~ We wish to thank everyone for making our National Scrapbooking Day Party a great success. We had so much fun! If you'd like, you can see all of the wonderful layouts and projects made during the Party in this Gallery.

~ The entire June Mega Kit will be available from the 15th of the month until the end of the month. The June Mega Add-On Kit will be available from the 15th of June until the 14th of July at the ScrapWow.com Store. Designs By Shelle is our Guest Designer for the June Mega Add-On Kit.

~ The Quick Page Challenge (also known as the "Exchange Club") will now be offering their Quick Pages to the members of RAKScraps starting on the 1st of every month!! This was extremely successful last month, as thousands of our Members came in to enjoy these Quick Pages for themselves. Please remember that the RAKScraps May Mega Add-On Kit is still available and it coordinates with the May Quick Page Challenge sets. Since so many people have the Quick Pages, we thought we'd create a "Use Your Quick Pages Challenge". Please see the "Challenge Spotlight" for more details.

~ The Members Mega Kit Challenge is now located within the Scrap RAKS Forum with the new Quick Page Challenge. There are a lot of wonderful gifts for you in there - but you'll need to be logged in to see them. May's Challenge runs through June 14th. June's Challenge will run from June 15th - July 14th.

~ The RAKFile Challenge will now be a Special Event every month. It will be a different challenge hosted by a different member of the CT. So you'll want to check and see what's being created this month! Our new CT Member, rubytuesday84, is hosting this Month: "Color Challenge".

~ We now are sponsoring a Monthly ATC Challenge. Each month a different member of the RAKScraps Creative Team will host an Artistic Trading Card Challenge - these are fast and fun little business card sized pieces of art - you'll want to drop by and see what they are all about. Join us for another ATC swap starting June 1st and running till the 30th! To start you off here is a little mini kit sized for ATC's.  ATC templates are included. Everyone who shares their ATC (email your full sized png or jpeg files with a tou to enableem@gmail.com) will recieve a file of all participants ATC's) If you have any questions feel free to pm enableem.

~ Bunchie brings us a June Posting Challenge - with a fun new twist! Just post in now with your current post count and start posting! You'll want to read the Challenge, too, though, the new twist is featured there! Remember - leaving "Love" in the Gallery is a great way to get your post count up, too!

• Shelly brings us a great Mega Kit Challenge. Here you'll use the May Mega Kit from RAKScraps to create your own layouts. We love seeing what you create! (May 15- June 14)
  
  
• Candace brings us a wonderful Sketch Challenge this month! (May 20-June 20)
  
  
• Find creative ways to add journaling to your layouts - this month in Angela's Journaling Challenge.
  
  
• This month our own Diana has a great Elements Challenge for you.  This is a great way to experiment and try something you may not have before! (June 1- June 30)

• Lady Jane brings us a muscial way to enjoy scrapbooking - with the Lyrics Challenge.
  

• Enableem has a great idea for her Ad Challenge. (June 1- June 30)

• KayKay encourages us to create our very own alter egos with her Avatar Challenge. (June 1- June 30)
  

• Candace is creating a new calendar page every month in the Calendar Challenge.
  
  
• And there are so many more Challenges at RAKScraps - please join in the fun!

Designs By Shelle has a special treat for our readers. Click on this link to
download a Mini Kit just for you.

The Designer Highlight Forum will now Feature a Special Challenge. Use this Mini Kit in a layout and upload to the Designs By Shelle Gallery! There will be a Prize awarded to a lucky participant at the end of the month.

