Shop my ScrapSHOP!

October 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Warning: this post is an unabashed plugging, okay?

There something I’ve been busy with, and in fact I’m not yet even halfway done with it. I’m blabbing about my Scrap SHOP here on my blog. You can see the link on the top right portion of the blog.

 Scrap SHOP, Scrapbooking Supplies Shop

What do I have there? All scrapbooking supplies! I’m not only mad about digi scrapping, I also love paper crafts and actual scrapbooking. And so I’ve created a small shop site where you can browse and find recommended scrapbooking supplies.

On the front most page of the shop, you can find a listing of all best selling, top rated, best deals and most wished for scrapbooking products on Amazon.

The I also have categories and pages for products I want to highlight. Please note that I’m not a direct seller. I’m simply aggregating my recommended products as well as consumer top rated products on Amazon for scrapbooking supplies. I think that would make your scrapbooking shopping easier.

Also each page would feature buying guides and tips, plus reviews of the products.

If you purchase your scrapbooking supplies on Amazon using my links, I’ll be really grateful. Haha! That would really add a lot in my quest for a more substantial enterprise data storage solutions for my files. Also, I’m hoping to save enough and get myself a newer computer machine to power up my graphic design software.

Filed Under: Just Me Blurbing, Other Crafting Interests, Software~Web Talk

Graphic Design Resource: Wood Workshop

October 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Hi guys! How are things?

I’m supposed to post my latest freebie and my first Photoshop Action but its not ready yet. Well, its almost ready, I just need to make the samples etc. I intended to do it yesterday, but I was sent on an errand to buy knee walkers. And therefore got badly distracted. But do expect that freebie PS Action to be posted soon here.

For now, I’d like to share this really nice graphic design resource called Wood Workshop. It’s a free software where you can create seamless wood textures.

Wood Works Seamless Pattern Generator

Here’s a sample texture I generated using a plain beige texture. It’s so easy to make and the combinations you can play with it just amazing! Well worth downloading.

Wood Works Seamless Texture Generator

This is really a great help. Creating seamless textures can be time consuming and this little free software makes things really fast and easy.

Filed Under: Scrapbooking resources, Software~Web Talk

Software: NexusFont Manager

April 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This isn’t strictly a graphic design or digiscrapping resource but designers would surely find this very useful. When I started playing around with graphic designing, I had just the basic fonts. But as you go along you tend to accumulate a lot of resources, like textures, images, vectors etc etc. And one way to enhance  a design or to make it standout is to use a well suited and unique font. So as time goes, you also accumulate hundreds if not thousands of fonts.

It works the same way as you thinking you don’t need any Tube Bending but end up with thousands of it. After a while I just noticed, I had thousands of fonts and I seriously can’t keep track of it. Also, if you install all these fonts, well for sure your computer system is bound to slow down.

The best solution now is to have a font manager where you can keep all your font collection in one folder and be able to preview each font to see if its suitable for each project. Now there are loads of font managers, paid or free out there, check out Smashing Magazine’s list of 25 Font Management Tools for various OS/platforms to check out what is most suitable for you.

NexusFont Interface

As for myself, I found a good match and I would highly recommend this free Font Manager called NexusFont.

NexusFont Interface

There are several things I love about this font manager..

  • its Free!
  • Yes, its free but its still an awesome piece of software. With a well designed interface and its very intuitive. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out how it works.
  • Keep all your fonts in one folder and manage it from there.
  • Easy install and uninstall of fonts direct from the NexusFont interface.
  • Automatic Font Activation. You don’t need to install a font. If your NexusFont is open, then you can automatically use all fonts inside it. So it doesn’t slow down your system.
  • You can create folders/sets/libraries. I segregated my fonts to sets like: Grunge, Dingbats, Handwritted/Scrapbook, Script etc. Makes it easy to find fonts I need.
  • Font Preview.
  • Portable. One of its best features. Not all computers have my fonts and I don’t need to download each one by one if I need to work remotely. So I get to have NexusFont on my USB and plug and play on any computer.
  • Duplicate searcher. Happens if you have thousands of fonts and this comes in handy to clean up some space.
Filed Under: Software~Web Talk

Dressed Up

March 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had been really restless the past few weeks. I dunno I can’t seem to do something and I have a couple of freebie projects on board but I can’t finish it. It seems I lack inspiration. So I just took a break.

I thought, why force myself when for the meantime what I want to do is go shopping, read about medical computers at Howard-Medical.com, crochet, watch sappy Korean dramas? And these things are exactly what I did.

And guess what?! After a couple of days of doing nada, that creative spark came back again. And the first thing I did? Revamped the look of this blog. I’m really obsessing over the Reddle WordPress Theme. It’s free but it was only available for WordPress.com but I did everything I could (nothing short of copying one file after another) just to get this free theme to work on a standalone wordpress installation.

Wordpress Reddle Theme

And it did work!!! Now I’m running this blog with Reddle Theme, with a custom made background and header to achieve that distinct vintage-grunge look. And I LOVE it!

Customized Reddle Theme

I still need to do a bit of tweaking with the fonts and featured images but for now, I’m giving myself a big hurrah..What do you think?

Filed Under: Just Me Blurbing, Software~Web Talk

Design Resource: Color Blendy Google Chrome App

February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There are just days you need to have a few colors handy, or a color scheme for  a web tweaking project and you don’t want to fire up Adobe Photoshop. I get those days, often. Photoshop can be quite heavy and slows down the machine and this is would be a bit like pounding your head on hard laminate flooring specially when you need to have several apps running for work.

Color Blendy Chrome Extension

If you’re just in need of some colors and want to blend it without opening up a bulky graphic software, then Color Blendy App for Google Chrome Browser might just save you. I find this specially useful when tweaking or coding CSS and I want different color variations. The biggest plus would be the color codes, different modes like multiply, screen, dogde, burn etc.

Color Blendy Chrome Extension

The biggest draw would be: it works offline! It’s a native app not a bookmark so you can use it even without net connection. How cool is that?

Filed Under: Scrapbooking resources, Software~Web Talk

Design Resource: BgPatterns

December 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Found this cool little online app that allows users to generate background patterns in just a few clicks called BgPatterns. They choices are limited but its fun to play around with color combinations, textures and images on stock for some simple and cool looking background. I love the fact that you can easily preview your work as a background for the page. The images you create is also downloadable in .png files.

BgPatterns.com

I do hope the author would expand this little app as this looks really like a cool tool for designers. Do check it out and play around with the backgrounds. As for me, I’m off in a bit for some reading about trucking and will be churning out digi scrapping stuff later.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Software~Web Talk

Design Resource: Web Treats ETC

October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’m currently working on something nice for digital scrapbookers and will be posting it on my Tuesday Freebie next week. Yesterday, I had been browsing around for nice patterns, while I’m supposed to be looking for flexible metal hose! Sigh. No wonder I could never get anything finished on time, I get easily distracted. Anyway, while I was looking for seamless patterns I came across a website offering freebies – icons, textures, wallpapers, patterns, and even wordpress themes.

I downloaded a few of their patterns and I love it! Good quality patterns and especially if you love ‘vintage’ themed designs you’d love this site. And the best thing is that their freebies are free for personal or commercial work. The site is called Web Treats ETC and its worth bookmarking if you are a designing or scrapping enthusiast.

WebTreats ETC

Filed Under: Scrapbooking resources, Software~Web Talk
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