Hey Bella Friends! Can I let you in on a secret? I have never, ever created a digital scrapbooking layout before today. And I was scared to complete this assignment. I absolutely love everything about traditional scrapping, but do you know what? This experience was rather enlightening. The hardest decision was choosing which Bella Blvd digital kit I wanted to work with and Pop Quiz won!
To get over my initial reluctance to enter the world of digital scrapbooking, I went ahead and started to play. If you are at all like me and have no idea where to start with this process, then I am in good company! Here's a look at my finished layout.
From a design element, I stayed true to what I knew. My layout size is still 8.5x11 and has plenty of white space on the page. By doing this, I felt comfortable enough to just delve in. For the digital novice however, here's what you will need to try this creativity at home: Photoshop Elements (or photo editing software); digital scrapbooking kit; digital photo/s.
My starting point was to choose which digital elements I wanted to help document my story. The image below shows the papers and embellishments I used on my page.
step 1. Open a new blank file in PSE. I resized the file to 8.5"x11" and changed the pixel resolution to 300. If you work with 12"x12" traditional pages, I recommend that you continue using that size digitally, until you are comfortable to change it up! Once I had a background layer I then started to import the digital papers to the blank file. Just drag the image onto that blank file. The digital paper will be too large for the 8.5x11 file so to resize, use your mouse and click on the corner of the image. Drag the arrows on the digital paper making it smaller or larger as required.
For the thinner strips of digital paper at the bottom of the layout, I cropped from the original imported paper and moved them to my background layer. In PSE there's a "layers" drop down box on the right side. This indicates where your digital files sit on the background layer. Just like with traditional paper, you can move these layers forward or backwards by clicking on the individual layer and moving it up or down in this box.
step 2. Having my general, go-to design elements in mind, I started to place digital embellishments in clusters at the top of my page and around my photo layer. I resized and rotated the embellishments to suit my layout style, relying on having white space at the top of my page. Again I have used the PSE layers box to help position the embellishments to work for my layout.
step 3. It gets easier from here! Once I am happy with my embellishment placement, I added my journaling text to a 3x4 card. The class schedule digital card was sized slightly smaller to sit on top of the lap top 3x4 digital card. I chose a typewriter style font to go along with the back-to-school theme I was documenting.
step 4. To complete my digital page I placed the What I Learned embellishment and title (as indicated by the arrows on the image below) to the top layers of the layout. The title was created using mixed fonts in coordinating colours. Click on the Text Tool in PSE to source your desired fonts. After typing your text, you can alter the size by clicking the mouse arrow on the corner of the title box. The colour can be changed in the PSE colour menu. To access this, double click on the text box. The colour menu can be found in the text menu bar.
Finally the last layer of digital paper (black) was placed behind all the others to help make the photo and embellishments pop.
step 5. When you are happy with your digital masterpiece, save your work! To keep an editable copy, save as a psd file. However, if you've completed your page and there's nothing else you'd like to add, flatten all the digital layers by saving it as a jpg file. Each option can be found in the format box, under the file name box when saving.
Phew! We did it! Thanks for joining me today. Hopefully with this basic tutorial, I can help someone who has always wanted to try digital scrapbooking but doesn't know where to start. And trust me. If I can do this, anyone can! *grin* Good luck!
Digital Products: Pop Quiz Designer Papers; Borders & 3x4s; Embellishment Pack