RAKScraps Creative Team Members say:

Designs by Shelle - Essentials Paper Summer Pack
"This paper pack is an absolute blast of fun! The bright colors make me feel like I am basking in the warm summer sunshine! I must admit that I am a polka-dot-aholic! I LOVE this paper pack! Oh, and it has gorgeous stripes and solids, too! " - Meredith

Designs By Shelle – Primavera: "This is such a soft, pretty feminine kit. I love the worn feel to the papers and elements. The black elements are striking against the pink backgrounds." - Connie

Designs By Shelle - Forget Me Not
"This mini kit with its soft and pretty colour combination is themed around a sweet floral design and it has more than enough items for a layout for me. I love the subtleness and the simplicity of the designs in this mini that help to bring out the photos on the page." - Shelly

Come read more about Designs By Shelle in this Forum, and see layouts created with Designs By Shelle kits in her Gallery!

Your Challenge, if you choose to accept it: 

Each month the RAKScraps Creative Team will be featuring a new challenge to be introduced in the RAKFile Newsletter. This month Diana (rubytuesday84) is bringing us a "Color Challenge". For this month you must use at least three colors off of the swatch on your layout, the colors can be used on paper, elements or text.

You can use these colors in combination with any other color as long as there are at least three colors from the swatch somewhere on your layout. Once you post your layout in the Color Challenge gallery please post the link and check your inbox for a Posting Prize - A set of glitter styles to match this months color swatch! RAKFile Challenge Gallery.  Don't forget to post on the RAKFile Challenge Forum and link to your layout! This RAKFile Newsletter Challenge will run from June 1 - 30.

This layout was made by Diana (rubyturesday84)!  Click on the photo to see it in the Gallery.

Circular Text in PSE
By Melinda Staley

PhotoShop Elements does not have the capability to create work paths, which are a common method for forming circular elements with brushes and text. That doesn’t mean that PSE can’t create circular elements, however.

1. Open a 12x12 document and write a single line of text across the full width of the canvas. [Figure1]

2. Make a copy of your text layer to work on, and hide the original text layer below it. *This step is important, as getting the circular text to look exactly right can be a lot of trial and error. If your original text layer is still intact, then it is much easier to go back and change things later.

3. Grab the center top or bottom transformation handle on your text layer and drag the text upward or downward to stretch it out vertically. If you can’t see your transformation handles, then either check the ‘Show Bounding Box’ box on the Move tool toolbar, or use Ctrl-T to bring up the transformation options. [Figure2]

You want the text to be at least twice as tall as it was originally. The distortion process ‘squishes’ the text, so we need to compensate for that beforehand. How much taller it needs to be depends on the type of font you are using.

4. Go to Filters > Distort > Polar Coordinates [Figure3]

Choose the ‘Rectangular to Polar’ option on the Polar Coordinates dialog box. If you can’t see anything in the preview screen, try zooming out using the minus button below it. Choose OK. [Figure4]

If you see this box, choose ‘OK’ to simplify the text layer. [Figure5]

5. You should now have a circular text element. [Figure6]

The Polar Coordinates filter wraps the line clockwise, so if you want your text to read in the other direction, then follow the step as above, but before you go to the Polar Coordinates filter in step 4, you need to flip the text layer both horizontally and then vertically. Go to Image > Rotate > Flip Layer Horizontal, and then Image > Rotate > Flip Layer Vertical. [Figure7 and Figure8]

Your text will look like this now: [Figure9]

And will look like this when it is polarized: [Figure10]

A few final thoughts:

• Getting things to look exactly right takes some trial and error, so don’t be afraid to experiment and do things over and over again.
  
• Also, the Polar Coordinates filter is extremely memory intensive and if you do not have enough memory available then the program will shut down on you unexpectedly. Save any work in progress before running the filter, just in case!! I have found that I needed a minimum of 1 GIG of RAM memory before this filter would even run, and if I have too many things open while doing this I can still run into problems even now when I have 2 GIG of RAM in my laptop.
  
• The fonts I used in my example are 28 Days Later and DB Floragraphy from scrapnfonts.com

1. Your name and the reason you chose your RAKScraps screen name? (OK, so some of them are obvious)

Hello! my name is actually Jennifer Daeninck but my RAKScraps name is sarahwhithers. Why this name you ask? Well the short version is when I was younger and had guys come up to me and asking me for my name and number, and well, I wasn't interested in them, I would use a fake name. And for some reason, sarah whithers is the name I came up with! hahaha! From that point on it was my online name for everything. My secret alias as you might call it. It just stuck, so you can call me Jen or sarah and I'll answer to both!


