Scrapbook Layout Photo Editing Tutorial

I have been wanting to share a simple tutorial of how I use Picmonkey to edit my scrapbook layout photos! Picmonkey is a free web based photo editing software.  It works really well for editing layout photos and I think it's pretty easy to navigate too!  

When I start I always pick out which of my photos is best (I usually shoot 3-5 of a layout) and load that into Picmonkey.  My first step is to resize it to size that will look good on my blog (or whatever size is required for my design team work).  For my blog I usually do 600 X 600.

Next I work on the colors.  Whenever I shoot my pictures it is always in indirect sunlight.  If you do full sunlight you will get shadows.  I don't want any shadows and can easily correct my colors to be true using Picmonkey!  Weather permitting I shoot on my front porch - if the weather is bad I get close to a window that has lots of light shining in.  Outside is definitely my preference!  

The first thing I do for Color is Click on "Neutral Picker" and click on a part of my layout that is White.

When you do that it attempts to correct your White to be more White and take out the yellow or blue tones.  I find it works pretty well.  Sometimes it goes a little too yellow - but I wait until I am all done with colors and exposure before I decide that!  At this point you can also correct Saturation - I was happy with mine here (and usually am) so I didn't mess with that!

My next stop is Exposure.  This is the one time I usually pick Auto Adjust!  I find it to do a pretty good job of automatically adjusting things.  If it doesn't you can always adjust that a little more.  This step is also really important for brightening your layout up and getting those whites white!.

My last step is to Sharpen.  I rarely adjust the Sharpness beyond 3 - it gets too pixelated if you do that.  Clarity is something I don't mess with a ton either - but if I do I don't go above 10 there.  As you can see here I did some adjusting on both of those here!

So for comparisons sake here's my original layout:

Not terrible - but after all the work I put in on it, I want it to look as good as it does in person!  Here's where it ended up after editing:

Much, much better!  Now I also of course have to share a little about this layout!  This is part of my Treasure This Time Tuesday weekly feature!  Every Tuesday I try to share a new layout about one of my four kiddos that documents little things about them Right Now.  I had noticed that time was getting away from me and I was losing the little memories.  So this is my attempt to change that.  It doesn't happen every week - but I get pretty close!  

This week is my sweet 11 year old son!  This is probably the best picture I have taken of him in a long time.  He is in that awkward tween smile stage so if I can capture him naturally smiling, it's a win!  I created my title using my Silhouette Cameo and placed that surrounding the picture.  I also used my half circle as a base for adding some other words that describe him.  My journaling is where I get more into some details of the past month.  I asked him what he thought I should talk about and also just reflect on some things in the last month that have happened.  I love how it turned out and that we will be able to look back and remember this month!

Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper: Echo Park

Stickers: Echo Park

Enamel Dots: Recollections & My Mind's Eye

Treasure This Time Tuesday: I Am...Brave

This week for Treasure This Time Tuesday I am focusing on my 8 year old daughter.  She recently sang a solo and played the piano in our school talent festival. She's a pretty tender hearted kid so I was very proud of how brave she was to get up there and perform!

As she sang her solo she got distracted and messed up the words.  She smacked her head as if to say "duh" and they restarted the music for her to finish it correctly.  It was neat to see her handle a tough situation with composure and not freak out over her mistake!  In the big scheme of things with being brave I know this isn't a huge one.  But I think if kids learn to be brave early on it will help them to be brave in bigger life situations as they grow older!  

This was my first time to get to play with "I Am" from Simple Stories!  I have had it for awhile but just hadn't had the chance.  It was perfect for this layout - love the soft feminine colors combined with the black and gold!  I will definitely be playing more!  The word "brave" was cut out of the acutal patterned paper using my Silhouette and then I backed it to make use of the negative space.

Supplies Used:

Patterned Paper: Simple Stories

Stickers: Simple Stories

Chipboard: Simple Stories

Enamel Dots; Recollections

Treasure This Time Tuesday - The 4 year Old

This week's edition of Treasure This Time Tuesday focuses on a very specific part of my four year old's life.  As I document each month, I usually cover several things that they are excited about and experiencing in that month.  But after having a real breakthrough month with this guy, I focused on just one.

