Wanted New Cards: 1st/First New Year’s
We have a categorie that needs some love:
Holidays > New Year’s Cards > 1st / First New Year’s
There are 7 sub categories that need more content, like
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Good luck!
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Font Frenzy: Mr Foodie Font Family
My Fonts has a limited 80% discount offer on Mr Foodie Food and Kitchen icons that can be bought as a whole set or individually (offer stands until December 29)
Mr Foodie is a set of 825 icons divided into 7 groups:
109 fruit icons,
157 kitchen icons,
120 animal products icons,
100 veggie icons,
107 desserts icons,
127 beverages icons,
105 other food related icons.
You can find a full, multi-color list of every icon with its name and corresponding character on a dedicated website or in a pdf manual.
It’s a multilayer font so every group consists of 4 fonts – Regular, Back, Front, and 3rd Color. The Regular style is for single color use only and the Back, Front, and 3rd Color styles are necessary if you want to achieve a multicolor effect.
Position three identical text boxes exactly on top of each other, apply layer font styles, and choose whatever colors you like. You’ll quickly discover that some icons don’t have 3rd Color style. This is not a mistake – a lot of things look good with just two colors.
Use it to make logos, illustrations, games, app icons, t-shirts, mugs, cooking books, restaurant menus, interior decorations, invitations, balloons, and any other project where fine crafted food drawing is needed.
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Dash of Inspiration: PS & PSE Editing
The key to being the ‘master of your own imagination’ in photography and digital editing is to never allow yourself limits. Tutorials exist for everything you can imagine when it comes to editing in Photoshop and PSE (other programs too).
Instead of giving up or getting frustrated, go find tutorials that show you HOW to accomplish what’s in your imagination. It will empower you with the ability to create anything and inspire you to step outside of your comfort zone. The journey is long, as it takes lots and lots of practice to become proficient at these magnificent tools, but imagine the possibilities ….
Here are some great tutorials to get you started:
Jill Wellington is a wonderful photographer and she offers many great tutorials, tips and even backgrounds and overlays on her site.
Moving Objects in a Photo in Photoshop and PSE by Jill Wellington Photography
How to Change the Background of a Photo and Replace it with Another by Jill Wellington Photography
For those who want to begin a journey using Photoshop, I believe you can still purchase PSE (Photoshop Elements) and for many of you, PSE is enough editing power for all your needs. It’s a great place for the beginner, you can always move on to full Photoshop versions when you’re ready.
20 Photoshop Elements Tutorials to Try by Creative Bloq
120 Photoshop Tips, Tricks and Fixes by Creative Bloq
Professional Photoshop Techniques And Tutorials by Smashing Magazine
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Don’t forget to enter your Best of 2015 greeting in our December’s Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge!
Doreen Erhardt©2015
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Send Holiday Cheer to little Safyre Terry
Using Greeting Card Universe, send a card by 12/21 addressed to:
Safyre Terry
P.O. Box 6126
Schenectady NY 12306
U.S.A.
Let’s flood her P.O. box and send her miles of holiday hugs!
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Wanted New Cards: Developmental Milestones
Today’s category is a brand new one:
Occasions > Congratulations > Developmental Milestones
There is a whole row of sub categories that all need content, like
We’d like you to create at least one card for these categories using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Good luck!
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Tips and Tricks: Free Winter Birds Clip Art Set
Creative market is offering a cute free Winter Birds PNG Clip Art Set made by Trinkett Allsorts.
- 5 birds: a cardinal, bluejay, brambling, chickadee and waxwing
- 3 greenery branches
- 1 snowdrop plant
- 8 little berries to spruce up the other art pieces
All images are in 300dpi, saved in a .png file format.
Just make sure you sign in to Creative market to get this free deal – remember it is only on offer for one week. So get your goodies now! Happy creating!
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Dash of Inspiration: Festival of Fonts
This is a great time of year to get some great deals on fonts! Check out these finds …
The Foundation Collection from MyFonts – If you’re new to greeting card design and are looking for a quick set of fonts to start off your font collection, this is a great choice and a great deal at $49.00 for 75 fonts which retail for $490.00.
Typographer’s December Dream Bundle from Creative Market – December 1st through the 31st ONLY, this font bundle comes with Extended License for all 30 fonts for only $29.oo.
Visit your favorite font sites this time of year and you’re likely to see some pretty terrific sales in the month of December, maybe even on those you’ve been drooling over all year!
Happy Shopping!
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Dash of Inspiration: December Design Challenge
And the winners are …
Ron Magnes takes the BEST OF 2015 with this card:
With the 5 Honorable Mentions, listed in order, going to …
Ramelle Richardson
Julia Bryant
Stacia Gorge
Natalie Kinnear
Christi Madden
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This is the LAST Challenge of 2015, so why not make it a CELEBRATION? The December Design Challenge will be like a Holiday Party for GCU artists with an Open House Theme where each and every artist is invited to attend and BYBC! Collectively we’ll see all the talent at GCU, including all our newer artists who we hope will join in and introduce themselves!