2. What graphics program do you use the most? 

I use Adobe Photoshop CS3. love it! It took a little while to get comfortable with PS but after fiddling for a bit, you get the hang of it and it's a wonderful program.


3. What inspires you to do a layout or kit creation?  

Well it would be a few things really. Of course a picture will inspire me. The fun, the colours, the surroundings in it, a picture can say a thousand words, and dang it, I'm gonna try and scrap them all! hahaha! As well, I find that kits inspire me as well. I'll see a kit that I like or with great colours and I want to use it. So I'll find a pic for it and off I go!


4. How long have you been designing?   

I've been scrapbooking since September 2005 so going on 3 years. But I've always been a really artsy crafty girl, so it was a natural transition I think.

5. What's your favorite tip for new digital scrapbookers?

I love templates. They are versitile, can make your scrapping easier, especially if you have a ton of photos to get done. All you do is add pic paper and elements and poof, a page is made! No need to worry about how to plan the page cuz it's already done for you. I think this is a great learning tool for the new digi scrapper for sure!

6. What do you think is your best work?

Well I would definintely say my latest stuff. I of course get better with time. As I learn more Photoshop tricks and get more comfortable, I feel like my work improves. One of my absolute fav digi pages is one called "A little Piece of Me".

7. What was the hardest thing to make a layout for and why?

I've been involved in some Digi Swaps where we exchange photos, so you have to work with someone else's photo. Now this is lots of fun, but sometimes, you get a challenge. For some reason, the hardest one I found was some christmas pics. Don't ask me why, but christmas pics I find trouble finding the feel for. No clue why.

8. What is your position at RAKscraps?

I am on the Sponsor Team, so you'll see me do some Reviews and pages for specific Digi Designers.

9. What brought you to RAKscraps? What do you love the most about us?

What brought me here was on another website, someone mentioned the monthly freebie kit, so I stopped in, loved the kit, and have been coming ever since! That's probably also what I love the best. I find it amazing that so many wonderful items get made and put into a kit specially for all us digi scrappers! It's amazing!

10. Tell us about your family and job outside the home, if any.

My immediete family consists of my mom and dad, who I love bunches! My younger sister who is nothing like me, but I love her anyway. hahaha! Of course you have to include my three adorable cats, Merlin, Sebastion, and Pookie, they're basically my kids. Needy like kids anyway! :) As for work, I just started a new job as an Accountant (which I am in school to be) at a harley Davidson dealership. A little intimidating as it's my first week, but I'm hoping for good things!

1. What is your real name and why did you pick your screen name?

My real name is Angie Foulke, and 18 months ago when I gave birth to my beautiful daughter Molly Rose Williams - aka Molly Moo, aka Moo, aka Moo Moo - MooMoosMommy became my screen name of choice! Even though I live in Sydney, Australia, I was born in Ohio and spent most of my formative years in the US, so I still prefer to call myself her Mommy rather than her Mummy.

2. What graphics program do you use?

I have been using Photoshop CS2 since I first started digiscrapping, though recently my gorgeous partner installed CS3, which has been great! I used PS Elements for a little while but unfortunately it had a tendency to crash my poor outdated and overloaded computer so I finally gave up and uninstalled it.

3. What type of layouts do you like doing the most?

Looking back over everything I’ve done since I started scrapping, I guess I’d have to say I really enjoy doing layouts about my daughter! Well, how could I not – she’s so cute and I’m so proud of her! J I also love doing AAM pages – even though it’s sometimes hard to ignore the little voice in my head that tells me I’m being vain! And I’ve recently gotten interested in ATCs; they’re so quick and fun to do!

