In my little mini-series of working with journaling on patterned papers, I’ve already mentioned a few strategies. But there are even more ways of how you can make your journaling stand out on  patterned papers. Another method I’ll discuss today:

Creating Journaling Strips

 

The magic word for this solution – and one that I’ve started to use over and over on my own pages – is: Journaling Strips. You can have the wildest patterns going on on your pages, but if you use journaling strips, none of that matters.

Take a look at some sample pages of mine, where I used journaling strips on patterned background papers:

And this, of course, was a more recent P2D feature:

The plus side of journaling strips is: They usually are really easy to create, you can use them on all sort of pages, and they usually do a really good job at drawing attention to your journaling (even on solid backgrounds).

 

How to Create a Journaling Strip

 

STEP 1 | Use the Shape Tool to Create a Clipping Mask
Press U to open your Shape Tool and make sure your Rectangle Tool is selected (somewhere at the top left of your Photoshop window), or the Rounded Rectangle Tool, if you want to create a rectangle with rounded corners. Clicking somewhere on your canvas, draw a rectangle shape.

STEP 2 | Clip a Solid Paper to Your Clipping Mask
Pick a paper from your digi stash – make sure it’s solid – open it in Photoshop, and drag it onto your canvas. Make sure you place it right above the rectangular shape layer, then clip it to that mask by hovering with your cursor between those two layers. Press Alt, and a little symbol of two overlapping circles should appear. Click once, and your paper will be clipped to the shape of your rectangle.

STEP 3 | Add Your Journaling
Begin to write something on your journal strip. If you need more space for journaling, just duplicate your journal strip.

STEP 4 | Merge Layers
After you’ve finished your journaling, you can merge the two layers of clipping mask and paper by selecting both layers in the Layers Panel and then hitting windows key + E. You don’t want to merge the text layer, though, just in case you have to edit something later on.

Tip:
When working with journaling strips, I usually begin by creating a couple of strips (but without merging the layers yet). Then I add my journaling (usually individually on top of every strip), then I adjust my journaling strip (longer, shorter) to make it fit my lines of journaling better, and lastly, I merge the clipping mask with the paper layer before I add the shadows and make final arrangements (angle, etc.).

 

Here are two more samples of using journal strips on patterned papers:

 

You can find Part 1 of this series HERE.
You can find Part 2 of this series HERE.