Welcome to Scrapping!

Welcome To Scrapping!

I’m excited for everyone that is brand new to this, and even for those who are looking to learn more! I hope that the lessons come through easily and fun for you all. Let’s challenge ourselves to do more!

Key things to remember:

• -        Have Patience! Everyone learns at a different pace. Just because Billie Jo Bertha next to you may catch on faster, doesn’t mean you’re not doing as well! You can do this, you really can!

• -        Ask questions! When in doubt, ask. In scrapping there is never a dumb question. How the hell do you expect to learn if you don’t ask? You can always reach me by email! superrainpolly@gmail.com

• -        Just like with tagging, be copyright compliant! Look at designers TOU before purchasing if you can! Some designers only allow 30% of their products to be used in a kit. So to dumb it down to my level (had to think of this btw before I got it lol) if you are like me and make a kit with 100 elements, you can only add 30 of that designer’s product to your kit. Some don’t allow their products to be used as freebies. Most are really good about including that in their product descriptions.

• -        CU means Commercial Use. NEVER EVER use anything that does not say CU friendly or commercial use ok. Doing this can give you such a bad name in the designing world. Don’t start out on the wrong foot! Remember just like in tagging, how you start forward is how you are setting the tone.

• -        ALWAYS credit the commercial use designers in your TOU and Credit document. Think about it this way, if someone took your tag that you worked so hard on and slapped their name on it or altered it, how would that make you feel? Pretty bad huh? It’s a respect thing. Some designers also require you to include their URL in your credits. Make sure you check that!

• -        When you make your TOU and Credit document, you can do it with notepad, or WinWord or anything that is on your pc that you can save it as an rtf. I discourage you to do it as a jpeg or even an adobe file. How irritating would it be to have to constantly alter either one of those EACH time? With having a file on your computer, you can just edit it as needed.

• -        Make sure that your own TOU is clear and concise. Leave no doubt as to what is allowed to be done with your kit.

• -         Always save your kit’s in a folder to be zipped and loaded to your store or your sharing site. Don’t layer it as a psd and save it as just that! For one you lose the aspect of your tou and credits. And two, sometimes those psd files aren’t compatible with programs.

• -        Everyone is different, but for myself and many designers who will tell you, make variety in your kits. It’s totally up to you, but A really great thing to do, is don’t make repeats in your kit. For example, don’t make one paper in every color of your palette. Or one butterfly, the same thing. The reason for this is because, (and I learned this the hard way) if you go PTU, and you put together a kit that s oh say 50 elements, and you’ve done just that, in retrospect you really only have about half that much. How irritated would you be if you downloaded a kit you bought and you paid a few bucks for it and that happened? Honestly, it would tick me off! Lol. There is a reason why my earlier kits like that are now FTU. BUT, again, it’s totally up to you! You be happy with what you want to do!

• The biggest thing and advice I could give you is, have freaking fun!!! You are going to learn things you probably didn’t know before. This is going to make you a better tagger, and designer in the end. Enjoy what you do and be really proud of what you do! Not one of us is better than the next at this. We just all have different styles. I have faith in you all and so do your fellow “classmates”. Be positive, and you will see positive things come out of your PSP.

• Take this challenge and run with it. I know I’ve probably overwhelmed you with a wealth of knowledge. But to be dead honest, I NEVER had ANYONE to teach me all of this. I learned it by trial and error and searching my hearts content. Please feel free to ask questions as needed!

Good luck!

Professor Shani (I crack myself up!)