Hi everyone! It’s Joyce again to bring you this week picks for GSO and the winner for the month of August. Can you believe it’s the end of August already? Time does fly real fast. And with school starting all over the world it must be pretty busy for all of you guys but still you have managed to inspire us with your wonderful layouts. Thank you so much.

Here’s our pick for this week’s GSO:
Colorful Artist by wendyp

The richness of this page is just perfect. I love the subtle blending and all the colors. Beautiful in every way!

Smile by Libria

It’s always refreshing to see bright colors and this one is no exception. I love the layering of papers and elements. It’s looks well put together and the photo is just so cute!

Congratulations, you were entered into the final drawing
for this month’s prize: a $10 GC to the After Five shoppe.

And our August GSO winner is none other than the talented gonewiththewind. She made this gorgeous layout from the charity collab Hands Across the Gulf.

Congratulations gonewiththewind!! Look for a GC in your pm for $10.00!!
Thank you all for playing in August!! And I am looking forward to seeing all the beautiful layouts
in the A5D gallery this coming week. Don’t forget to put your favorites in the GSO thread in our forum. We all love the inspiration!!! And you never know…you might be next!

Hi, Chantal here to bring you this month’s Designer Spotlight. I picked Cinnamon Designs!

Nathy’s kits are always so fun to work with. No matter your style is, whether clean lines to whimsical. You can totally use her kits and have fun with it. I always do! I picked few of her kits to showcase for you to see how beautiful they are and a few layouts from our talented creative team members.

Here they are:

Cutie Patootie

Layout by Pride:

by Karen Perry:

and by me:

Warmharted

by Samantha0505

by Jimema

by Mary

Tickle me pink

by milo82

by Cherryberry

by Emmasmom

so go check out Nathys Shoppe now!

For more than 90 days, oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico before the leak was finally “capped” in late July. It is estimated that approximately 4.9 million barrels (or 205.8 million gallons) of oil spilled into the waters. It has been one of the biggest environmental disasters in decades. Hundreds of miles of beaches, wetlands, and estuaries along the northern Gulf Coast have been impacted. The spill, though temporarily “capped”, continues to cause extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats as well as the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. Families are without work and marine and land animals continue to suffer. And there are still many unknowns about the long term effects of the oil and of chemical disbursements used in attempts to curtail the flow and impact upon the regional coastline and waters.

Forty-five designers across the digital scrapbooking community have united with one shared cause: to raise awareness and to support recovery efforts for the environment and those impacted by this tragic disaster.

Participating designers include: Aja Abney, Amy Martin, Biograffiti, Boutique Cute Dolls, Createwings Designs, Deena Rutter, Designs by Cindy Schneider, Designs by Crystal Livesay, Dido Designs, Dunia Designs, Emily Merritt Designs, Fiddle Dee Dee Designs, Fizzy Pop Designs, FruitLoOp Sally Designs, Laurie Ann (Heaven’s Gate Designs), Holliewood Studios, Holly Designs, Holly Spring Designs, Jazzmin Designs, Jennifer Barrette Designs, Jacque Larsen, Juliana Kneipp Designs, Kay Miller Designs, Kaye Winiecki, Kitty Designs, Kristin Aagard Designs, Lauren Grier, Leora Sanford, Loreta Labarca, Micheline Martin, Nikki Beaudreau, Paislee Press, One Little Bird Designs, Sabrina Dupre, Sahlin Studio, Sarah Cornish of My 4 Hens Photography, Shabby Miss Jenn, Studio Basic Designs, Sugarplum Paperie, Tickled Pink Studios, Tiny Toes Designs, Tracie Stroud, Vera Lim, Vinnie Pearce, and zinnias and swallowtails.

Hands Across the Gulf is our heartsong for this cause. This gorgeous kit representing the varied styles of the scrapping community, is positively overflowing with beautiful papers, unique elements, templates and Photoshop actions. All told, designers have contributed more than 100 papers and 200 elements, 2 full alphas, 18 templates, and 4 PS actions to Hands Across the Gulf.

Available for sale for one month only, 100% of the proceeds from this kit will be donated to the National Wildlife Federation and to the United Way’s Gulf Recovery Fund.

Hands Across the Gulf arrives Sunday 15 August 2010 at After Five Designs.

Join in tomorrow…

Hi Everyone! Joyce here again to bring you this week’s GSO! How’s summer treating you guys? I hope it isn’t too hot where you are. Us? We really don’t have much of a summer here in my part of the world. San Francisco has always been “cold” in the summer. We are all used to it by now.

Anyways, without further ado. Here are this week’s GSO.

Capture this Moment by Jenny79

Jenny has always been a great inspiration with her amazing layers. I just love how she did the layers in this one. Her layering never looked messy in fact even with so many elements in here, it’s still look clean. I also love how she tucked in those adorable photos. It’s so beautiful!

Together Forever by dianeskie

This page looks so elegant. I love the cut out circles and the reds against the brown background. It really made everything popped in the layout! Gorgeous and such a romantic page!

Congratulations, you have been entered into the final drawing for this month’s prize: a $10 GC to the After Five shoppe.
I am looking forward to seeing all the beautiful layouts in the A5D gallery this coming week. Don’t forget to put your favorites in the GSO thread in our forum. We all love the inspiration!!! And you never know…you might be next!

Hello Scrappers!  it’s Sasha here today with a quick tip on how to use the Photo Filter Adjustment layer. This photo filter is not found in the regular Photoshop filters but in the Adjustments layer menu. Take a look:

Now let’s do some cool editing on this photo of my daughter by using the photo filter adjustment layer. Here is the original photo:

Now go to Layer/ New Adjustment Layer/Photo Filter, click OK and apply a warming filter to your photo. Play with the density a little and you can give your photo a warmer look.    Also make sure you click on Preserve Luminosity.  If you turn it off you can see that it changes the results.

You can also apply a cooling filter that would give a totally different look to the photo. Go to Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Cooling Filter:

I think this gives my photo more natural look. I also played with the brightness/contrast here.

You can also try the rest of the filters here by adding any of the solid colors. I think this saves a lot of work because rather than adding different colors and many steps you can do it in one single step by using the filters in the new adjustment layer. You can also achieve cool sepia tones by turning your photo into black and white and adding the warming filter. Check it out:

I love this.  This is my favorite way to turn b/w photos into sepia.  I hope this was helpful and you learned something that would help you in your photo editing process.

Hi everyone, shay here sorry for being so late with this post
but i have a stressful sunny time (maybe the sun has grilled my mind …lol)
Hope you’re all enjoying summer

Here are my pick for this week’s Gallery Standouts:

My first choice is
Sea Dreaming by Rene Design
I am totally in love with the scene she has created and here super perfect extraction
http://www.afterfivedesigns.com/thea…hp?photo=44852

My second choice is this cool page:
Mama´s Boy by OliO
i love the element cluster this amazing paper play and this super soft blend in the back
http://www.afterfivedesigns.com/thea…hp?photo=45323

Congratulations, you were entered into the final drawing
for this month’s prize: a $10 GC to the After Five shoppe.  And drum roll please!!  Cause the winner for July is:

Mama´s Boy by OliO

Congratulations Olio!! Look for a GC in your pms for $10.00!!
Thank you all for playing in July!!  And I am looking forward to seeing all the beautiful layouts
in the A5D gallery this coming week. Don’t forget to put your favorites in the GSO thread in our forum. We all love the inspiration!!!
And you never know…you might be next!