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December Design Challenge
Theme: BEST of 2015 – BYBC (Bring Your BEST Card)
Requirements:
- Card must be Approved for the Public Marketplace and done so within the year 2015.
- Enter the card you are most proud of creating, the design which you feel is YOUR BEST WORK in 2015.
- Previous challenge cards – whether they won or not – will be accepted should you wish to choose one of those cards as your Best of 2015.
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Entry Deadline: Monday, December 28th, 2015
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How to Enter: Post the PID (card number) and the URL public storefront link (Please DO NOT post a link to your Manage Cards area) as a post in the challenge blog. We’ll forward your entry to the jury.
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Category: Any Category / Any Occasion / Any Card
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Rules:
- Entry must meet GCU’s Submission Guidelines and be in the Public Marketplace as an approved card during 2015.
- Only ONE card per artist.
- Stock Card Creations entries will not be accepted.
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BLIND Judging: Entries are submitted anonymously for judging by the GCU Challenge Jury which means that before and during the challenge, judges do not have any way of knowing what artist is behind each entry. This eliminates any and all concerns with ‘favoritism’. The jury will judge the entries on the following criteria:
- They will look for that total WOW factor.
- The level of creativity, technique, and overall marketability.
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BEST of 2015:
- The winning designer’s card and store will be featured on the GCU Public Blog with an ‘About and Interview’ with the artist – the blog which customers view and follow.
- As well as featured on the GCU Public Facebook Page – over 22,000 followers, now THAT’S exposure!
- The winning card will be Design of the Day following the announcement of the winners (within 48-hours).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards are often not displayed as DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions.
- The winning card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board – currently GCU’s Pinterest Page followers: 1.2K!
- The winning card, should the artist choose, may be referenced in a new series by the winning artist and he/she may Fast Track all cards in the new series (being sure to give the Challenge URL and winning card PID in your Notes to Reviewer for each card in this series).
- Best of Winner and Honorable Mentions will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
- The winner will receive a BEST of 2015 digital Award which they can use in their own promotions, storefront, websites and blogs to brag about their card being chosen.
- The Best of 2015 card will be Twitted to GCU’s followers which is over 1350 and growing.
FIVE Honorable Mentions:
- Your submissions will be Design of the Day within the following two weeks of announcing the Best of 2015 winner (within 14-days).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards may not be DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions.
- Honorable Mention cards will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board.
- Best of Winner and Honorable Mentions will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
- The Honorable Mentions will receive a BEST of 2015 Honorable Mention digital Award which they can use in their own promotions, storefront, websites and blogs to brag about their card being chosen.
- The HM Best of 2015 cards will be Twitted to GCU’s followers which is over 1350 and growing.
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The card I’m most proud of creating in 2015. Doreen Erhardt©2015
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If you haven’t been entering the Dash of Inspiration Monthly Design Challenges due to time constraints prohibiting you time to create a new card, or maybe you’ve just been shy … now’s the time to join us! What could be easier than Bringing Your Best Card to this month’s challenge?
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Tips and Tricks: Free Wood Hand Drawn Patterns
Creative market offers a gorgious set of free Faux Bois Wood Hand Drawn Patterns by Lemonade Pixel.
This is a set of 18 faux bois hand-drawn wood pattern digital papers patterns in rustic, woodsy colors.
The download includes: • 18 colors of faux bois digital paper. • Digital papers are 12″ x 12″ jpgs at 300 dpi. 3600 x 3600 pixels. • Also includes one black and white, un-textured vector file for your convenience! For personal or commercial use under SimpleLicense.
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Dash of Inspiration: Live and Learn
Enjoy life, it’s so much better when we are learning something new or refining what we know. Today I wanted to share some interesting finds with those of you who may intend to set New Year’s Resolution to expand their card designing skill set. I have no personal recommendation for these sites, just thought they looked interesting for those wishing to learn more …
First up is a site called Skill Share which comes highly recommended from friends of mine. If you wish to refine just about any area of your craft, this place has some awesome online lessons.
Next is Lynda.com has online courses in 3D, Photography, Design and Business to name a few and has a great reputation as an online learning institute.
The New York Institute of Photography has been around for more years than I can count and now offers their courses online. If you REALLY want to become a professional photographer in today’s world, you need to go back to the basics of photography. Understanding film, processing, and how all that is ‘imitated’ via our digital cameras of today will set the professional photographer apart from the amateur.
Live Painting Lessons.com has many online courses which are video tutorials to help someone get started in, or improve,painting with oils and acrylics.
Drawspace.com has many online lessons for learning how to draw, from the basics of composition and perspective, to drawing specific subjects.
Learn Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel or any use of artist tools by simply searching online for video tutorials, classes and lessons. Many are free, some you pay by course, but anything you wish to learn in the way of improving your creative endeavors … there are classes online.
So until next week, create, learn and inspire others!
Doreen Erhardt©
GCU Community 