March '08 Designer Challenge: Featuring AutisticWonder! (aka Donna) :o)

[autisticwonder]

CHAPTER ONE..FIX the shape..

WOW!!! I'm AMAZED at the speed with which you all have done this already!!

Sorry for LONG GONE period on FIRST day..Furniture is in and WOW!! but the "flu" hit hubby today..and I'm into the last 3 weeks of the "flu" myself..Today was exhausting!! But this is just the ticket to brighten it up!!

Got an email from KPIERCE and MY APOLOGIES!! the link to the freebie template required more than a simple download..you had to register or login to get it..OOOPSS!! I had automatic login with it..It's a favorite site!! So sorry..so here is what I was hoping to get you all to see..

MARION and CARENA are as you can see WAY beyond the novice stage of SHAPES!! So I'll try to show a break down of how they did what they did to all those just learning!! But I PROMISE..when you "GET it"..it will be addicting!! and offer you UNLIMITED play and growth!! Their templates are AWESOME!! but I must ask for as much SIMPLICITY as we can manage for the poor folks that have no idea how you guys went from a simple template to WOW..all the fill in's, etc..BUT folks..You will be able to see how they did all the great stuff soon!!

Here's a picture of the download and it is done in pink colors..with black edging..I FLATTENED the image. I see that KPierce is going to learn that the disappearing shapes may very well be a FLATTEN image problem of some sort..So I'll explain as we go!!

FIRST: GET familiar with the BROWSE button often over looked by the NEWBIES!! You will find it to the LOWER lefthand corner of the EMBELLISHMENT, Paper SCRAPS, and Photos POPUP windows. This template freebie of Tabitha's can be opened in shapes and then you have a choice between using a JPG or PNG for your SHAPE (YOU CAN NOT USE ANY OTHER FORMATS as SHAPES than those two).. Don't have to grayscale it to get a good PUNCH (WHEN I use the term PUNCH..it is because you can look at the CUSTOM SHAPE feature as the equivalent to a TRADITIONAL scrapbooking PUNCH..those single item flowers, corner cutters, etc..)

SECOND: Tabitha's freebie template may have an invisible layer that will not allow it to punch or when punched..it will do the invisible TRICK later!! At first you may not see any problems with it..but it may be more noticeable when you go to ROTATE, MOVE or SIZE the punched item!! SO, lets fix it proper like in SBM...bring the parked template I have downloaded to SHAPES by OPENING my PHOTO or EMBELLISHMENT OR PAPER SCRAP window..JUST go down to the BROWSE button and go hunting through your drive to that SHAPES department..(NOTE: MANY of OUR EXPERT SHAPE Folks..PARK all their stuff in another hard drive, on desktop, etc..and USE that BROWSE feature to keep from loading everything into your SBM folders that would bog it down)
OH..left out IMPORTANT NEWBIE STEP..I've OPENED a SPECIAL "FIX it" ALBUM that contains a BLANK page and added another page at DEFAULT settings of 8x8 200 dpi..You can DELETE this page when PUBLISHED..and always have the FIX it album ready for emergency fix it jobs....GOSH..so much to tell you..but I'm going to try not to overwhelmed you too much!!

OK..the SHAPE is IN..on the left corner of the page..NOW..PULL the RIGHT BOTTOM corner of the SHAPE PIECE and PULL to the RIGHT BOTTOM corner of the PAGE..If it becomes too blurry..RESIZE your page to custom size of 4x4 inches.
NOW..GO to FILE tab at top and CLICK once on PUBLISH..NOW go to IMAGES and DOUBLE CLICK..It will FLATTEN your image into a JPG format..You will have a choice of sizes and quality settings to choose from..I PREFER HIGH-HIGHEST quality and SIZE to MEDIUM-SMALL for single shapes..FOR YOUR TEMPLATE SHAPES You will do best with HIGHEST QUALITY for detailed template with SMALL items on page..and MEDIUM size. WHEN it PUBLISHES..it will show you the published piece..You can go FIND it by going to MY DOCUMENTS:SCRAPBOOKMAX:Published ...look for the name of your FIX it album or whatever album you published from and send your item back to the shapes department under C:SBM:GALLERY:Images:SHAPES: folder you put it in..
NOw try punching that again..and the problem is FIXED!!


