LDS Primary Chorister - Singing Wheel - Freebie Downloads Included!

I mentioned in this post a wheel that I created for teaching singing in Primary. I thought it would be fun to make it a freebie you can download!

There are actually files for two different wheels. So you make one backboard, and then two different games to play. The first is the song wheel--this one has interchangeable pieces for different songs, so when the kids spin the wheel, it chooses the song for them. The other is for HOW you sing the song. This one is a bit more simple and isn't interchangeable. Items you need:

The Backboard:

• One sheet of poster paper--any color. I backed mine on actual wood, which made it sturdier, but it's up to you.

• A brad--preferably a long one.

The Song Wheel:

• One sheet of poster paper--any color. Draw a circle that is 18x18 inches. Cut out. Laminate if possible.
• Printed copies of provided song pieces, on cardstock. Cut out and laminate if possible.
• Ticky-tac

How to Sing Wheel:

• One sheet of poster board - any color. Draw a circle that is 16x16 inches. Cut out.
• Printed copies of the "how to" files, on cardstock.
• Tape or glue

Backboard How To:
First, you will want to create your backboard. Get a regular sized poster board. Press a hole in the center with your brad, where you want you wheel to spin. Add some sort of arrow on one side that is the "stopping point" when you spin the wheel. I backed mine on real wood so that it would stand up in the chalk tray easier, but you don't have to--you can always pin it up instead.


Song Wheel How To:
I have created pieces for 66 songs. I even went in and made sure I had all the songs for the 2012 Primary program. You can always create your own, adding new songs, but tracing mine and decorating them yourself. Print them in color on cardstock. 22 pages.

Draw a circle on poster board that is 16x16. Cut it out and laminate if you can. Cut out each of the pieces and laminate them if you can. Or you can print them on photo paper--that works great too.

Prick your brad through the center of the 16x16 poster circle, then through the center of your backboard.

Use ticky tack to attach your pieces to the board. That easy. You can change out songs as much as you like!

Download Primary Singing Wheel Parts



How to Sing How to:

Create a 16x16 circle out of poster board.
Print the four pages of the How to Sing template in color on cardstock
Cut off margins and glue the four pieces together to create one circle.
Back it with the poster board you have prepared by gluing them togehter.Laminate if possible.
Press your brad through the center and attach to your backboard.

 

Download How to Sing Parts
 
 
I hope these work great for you! My primary kids would get SO excited when they saw I had brought the Primary Wheel that day. It was a bit of work, but totally worth it. If you have someone covering for you, its an easy quick thing to give them to do. I don't have mine anymore--the new Primary chorister really wanted it, so I let her borrow it. Not sure if I'll ever see it again, but oh well. The kids are getting plenty of use out of it!

LDS Primary Chorister -Emotisong - Printable Freebies Included!

So I did a post a while ago showing some of the stuff I had used Photoshop for in my calling as Primary Chorister, and I thought it would be fun to re-visit that and also give out a few freebies of the stuff I created! Photoshop certainly made my calling a lot easier and fun for the kids. Another example of why its worth it to learn this program--you can use it to enhance so many different areas of your life! I will be doing several posts on this over the next few days, each with a different project or activity.

*As a side note, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Or in other words, I'm Mormon! In our church, members have different "callings," or their way of helping out in the congregation. For a while, I was in charge of teaching our children to sing songs. These are some of the things I created in Photoshop in order to do that!

Emotisong - This is a game I created using the emoticon images from Microsoft Word. I copies them into Photoshop and added a background and an emotion for each.  I printed them on thicker paper, cut them out, and then created a pentagon box to hold them in. During singing time, I would call on a kid to pick an emotion from the stack. Then I would choose a song that goes with it. (I found it important that I pick the song instead of them, in order to maintain some reverence. There are just some church songs that are inappropriate to sing as a cowboy...;)

Here are the files for this activity. Includes 24 different emoticons, plus the box. Just print them all on cardstock, put it goether and you are good to go!

Download Emotisong Game

*WARNING - This is NOT a very reverent activity. The kids get very excited when they play this game! So I didn't play it often or for long--its a great time filler!

Thanks for reading! I will be updating in a few days with downloads for the Primary Singing Wheel mentiond in an earlier post on my blog!

Lesson 28: Creating Tags Using Kits

I recently saw a question about how to decorate your own tags, and thought I'd do a quick tutorial on it. Now, if you have been following my blog and have done all the tutorials, this will be a simple review. But I thought it woudl be nice to have it all in one place.

