Awareness Ribbon Tutorial

Hi everyone, I have been on a ribbon kick, I suppose it is the approach of the Holidays in the not to distant future that has put me in this frame of mind. I have created several elaborate ribbons, but this one is very simple. Anyway, I hope you enjoy creating this ribbon as much as I did.

1. Photograph a ribbon that you want to use to draw a ribbon. It doesn’t matter if what kind of ribbon or what color, what matters is the shape.

2. Next you will want to select the pen tool and we will create a Bezier curve to trace part of the ribbon. For this type of ribbon there will be two Bezier shapes that will form the ribbon.

3. Now comes the fun part, select a spot along the ribbon’s edge to start drawing and create a series of line segments and nodes that will become your shape.

** I set the fill to zero so that you can see the shape underneath. Use the direction selection tool to reposition the nodes as needed to form this part of the ribbon.

4. Once the outline is created the way you like, then draw the second shape in the same way. Since the second shape is underneath the first one you will need to decide where the second shape goes and where it begins and ends. Notice on my picture where I have over lapped the first shape at the top of the ribbon. This step is really important since you may want to create a transparent ribbon with this shape.

5. Next comes the fun part, coloring the ribbon. Double click on the layer thumbnail and change the color, also make sure the fill is set greater than 50%.

I changed the color to pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. At this point you might want to use the direct selection tool again to move some of the nodes so that they mimic the shape of the ribbon.

6. Now click on the ‘layer visibility’ eyeball on the original photograph to see how your ribbon looks so far.




Next tutorial – how to change the edge of the ribbon and more modifications to the ribbon.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished 2: Cutting the Fat

I have been on a diet; well I have watched my weight since my early twenties and after having children my weight has crept up slowly. I call myself a big girl, I a size 14 to 16, not awful but big none the less. Of course, as I enter pre-menopause I have heard that losing weight will be more and more of a challenge. All of this is hard to take and alarming knowledge to possess.

Compound that with my love of food. I have a love of chocolate that is well known among my friends, so no matter how careful I am about what I eat, no matter how meticulously I count calories I am always tripped up by one simple fact. I love chocolate.

Isn’t it funny how sometimes your mind can play tricks on you? I will be very good on a diet and even lose a couple of pounds so when I am shopping I decide to buy one small piece of chocolate, a reward. Except when I get there I discover that the chocolate in the big bags is a much better deal. I lie to myself, except I truly believe that I will only have one or two a day. Usually a bag of chocolate only lasts two days in my hands, actually a little over 24 hours. Instantly after eating 7 to 10 pieces I feel bloated and remorseful, but I cannot bring myself to throwing the rest away, that would be wasteful. I can get back on track, I can control this urge. Liar!

Well, somehow miracle of miracle I accidentally lost 10 pounds. I am not really sure how I did it except I drank a lot of water at the time and I was very busy and did not eat like I usually did. Anyway, I was delighted. Of course I still have weight to lose to get down to my supermodel weight but I felt great. My clothes were fitting looser and I felt more energetic.

I volunteered to go to a health conference with my mom, one of those events where you go from booth to booth and collect free pens and pencils and they tell you about their health cause. I had my sugar tested, my gripping strength, my heart, and more. We came to one table that had a row of devices that looked like Nintendo controllers. ‘Test your body fat?’ The girl behind the table asked. I had done above average on grip, was low on cholesterol and low on blood sugar so I was feeling quite self-assured. Now I know I am above average in weight but I did not expect anything except some sort of percentage. My presenter had to know my age, my height and she made me stand on a scale. Everyone else that came up to this table just told them their weight but I had to have the one person with a scale. Anyway, I was wearing a heavy sweater, boots, winter clothes and a heavy winter coat, and when I stepped on the scale, I was a full thirteen pounds heavier than I was at home after a shower. I told her I was nowhere near that weight and she took off a pound and a half – she said to be fair. Then I had to hold this Nintendo controller thing directly out in front of my body for some reason, and it gave a percent body fat number.

As I said, I know I need to lose some weight; I have been on a virtual diet since I was 20 and I am getting to an age where weight is hard to lose. My tormentor/presenter looked at a few numbers on a chart and announced that I was just slightly overweight. I complained, you can’t use these numbers, the weight is all wrong, I had lied about my age, every thing was wrong. Even though I knew that I needed to lose weight, I didn't need some stranger with a chart and a Nintendo controller to tell me that! Didn't she realize I had just lost 10 pounds and this was unfair to say I'm fat? For a split second I even considered taking off all of my clothes right there and being re-weighed. The girl behind the table sheepishly wanted to calm me down and reassure me, she obviously did not expect my reaction. She tried to reassure me by saying: “Maybe you could lose a little weight.”

