Collection Biggie offers you free samples of some of our most popular product types. Try making a layout, your own paper with a ScrapSimple Paper Template, a fast layout with a ScrapSimple Digital Layout Template, or experiment with a brush.

We know you'll love digital scrapbooking as much as we do, and we have thousands of products to feed your new addiction!

Ready to Take Off? In-depth Tutorials Help You Become a Great Digital Scrapbooker

Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed!

NEWLY UPDATED! Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Photoshop
NEWLY UPDATED! Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Photoshop Elements
Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Paint Shop Pro X (XI)

Find out what tens of thousands of people have already learned: Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed is the fastest way to learn how to create digital scrapbooking layouts. And because this series covers so many topics with one purchase, it is a bargain!

In the tutorials, you'll see Ro working on her computer and hear her talking about why she is doing what she is doing. It's like having Ro come to your home and give you private scrapbooking lessons. You can create digital scrapbooking layouts today!

Download and CD versions available.

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements users receive:

30-31 movie tutorials
Companion eBook(s)
Collections
Other supplies

Paint Shop Pro users receive 31 movie tutorials.

MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed!

MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed! for Adobe Photoshop
MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed! for Adobe Photoshop Elements

Now that you've learned the basics of digital scrapbooking with Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, you are ready to learn advanced skills for having even more fun while you create digital scrapbooking layouts!

Get a big boost learning how to use ScrapSimple products to make your own backgrounds, embellishments, and alphas with the MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed for Photoshop Elements movie tutorial series. You'll learn so much that your digital scrapbooking layouts will never be the same!

eBooks

Scrap Girls offers a large catalog of eBooks covering topics that will expand your digital scrapbooking abilities to new heights. Here are just a few samples:

Scrap Girls 2009 Digital Scrap Link Class:
Using Silhouettes in Scrapbooking

Learn to make and use silhouettes with Using Silhouettes in Scrapbooking written by Brandy Murry. Learn the history of Silhouettes, different ways to use them in scrapbooking as well as how to make a digital traditional style Silhouette using Photoshop programs.

Perfect Memories for Photoshop eBook

In her debut eBook Perfect Memories: Creative Solutions for Less-Than-Perfect Images, Katherine Weaver introduces her latest design-based secrets for overcoming the most common photo flaws, as well as additional ideas for getting your digital scrapbooking projects off and running in no time.

Scrap Girls Tutorials & Way Cool Stuff eBook Set
2009 - 4th Quarter

Subscribers to the Scrap Girls Newsletter have one thing in common: they love to learn new techniques! Each issue shares ideas, tutorials, and new ways to use Scrap Girls quality digital scrapbooking products. Now you can have all those past tutorials and Way Cool Stuff articles of the 4th Quarter of 2009 in one convenient PDF format.

Start to Finish eBooklets

Start to Finish eBooklet - PSE: How to Emboss & Texturize with ScrapSimple Templates

Nothing could be simpler than learning to scrapbook digitally with Scrap Girls Start to Finish eBooklets. Step by step written guidelines and detailed screenshots will help you learn new digital scrapbooking skills. Included with the eBooklet are the actual digital files you need to create a finished project!

See more titles

Layout by Trish Yochum
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Designer Freebie by Trish Yochum coordinates with her ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Mosaic Retreat Biggie

Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Mosaic Retreat Biggie and ScrapSimple Tools - Styles: Glitter Edge 6301 Biggie are also available.

* There is a "free download" button on the details page for each gift. You don't need to put them in your shopping cart unless you are shopping for other items. Also note that if you are slow reading your newsletter, you may find this freebie has already been retired, as the freebies are only available as gifts for about two newsletter cycles.

CROPS AND CHATS

NSBR Chat - Early Edition
Thursday, May 20th - 2:00PM MT

What is NSBR? It's a non-scrapbooking related chat! We talk about everything, including some scrapbooking and usually chocolate. It's a great chance to meet new friends, catch up on what everyone is up to, and just relax! If you have a problem, we'll lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on. Have some great news to share? We'd love to celebrate with you. So join Michelle (Shelbi) and Shari (Shari PV Mom) at 2pm MT in the chat room Lobby! Hope to see you there!

Heritage Crop
Thursday, May 20th - 6:00PM MT

Do you have boxes of heritage photos just waiting to be restored and scrapped? Are there family stories just waiting for you to write down and preserve? Then this is the crop for you! Join April (April Showers) and Carla (CRS) at 6pm MT for the Heritage Crop and Chat! We'll help you get motivated to scrap those heritage photos and record your family stories for future generations to enjoy.

Ad Inspiration Chat
Thursday, May 20th - 7:00PM MT

Join Pat (PBarnes) at 7pm MT for an Ad Inspiration Challenge and Chat. A few hours before the chat, a magazine ad will be posted on the message board to use as inspiration for a layout. You can use whatever you want to from the ad - the colors, the shapes, the composition. There are no wrong answers!