For several months Cooper was really struggling.  He was grumpy, mean, and full of tantrums.  In the past he had been arguably the most easygoing (especially at that age) of all my kids.  I was beyond frustrated, we were all beyond frustrated.  I tried every trick in the book.  And finally I went to the store and got some new games and puzzles thinking perhaps a change of pace would help.  We started doing puzzles together and from that day on he was back to my normal Cooper! So now every day we do puzzles, some days we do a lot, some days we do just one or two.  Something about that time to sit, think, and accomplish something does what his brain needs. I will take it!

So after that very long explanation, here is this month's layout for Cooper!

Isn't he a photogenic little guy? He isn't into posed pictures and will goofy smile there but if I catch him playing like I did here, perfection!

I cut the square pieces out of patterned paper and then cut a smaller one to apply on top using foam adhesive.  I did the top ones in different directions to add some interest.  I die cut the puzzle pieces simply to go with the theme!  My title was kind of a play on words.  I started with "You Puzzle Me" and decided to add & time to make it "You & Me Puzzle Time." 

Supplies Used:

Patterned Paper: Echo Park

Stickers: Echo Park, Recollections, Bella Blvd

Treasure this Time Tuesday - Scrapping your Tween

I had to take a couple weeks off from Treasure This Time Tuesday because, well, life.  I am a music teacher and married to a Pastor.  Lent is an extremely busy time for us AND it's also music contest time.  I am happy to say though that I am back at it this week and I have a layout I am loving about my oldest son!

As I have shared in previous posts boys can be tough to do layouts about.  Not only are there fewer boy themed lines out there but if your boys are like mine - they are doing a lot but not always saying a lot.  Especially my oldest (at ten) is getting harder to scrap!  Today I have a layout to share with you that was inspired by one I found on pinterest.  

I have a whole board that I call "mojo" and it's specifically projects that have something that I am either thinking about incorporating or just have a really unique element that I want to try.  I think it's my favorite board on Pinterest and you can check it out here if you'd like!

The gal whose project I pinned was a featured member from Studio Calico and the original post from her project is located here. Her name is Jenny Alfonso and I just love how she created the cascading words using Thickers!  

Now on to my creation!

While she used just one word in each line - I added to it.  I listed out things that have been good and bad this month and then figured out how to line them up accordingly so they start small and end small.  I then used the dots on my paper to try and keep things straight.  It was a little bit of a challenge with letters in varying sizes!

This approach to journaling worked great with my tween - a few words and a little extra detail added with the extra letters.  I love how it captures just who he is right now!

After creating my journaling I created a  cluster on the right side of hte layout with bold colors and shapes to help enhance the handsome pictures of Timmy!  It's definitely a busier layout than you typically see from me - but I am completely in love with each and every detail!

How do you scrap your tween? I'd love to see some fresh ideas!  Share them with me here in the comments or on my facebook page!

Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper: Basic Grey
Stickers: Basic grey, Pebbles Inc
Wood: Studio Calico
Tags: Core'dinations
Enamel Dots: Recollections

Treasure This Time Tuesday: Capturing the Two Year Old

Two is one of my favorite ages so far.  I know that makes me in the minority for a lot of moms! Two years olds change so much from month to month - this little guy is probably the easiest to have new material on! I took pictures this month that weren't posed - just sneaking up on him to catch his true personality.  Thankfully he sat still for a few minutes this month :)

I recently picked up the new Jack line from Echo Park knowing that I needed more boy supplies for scrapping.  Creating this feature each week and being forced to make sure I am doing boy stuff regularly has definitely made me realize my boy supplies are a little low!  Good excuse for new stuff or to get real creative I guess!  

Because I am running low on time this week I went very clean and simple this week.  I added layers of paper behind the pictures to bring in some of the colors he's wearing and other masculine colors.  I then just simply created two clusters of stickers and other embellishments.  My journaling went right below the picture with a few of the little details that I want to remember about Bo from February.  I love a complicated and detailed layout but I also love something that comes together clean and simple and quick!