Tag Templates - First, you will need a template for your tag. I have several templates that I got for free way back when I first started digital scrapbooking. Unfortunately, I have NO IDEA who created them or where I got them. I did find a really cute set of tags on Two Peas in a Bucket for $4.00--tag teasers. You can also create your own template by just drawing the shape of what you want your tag to look like. Here's a freebie of tag shapes--these are shapes, which means you will have to unzip and then install them, then upload them as a shape. For the sake of this tutorial, here is a free tag template that I created--you are welcome to download it and use it for this lesson. I created this shape simply by laying several layers of different shapes on top of each other, then merging them together to create one shape.



Pull in elements - I like to use kits for this, so that is how I am going to do it in this tutorial. I am going to use elements from the kit "Pink Icing Cake" by Lindsay Jane.

First, I choose which color paper I want my tag to be, and open that paper in Photoshop. Now I have my tag in one file and my paper in another. Click on the paper and drag it right in to your tag file. It will probably cover up your tag. Make sure that the paper completely covers your tag. I now have two layers--my background paper, and my tag template.

At this point, many people choose to do clipping masks. But I like to use cut and paste because I find it simpler and I have less layers to deal with. This technique, outlined in Lesson 16, can be very convenient and versatile.

On your layers panel, click on the tag template layer so it's highlighted. Hold down the CTRL key and click on the tag template--make sure you click on the mini image of it in the layer menu. You will now see "dancing ants" around the outline of your tag.

Click on the layer of your background paper. The dancing ants should still be visible. Do CTRL+C and then CTRL+V. You now have a new layer--the shape of your tag "cut" out of your background paper.

Either delete your original background paper layer (right click on layer, delete) or click on the eye icon to make it invisible.


Now, use this technique over and over for each element you want to add. For instance, I'll follow the same steps with another color of paper. Then, I'll use my marquee tool to delete the parts of it I don't want to see--as shown below.

Next I'll add some ribbons and some elements from the kit I have chosen. I can either use the marquee tool to highlight and delete the parts I don't want, or I can use the cut and paste technique to make sure the ribbons are the right length. Again--with the ribbon layer highlighted, click on the background tag layer and CTRL+click to get the dancing ants. Then click back on te ribbon layer and copy and paste. Delete the old ribbon, and place the new one--now the perfect size, where you want it.
All there is left to do is finish decorating it, and add any wording you may desire. That's it! Usually I print it, and then use a hole punch to cut out the hole.

All done!

My Style Philosophy

I got an email from someone new to my site this week that really excited me. I'm always happy to hear from readers who enjoy what I am doing and have found my information useful. She mentioned "my style" and how she really likes it, and how it's a lot like her own. It made me so happy to read it!

If you haven't been following my blog, you might not be aware of my philosophy on style. I mean, don't get me wrong--everyone is entitled to their own style and to do it the way they want--that's one thing I love about digital--the individuality of it. But my style includes several things that might be considered unorthodox. Here are a few of them, along with some of my most recently completed pages:

1.  8 1/2 x 11 pages. With the ability to resize pictures, 12x12 pages are not really necessary anymore. I like the slim, easy to carry around look of a regular 8 1/2 x 11 books. And its cheaper.

I love how this page turned out! The Leonardo is a brand new museum in Salt Lake. It's awesome. I loved their very interesting logo, so I tried to copy it a little in my layout design.

2.  Number of Photos- I have to print this sucker. I have to pay for each page I print. I want a lot of bang for my buck! So I squeeze a lot of pictures on almost every page. Occasionally I'll do a page where it's one giant picture, as you'll see below. I DO NOT do pages where there is one tiny picture and tons of froo-froo elements. Total waste of space in my practical world, no matter how cute it might be.

For my First Year baby books, I take a picture of my baby on or close to their one month "birthday" each month. Then I have a cover page of that month with that picture as a full bleed page. I did the same thing in my older daughter Afton's book.

3. Journaling - Isn't this really the whole point of scrapbooking? I want future generations to know what's happening. I don't journal every page, but I always have something. With my twins' books, I take a few minutes each month to jot down what they've achieved and my feelings that month, and then when I scrapbook it, I already have the writing done and its still fresh and chronological.

