Monday 24 March 2014

How Many Posts?!?!?

Welcome to the final post of the March CKCB Members' Blog Hop; if you didn't reach me from Cindy then you might want to start at the beginning with Lisa.  This month we had a choice of three challenges to use for the hop (#1 Use Watercolour Techniques, #2 Be Inspired By Jennifer and #3 Add Texture To Your Background).

I had a page all ready for the texture challenge, but then I realised that today I'd also celebrating blog post No:

Jimjams - Tagxedo - 400th blog postso I decided to combine texture with my favourite on-line tool: Tagxedo.

As you can see from the image, it's possible to load up  your own text to be used as the outline rather than use the pre-defined shapes (here I selected Shape ► and Add Words ... and typed the characters "400", chose ChunkFive font and then inverted the shape.

It's also easy to upload special fonts to use instead of the standard ones: my 200th blog post explains how I used Saru's Flower Ding Font, available free from dafont here.  Any special font has to be already downloaded onto your computer and then uploaded into Tagxedo by selecting Font ►and Add Fonts ...

Mothering Sunday is approaching (in the U.K.) so I thought I'd see if I could combine these two actions and make my outline shape from the character set of an added font.  I loaded Wingdings2 into Tagxedo first, then made my shape the letter "u" in Wingdings2 to give me ❶ (I generally copy & paste from the Windows Character Map to select characters in weird fonts as it's impossible to remember all the character equivalents ... this sheet is useful for quick reference though). 

Jimjams - Tagxedo - No.1 Mum

My Tagxedo text was simply the letters "M", "u" and "m" rather than the word "Mum" plus a ♥.  I forced the ♥ to be artificially large using ♥:150 and the letters were repeated 40 times (for some reason it's necessary to type in the letters individually rather than use "M:40 u:40 m:40" but I have NO idea why).

I used the defaults for everything else except:
Theme = Pi Palette
Font = a few of the ones I like best (deselect unwanted ones, including Wingdings2!)
Orientation = Horizontal
My Word Options were:
Remove Common Words = No (for small words like “a”, “is” and “it” ... and "m" and "u"!!!)
Combine Identical Words = No (so that "M" and "m" aren't treated as one item)
My Layout Options were:
Max Word Count = 150 (stops the letters getting too small - for printing out reduce it further)
Allow Replication = Yes (to fill the shape without typing "M", "u", "m" repeatedly)
Font Preference = All (the ones I have selected)
I messed about with  Layout, Colour, and Font Respins until I found a combination that I was happy with - utilising the History to see thumbnails of the variations - before using Save ... to get an image onto my computer.

And here's the finished card:

Jimjams - Card - No.1 Mum

My Coluzzle circle templates were dusted off to cut out the Tagxedo image and mat it onto a scrap of textured orange card before scissor distressing the edges.  The starry strip is made with a 6x6 Crafter's Workshop punchinella stencil and some texture paste which was coloured once dry.  The rest of the supplies (washi, butterflies, ledger paper scraps) are from my March Counterfeit Kit.

I've just had the Tagxedo image printed onto a mug for a matching gift ... Aldi have free postage on gifts at the moment with the code EASTER3 ... hope it arrives in time!

Well, that's it for the CKCBMBH today - if you missed anyone you can see the whole blog hop listed here. If you fancy joining in yourself next month, just drop the CKCB a mail - everyone is welcome.

P.S. If you're new to Tagxedo, please check out some of my other Tagxedo posts for more tips & tricks.

24 comments:

alexa said...

Just amazing what you 've done with a few letters! I am going to bookmark all your links and investigate - thank you for your detailed instructions. The card looks wonderful!

alexa said...

PS I got so swept away by the second half of your post that I forgot to offer many congratulations on the first half,

Lesley G said...

Congrats on your your 400th post and what a brilliant post it is too.
I'm sure it will arrive in time they are pretty good :)

Chidkid said...

Congrats on 400 posts. Great card.. your Mum will love it!

Virginia said...

Oh that's fabulous!

Sian said...

Oh, that's clever! Congratulations on your 400th post..that's quite a milestone

Julene Matthews said...

A great achievement . I was confused with your tagxedo instructions as I'm not a computer Whizz but I do love your card.

Wendy said...

That is amazing :-)

Unknown said...

Fabbie card - really lovely and congratulations on your 400th!!!!

Tina Campbell said...

Congrats on the 400th post ! :) What a super card, never thought about that at all, would be a good use of getting rid of a lot of left over alphas too, inspiring :)

Stephanie said...

Congratulations on your 400th post!! I love this card, the letters look amazing as does the embossed stars!

Fiona@Staring at the Sea said...

Many congratulations on 400 posts. Tagxedo is such a great tool and you use it so well.

Sandie said...

Congratulations on 400 posts Jemma, that is something to be proud of! I love that you have shared more Tagxedo tips and instruction. Thank you! I love these and you really have mastered this. Your card is beautiful - one happy Mum on Mothers Day!

cinmfoster said...

Beautiful card, have not tried this but I do have it booked marked.

Missus Wookie said...

Congratulations on the 400 posts. Cool card, I have 'try out taxedo - Jemma' on my list of things to do. But haven't got there yet :) Thanks again for the reminder.

The Scrapbook Lady UK said...

congrats on post 400, jenx

Margie said...

Congrats on 400! Lovely card, too!

ComfyMom~Stacey said...

Love the card!

Congrats on 400 posts!

Melissa said...

Congrats on 400 posts!!!

Lisa said...

Congrats on 400 posts! What fun! And your work with Tagxedo is great as always. I'm sure your mum will adore her card.

Annie Claxton said...

Gorgeous card - I love the texture and the birght fresh colours - and big congrats on 400 posts! :o)

Anonymous said...

That's so clever. Lovely card

LCSmithSAVED said...

Bookmarking this post - can't wait to try this! Thx :~)

Catty said...

Hi, I love all your tutorials, they help me so much, so thank you. I am really struggling trying to insert a star. I have downloaded fonts that include a star and have read your fab tutorial where you added a heart into the Mum word art but cannot work out how to insert the shape without using all special characters. Hope that makes sense and hope you can help, thanks in advance! Emma