Hi there! It's Celeste back hosting this week. A few months ago the lovely Rebecca Cooper hosted a week that introduced us to digital scrapbooking. This week, I'm going to focus on some next steps, kind of a Digi Scrap 102. I'll share some tips and tricks to help you easily add punch to your digital pages. Some of the tips I'll share will also help paper scrappers - so hey you, over there with the scissors, don't tune out! And everyone be sure to read the postscript below!
Today we are going to focus on Templates. Back in February, Rebecca shared downloadable instructions on how to use a template and Crystal Wilkerson provided a fabulous video on how to get started as well. If you are just starting out, take a moment and check out those resources!
To start, I created this template for all of you to play with. As you can see, you can use the large block for a photo and the smaller blocks could be papers or photos. The choice is yours. To download the template, click on the image.
I filled in the blocks and added my title and journaling much in the same way Crystal discusses in the video to create this page about my niece and her dog, Sadie. I added some digital stitching, a couple extra buttons, and a clip to personalize the template.
Digital templates are great starting points for pages. You can use them as is, like I did above or you can change them up a bit for different looks.
Above Francine Clouden rotated the template 90 degrees clockwise. Then pulled the journaling back to the bottom of the page. To accomplish this in Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS, simply go to Image > Image Rotation and select 90° CW. Then in the Layers Palette, click on the Journaling layer and go to Edit > Transform > Rotate 90° CW. Using the Move tool on the Tools palette (this looks like an arrow with a plus), click on the Journaling layer and drag it to the bottom of the page.
Another easy way to change up a template is to shrink or stretch the template. In the Layers palette, select all of the layers except the background layer. You can use the CTRL key and a click of your mouse to select multiple layers. Then go to Edit > Free Transform and while holding down the shift key, use your mouse to resize the layers either bigger or smaller. As you can see, Ann Costen stretched the template to fill more of the page. Then using the same process for rotating the journaling; she rotated the title and placed it on the left edge to balance out the page. I love how she filled the template with photos!
Other template changes include resizing from 12x12 to 8.5x11, using blocks for photos instead of papers, and only using parts of the template to create your page. Paper scrappers, this same technique can be used with sketches. It's a great way to get more than one look out of a sketch!
To close the day, I thought I'd share some places you can go and download free digital scrapbooking templates. Paper scrappers check out these sites and use the templates as sketches!
If you create a page with the template, I'd love to see it! Post it in our Flickr gallery and link me up here! I'll be back tomorrow with more digi tips. Stay tuned!
P.S. I made the banner using Julie Billingsley's kit Rule the School available at Sweet Shoppe Designs! And keep this on the down low (i.e. don't tell the boss lady) shhhhh! Julie is a sweetheart and offered up a little giveaway to one lucky commenter. You'll get a copy of Rule the School for free! Leave a comment on this thread (you have until Thursday Midnight EST) and I'll pull a winner and post on Friday.
