Sparky's Scratches Real friends don't care if you're a little different…

On one of my searches for interesting fonts (I’m a font addict, and not ashamed to admit it :D) I found a CUTE font at 1001fonts.com called ‘Mousie’ and decided to make a freebie out of it. While colouring the alpha, I thought: Why not share the way I colour decorative fonts, so here it is.

I use PSP X2, but I’m sure you’ll be able to adjust the different steps to whatever program you are using. No doubt there are several ways to colour a font, and maybe even easier ways to do it – lol – but this is MY way.

Because I have hundreds of fonts and can’t install them all, I open the font file and just leave it open in the background. PSP X2 will pick up any font you have open, so there’s no need to install it.

To view the images in this tutorial, just click on them and use the back arrow to come back to this page again.

Open a new file, rather big, I like to have a bit of space so I can move things around (for this font I used a 8×8″ canvas).

Select the colour you want the letter to be – in this case I prefer black. Make this your background colour and make sure your foreground colour is off.

Set the font size to about 200

Type the letter A

Add a new layer and move that under the layer with the letter on it. I put all the colours on the second layer, this way you can always change things if you don’t like the results.

Select all the parts you want to be the same colour (hold down the shift key while clicking, to select more than 1 area). The selected parts will have the ‘marching ants’ around them.

If you would add colour at this point, there’s a 99.9% chance the blank parts won’t be filled completely. To prevent this, go to selections -> change -> expand and change the number to 3

Now click the bottom layer and flood fill the selected areas with the colour of your choice.

selections -> select none

Click on the layer with your letter again, select the areas you want to colour, expand with 3, go to the bottom layer and add the colour, select none

Repeat those steps until the complete image is coloured, making sure you do the ‘selecting’ on the layer with the typed letter, and change to the bottom layer to add the colours.

You can save the unmerged coloured image as a psp file, so you can always open it at a later time and add different colours.

Now, what I want to do is make a sticker of this letter. To do this:

Merge all visible layers. Make sure you are on the layer with the image and go to

selections -> select all
selections -> float
selections -> change -> expand -> 15

Add a new layer and move it to the bottom. While on the bottom layer, fill the selection with white

selections -> select none

To give it a bit of dimension go to: effect -> 3D effects -> inside bevel

these are the settings I used

Merge all visible layers, copy the layer and paste it as a new image – this way you’ll end up with only the image and no extra blank space around it. To keep the transparency: Save as a png file.

Et voila, done!

And here’s the freebie I promised: Letters A-Z coloured, all png files 300 dpi

Download Mousie Alpha 4.78 MB

If you download the freebie, or use the tutorial to colour your choice of font, please leave some love. Constructive feedback is very much appreciated!

Back in July Manon, my daughter, found something on the internet: Lucky Stars. I’d never seen them before but it turns out that it’s something very old, used in the Japanese folding art ‘Origami’.

They are so cute and when you have a bunch of them together, they really look lovely.
You can buy different sets of ready made strips in shops, some expensive, some cheap, but there are loads of them free available for download, just google for ‘lucky stars paper’. It’s a bit more work (and maybe more expensive) as you have to print and cut them, but there’s a wide variety. I’ve learned that some people are having trouble finding them in shops, and downloading them from the internet is a great option.

But… while I was looking at the sheets of paper Manon was downloading… I thought: hey, I can do that and decided to design them myself 🙂
The first set I made is blue and each strip has Manon’s name on it, but the possibilities are endless!

To help you on your way, here’s a great video tutorial on folding the actual star

As Manon has been folding days on end – and believe me, you need A LOT of stars to show them off! We decided to put them in a glass jar. The effect wasn’t really what we were hoping for. With so many colours and patterns together in 1 jar they looked messy.
So… on one of our regular Ikea trips, we found a set of 4 cuter than cute mini glass jars and bought one set, so we could see what the stars would look like when we sorted them (somewhat) by colour. We both loved the end results, so now we’re forced *cough* to make another trip to Ikea and buy some more jars.

And as I’ve made several patterned papers, I’ll put them here available for download.

Print, cut and fold – Have fun!

Download Lucky Stars Papers 3.1 MB

For people who are not into Harry Potter, skip this post 🙂
For people who are into Harry Potter, but who didn’t get their Pottermore owl yet and who don’t want to read any SPOILERS, skip this post 🙂

June 23rd, JKR had some wonderful news for all Harry Potter fans!

