With the winter months slowly settling in here in Australia, I find myself wanting to cozy up the house – which normally looks very minimal and industrial (read: cold).

Whilst I thoroughly enjoy nice, warm weather, I find some strange comfort in curling up under cozy soft throws; bright-red cheeks and runny noses when going for long walks outside; warming mugs of steaming hot soup and last, but not least, beautiful soft flannelette sheets.

Last week I strolled into one of my favourite linen stores, Adairs, on the hunt for some new bedsheets. My eyes were immediately drawn to the colours and sweet floral pattern of the set shown below.

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Mercer + Reid Charlotte Throw

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Mercer + Reid Ivy Pale Pink Cushion

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Grace Floral Flannelette Sheets

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Image from Adairs. Hover over the markers for more information and links to the products.

Part of my own “Happiness Project” is to surround myself with beautiful things (and people) that make me happy. So I walked out of the store with a smile from ear to ear, and a large bag of floral sheet happiness.

Next on my list are the pastel pillow and the soft throw. Bring it on, winter!

Working on several projects, including opening our Etsy Shop for Poppy & Scout, a website re-design and a beautiful logo- and blog design for a very lovely lady whom I met while taking Holly Becker’s Blog Boss E-course (recommended!), all the whilst developing the TMMH brand and website.

I am busy. Delightfully busy. I can not wait to share it all with you.

I am absolutely smitten by this amazing Simple Hanging Vase DIY by the fabulous Kate from Mini-Eco.

Image by Mini-Eco

I am thinking this could be a lovely little Easter holiday project. Have you got anything creative planned? I would love to hear all about it in the comments!

I have long been a fan of designer/illustrator Brad Woodard, who runs the inspiring Brave The Woods blog. So when I hear he is teaching a class on Skillshare, I just knew I had to sign up and learn more about Brad’s process to make his fantastic, colourful illustrations.

The class has only just started (I am not sure if you can still sign up) and so far I have really enjoyed taking a peek in Brad’s sketchbook – it is almost like watching over his shoulder. Genius!

Every day is a good day to learn… have you learned any new skills lately?

I came across a few requests recently on how to easily make collages (or blogboards) in Photoshop. I thought I’d put together a little tutorial.

Let’s get ready. To follow along with this tutorial, you will need – of course – Photoshop and two images of your choice. Have those files open by clicking on File > Open in the to menu bar. When you are ready, follow along and in 5 easy steps, you will have created your first blog collage. If you don’t get it right the first time, please don’t give up. As with everything, it takes practice, practice, practice. If you stick with it, soon you will be able to create all types of custom collages to use in your blog posts.

Step 1

Create a New Document

I choose the following settings for my document size:

Step 2

Draw a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool

Rename Layer 1 to Background (it is good practice to name your layers as you create them) and select your Rectangle Tool:

In Photoshop CS6 you can set the dimensions of the rectangle (or any shape) you draw by clicking on the canvas and enter the values. Since I want to add two same-size photos, both my rectangles will be 400px wide and 600px long, each with their own colour. This is helpful when you create a composition with many images, instead of having one big block of colour.

After you have added both rectangles, align them to your canvas. I find it easy to turn on ‘Snap To All’ so when you drag the rectangles, they will automatically snap to the document bounds – or the edges of your canvas. To do this, go to View > Snap To > All.

Step 3

Add your images

Now it is time to add our images. Open up the first photo you want to use in your collage and drag it on top of your rectangle layers in your document. Alternatively, in your top menu bar, go to File > Place and locate the photo on your hard drive and click Place. This will allow you to scale your photo. To make it larger or smaller, grab one of the four handles in the corners of the image, hold the SHIFT key (this will make sure your image retains it’s original aspect ratio and won’t distort) and simultaneously drag the image to scale it to your desired size. Press Enter on your keyboard when you are happy with the size.

With the photo now on the canvas, in your Layers Palette, drag the image layer right above the first rectangle (Rectangle 1).

As you can see, half of your image has now disappeared underneath the second rectangle (Rectangle 2) you created earlier. Don’t worry, we will fix that in a minute.

Step 4

Creating your first clipping mask

We have finally arrived at the ‘magic’ part, where we will create a clipping mask that will clip our image to our first rectangle. To do this, you first need to make sure you have the image layer selected. Then in your top menu bar, click on Layer and choose Create Clipping Mask from the drop-down menu.

Congratulations! You have just made your first clipping mask! Take a look at your Layers Pallete now. You will see that the image layer now has a downward pointing arrow, pointing to the layer beneath it – indicating it is now clipped to the rectangle.

If your image does not look quite right, select your move tool from the toolbar and move your image around until you are happy with the placement. If your image is too large, select Edit from the top toolbar and choose Transform (or press Command + T on your keyboard (MAC) or Ctrl + T for Windows). Holding the Shift key (as explained in Step 3 above), drag the handles of your image until it is sized to your liking. Press Enter and adjust the position of the image, if necessary, with the Move tool.

Step 5

Finishing Off

Repeat the above process with your second image to finish your collage.

And this is the final result:

You can further embellish these collages with labels or decorative elements. Katrina from Pugly Pixel has many great ideas, tutorials and downloads to add some really cool effects to your collages.

If you have made it to the end of this page, you are well on your way to creating your own stylish blog-collage boards. To get you on your way, I have created two (simple but stylish) layered PSD blog boards for you to download. Simply click on the link below, unzip and you are good to go!

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my little tutorial (and hopefully give it a try!). As this is my first ever tutorial here on the TMMH blog, I am happy to hear whether it was easy enough to follow and where I can improve.