Did you ever wonder how to turn text into an outline? Well, I have the answer for you, in this new quick and easy tutorial. The Background Story (you can skip this part, if you’re only interested in the tutorial) I’ve started working on my December Daily project for this year, and I decided to go with the inspiration by Ali Edwards. She created a set of 6×8 overlays to use as foundation pages. I really like that style for my own album this year. The only problem: The size. Living outside the US, we just don’t have letter sized paper, and for printing purposes it would be really impractical for me to use her set of overlays. So I decided to create my own overlays – quite similar to hers (I only added a month field to the date corner, because my project already starts in November). Looking at Ali’s set, I really love how the letters overlap, and simply rasterizing the type doesn’t do the trick to retain that overlapping. So I had …

I have another really simple and quick tutorial for you today. When working on one of my CT pages for Libby the other day, I really wanted to use another one of those pretty papers she and Meghan had put together in their new release “Fullness of Life,” but I already had lots of papers in use, and couldn’t find how to add another one without messing up the entire page. Then a light went off! Using a template, there was still one ribbon that needed to be replaced, and I thought: Why not use that patterned paper for that ribbon? But I still wanted to make it look realistic, and really like a ribbon. Well, I thought, that’s easy peasy, just clip and apply a blending mode and that’ll do the trick. Here, take a look at my finished page: See that ribbon with the hearts behind the photo? This is what we are going to recreate today. In this tutorial you will learn how to … … clip a paper to a ribbon …

The other day, I created a layout on which I used a leaf for my journaling, and after uploading it to the gallery, I got several comments because of that, so I thought, today I’d show you how to create a journal mat just like that, using custom shapes and working with a text path. Anyways, I haven’t done a tutorial in so long, it’s really time for something new … In this tutorial you will learn how  to … … create a custom shape and clip a paper to it; … ink the edges for a more worn look; … create a text path from a custom shape and fill it with your journaling; … add a border to your shape. Here is how it works … Step 1: Create a Custom Shape On your canvas, go to “Custom Shapes” (U), choose a shape, and holding down the shift key, create a proportional shape. Step 2: Rasterize Shape Rasterize the shape.   Step 3: Create an Expanded Selection With the Magic Wand Tool (W), …

I’m excited, because today I’m going to show you one of my favorite techniques in digi-scrapping. I use it on almost every single page I create, and even though the title says that it’s related to fonts, you really can use it for everything – photos, brushes, stamps, rub-ons; everything that you put directly on a textured paper and want the texture to show through. The Example Let me give you an example: You’re writing something on a paper background, but that background has wrinkles and folds. Simply placing your text on top of that will make your journaling look unnatural, and as if the font is kind of floating. That’s what you do not want to happen! Take a look at this page that I created back in April: It has some journaling on some pretty wrinkled/folded paper. Now, let’s take a closer look at the journaling:   This is what the journaling would look like, if I don’t make any adjustments to the text. The letters simply ignore the folds, which makes everything …

Of course, there are lots of free templates that offer scalloped mats, and lots of digiscrap kits come with scalloped mats for journaling, etc. Sometimes, however, you just need to create your own in order to meet your needs. Or searching for those shapes to use them for clipping masks can take up a lot of time, to. Today, therefore, I’m going to share how very simply and with little effort you can create your own scalloped mats. I’ll create a round mat, but you can do any other shape as well. Here’s how it works: Step 1: Create a Path If you are working on a layout already, simply add a new layer (windows key + shift + N) to your canvas (or open a new canvas and add a new layer. Choose the shape tool (I picked the Ellipse Tool for the round shape), and make sure you select the path option (at the top right of your photoshop screen).           Holding the shift key, draw a circle. Step …

Have you ever looked at those shabby vintage style products and wondered how you could get your page to look a little more shabby? I certainly have. Many times. Especially when I use some background paper to clip to a strip for a label or journaling strip, and the result just doesn’t look shabby at all. But then I found a super easy way to actually get that shabby look, and all it takes is just a few steps in photoshop. Take a look at this page: There are several places where I clipped papers to a shape, and without inking the edges the result would look something like this: Then I inked the edges, and this is how that turned out: Pay attention to the edges … So, if you would like to know how to get that effect, here’s the deal: Inked Edges Step 1: In the layers panel, select the layer of the paper/photo/element you want to modify. Double click the layer in the panel to open up the Layer Style dialogue …