I have no idea how to title this one! Whatever I’m going to come up with is not going to be enough. This is an introduction to our brandnew, fantabulous, gorgeous Into the Wild coordinated collection. It is also a giveaway-if-you-guess it and a tutorial. That’s a whole lot rolled into one. I’m just going to start babbling. Ready?

“All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world’s wildernesses I first should wander.”

― John Muir

Into the Wild is our newest coordinated collection, every quarter the entire Studio Design Team bands together to create one, stunning, fantabulous, amazing collection. Into the Wild is no exception.

Each piece is on sale for only $1.00 each until August 22, 2019. You can build your collection as big, or as small as you’d like. With each piece only $1.00, you can try a new-to-you Designer or a new-to-you style. The choice is up to you!

I thought I’d take a little time to play with this one, show you what you can do… six hours later. Here I am! The tutorial part is nice, simple, easy, fun. Try it! More on that in just a second. But. The choices in Into the Wild? Wow! I’m so blown away by all the choices. I had so much fun playing, downloading, unzipping, and building a fantabulous page (and freebie). That the time just whizzed by. It is that fun to play with.

In the last couple of months I’ve seen some terrific layouts roll by. Layouts that used masks for their photo’s, but then also a little more ooomph. Maybe it was brushes, or splashes, or transfers. I have no idea. I do know I loved the result. I wanted a more arty photo-in-a-mask too. But (my six hours of scrapping today notwithstanding), I am a lazy fast scrapper. I wanted that look. Fast.

I came up with a quick & easy solution. Mask-in-a-mask-in-a-mask (I was inspired by Silke’s All-in-a-Mask Tutorial for Photoshop). Let me explain.

Supplies: Photoshop CS (but doable in any editing program that allows clipping masks)
Note: For detailed how-to on clipping masks read: Tutorial: Using Knockout for Borders

I start by creating a new 3600X3600, 300 dpi canvas in Photoshop. I immediately drag in a photomask by Jilbert’s Bits’ of Bytes:

To get the look I want, I drag in a paper by Jen Maddocks Designs & clip it to the mask layer:

Now to really get that arty-scrappy look, drag in a second mask and layer it on top of the first mask. I used one from Jen Maddocks Designs:

This time I grab a paper from Nibbles Skribbles, drag it in above the second mask & again create a clipping mask:

I am so loving this! It’s already awesomesauce. But. I grab one more mask. I still need to add my photo after all. This time I grab a lovely one from Antebellum Press:

To finish it off I grab my photo of Dane from our visit to Beekse Bergen (best place on Earth!) and clipped it to the mask:

So far, this has take me five minutes. Tops. I slide in a phenomenal background paper, again from Jen Maddocks:

And now. Sigh. I got carried away. I wanted to add a quick word art, from Manu Scraps, and border from TraceyB Designs, and then maybe an animal or two…. a bazillion hours later… TADA!

I have never had so much fun scrapping IN MY LIFE! This was fantabulous, fun, & worth the bazillion (six) hours! Now let me share the fun with you. Not so fast, it took me hours. Do you really think I’m just going to share my hours of hard work with you? Just like that? Naaaaaaaaah. I’m going to make you work for it.

I am giving away the Six Hour Jungle Border to everyone that correctly guesses the number of animals, insects, etc. I added to Tracey’s already amazing (animal-less) border. Dane does not count LOL. Neither do any duplicate animals, insects, etc. Good luck! Want to see what you are playing for?

This six hour PNG Jungle Border (it comes without a background) was created using the works of ADB Designs, Jilbert’s Bits of Bytes, Manu Scraps, MLDesigns, Sekada Designs, TraceyB Designs, The Urban Fairy and Zesty Designs!

You have one week to get this one right. All guesses are due by Thursday Midnight (EST), August 15, 2019
I will email the border to the email used to comment on this blog post on Friday, August 16, 2019.

All borders have been emailed out! You all did a great job guessing. It was not easy. We counted 23 but we’ve gone ahead & give borders to those who guessed 22 (ie, counted mom & baby monkey as 1) or 24 (counted both blue butterflies). Because. It was hard & that border is too beautiful to  not share. Congratulations!

All the animals circled to make counting easier!