4. Actions - I have a whole post about this, but I'm realizing that my using actions on every page is actually kind of unusual. Most people who use actions use them for the photography side. I use them for the scrapbooking side. You'll notice that most of my pages have some sort of actions--usually I use them on the borders. Like chalking, tearing, or inking edges.

In this one, I used the Chalk action from Atomic Cupcake to edge the pictures. I used the Inked Edges action in the page below, as well as Chipped Painted Metal on the title below.

5. Purpose - I think what defines my style the most, though, is its practicality. I have this dual nature of creativity and practicality, and when they compete, practicality always wins. In fact, I almost called this blog "practicalscrap" instead of Realscrappy!Although this is definitely a creative outlet for me, it also must have some practical purpose. Therefore, I scrapbook everything chronologically, and divide all my pages into books. I do one book each year as my family "yearbook" printed in a bound book. Sometimes I do other special projects--like my children's "first year" book, as well as other projects I mention on this blog. But to me, if it's just saved and my computer and never printed and put in an organized fashion, it's like I never did it.

Again--I don't claim this is the ONLY way to do it. Its just the way I do it. There are many areas of my life that are lacking, where I wish I were doing a better job or trying harder. (Gym? What's a gym?) But at least in THIS area, I like exactly how I do it and I'm actually CAUGHT UP! (almost...)

Soap Box Pattern 2 - Attached Lid

So, after I created this post about making boxes for soap, I found the pattern to be lacking. I mean, the patternw as FINE, its just that when you put a heavy bar of soap in it, having a separate lid isn't very practical. You go to pick it up and the lid comes off and it just doesn't work as well. So I created a new pattern for a box with an attached lid.

I must say, I like how these turned out MUCH better! At least, for an actual soap box. The change was minor, but much more practical. For instructions on how to create your own, go to the first Soap Box Pattern entry.

Here are the downloads:

Soap Box Pattern with Attached Lid PSD - this is for creating your own design in Photoshop. The file is a PSD file.

Soap Box Pattern with Attached Lid PDF - This is a flattened white image of the pattern that can be used to print from your printer on scrapbook paper.

Soap Box Pattern with Attached Lid Sample - Here is a little freebie for you. This is a flattened image of a completed box, using the kit "Confection" by JennCK Designs.

Soap Box Pattern

So this week I created a few bars of melt and pour soap for a thank you to a neighbor for watching my kids. Yes, soap-making is another little hobby I once had! Anyway, I usually put completed bars in cellophane wrapping, but then I thought--why not make a box pattern for it? So here it is--my newest box. It's really just a variation of my square box with separate lid--the size is just adjusted to be about 4 x 2 1/2.

*If you want to see any of my other box designs, pull down the "Projects with Photoshop" menu on the right.
**I also created a second, similar soap box pattern in my next post that has an attached lid.
For this box, I have several downloads for you.

1. The PSD file so you can create your own designs in Photoshop using kits you own. Soap Box Photoshop File

2. The PDF file that is a blank template so you can print it on regular scrapbook paper. Soap Box PDF



3. A free printable, downloadable and uneditable box made using JennCK's kit, Cutoff's and Flipflops.
















To create your own box in Photoshop using a kit you own, follow these directions:

1. Download the PSD file. Unzip it.

2. When you open the file, there are FOUR layers--Bottom Lines, Bottom Fill, Lid Lines, and Lid Fill.
Remember to place all elements for the bottom INBETWEEN the lid lines and the fill.
3. Pull in the paper you would like to use for your bottom. Make sure it is inbetween the bottom lines and the bottom fill layer. Place it directly on top of the Bottom Fill layer.
4. Do Alt+CTRL+G, or Layer>Create Clipping Mask. The paper is now "clipped" to the right size, but you can still move it around and edit it. (For fuller instructions on clipping masks, see Lesson 24.)
5. Pull in other elements you would like to decorate your box with.
When you do, make sure you pull it in on top of the paper layer you just did. Then, do ALT+CTRL+G again to put it in the same mask.

6. Follow these steps for both the bottom and the lid. Until you are satisfied with your design.
7. When finished, print it on sturdy white cardstock.

8. Cut out both peices.

9. Cut the longer side of each tab, as shown, so they can be bent. The corner tabs on the lid are cut on one side and then folded under.

10. Use glue or double sided tape to adhere the box together. I have just started using double sided tape and it's SO much easier and holds quicker.

11. All done! The lid should fit very nicely. This size of box was chosen to accommodate a standard size bar of soap, but of course, it can be used for many things!

