Friday, July 15, 2011

Question: What do you see when you look at this picture?

Answer: Potential! Imagine the possibilities! This jar is just itching to be filled with treats, whether they are for you or to give away. You know what else it's itching for? To be beautifully presented, and that's where I come in.

I have recently discovered the versatility of mason jars and am so excited! They are a fabulous, cost-effective way to create beautiful gifts for the holidays, favors, or just because. Of course, if you can your own jams, sauces or soups, those also can be beautified with a homemade label by you.

After filling my jar, I started with this:

Full sheet sticker paper. They are camouflaged as "shipping labels" but don't let that fool you. They travel through my printer perfectly and I can squeeze at least four jars worth of labels per page if I puzzle them together.

My treat of choice is homemade tomato sauce. Mmmmm. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water and fills me with a happy warm feeling of home comfort. I carefully cut out the printed labels.

Then I peel the paper off the back of the sticker and carefully place them on my jars. Most of my stickers had a handy diagonal cut through the paper on the back of the stickers so it was pretty easy to get the stickers off. Some stickers needed a little coercion, but they came with a little help.

Here is my final shiny happy jar of tomato sauce. Isn't it lovely?

I created the label using LD Petticoat Black for the title, LD Antique for the script at the top and bottom of the label, and DB Cookout and DB Fleuries for the little tomato decoration. For the gold frame shape I actually used the letter L from DB Chill Out and erased the words in the middle.

Here is my final army of tomato sauce jars. They look pretty impressive all together like that!

But don't think you have to make your own tomato sauce to make cute labels! Here is a jar of "medicine" to make someone feel better on a blue day. Just add candy! Easy, huh? But totally cute.

This label uses DB Floral Infusion for the white flower, LD Remington Portable for the main text on the label (I thought it gave it a nice old prescription bottle look) and SNF Uptown for some little details (i.e. itta britta apothecary).

Have you ever seen those cookie recipes in a jar? They are so much fun to give and receive.

I got the recipe for these cookies here. I made this label using mostly DB Karma Borders - I L.O.V.E. this DoodleBat - and for the words I used SNF Duluth Block, SNF Party Script and Party Script Bold. I used the same fonts on the back where I included the directions to finish off the recipe.

Are you totally psyched to make a mason jar project now?

Yes?

Want some help starting out?

Good. I can offer help... it's a free download! Hurray! There are four labels on this pdf, including round labels for the lid. Pick your own fonts from scrapNfonts to complete the details. (You can click on the image to download the pdf.)
Happy canning! and labeling! and gift giving!

****UPDATE****

Since many of you requested some direction on how to add fonts to the labels I will add a few pointers here. First of all, if you are familiar with a graphic program that uses layers, such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Fireworks, etc, that would be best. You can type on a different layer from the labels and move the type around, change the font, etc, until you get what you want.

If you do not have Photoshop, fear not! This is still a project you can do, you just have to be more patient. If you have Windows chances are you have "Paint." Open up the pdf in Paint and select the type tool (It looks like the letter A in a box). Once you start typing you must do all the editing you will want (font color, size, location, etc) on that particular type box before you do anything else. You can move the type box around while it's selected if you hover the cursor over the edges/corners. When you get an arrow with four heads, click and drag to move the box. The arrow with two heads will resize the type box. Once that type box isn't selected anymore, you can't change it. If you happen to de-select the type box and you don't like how it looks, just hit Ctrl+Z and it will undo whatever you most recently did. You can save and print from Paint, too. Good Luck!

Shop ScrapNfonts.com for the widest variety of craft and scrapbooking fonts, DoodleBats, WordArt and Brushes.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

This month, Brian helps you get art-savvy with two free photoshop downloads that will help you use text as a design element.
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Font Tip: Add New Meaning
by Brian Tippetts

By now you should know that I love playing with type and letterforms and adding meaning into my designs. In fact, my favorite thing to do while shopping at IKEA is to go to the frames section to see what new posters have been added that only use letterforms for the design. I always seem to come home with a new addition to my collection.

So where did my love for creating designs out of type come from? Well, in my junior year of college, I had an upper level English class that involved a lot of writing. I found myself behind on a number of papers and had to figure out a way to “spruce” up my papers to get the highest possible score. I knew that the teacher’s assistant would be the one grading the papers, so I needed to impress her.

I decided that for my paper written about my favorite subject at that time—surfing, that I needed to add some design flair. I input the text and made it flow in the shape of a wave.

When I got my paper back corrected, the TA had written, “How did you do this?” and “Wow, that’s amazing!” She loved what I had done to the design of the text and I ended up receiving an ‘A’ from that class.

What I learned from this experience is that the story or meaning of the story can be larger than the just the words. Through the design and the words, new meaning can be displayed.


100 THINGS I LOVE

From the moment I received the layout “100 Things I Love” by Deena Wuest for my book, Get Creative with Type, I have wanted to create a layout following her design.



I have been thinking a lot about my wedding anniversary of 19 years in May, so I decided that I would put together a “100 Things I Love About Amy” layout to present to her on our anniversary. After spending hours and hours to come up with the right words and getting it input into Adobe Illustrator (it is also doable in many other programs like Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW, and Microsoft Publisher) and playing around with 5 different font and various sizes, I was finally able to put together my own “100 Things I Love” layout.

This was a fun project and as you can see, my results are exactly what I wanted.

Do you want to create a “100 Things I Love” for yourself? Well, I have created a Photoshop template to help you out. You will still need to come up with the list of 100 things for your specific need, but I have shown you two samples to get you started with ideas. You can also change the color and modify anything that you want. The file is saved in layers to make it as easy as possible to use. I am also adding another Photoshop template (with a heart shape) that you can use to add as many (or as little) words, phrases or text to express your thoughts to a loved one. You can download both templates here.


Get started today by adding those sentimental thoughts or words of encouragement to fit in these basic shapes and make it meaningful.

Take care,
Brian


BONUS:
Okay, so I love to talk about the fun things going on here at scrapNfonts. We have a new, deco-art inspired font collection that is now available. SNF Cresota includes the decorative initials and small caps perfect for any title or heading. It can also be used to create a fun journaling block or quote. SNF Duluth and SNF Duluth Block can be used interchangeably for a fun deco-art journaling block or title. I could see this being used to recreate a favorite movie poster or when you want a custom, fresh feel to your card or scrapbook layout. Also included in the bundle is the Geo Deco Outline Doodlebat. The images from this doodlebat can be used easily with any of the Deco-styled fonts. Check these fonts out now and enjoy this month's free art-deco inspired download.