I just put together a FB Page for Trina Eliza Designs. Come join me on Facebook.

On Friday, May 29th, Always Something Thrift Store was robbed of over $4000! Since so much money was stolen, they can not afford the operation costs. 

Despite these unfortunate events, the thrift store will continue to push forward and help people, but they need your support to undo the damage. Please help Always Something get back on its feet! 
Whether you can give a dollar or ten or a hundred, anything would make a big difference! 

A GoFundMe page was setup. Any donation, no matter how big or small, is greatly appreciated!

A little about the thrift store: Always Something is a non-profit located in Everett, Washington and they depend on volunteers and donations to keep the store going. All proceeds go to benefit local charities: Salt of the Earth Food Bank, Kids Dream Clothing Drive & Kiera Cares (Both Sponsored by There's Always Something), Wanda Jankelson Foundation for Healthcare & Research & the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.

Many changes have happened to Trina Eliza Designs. Since a new year will soon be approaching, I decided to give my website a little makeover.

Recently, a brand new photography section has been added to Trina Eliza Designs. The photos were taken over a course of one year in Washington State and Las Vegas. Since I'm a recent transplant to Washington, I have very much enjoyed going on mini-road trips with my family and exploring this beautiful state with my camera. 

I hope you enjoy the photos!

Happy New Year!

My gallery of ugly!

Last night, I took a trip down memory lane while organizing some files on my laptop. As I was going through each file, I came across a few Photoshop projects from 6 years ago and for a good laugh, I wanted to share them with you. 

If you asked me what I was thinking when I created these things, I couldn't tell you. At the time, I was just excited to get my first copy of Photoshop. For better or for worse, I experimented with all the filters and tools that Photoshop had to offer. I created birthday cards for my parents by stitching together random photos and applying filters. Even though they were disastrously bad, I didn't care. To me, it was all about having fun and learning my new software.

As I was going through each project, I became very humbled.  I've come a long way as a graphic designer. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated, "Every artist was first an amateur."

If you are new to graphic design, then don't get discourage if you mess up or even create a Photoshop monstrosity like I did. In design school, you are expected to make mistakes and learn from them. I sometimes look back at my old school projects and question why I made that font or layout choice. I learned from those mistakes and moved on to create better work. It takes time to perfect your craft. This involves countless hours of practice and keeping up-to-date on the latest design techniques, trends, and most importantly, knowledge. Even when you are done with school, never stop learning. Read design books, blogs, magazines, or watch video tutorials on YouTube.  You will create better work 
that way.

So don't be ashamed of your earlier projects. See it as a testament to how far you have come as a designer.

Chalkboards are everywhere! They are not only used in school, but in decor and design projects. In this tutorial, I'm going to teach you how to create a chalk-effect with just about any font.

A while ago, I was asked by Always Something Thrift Store to create a 'Secret Coupon' for them using a chalkboard effect. For this tutorial, I'm going to use some of the design elements from that project. 


Note: Click on any image to view in larger size.

See Red Arrow 1: Select the Type Tool in the Tools Panel. See Red Arrow 2: Go to the top and select a font of your choosing. For this tutorial, I selected the font, Honey Script Semi Bold. See * Go to the Color Picker and select a color of your choosing. See Red Arrow 3: Make a copy of the layer with the text on it.  With the copied layer selected, right click the layer and select Rasterize Layer. Rasterizing the layer will enable you to edit it.

See Red Arrow 1: Make sure to keep the copied layer selected. See Red Arrow 2: At the top, go to Filter>Stylize>Diffuse. 
See Red Arrow 3: A Dialogue Box will appear. Select Darken Only and hit OK.

If you felt like the diffuse effect was a little too much, you can always tone it down by going to See Red Arrow 1: Edit>Fade.
* A Dialogue Box will appear and you  can move the slider to any number you want.

Now our font has some texture to it, but it doesn't look realistic enough. I'm going to add some more texture using a picture of dust and scratches, When you find a similar picture, See Red Arrow 1: Go to File>Place Embedded or File>Place depending on which version of CS you are using.

See Red Arrow 1: With the textured layer selected, go to Image>Adjustments>Invert. This will give the image a negative effect. 

See Red Arrow 1: Hold the Shift Key down and select the textured layer and the secret coupon layer. With both layers selected, hold down the Alt Key and move your arrow to the center of the two layers. A black arrow and a white box symbol will appear. As you're holding the Alt Key down, select the two layers. 

The texture has been instantly applied to the text! As you can see here, it has made the text white. It looks great, but we still want that blue color. Continue to the last step!

See Red Arrow 1: Only have the textured layer selected. See Red Arrow 2: Go to Opacity and move the slider down to 50%. 

I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section below. Thank you.

It has been awhile since I've been blogging. Many changes have happened in the past couple of months: moving from Nevada to Washington and finally landing a job! In addition, I've been keeping busy with freelance gigs.

Now that everything is starting to settle down, I will continue blogging about graphic design.
More design tips and news will be coming, so stay tuned!