I freaked, inside. “Lose a little weight!” why didn’t I think of that? I have only tried to lose weight everyday for the last 25 years (I am lying about my age again). Anyway, the bounce in my step was gone, the little secret for my smile was gone, and I was plunged into depression -- did they have a booth for that? “Lose a little weight!”

My triumph of weight loss had turn to tragedy, my good intention of supporting my mom at the health fair only spotlighted my biggest problems. Guess what, the very next table was an information booth on obesity, an obvious conspiracy. Where is the chocolate when you need it?

Hey y’all;

This is how we talked in Memphis, when I lived in Memphis. I did love living in the Memphis area; Collierville, TN actually. There was the ever present heat most of the year, I learned from the locals to spend the height of the day in doors and an appreciation for the ‘dew rag’ and tank tops.

The lovely town was the entire reason for living there. We had investigated a dozen towns within a fifty mile radius of Mike’s job. There were contenders, towns with the charm and warmth we sought. One town notably (Kennett, Missouri) was neither warm nor charming. The houses were run down, the city itself was lack luster and the realtor made it clear that a: this was the hometown of their beloved Sheryl Crow and b: new people were not really desired. Quite a shock compared to the kindness and grace of all our other realtors. This was for the best because from the moment we drove through Collierville, I knew we were home. The town square was a perfect example of a 1840s town. It was one of the few towns in western Tennessee not decimated by the Civil War. The town square was the vibrant hub of all activity in town. We went to the square for ice cream, for coffee, for pet food, for the fruit and vegetable stands, musical events and more. Every Christmas, the square was decorated so beautifully with lights and ornaments. Every Halloween it becomes a haunted place. There was a sense of place there.


This is an artists's rendition of the Collierville town square. It doesn't really do it justice, but it is enjoyable to look at occasionally and remember our time in Collierville and I cannot locate my photographs of it. Actually most of the shops are on the viewers side of the square. To the left (east in reality) is a gas station straight from the 1920s or 30s that is still used today. To the right (west) is a western wear shop (!?!) and hardware that have bearly moved beyond sawdust floors (how devine).


At the southwestern corner of the square stood my favorite place of all, an antique store that contained all of the lace, linen and iron treasures I could want. It was called ‘The Cats Meow’ and it was owned by Miss Lisa Williams (that’s what we say Miss Lisa, Miss Mary, etc.) About a dozen cats made their home at the Cats Meow. Nothing was ever so precious that the cats weren’t allowed to nap on it. The cats came and left as they pleased and all along the square, you would see small bowls set outside of the shops. Some put out milk, some cat food and still occasionally some put out meat or hotdogs. I found out later that these cats were all orphans that Miss Lisa had taken in, everyone on the square all helped out with the foundlings. I discovered that this is the way people were in Collierville. In my hometown up north if a shop-owner decided to take in a dozen cats there would be an injunction within a week and some people might even suggest commitment. The animals would be shipped off to an antiseptic life in a shelter after being thoroughly inoculated. The shop-owner probably also would need to be inoculated and screened for fleas, ticks, rabies, etc. There surely would be a story on the evening news about the scary, strange woman who is disrupting the lives of others. In Collierville, the generous spirit to individually help others is joyfully encouraged, no one ever questioned whether to adopt the cats, they just did it. Who couldn’t love a place like that?

Hey y’all;

Just wanted to pass along that Deco-Pages just uploaded a bunch of new digital scrapbooking freebies. Check out the items at http://www.deco-pages.com/ and go to Digi-Freebies. You will need to enter your email and give yourself a password but they send you info about new freebies and new stuff. My fellow designers at Deco-Pages are so talented it is amazing to see each month what they offer for free.

Here is another favorite technique for Photoshop, to give something a texture and color depth. First create a new image any size you like, I like 600x600.

Next place a graphic on the page that has an interesting pattern, color or texture or create a rectangle and use the pattern tool to give it a texture. The one I have used here is a rectangle with a pattern and it also is beveled.




Now that I have an interesting patterned rectangle, I will use the shape tool to add another shape to the layout. In this case I used a fleur de lis and I colored it yellow.




After this I bevel the fleur de lis.




Next, on the top of the layers panel you will notice several drop down boxes to adjust opacity, fill and color overlay. Click the arrow next to the word ‘Normal’ (that is default – normal color) and you will notice several color options. Try a few to see what results you get. At the bottom of this drop down menu I chose ‘Luminosity’ to get my results. You will get different results based on the colors, patters, light etc. that you are using.




Next I select the area around the fleur de lis and use this mask to delete the excess patter of the rectangle. You may need to choose Layer Rasterize All Layers to make sure the layers are treated as bitmaps otherwise Photoshop cannot edit the layers.




Just a note, when you save this as a .png file in Photoshop the layers are merged into one bitmap but a .psd file will retain the layers. The images does not do this justice, you will get subtle images within the main image and subtle color.

See more interesting tutorials at Deco Pages, www.deco-pages.com. Happy Scrapping!