{crafty} Finnley Blog Hop

Happy Thursday! I hope everyone in the US is having a wonderful Thanksgiving today! I am blog hopping today with not just the digital design team but the traditional team as well! It is a long hop, but I can guarantee you the inspiration will be worth it! 

I am not going to profess my undying love for the Finnley collection like I do every. single. time. I use it. Nope, won't do it! But I will show you my latest digital layout using said awesomeness.

Supplies:
Glitz Design "Finnley" Full Digital Kit
Other: The Lilypad twine and staple, One Little Bird label, Valorie Wibbens

Be sure to check out the rest of the Glitz DT and see what they have done with this collection and leave comments along the way! Two lucky winners will be chosen from all the comments. One will receive the full Finnley collection and the other will win the full digital kit!

YOU ARE HERE ------ Amanda DeJong
Amanda Resende ------ NEXT UP
Barbara Sokee 
Donna Espiritu
Emma Poon
Fauve Van Maanen
Jaime Warren
Jocelyn Olson
Karine Cazenave
Kym Tsukamoto
Laura O'Donnell
Lea Lawson
Lisa Andrews
Magda Mizera
Maria Lacuesta
Marie Ramirez
Mary Martinez
Miki Krueger
Mou Saha
Nina Ostermann
Noel Culbertson
Smitha Katti
Stephanie Bryan
Tiffany Wheeler
Glitz Design blog 

{crafty} Thankful with Glitz

There are many things I am thankful for but my family and my surroundings are certainly at the top of my list. I am so blessed with an amazing husband and a incredibly quirky son who never fail to bring a smile to my face every day. And while I sometimes take it for granted in the day to day I often find myself in awe of the beauty God has created all around us and it brings so much peace in to my life. I live a truly blessed life. And I am so thankful for it!

What are you thankful for?

Supplies:

Glitz Design "Uncharted Waters" Element Pack 1
Glitz Design "Uncharted Waters" Paper Pack 2
Glitz Design "Dapper Dan" Element Pack 1
Glitz Design "Finnley" Full Digital Kit
Glitz Design "Yours Truly" Element Pack 2

Glitz Design "Yours Truly" Paper Pack
Glitz Design "Sunshine in My Soul" Element Pack
Glitz Design "Wild & Free" Element Pack 1

Other:
One Little Bird staples, Valorie Wibbens bow and stitches, Paislee Press wordart stamp

{crafty} Feathers and a Tutorial

This week Glitz Design is focusing on the current feather trend. Wild & Free and Finnley both have an assortment of fun feathers to choose from so I knew I wanted to pull elements from both of those kits. The woodgrain patterns from Dapper Dan were perfect to balance out the vibrant color from the other collections.

I knew I wanted to take this feather/bird image from Wild & Free and create a large cut out in my background. To do this in PS I opened the image and clicked on "Threshold" to turn the image to strictly black and white.

Next, you duplicate your layer and with the new layer selected click on ctrl + i to invert the image. With the inverted image still selected add a layer mask. Go back to your original image layer and select all and copy. Then hold alt and click on your layer mask from the duplicate layer and paste.

Next you can delete your original layer, the one without the mask, and you will be left with a black and transparent image that you can now use as a clipping mask. 

I open up my paper in a new window and paste my clipping mask over the top to decide on placement. The black area of my clipping mask is where my background paper will be so what I have done here is add black rectangles to fill in the area.

Next, select the shape layers and the feather layer and merge them together. Move the background paper above this layer and with it selected click ctrl + alt + g to clip your paper to the mask. Add your other paper behind it, and that's it! All that is left is to add a drop shadow to create depth. 

I hope that made some sense! I know there were more steps than photos but I tried not to make this too picture heavy. It does seem like a long process but once you do it once or twice it is quite fast. I'd love to hear if anyone has a different method of doing this!

Supply List: 
Glitz Design “Finnley” Full Digital Kit
Glitz Design “Wild & Free” Elements 2
Glitz Design “Dapper Dan” Paper Pack
Other: Valorie Wibbens Sprinkles V14 and By the Thread

Thank you for looking!