Supplies Used:

Patterned Paper: Echo Park

Stickers: Echo Park

Enamel Dots: Simple Stories

Wood: Studio Calico

Treasure this Time Tuesday: Capturing a little Girl's Spunk

As I have said in previous weeks my goal is to capture the day to day in this weekly feature.  So for today's layout I asked my daughter to pose and show me some of her funny faces. Posed but still capturing who she is! They were especially cute in black & white so I went with that!  I paired the black and white with a colorful line from Simple Stories!

I had about 10 shots of her that I could have used but decided I liked these three the best!  The bottom right hand corner of the paper had the circles already printed on it.  The trick was to figure out how to make it original and incorporate it into my design.  I opted to cut into the chevron paper and add that in the opposite corner so they would play off each other.  Once things started coming together the pictures were getting a little lost in all the color. Adding some Core'dinations tags under the pictures helped those to pop a little more and then outlining them really helped!  

Supplies Used:

Patterned Paper: Simple Stories

Stickers: Simple Stories

Chipboard: Simple Stories

Stamp: American Crafts

Tags: Core'dinations

Treasure this Time Tuesday: The Four Year Old and this month's challenges!

So my four year old, well, he's been a challenge lately.  Moody, irritable, grumpy...very unlike who we've grown accustomed to.  So this week's Treasure this Time was a bit of a challenge.  Like, I kept crying while I made it challenge.  We've made some good progress with him since I made this but it's still a little less happy of a layout than the others so far have been.  And that is okay with me - life isn't always easy and I don't want the kids to look back on their layouts and think they were angels and never gave us trouble...I want them to know that we loved them thru the hard times and came out on the other side.  So here it is an authentic layout about my four year old.

As I was creating this, I realized my stash is beginning to dwindle for good boy stuff.  I added some to it from The Scrapbooking Studio today but if you have some boy lines you've loved - do share the info with me! I ended up using an older Fancy Pants line and some other odds and ends. I added the patterned paper square to the already fabulous base that had the frame on it.  I then did a cross of patterned papers before topping it with my picture.  I like the way the cross draws the eye in and I will definitely be doing that again.  Simple embellishments of stickers and wood going diagonally from one corner to the next made for quick embellishing!

Supplies Used:

Patterned Paper: Fancy Pants

Stickers: Jillibean Soup, Bella Blvd, & Simple Stories

Treasure this Time Tuesday

When I first started scrapbooking one of my main goals was to be able to scrap the moments that are quickly forgot in the busyness of life.  Since that time, I have had four kids and my time to scrapbook has become more scarce and not as focused on my original intent.  So beginning with this new year and for Tuesdays when my blog isn't committed to design team work I will be sharing a layout focused on little moments.  My goal is to do one layout a month about each child and tell at least three things about them right now!  It will be the little things: cute things they say or do, accomplishments and milestones that will soon be forgotten otherwise.  So without further adieu - I share with you the first installment with a very appropriately titled layout!

So here's the guidelines I have made for myself - feel free to join me!

1) Take a picture of them by themself each month (ideally in an outfit you'd like to remember)

2) Document at least 3 things about them

3) Don't worry about using the newest products - use what inspires me with the pictures

4) If possible find a way to include them in the process - I will be sharing ways I am doing this with you each week.  This week it didn't work because, well, he's two!

For this first one - "Every Day Moments" with Bo, I focused on the green outfit he is wearing for my color scheme.  It's my favorite outfit on him!  I also used a picture that captured a face that he makes a lot but isn't a traditional super smiley face.  I did the things I want to remember in list form - parts of which will only make sense to Ben & I and that is okay!  

I'm excited about this new feature and setting forth my goal of being intentional!  Hope you'll join me and share when you do!

Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper: Simple Stories

Stickers: Simple Stories

Brads: Simple Stories

Enamel Stars: Heidi Swapp