END of CHAPTER ONE..TOMORROW..CHAPTER TWO..WE have LOTS of CHAPTERS to do for the month!!

KEEP the juices flowing!! I'm going to have fun using FIONA's GREAT EXAMPLE of SHAPES TEMPLATE TWO PARTER..SHE's another EXPERT that is ADDICTED to shapes and she has been through all the troubleshooting with me for over a YEAR now!! THIS is my Anniversary month in the shop!!

Want to see if I can get our shape gurus to do a ONE STEP template like in the SHOP link..

K Pierce..Hope you have the answer you were looking for!! I haven't looked at your link yet!! but I will when the sunshines again!!

HUGS SCRAPETTES!!
donna

and again..WOW LADIES!! FROM SIMPLE to the VERY COMPLEX..WE HAVE GOT some GREAT ITEMS to SHOW HOW it's DONE!! THANKS BUNCHES!!

[O2BNGdHope]

OH..left out IMPORTANT NEWBIE STEP..I've OPENED a SPECIAL "FIX it" ALBUM that contains a BLANK page and added another page at DEFAULT settings of 8x8 200 dpi..You can DELETE this page when PUBLISHED..and always have the FIX it album ready for emergency fix it jobs....GOSH..so much to tell you..but I'm going to try not to overwhelmed you too much!!!

I don't get it. I opened a new album and titled it FIX IT with a blank page. Am I adding ANOTHER blank page? Above it says contains a blank page and added another page at default. So I should have 2 blank pages?

[omajo]

Wooow, it will take a while for me to read the instructions,.........,
I'll will do it 2moro,.goodnight !!

[pkdoll]

WOW! I can't wait to experiment with this challenge. Both Marion and Carena your LO's are beautiful I know how to kind of do basic shape stuff-but Crena I love how your second one turned out. What a beautiful idea!! Putting on my learning cap and kick starting brain to try and get lots of kowledge in working with shapes!!!

[autisticwonder]

I don't get it. I opened a new album and titled it FIX IT with a blank page. Am I adding ANOTHER blank page? Above it says contains a blank page and added another page at default. So I should have 2 blank pages?

YES..You did that PERFECTLY!! What you don't realize is that SBM has to have at least one page in the album..It will not allow you to remove the one left album page. You have to DELETE the album to do that..And to DELETE an album is only possible when you first come into a program and have that CHOICE of open a SAVED or make a NEW..This FIX it album is what I would use if I'm in another album and having trouble with a shape and don't have the luxury of fixing it in another program outside of max...or lets say I need a shape that I don't have in my SBM program and want to make another shape to use in that album I'm working on..You want to be able to use one page that was added to drop your shape into and use the WHOLE page as your shape...CUSTOM size your page as needed..

THEN PUBLish your pages..and yes you will have the blank page show up..but just delete in the published folder..and send the FLATTENED image jpg format to you Shapes folder to replace the goofy shape.. Then go back to your original working album and get the punch you wanted originally from that shape..

You are becoming SHAPE DOCTORS folks!!

My problem has been using too many shapes in my templates so I created a SIMPLE template SHAPE that uses only ONE color for the start..Then I can dress up my template shape once layed out on the paper!!

Here's some examples I want you to look at..it may very well surprise you how very, very simple the layout was to make using ONLY SBM and not another program..

Carena brought out some excellent points in an email to me of some of her frustrations..

Here's some ideas to look at and I want you to take my shape ideas and create something similar to it..I never went outside the box..All effects from just ONE color!! Then I added more shapes to it...

[grannywin]

I am so glad we have an entire month to get this right. I am so confused even after reading everything. Donna, can you simplify the instructions. How do we change colors on the jpg image?

[pkdoll]

Donna I can see where people are getting confused. In your instructions you are talking like everyone understands what you are saying because you are so familiar with what you are trying to explain that things get lost in the translation. Sometimes they just need a step by step example showing what to do and than they can better understand it from there. Just a thought.

[autisticwonder]

I am so glad we have an entire month to get this right. I am so confused even after reading everything. Donna, can you simplify the instructions. How do we change colors on the jpg image?

Question is how do we change colors on the jpg image!!!!
BLESS you..

