Shadows, a Giveaway, and a FREEBIE!

Welcome to Day 2 of my design-iversary/birthday celebration. Thank you for all the birthday and anniversary wishes!

It’s time for another installment of Tips & Tricks, and once again I’m sending you to a better teacher than me. I absolutely LOVE Megan Turnidge’s tutorials on shadows. If you use PSE, you’ll want to check out her Drop (Shadow) it Like it’s Hot! post on Peppermint Creative’s blog. If you use PS, she has a great tutorial written for CS4, but it should be adaptable to earlier versions AND she includes her shadow styles. Read Shadows in Photoshop (CS4) to learn more and snag your free shadow styles.

Note: Megan likes her shadows cast to the upper left, and so her styles are set with a lighting angle of -44 degrees. You can easily adjust that angle to your liking. I use the traditional 120 degrees. To change the angle, apply the style to your layer. Then double click on the layer to open the Layer Styles window and click on Drop Shadow. Then change the angle to 120. Then click okay. (If you don’t want to repeat this step every time you apply the style, select the layer with the style and open your Styles palette. Then click on the little paper icon, which creates a new style, and name it something descriptive. Now it’s saved to your Styles palette.)

Now, on to the giveaway! Want to win 4 products that haven’t hit the store yet? Here’s your chance! Digital Scrapbook Giveaways is a new blog, and today is the Giveaway by SuzyQ Scraps.

One lucky winner will receive each of the following products, which won’t be in my store until Friday!

Four ways to win, so head on over to their blog to see how to enter the giveaway. The random winner will be announced on their blog on Thursday, December 17th. Good luck!

And, what’s a celebration without gifts? Time for another freebie! I have another pack of templates for you from my super fabulous QTs!

Download Design-iversary Freebie #2!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Be sure to come by tomorrow for another opportunity to win stuff from me, and to pick up Day 3′s freebie! Hope you’re enjoying your week!