Christine Borgfeld Designs

Polka Dot Potato store closing

Well, not really, but Ashley has decided to stop selling digital artwork and focus on the print business and some other areas.  So after giving it a lot of thought I've decided not to move my products to another store right now.  I haven't been designing in some time, and I've had a very busy year in areas outside digital scrapbooking.  I don't think it would be fair to join a new store when I'm not available to contribute as much as I'd like. 

I will continue to scrapbook and make some brushes from time to time (and possibly post here to share), but right now I'm just not ready to design regularly.  Right now I'm just going to let life take its course for a while and see where things fall as I focus on some other areas.  So enjoy the last day of the clearance sale if you haven't already, and thanks to those who have offered me spots to sell in their stores. 

I also did a layout last weekend (wow!).  Here is the herd of deer that gathers every evening at my father's house to get a free meal and water.  This is one of the best times of year to watch them.

Photo masks aren't just for photos

This is the first of several posts on ideas for using brushes in your scrapbooking and designing. 

Photo masks have recently become popular in digital scrapbooking layouts.  Numerous designers are selling them (including me) and they can make some really stunning pages.  Here is an example from my favorites at DST (click to see credits). 

Basically the mask (or combination of brushes) is used to crop the picture.  I use this technique frequently in blended layouts, but I also use brushes and photo masks to crop part of a background paper and use it to highlight an image.  Here is a quick example of what you can do:

1. Start with an extracted image, a photo mask from my Distressed Elegance set, and a background paper from Jofia Devoe (The Smell of Summer kit).

2. Use the photo mask to cop a section of the background paper.

3. Place the cropped design behind the extracted image, rotate or position as you like, and you have the start of a stunning layout. 

 

 

The great bike ride

Well the training wheels are finally off.  After days of riding with daddy's hand clamped firmly onto him, Alex finally got the balancing down and is riding on his own!  Now if we can just get him to put his feet down when he stops! 

The layout uses a free kit from Mag designs.  I don't think its available, but she has some others on her blog and she sells at Shabby pickle designs.  The stick frame and tag are by Natalie designs, from her new fall kit - and as usual its wonderful. 

Boys will be boys

Two months ago we started a project to do something with our game room.  It's a long narrow room over the garage with our pool table and nothing else.  I wanted to use it for something besides storage, so we picked out some paint and got started.  We picked maroon for the walls and a beige for the ceiling.  After we finished painting and got the mess cleaned up, the boys ended up playing on the floor while I snapped photos.  So here is the result...

You can see the credits at my gallery at DST.

New brushes and tutorials for July

I have new sets of Brushes available for July and a free tutorial on the basics of how to use them.  You can get the tutorial for either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  You can get the brushes at $1 each if you buy the bundle - its available until the first Sunday in August when I'll have a new set for you.  Check them out here.

Alex at the Beach

Just a quick post of my most recent layout.  I was inspired by a layout from pixiedust at DST.  She has some wonderful work which you can see here.  This page uses my new circle frame brushes which I'll get around to posting here soon.  But for now you can see them here at PDP. 

New Photoshop brushs for June

I've just released 8 new sets of high resolution Photoshop brushes!  You can buy them individually or as a full set for a heavy discount.  The set will only be available for the next month, and I will have another set in July.  Look for new releases the first Sunday of each month. 

All of my brushes are made at high resolution (300ppi) with original art, public domain or unrestricted usage material, and commissioned designs. Brushes are provided in abr and png format. Brush files are created in Photoshop CS for maximum backward compatibility.

These are available with two license choices. The default PDP standard license allows personal use, scrap for others, and limited printed uses for profit. The extended license allows use in digital scrapbook products and other graphic uses for profit without credit or quantity requirements.

Here are the previews:

 

Cool Shades

Here is the boy showing off his sunglasses. This was a fun layout - Its been a while since I did one and it was nice getting back in the groove and playing around.  You can also see it here at DST. 

Shortcuts for creating brush files in Photoshop

Well I finally have a post that's related to digital scrapbooking!  I've been working on new brush sets recently and realized its gotten so much easier to convert all the individual files into a single brush set ( the .abr photoshop file).  I guess I've finally learned all the cool shortcuts to make it lightening fast.  So maybe this can help someone else save some time. 

First, you need a keyboard shortcut for the "define brush preset" command (under the edit menu).  Go into Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts and create one.  I use Ctrl+P, but pick whatever you can remember and a short cut you don't already use.  Then follow these steps when you want to create your abr file. 

1. Create  your png files - (make sure they are 2500x2500 pixels or smaller)
2. Put all your files in a directory and name them as you want them in the final package.  I use the batch renaming process in Adobe Bridge for this.
3. Open them all in Photoshop in one operation.  When you are selecting the file to open, highlight all the files at once.  This is the first trick.   
4. Go to Window>Arrange>Tile
5. Second trick - you can create the brush without selecting anything.  Just click to select the file you want and then Crtl+P (or your version) and enter.  Your nice file names get pulled in as the brush names.
6. Use Crtl+W to close the file.
7. Click, Crtl+P, Enter, Crtl+W and repeat until done. 
8. Go to Edit>Preset Manager.  Shift click to select all the brushes you just created and save the set. 

Thats it! 

My only complaint is that when you have all the files open in Photoshop, and you close one it automatically selects the last one in the list by default.  This is why you have to click on each one you want at the begining.  If anyone knows how to change the default to the first file please let me know!