Not too long after that Pottermore announced that 1 million people would be able to earn early access by finding a quill, after answering a question. When the question would pop up was a mystery (and after all there are 24 hours in a day, some of which I had to sleep :p).
So we knew that the question would appear for five days in a row – each day a different question of course (so only 5 chances to get in), ánd that the question would disappear when a certain amount of people got the question right.
Of course I missed the question on the first day!
The second day I went to Pottermore the moment my Lunchbreak began and lo and behold, the question was there! I couldn’t believe my eyes!! Didn’t have the books at hand, so I went to a Pottermore group at Facebook I joined and found the answer to the question, rushed back to Pottermore and was taken to a Warner Bros picture gallery, when I scrolled through the pics, the quill was there! Clicked it and got the confirmation that I was one of the lucky few who would get in early. (I know ‘a few’ sounds odd as 1 mill people will get early access, but considering how many HP fans there are worldwide, 1 mill is a few in my book).

Then the loooong wait for the second email began. Soon learned that about 20,000 people were allowed to log in to Pottermore but that there were a lot of glitches – the site is still in Beta – and that they had postponed letting more people in.
Finally – after weeks of checking my email and spam twice every hour or so :p – I got my ‘owl’ yesterday. Of course it was way past my bedtime, but I decided to take a peek anyway. And when I was there, how could I possibly go to sleep without getting my wand and being sorted??? The sorting hat was what I feared most. I’ve been a Hufflepuff all my HarryPotterLife and I was so scared that I would be sorted into another house! (It happened to other people, who were left in shock and are now suffering from an identity crisis, lol).
But all the worrying was for nothing as I was sorted into Hufflepuff, yay! Pat, a dear friend ever since we met in the Hufflepuff Common Room at an online HP community we both joined 10 years ago, is sorted into Hufflepuff as well 🙂

I’ve already spent quite a few hours at Pottermore and it’s amazing. The images are so beautiful, there’s lots and lots of information about the books and – the best part, at least for me – is reading all the background information JKR had in her head but not written in the books. How a character grew up, what his or her hobbies were, how some of the characters and places got their names, it’s a fascinating read!
I also like the personal video messages from JKR that you’ll find on several stages, it’s like she addresses me personally, which is awesome 🙂

Is it all hurrahs then? No. To be honest, I think the site could be more lifely. For one, there’s no sound, which could make the experience more interesting. Having said that, many people hate music added to sites, so if they add sounds/music, there should also be a button to switch it off.
Secondly, as one of the goals of Pottermore is to protect young children, each and every comment you make is under moderation. It may take a while before it appears on the site. I do understand the safety measure, but I grew tired of waiting for the okay and stopped commenting altogether.

There are things you can do, like finding objects and galleons on every page, which are added to your trunk. Some ingredients are used to brew potions – which is quite fun (although my first cauldron exploded, what a mess!). The shopping spree in Diagon Alley was very very special. It felt like reliving the book, made me feel like a young witch, ready for her first year at Hogwarts, browsing through those magical shops and buying the familiar items, like cauldrons, spellbooks, etc. I bought a cat (of course I bought a cat) but I’m not sure if I would’ve opted for a white owl, if that would’ve been available. Gotta love Hedwig!
The other thing you can do is a Wizard’s Duel. Well… I’ve been practising spells and… ermm… let’s just say I need a bit more practising – LOL. I honestly doubt if I will ever be good enough, but I don’t mind.
This Hufflepuff is trustworthy and loyal… not brave though 🙂

To be continued, I’m sure.

This morning I was woken up by a hysterical Sabine, who shouted: Mom, mom, hurry, there’s something wrong with Cookie. Rink called from downstairs: I’m going to call the vet. Then I knew something was terribly wrong and rushed downstairs.

Cookie was laying on her favourite chair, but her front paws were pointing in a weird direction. I tried to straighten them and she never even blinked. I saw her breathing, so knew she was still alive, but that it didn’t take much for her to die.

We drove to the vet and he told us what we probably already knew, that she was in a coma and there was nothing he could do. So he gave her that nasty last shot, which is so painful to watch, and we had to let her go…

Having cats – or any pet – live in your house is wonderful, they’re companions, they trust you, they worship you with all their heart, they comfort you in times of sadness, they never betray you… but they always go first.

Goodbye sweetie, we love and miss you xxx