Quick Tips 6: Document Docking

I just upgraded to CS5! Yeah! I haven't really had a chance to explore it yet, though. For the most part, it looks a lot like CS4 and I am not overwhelmed by and differences that make it hard to use. I remember when I updated from Photoshop 7 to CS4, it was a HUGE jump! Anyway, as I was setting it up I remembered something I had to learn to change in preferences both in CS4 and CS5, so I thought I'd do a Quick Tip about it, since there may be others out there, like me, who want to fix it.

Because in digital scrapbooking I am constantly opening elements and pulling them into my document, I want to have each element in it's own seperate window. CS4 and 5 have a setting where, if  you pull something in, it creates a "tab" for it. This is called "document docking." So, if I pull in multiple elements, picture, etc, it looks like this:

As you can see, all the documents opened are tabbed at the top, so you can click on each tab to see it. For some projects, this might be useful. But it just drives me nuts. A short fix is to click on thebutton on your top toolbar and choose "float all in windows." This will put them in their own separate windows, but they will still tab when you open something new, and sometimes when you drag something across another window, it will suddenly get tabbed into that document whether you want it to or not.

To fix this, go to Edit>Preferences>Interface. You will see this screen. Just unclick the "Open Documents as Tabs" if you just want them to open separately. If you want to make it so they will not tab on their own when you drag it, uncheck the "Enable Floating Document Window Docking"

Now when you open your elements and pictures, your page will look like this:

SO EXCITED! My 2011 Yearbook has arrived!!!!

This is one of the most exciting days of the year for me! It's the day I receive my yearbook in the mail, all printed and bound and beautiful! I prefer to do my books hard-bound in one book. Some people prefer to print them separately and keep them in a more traditional scrapbook. Still others just keep them on the computer. But oh, the bound book is so exciting! The price, of course, is that I have to wait a full year to have the satisfaction of seeing my finished, printed pages. But to me it is SO worth it!

Here is a photo of all my yearbooks. Each of them was printed at Cherishbound.com. Lucky for me, I discovered digi-scrapping at a very convenient time--right before I met my husband. So every year of my marriage is scrapped. I usually come up with some sort of title for the year. I talk all about it here. Anyway, this year's book is "Room 2 Grow" in honor of having twins this year! As you can see, each book is quite different in color scheme, but I love how organized and similar and NEAT they are. That's the kind of person I am, I guess. It gives me satisfaction to see them lined up all nicely on the shelf, so easy to pull out and look through.

I was talking to a neighbor of mine who also does digital--but very different from me. She doesn't know Photoshop and has no desire to. She uses the templates on Shutterfly, which I understand are quite versitle. She doesn't have the full creative control that I have, but she doesn't want it. Her books are simple and straight-forward. And that works for her. And that's what I love about digital scrapbooking--you can do it YOUR way, and there are so many options, you can just do what works for YOU! So, as excited as I am about my book, and as much I want to share how I do it, do it your own way. This is just how it works for me.

So here are some photos of my new book! This book cost about $150 to print. It has 121 pages, full color, hard bound on glossy pages, and it is SO high quality. I have had things printed at Blurb, and though I love their stuff, I reserve my precious yearbooks for Cherishbound only.

And here are some of my favorite layouts (that I haven't already posted)

"Who Do I Look Like?" page

I just finished up this page tonight and I love it so much I wanted to post it here! I am trying to get my 2011 Yearbook done by February 1st--so I've been scrapping like crazy. Doesn't help that my computer was in the shop for 11 days, and that Photoshop wouldn't pull up and I had to re-install it--anyway, it's been crazy! I just want to get this book done! When I do, I will be sure to post about the results on this blog!

Anyway, I decided to do a page called "Who do I look like?" because it's the #1 topic of discussion when people see my twins. I know such conjecture is common with all babies, but like everything else, its double with twins. Especially when my twins look NOTHING alike. So there's a lot of speculation. People tend to say that Scarlett, with her dark hair and eyes, looks like her dad. While Ripley, with her blond hair and blue eyes, looks like me. But looking at baby pictures tells a different story.

So I gathered some baby pictures of family members that look like my babies and did a page about it. I got my inspiration for the design from StefStyle--I LOVE her stuff, as I have mentioned many times on this blog. I remembered this page she did that I saw years ago on her blog, and never forgot it. I loved her design for a family tree page.

