Tidal Treasures Alphas

This week's challenge was to create alphas to coordinate with the first week's kit. I decided to keep my alphas on the grey/blue end of my color scheme, and had fun creating them.

There are two different tag alphas. The round tag alpha is lower case only, though there is a blank tag included. The second tag alpha includes upper and lower cases, numbers, and some punctuation. There are also two stitched included with the second tag alpha. They are layered in the preview but can also be used separately. The third alpha is one that I had a little more trouble making look the way I wanted. It mimics beach glass in that it is a matte slightly scuffed finish, but is also slightly transparent, to take on the color of whatever is placed behind it.

The Tidal Treasures kit <link has expired>

This week's alpha addition <link has expired>

Table Manners

I have to keep this post short today, as nap time is almost over! I started this week's paper challenge with another idea in mind completely. But as with many creative pursuits, it morphed as I looked around the internet for tutorials on making textures. What started as a pack based on color started to remind me of my grandma's table, that now sits in my own dining room.

To download the papers, visit the DSA gallery <Link has expired>

The next challenge has been announced, and this week I will be working on alphas to match Tidal Treasures. Work has started, and I am excited with what is turning out.  Have a great week!

Tidal Treasures

To wrap up the summer, I decided to enter the Designer Apprentice challenges at DigiScrapAddicts (DSA). Just like the Design Factor, Designer Apprentice is a series of design tasks meant to challenge designers and stretch our skills. I love having the deadlines and guidance.  Part of what I'm looking forward to with Designer Apprentice is the mentor aspect. Unfortunatly, this week I faced a series case of create block and didn't have anything prepared before the mentoring deadline, so I have to wait until the Week 2 challenge to hear feedback from my mentor.

When my creative block finally lifted, I was right back at the beach, so to speak.  The challenge was to photograph or scan 2 items as part of a mini-kit. I kept circling back to the beach treasures my daughter had in a jar.  Even though I made a beach kit for one of the DF challenges, I decided to use my own source material to make a unique kit.

This kit can be found here at DSA. <Download Link expired>

I think my favorite pieces in this kit are the scatter and the tag. The scatter was maybe not so much fun to extract, but I love the way it turned out. And overlaying a shell on the tag made it really fun for me. I may have to make a heritage/period kit at some point. The newsprint paper is created from a scan of a newspaper I found in my hope chest (that had belonged to my grandmother) dated May 1941. It is full of new about the war in Europe and current events in Seattle at the time.

This kit has actually been up for a few days at DSA and as a result, my week 2 pack is almost done!  Keep watch over the next few days for that one to be posted!