The color pack are the paper scraps you use to drop on a 8x8 200 dpi (default settings). You pick whatever colors you wish to build your template page..REMEMBER the number one basic rule of thumb when making a SHAPE for SBM..WHITE is what your crisp image will be...gray colors are going to be more vellum like see through..BLACK is Nothing!! I use gray scale colors..but if you use COLORS..you can see your RANGE easier than looking at grays..NOT required to use colors..

Grab a paper scrap and drop on page..THAT instantly gives you a RECTANGLE..You can crop it to any rectangle size..or CUSTOM SHAPE..So here is an example of the process..ALL the basics are in the TUTORIALS..

NOTHING is off limits in your PAPER SCRAPS or BACKGROUNDS for building your template..But your THINKING has to see what this building will accomplish in terms of shapes..START playing..There is no better way to learn than that..

Carena mentioned some frustrations using SHAPES..they slither like snakes when you don't use the EDIT>check the KEEP ASPECT ration box at bottom..THat will keep it in it's original shape..

Once you have created a SHAPED template and PUBLISHED..GO TO NEW PAGE and test it!!
2 ways to TRY IT OUT!!

1a) GO directly to add on page in your created template album
Go to Paper Scraps and find a med to dark solid color with
texture or not..
Click on CUSTOM SHAPE
GO to BROWSE button on bottom left
Hunt for jpg image..My Documents>SCrapbookMax > Published Files> look for album you are in> go to top bar and click on thumbnails in box
Double CLICK on your NEW TEmplate or SHAPE image..
WHALA!! How did you do???

or
2a) Take your Published image and send to C:Program FIles:SBM:GALLERY:IMAGES: SHAPES: put it in a folder you can remember..
Then go back to new album page
Go to Paper Scraps and pick a med-dark color and choose CUSTOM SHAPE
FIND your new template shape and punch..
How does it look???

COPY my stuff to get a feel for choices of colors and the effects you can get from them!!

Here's the color tile I used to to get this template GREEN..
RIGHT CLICK on BLUISH image template
Put in your SBM SHAPES folder..somewhere you can remember
Pick a color med to dark from paper scraps or even a PHOTO!!
Pull the punched image from bottom right box on image to bottom right side of your desired page. THIS IS ONE LAYER..Do DROP SHADOW to give it depth
Drop a picture in or whatever you like with the empty spaces..
PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!!

[KPierce]

OK Here is a shape I created to use as a frame for my lighthouse vacation pictures. I like the way it frames the lighthouse. I don't know if this will be very useful for others or not but hopefully someone can use it or learn from it. I have varying shades of gray in the shape to allow see thru elements of the image. I hope this is right.


I uploaded the shape but not sure how to put it in correctly. hmmm. I have to run. I will be back.

[Tiffanys Scraps]

HELP
I tried following the distructions...got the image published and reopened . But it still acts like one big shape....not small shapes that I can work with....?

[KPierce]

Tiffany's Scraps, I hope it is OK for me to try to help. When you publish to an image it will create one big shape not different small shapes...that is a one click quick page. Place a piece of paper on your page, then go to the properites of the paper and find the shape you made, then add picture/s.

If you export as template then you could have individual pieces to change within the page depending on how you designed the page.

[grannywin]

YES! You can teach an OLD dog a new trick. I finally figured this lesson out. That image of the layout with the finished green layout really helped. Maybe we ought to extend this challenge to include a screen shot of our template. That might be a help to others.

But I am still confused by how Marion and Carena used various designs and colors in their layout. Is that lesson two?

Here are my steps (hope they are correct):
1. create a layout without text using shades of black, gray, or colored patterns for the paper scraps.
2. use plain white paper for the photo spaces.
3. Publish as a High and Full size image.
4. Go to My Document>ScrapbookMax>Published Files>
5. Find the jpg file of your template.
6. Move to C:>programs file>ScrapbookMax>Gallery>Shapes
or where you store your shapes files.
7. Open Scrapbook Max, new scrapbook, blank page
8. Bring in a paper scrap of an color
9. Check the shape box and find your template in the shape box and finish loading the paper.

[omajo]

Here is mine Donna, .hope this is the right way to do. Thanks for challenging us !!

[omajo]

And this my layout using the shape above a few time, also add decorations using Fiona's fern shape and my cymbidium orchids. Hope this fullfill the requirements for the challenge,.

[KPierce]

my shape


I can not figure out how to insert just a thumbnail sorry.