4. What do you think is your best layout?

This was a really tough one! I have a few that I am really, really proud of, where I was just really pleased with how they turned out. In the end I decided that out of all of them, this one is my all-time favourite.

Wanna Play?

The photo was one of those shots that you always seem to end up with when you’re trying to get a toddler to stay still so you can take their picture, and all they want to do is try to grab the camera! I was playing around with the colour and Matthew suggested just keeping her bright blue eyes and taking out all the rest of the colour. I like the layout because it’s so simple and yet captures her playful spirit perfectly… And I’d like to add, I didn’t alter the shade of blue at all – that really is the colour of her eyes!

5. What inspires you the most when doing a layout?

I usually find I’m really driven by the photos themselves – it’s so much fun trawling through all my amassed page kits and other bits and pieces to find just the right papers and elements to go with the photos I want to scrap! I also get a lot of inspiration from looking through the galleries at RAKScraps. It’s interesting, when I look through my “Favorites” list I become very aware of my personal tastes and the kind of scrapper I’d really like to become.

6. How long have you been digi-scrapping? Did you ever paper scrap?

I kind of fell into digi-scrapping by accident just before Christmas 2007! I wanted to do a memory book of my daughter’s first year as a Christmas present for her grandparents, and my exposure to digi came about as a result of that venture. I ended up giving each of my parents a paper-scrapped page for Christmas in the end, which was my one and only foray into paper scrapping. I’m terrible with my hands - can't even colour in the lines, glue things down without destroying them, or write neatly and legibly in a straight line...... On the other hand, I just LOOOOOOOVE playing with photos and graphics in Photoshop! My external computer drive and scanner are my best friends (I’d say my digital camera but it recently died – sob!)

7. Do you use templates (sketches) or your own thing on your layouts?

I use a lot of templates because I’m still not 100% confident when it comes to planning a layout myself, and I find templates really help me to plot out where I want everything to go. Even if I end up throwing out most (or even all) of the original design, it gets me started and gives me a guide to what will “work”. Though sometimes I find it lots of fun, when I have a special idea in mind and a bit more time to plan, to start from scratch and get really creative!

8. What suggestion would you give to a new digi-scrapper?

Try not to get frustrated if you feel your layouts aren’t “as good” as others’ when you’re first starting out – it is absolutely phenomenal how much you can pick up in a short time, just by doing it! Remember that the most important part of scrapping is preserving your memories in a way that appeals to YOU - your style is uniquely yours and that is a fantastic thing! Definitely join a really supportive and positive scrapping community as it is so encouraging getting feedback, seeing other scrappers’ work for inspiration, and feeling connected and part of a group.

9. Tell us about your family and if you work outside the home.

As mentioned above, I live in Sydney, Australia and have a wonderful partner Matthew (who I think feels like a bit of a “scrapbooking widower” sometimes!), and a beautiful 18-month-old daughter, Molly. About 4 months ago I went back to work for the first time since having Molly, doing data entry and some customer service for a major superannuation provider – so basically I sit at a computer all day, then come home and get excited about sitting at a computer some more! ;-)

10. How long have you been a member at RAKScraps and what do you like the most about our community?

I joined RAKScraps about 5 months ago, just after I started digiscrapping. I love the positive atmosphere here – everyone is so encouraging and supportive, and it really is a lovely feeling when someone leaves a nice comment about one of your layouts! There are so many stunning and creative layouts to admire and get inspiration from, and the forums are full of useful information. The site has such a great community feel to it - and I love the parties we’ve been having here recently!

 

REMEMBER - Shannon will be hosting a "Scrapper's Spotlight Challenge" featuring this month's Member Spotlight, Angie! Come on by and chat with Angie and Shannon, and look through Angie's Gallery for inspiration for a Scraplift!

Please come back and check out June's Mega Kit.  It will be released on the 15th of June, and will be available until the 31st.

Our July Designer Highlight Sponsors are:

       Dede Smith                       Designs By Shannon