www.reflectingthedesigner.com

I so enjoyed working with Annie from Annie Kennedy Photography as we helped to give her a presence as she starts her new business venture.

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This blue and brown binder graphic set pictured on the right includes individual graphics designed to be printed and inserted into a 1″ half sheet sized 3 ring binder. These images were created to be printed easily to a home computer on standard 8.5″ x 11″ paper. Printing on photo paper or card stock is recommended.

Simply print, cut out the graphics along the edges, and hole punch as necessary. Note: I’ve included two separate versions. One includes text that matches the free prayer journal I’ve made available on this site, and one has no text so that you can add your own as desired. Hint: You can easily open these graphics in a Word Document, add your own text, and print to your own printer if desired. These would be ideal for a special event or as gifts. Each down-loadable graphic pack comes with the following: Read the rest of this entry »

This beautiful binder graphic set pictured on the right includes individual graphics designed to be printed and inserted into a 1″  half sheet sized 3 ring binder with clear cover pockets. These images were created to be printed easily to a home computer on standard 8.5″ x 11″ paper. Printing on photo paper or card stock is recommended.

Simply print, cut out the graphics along the edges, and hole punch as necessary. Note: I’ve included two separate versions. One includes text that matches the free prayer journal I’ve made available on this site, and one has no text so that you can add your own as desired. Hint: You can easily open these graphics in a Word Document, add your own text, and print to your own printer if desired. These would be ideal for a special event or as gifts. Each down-loadable graphic pack comes with the following:

• One high resolution cover graphic (dimensions 8.5″ x 6.75″)
• Four high resolution tab insert graphics (dimensions 8.5″ x 5.75″)
• One high resolution binder graphic (dimensions 8.5″ x 1″)

Click this button below if you would like to purchase and download the full text version to match the free prayer journal. After clicking on Buy Now and entering in your payment information, you will be able to download the zip folder containing all of the graphics. You can print these graphics as much as desired, but please do not alter the images in any way.

Binder Graphics Pack With Text Included – $10

Click the button below if you would like to purchase and download the text free version to edit yourself. Again, while you are free to add your own text into the blank fields, please do not edit or alter the image itself in anyway.

Binder Graphics Pack Without Text – $10

Please contact me if you need customized binder graphics for a business or ministry event. I offer exceptional prices and very quick turn around, and would be happy to discuss your graphics needs.

Well, as you can see if you’ve visited my site before, I’ve just updated the theme again. I like to create new design themes for my own site both for variety as well as to demonstrate some nice Artisteer, Photoshop, and WP tweaking techniques. I’ll list a few of those techniques in this post.

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Here is another Christmas card that was a “spur-of-the-moment” job. I’m posting this one to demonstrate a few simple Photoshop tips that can help you turn around designs quicker for customers just like this one. As the title suggests, there is great advantage in using many layers in Photoshop. I’m just going to focus on the background of this card itself. There are 3 separate layers used just for the green background.

The bottom layer is actually a black and white plaid I found online and turned into a pattern. Need a refresher on creating your own patterns? (NOTE: if you are using Artisteer and want to know how you can make your own textures, this is it!) Read the rest of this entry »

This was another Christmas card I just did for a family who wanted a very customized look. They also needed a few different versions of the same card for their business, close family and friends, and others on their Christmas card list.

The image to the right is the family version, but you can view their business version in my gallery.

This is what they requested: Read the rest of this entry »

This was a project for a family who wanted to send out a family Christmas Card but in a 5×7 size to easily fit into a frame. They also wanted a theme that was more of a wintertime feel rather than strictly Christmas and wanted to include their family picture as well as individual pictures of their kids. And, of course, they wanted the original snapshots edited to remove red eye, the background, touch up the coloring, etc. Try finding a template online to do all of that! However, just using Photoshop, I was able to take all 5 snapshots they sent me and turn them into a fun winter card that can be printed out as a photo or as an actual card. I used some of the elements from the previous Christmas card I made, so the design work was quick and easy to do, and fit all of their specifications.

Let me know if you are interested in a personalized Christmas card that is not just the run of the mill template you see everyday. I can usually turn a project around like this within a day, so shoot me an email to get started!

Here is a Christmas card design that I did for Kids 4 Truth to be used for a thank you card for volunteers and donors. It’s designed to be printed on a 51/2″ x 4″ folded card with a full bleed. We’re getting these printed through Vista Print, which is the company we’ve used for the past few years for Christmas cards and some of our other printing needs. They usually have some great sales this time of year.