What's New Chat
Friday, May 21st - 9:00AM MT

Join Michelle (Shelbi) and Sherry Lynn at 9am MT on Friday mornings to chat about all the cool new things in the boutique. You never know who else is going to show up! What are you getting? What did you kaboodle? And most importantly show us the layouts or other projects you made with your new goodies! There's a thread every Thursday and now there's a chat, too!

Back-Up Party and Chat
Friday, May 21st - 8:00PM MT

Need a little extra motivation to back-up your layouts and stash? Join April Showers in the chat room on Friday, May 21st for a Back-Up Party and Chat. We'll also go over several different ways to safeguard your files. You won't want to miss this one!

Quote Challenge Crop
Sunday, May 23rd - 6:00PM MT

Come join Pat (PBarnes) for the Quote Challenge Crop at 6pm MT. Including a quote on your layout can be a touching and meaningful addition, especially if you use the quote to create your own word art. On Sunday, Pat will post a thread on the Chat section of the board giving you the quote that you will use to make your own word art. It's not hard, and she will have a layout with a Word Art example in the gallery. Then we'll meet in the chat room to have fun, chat, and create our Word Art layout! Everyone can participate and create a layout, even if you can't make the chat. Hope to see you there!

Emphasis on Embellishments Chat
Monday, May 24th - 6:00PM MT

Join angelaNussbaum on Monday at 6pm MT for the Emphasis on Embellishments Chat. Each month, you will begiven a specific challenge to inspire you to start using more elements on your layout or to create your own cluster of embellishments!

Hybrid ATC Swap Crop
Tuesday, May 25th - 5:00PM MT

Do you love mixed media? Ever wondered what it is exactly or thought about giving it a try? Love to exchange cards through snail mail? Then this crop is for you! Break out your creative thoughts, your favorite Scrap Girls' supplies, some paper, pens, and whatever else comes to mind. Join Sherry Lynn on May 25th at 5pm MT for our Mixed Media ATC crop and swap.

Siggie Swap Chat
Tuesday, May 25th - 6:00PM MT

Join Michelle (Shelbi) and April (April Showers) in the chat room at 6pm MT for the May Siggie Swap. During this chat, we will swap the siggies we made for each other. You can upload your siggie the day of the chat. We'll all talk about how much fun we had and "ohhh and ahhh" over each other's cute new siggies.

New Member Chat
Tuesday, May 25th - 7:00PM MT

Join Pat (PBarnes) and Carol Ann (Zaz) for the New Member Chat at 7pm MT in the Live Chat room lobby. This is a great place to ask questions about getting around the Scrap Girls site or about digital scrapbooking in general - and a great place to make some new friends. All are welcome, new and long time members included. You do need to have Java installed on your computer to access the Live Chat.

MAY EVENTS

May Message Board Game: Geocaching - Scrap Girls Style!

There's no need for maps and compasses for this month's Geocaching trek! The object of the game is to correctly guess an item within a product in the Scrap Girls Boutique by solving clues and discovering the stars.

Each day, you will be given two clues: The first clue will be to the product (you will know you have found the correct product because there will be a star on the page.) The second clue will be to find a particular item within the product!

Send an email with the EXACT item name (within the product) and the link where the product is found to [email protected]. Use the subject line: Geocaching Scrap Girls Style in your email entry, and be sure to include your message board name and real name. Entries must be received by Midnight MT on May 31st.

Everyone who correctly identifies all 29 items will be entered into a random drawing for one $15 Gift Certificate!

Everyone who correctly identifies 19+ items will be entered into a random drawing for one of two $10 Gift Certificates!

Everyone who correctly identifies 9+ items will be entered into a random drawing for one of two $5 Gift Certificates!

For complete details and examples of game play, visit the Monthly Message Board Games folder on the Scrap Girls message board.

Layout Contests:

May Monthly Layout Contest: Summer is right around the corner for some of us and winter for others. What is your favorite part of that season? For this month's layout contest, scrap your favorite parts of the upcoming season. Maybe you enjoy swimming in the pool, boating or hiking the trails. Or, maybe it's building a snowman, skiing or sledding. Whatever you love, scrap it for us to see! Create your layout and post it in the May Layout Contest Gallery by Midnight MT on May 31st. Be sure to list your credits in the description or under the EXIF Properties. If your layout is one of the two chosen, you will win a $10 gift certificate to the Scrap Girls Boutique!

Club Concepts Layout Contest: Post your new layout using the current club selection (either the Scrap Girls Club or the ScrapSimple Club) in our Scrap Girls Club Members Gallery or the ScrapSimple Club Members' Gallery. Be sure to list all of the Scrap Girls products you used. If your layout is chosen, it will be showcased as a Club Concepts layout winner, and you will win a $5 Gift Certificate to the Scrap Girls Boutique!

Check our message board calendar if you have any questions about what is happening at Scrap Girls. All event times are given in Mountain Time Zone unless otherwise noted. Need help converting time zones? Check out the World Clock - Time Zone Converter. (Use 'USA-Utah-Salt Lake City' as the location for the Mountain time zone.)

Haven't received your prize as a contest winner? Please send an email to [email protected] and we'll get it out to you right away!