So I wanted to do something similar, with the same kind of feel. I have to say I just love the way the page turned out! Here is MY page...

 

I just love the way it turned out!

Lesson 27: Creating Dotted Circles

I thought I'd do a quick tip on creating dotted circles. It's something I personally haven't used much, but I know there are a lot of people who do. It's a very simple thing to do! I am sure there are MANY ways of doing this, but I am creating it using the Paths feature. Now that I've really played around with this, I think I'll start using it a lot more! I was having SO much fun coming up with fun ways to do it! You can really have a lot of versatility by changing the font, size, color, spacing, etc. Here are some of the dotted paths I made:

So I'll start by explaining step by step how to do a basic dot path. Once you can do that, you can try lots of different things, like I did. I'll explain how I did a few of the ones in my example. Know that if you are looking into a more professional designer, you would probably want to use Illustrator.

STEP 1: First, click on the eliptical circle tool. If you want your circle to be perfectly round, hold down the Shift key while clicking and dragging, and it will make an even circle. Make it approximate size you want.

STEP 2: Next, open up your Paths toolbar. If you don't have it, go to Window, Paths. Click on the menu icon in the upper right corner.

Then, click on "Make Work Path" from the list. It will ask you for the tolerance level, and give you a default of 2.0 pixels. That's fine--just click ok.

You will now notice that the circle is no longer outlined with "marching ants' but is now solid.

Click on your Text box tool.

STEP 3: Now, put your cursor anywhere over the circle outline. Pay attention here--the cursor will change depending on where you place it. When you hover over the line of the circle, it will have a little squiggly line next to it. Click on the line. Now you will have a cursor point to start typing. As you type, it will type around the circle, starting with where you clicked, all the way around.

STEP 4: To make a basic dotted circle, just type the period over and over until it covers the whole circle all the way around. Make sure to change the font and the font size so that your dots are the size you want. You can, of course, change the font color as well to be what you want it to be.

STEP 5: If you are certain that it's how you want it, you may want to Rasterize it. You don't have to, but I like to because, personally, I can't stand seeing the path and I like it to be treated as an image and not text.

Making Your Dots Even:

Because you are creating this as text, and not an image, you are limited by common text problems. The main problem is that the dots don't line up evenly from start to finish. This means that you have too wide or too narrow a space between your first and last dot. There are two ways to fix this:

1: Change the font size. In this example, circle 1 is using a size 48 font. In circle 2, I just highlighted the path and changed the font to 55. The dots are slightly bigger, but they line up much better.

2: Change the width kearning. To do this, go to Window and open Character. Then pull down the width menu, as shown, and choose a larger or smaller number. What you are choosing is how much space there is between each character.



Mixing it Up!

Ok, now that we have the technique down, lets talk about some of the fun different ways you can use this!

Using different fonts - Some fonts have some really funky periods. You can get a very different look but using different fonts in this technique.

1 &2 - Both of these were created by using the period key with a different font--the font is listed there.

3 - This time I used the square marquee tool instead of the eliptical. I used a font that had square periods instead of round ones. Then then I rasterized it. This allowed me to then double click on the layer and go to the Layer Style and add a gradient overlay and a drop shadow to it. Once you rasterize the layer, you are changing it from text to an image--you can then use a lot of other techniques on it like Layer Styles, even actions.

4 - This one I used Wingdings as the font, and did Capital J, which gives the smiley face. After creating it, I rasterized it, then used the fill bucket to color each smiley face yellow.

5 - This was a special font I downloaded awhile ago called WWFlakes--each letter is a different snowflake. For this example I just typed the alphabet and got different snowflake patterns.

6 - You can actually do this on ANY shape. Just draw the shape, or chose anything that has the shape you want--for this I actually pulled in something from a kit that was in that shape. Then just CTRL+Click on that layer so that you get marching ants around it. Then follow the same instructions--make it a work path, and add your text.

One other note on #6--I actually decided it would look much better if the dots were on the INSIDE of the path rather than the outside. I had to do a little research to figure out how to do that. Here's how:

Once you create the path, ENTER YOUR TEXT FIRST. 

Then click on the Path Selection tool. I had never used this tool before! This is NOT the selection tool at the top of your toolbox. I found mine right below the Test box button.

Now, hover your cursor over you text path. You will see the "I" cursor with arrows on both side. Just click and drag inward. Now your dots will be on the inside of the path rather than the outside.

Well that was fun! I hope you found this tutorial helpful!