Hello again! Did you get a chance to try out the template and techniques from Wednesday? If so please upload to the flickr group so we can see! If you got stumped along the way and have any questions just ask away in the comments.
Today we'll look at other ways to use your computer to create hybrid projects. One of the simplest ways is by printing files out onto cardstock or other papers, similar to using overlays as described yesterday. I'll divide today's techniques up into two kinds: using files that are commonly called printables, and using standard digital scrapbooking files.
Printables usually come in two files types, either as Word documents (.doc) or as Adobe PDf files. These are files that you can open up in Word or with Adobe Reader (respectively) and print directly onto paper, cardstock or transparencies. You can find an example in this post from Marnie from September. She included two freebie PDF downloads. You can print those out and cut them up to use on your pages, in minibooks or other projects.
The internet abounds with these kind of printable files. Many are free downloads created by generous designers. But you can also purchase PDF files from digital scrapbooking sites and sites like Etsy. One of the most common kind you find in scrapbooking is printable journaling blocks. Here are some free 12 days of Christmas tags from ormulu. You can also find a whole host of journaling tags and labels here on Creativity prompt.
Here are a couple pages made by Monika which use the same printable journaling block. This was a download created by Cathy Zielske back in the day.
The original download no longer exists, but Cathy kindly allowed Monika to recreate the template. You can download them by clicking on the following links. Download Cztemplate_monikawright_8.5x11 Download Cztemplate_monikawright_12x12 Thank you CathyZ!
One of the great things about using digital proucts is that they can be used over and over again! There is a limitation with PDF files though. You can't make changes to them like resizing or changing the colour. With standard scrapbooking digital elements however, you have more control over how they can be used. Many digital kits include patterned papers and embellishments. The files usually come in a .png format, which is a format that is used by Photoshop and other photo editing software.
To resize an element you can use the same process I described for resizing photos in my tutorial on Tuesday: Edit>Transform>Scale in Photoshop, or Image>Resize>Scale in Elements.
For example on this page I re-sized the postage stamp frame to use for my journaling.
You can also see that I mixed in some digital word art with the regular font. Those words in script came from a digital sticker set by Karla Dudley.
You can print other kinds of digital elements too.
Supplies:
Sophistication Journaling Tags by Sara Schmutz Daisy Jane Paper Bits by Carina Gardner Kraft Cardstock
On the page above I resized some labels so they would fit in my circle punch and arranged them all in a letter sized document in Photoshop. Then I printed out the sheet. You can see a tutorial explaining this here.
Lisa printed out a variety of things for this page.
The 11, Oh Snap and house tags are all digital elements that she printed out.
"But what, Francine", you're probably asking, "should I print all this stuff out on?" Well it really depends on you. I generally use cardstock or photo paper. I recently discovered that I prefer the look of digital elements printed onto mat photo paper, because they looks more like real paper products. I generally use cardstock only for printing things like journaling or overlays. When I do a photo/patterned paper grouping like the My Family page on Wednesday, I use glossy photo paper, the highest quality I can afford. Try different papers to see what works best for your pages!
You can also print out the patterned papers from digital kits and use them just like regular scrapbook paper: with your punches or die cutting machines for example
All the papers on this layout are ones I printed out from this kit and this kit.
This close up shows the heart and circle that I punched out, as well as the bird that I stamped and then cut out.
One last one for the road.
The bunting, labels, notebook paper and photo corner are all printed out digital elements.
I know this is a lot to take in. It does all seem overwhelming at first, so if you have any questions about how I did anything please do leave them in the comments!
Tomorrow I'll round out the week with a look at all the other things you can use digital kits and printables for.
Until then,