Now to the good news, I’m making this design available in two high resolution JPEG files for only $10 for both. Here’s how to access this design.

• Simply click on the Buy Now button to make your payment securely through PayPal (you don’t need a PayPal account to do this).
• Once your payment is made, you will see the link to download a zip folder.
• Simply save the folder to your computer and access the files. There are two images included: one with the verse as shown, and one with no text so that you can add your own.

Feel free to contact me if you are interested in discussing any of the other design services I offer.

I just finished designing a blog for my sister-in-law who makes the most amazing and creative cakes! She also makes adorable handmade cards, and both are done inexpensively and simply (which is a key when you have a family of 6!) You can check out her blog by clicking on the picture below. Please note that this blog is just getting started, so it doesn’t have a ton of content yet and still needs some tweaks.

This blog was a fun design to make. I first created the polka dot pattern in Photoshop, I then created the ribbon pattern, sidebar sheet and main sheet, cropped them all into one horizontal layer and used that for the blog’s background. Using the ribbon image, I created a texture for the block headers as well as the main menu background. I decided to go with original title button designs for the left side of the blog for items that I know won’t change and are of the same category, while I used the template headers I created for the right side of the blog for items that can be more easily edited and changed. You’ll also notice my original post dividers, signature graphics, scrolling twitter, rss, facebook, and back to top button, as well as other little details. You can find out how to do all of those yourself by visiting my Bloggers Scrapbook blog.

I purchased Artisteer back in the spring, and it has more than made up the money I invested into it by the ease at which it allows you to create templates for WordPress, Blogger, Dot Net Nuke, Joomla, and Drupal. I use it all the time, and actually just used it again to give this site a little refresher. The beauty about Artisteer is that it allows you to implement your own designs into the template completely so that the design is all yours from the background images, textures, and glare all the way down to the individual icons. Now, while Artisteer is a great tool, I wouldn’t be able to accomplish an original and customized look without the use of design software like Photoshop. This post will explain just a few of the steps in creating a great, customized look using both of these tools.

The Background

You’ll notice that I have a great bead board background as well as a semitransparent sheet with a shadow and a yellow sidebar column with a pattern in it and shadow as well. You’ll also note that using Artisteer alone, it is impossible to get one sidebar background to look different from the other, and it is also impossible to get a drop shadow around the main sheet alone and not the header. In order to accomplish this, I needed to create a vertically tiled background that accomplished all of this for me. The first thing I did was to search online for bead board image. When I found the the style I wanted, I pulled it into Photoshop, and selected only about 1 pixel tall and as wide as the image was and Defined it as new a Pattern.

I then created a box and using the fx toolbar created a Pattern Overlay using my newly created bead board pattern. I could than re size that image however I wanted without losing my pattern. I used that layer as my background, then created the other elements on top of it. I created grid lines for my header height and sheet width, than created my semi transparent sheet with a shadow and my yellow column with a pattern overlay. (Hint: for the pattern in the column, I just copied and pasted the screen shot of Artisteer using one of their textures, than I created my own pattern out of it in Photoshop).

When my basic background was completed with the beaded background, the sheet, and the column, I again cropped the image in such a way that it would repeat seamlessly when stacked vertically. I went to Insert Image or Texture from file, centered it, and chose repeat vertically to complete the background. I then made sure that my sheet and footer in Artisteer were transparent so that my background “sheet” and “column” would show through as if they were the main sheet and side bars.

Using Glare

Now, even though I could make a header image using that same bead board pattern for the background, I still had a shadow on either side of the header because of my main background image I created. The easiest way to fix that, is to create a custom glare to cover up that shadow! The ribbon, and small squares of the bead board on either side of the header served as my glare and helped give the appearance that header blends in seamlessly to the background. Also, note that I chose a transparent background for the menu bar so that it looks like my ribbon is the menu bar. (Hint: You’ll need to make sure that you create a png for your glare, and that you size it to fit exactly to correct width and height of your header. Also, make sure to center it on your sheet in Aristeer. This can be a time consuming process to get it exact, but it is well worth it.)

I hope that this was helpful. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this post, or if you have any questions or suggestions on creative ways of using Artisteer. Please email me if you are interested in an original and completely customized WordPress or Blogger Theme design.