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May 25, 2010
A Simple Approach to Album-Making
I love making albums and recently discovered that there is actually a method to my album-making madness:
I build my album two pages at a time.
That's it. And this ridiculously simple method works. Like magic.
First, it helps to break your album project down to small, manageable tasks. I feel a sense of accomplishment with every two pages that I finish and that motivates me to keep going. And from a design standpoint, working with two pages - treating the left and right pages as a collective - helps to ensure that they are cohesive and will flow well together.
This approach works whether you are building a new album from scratch or trying to corral your layouts into an album (one that looks aesthetically pleasing and has a semblance of order). No small task if your layouts are anything like mine - a lovely collection of mish mosh eclecticness.
I think most of us are in this mish mos boat together? We don't scrapbook chronologically, we don't use the same kits over and over again, and to make things extra mish-moshy, we also like to experiment with different styles and try new artistic techniques. Hence, we end up with a collection of great pages that don't necessarily match.
And I rather like it that way. I like being able to treat a new layout as an individual art project. I don't want to worry about how it will coordinate with the last layout I made and how it will look in a book. If I get caught up in those details, it would take all the fun out of scrapbooking (you know, the creative freedom part) and I'd probably never get any pages done.
What I wasn't so wild about was taking the daunting task of organizing this eclectic-ness. So I put it off and put it off and then put it off some more. Then one day, I was staring at the photo collage on my wall:
I like the way the layouts look next to photos. Why not use the layout + photo format to make the album?
click to see entire album
For more album ideas, please visit my blog.
Download this layered template for free from my paislee press shop and give this approach a try. Happy album building!
download template
I build my album two pages at a time.
That's it. And this ridiculously simple method works. Like magic.
First, it helps to break your album project down to small, manageable tasks. I feel a sense of accomplishment with every two pages that I finish and that motivates me to keep going. And from a design standpoint, working with two pages - treating the left and right pages as a collective - helps to ensure that they are cohesive and will flow well together.
This approach works whether you are building a new album from scratch or trying to corral your layouts into an album (one that looks aesthetically pleasing and has a semblance of order). No small task if your layouts are anything like mine - a lovely collection of mish mosh eclecticness.
I think most of us are in this mish mos boat together? We don't scrapbook chronologically, we don't use the same kits over and over again, and to make things extra mish-moshy, we also like to experiment with different styles and try new artistic techniques. Hence, we end up with a collection of great pages that don't necessarily match.
And I rather like it that way. I like being able to treat a new layout as an individual art project. I don't want to worry about how it will coordinate with the last layout I made and how it will look in a book. If I get caught up in those details, it would take all the fun out of scrapbooking (you know, the creative freedom part) and I'd probably never get any pages done.
What I wasn't so wild about was taking the daunting task of organizing this eclectic-ness. So I put it off and put it off and then put it off some more. Then one day, I was staring at the photo collage on my wall:
I like the way the layouts look next to photos. Why not use the layout + photo format to make the album?
click to see entire album
For more album ideas, please visit my blog.
Download this layered template for free from my paislee press shop and give this approach a try. Happy album building!
download template
Giveaway
I'm sponsoring a giveaway for a $10 gift coupon to my paislee press shop! To enter for your chance to win, simply post a comment below before Friday, May 28th at 11:59pm (PST) to enter. You can get an extra chance to win if you tweet/facebook/blog this. Be sure to come back and post links to your tweet/facebook/or blog as a new comment entry for EACH thing you do. ONE winner will be drawn at random and announced shortly after the contest closes.Posted at 08:10 AM
December 1, 2009
Giving Thanks Digi Mini-Album Tutorial
Today at Ella we are THRILLED (beyond thrilled, actually, but we couldn't think of a word for that -- uber-thrilled?) to have talented digital scrapbook designer Liz Tamanaha of Paislee Press as a guest blogger! Liz has created a super-quick, super-easy, super-cute project that's suitable for any level of digital skill, from non-existent to extra-sassy! Read on for more fun...
Are your favorite moments and memories scattered all over the place?
Why not gather them up and put them in a mini-album?
I know what you're thinking: Who has the time, especially around the holidays? This album is such a breeze to put together, you can complete it in a matter of hours, even in the midst of the busy holiday season. That's right! If I (a.k.a. The Slowest Scrapbooker Ever) can pull this off, YOU most definitely can, too! It's a simple mini-album with a whole lot of heart: A collection of your favorite photos of the year and why you are thankful for these moments, in three easy steps:
1. Pick 10-12 of your favorite photos from this year.
2. Jot down why you are thankful for the moment or memory that the photo depicts.
3. Put the photo and the corresponding journaling side-by-side in the album.
Your top ten moments of the year are now all gathered in one place. Mission accomplished! (For more photos of the album I created, go here.)
This is as close to an "All About Me" book as I'm ever going to get! I'm thinking of doing one of these every year around Thanksgiving time. It'll be neat a few years from now to look through this collection of thankful moments and see how things have changed (or remained the same).
To make this project even easier for you, here is the journaling template I created to make the album. (Note: The template is available as both a .png and a layered .psd file so you can customize it to your heart's content!) 
If you're new to digital scrapbooking and Photoshop, never fear! Check out the tutorial below. Go grab the free journaling template and come back here to follow along as I walk you through the basics of how to create your first journaling page in Photoshop. You'll be pleasantly surprised to discover how easy and fun it is! (Note: This tutorial will work with Photoshop and most recent versions of Photoshop Elements. Don't have PSE? You can download a free trial version here!)
HOW TO USE THE JOURNALING TEMPLATE: A PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL
1. Open the Quick Page.
Open the quick page in Photoshop (File > open > navigate to where you saved paislee-iamthankful-white.png, select it, and click OPEN. Mac users: simply drag the paislee-iamthankful-white.png icon and drop it onto the Photoshop icon found on your navigation bar).
Your screen should look something like this now:
2. Add Your Text
Select your text tool.
Click on the file and drag your mouse to create your text box. Once you get the shape/size you want, release your mouse button.
Once you release your mouse, you will see a blinking line (that is your text cursor). Begin typing. Use the text tools at the top of the navigation bar to change text properties (font, size, color, etc.).
3. Customizing Text Color with the Eyedropper Function.
Here's what the page looks like so far with my journaling. It looks fine, but I think it would look better with a bit of color. I'm going to make the date and the first sentence red to match the heart. You can get exact color matches very easily in Photoshop using the eyedropper tool (this is one of my very favorite functions in Photoshop!).
HIGHLIGHT the text you want to color, then click on the Color Swatch Box at the top of the navigation bar. A color pop-up window will appear, and your mouse icon should now look like an eyedropper. Click on the heart and the color will change to red, as easy as that!
Click OK to confirm the color change. Your journal box should look something like this now. And your page is done! If this is your very first Photoshop creation, CONGRATULATIONS! There's just one last step...
4. Last Step: Saving the Layout
To save the layout, I recommend saving several versions: One as a .psd file (with the layers) so that you can go back and modify the layout, and a flattened .jpg version (a high-res file for printing, and a low-res file for posting online).
Saving the file as an editable .psd file:
FILE > SAVE AS > name of file.psd (make sure the file extension is .psd!)
Saving the layout for print:
1. Flatten your layout file: LAYERS > FLATTEN
2. Save the file as a high-resolution .jpg file: FILE > SAVE AS > name of file.jpg (quality = 10)
3. Save the file as a low-resolution .jpg file: FILE > SAVE AS > name of file.jpg (quality = 3)
For more information on saving files and file formats, check out this article in the October issue of Scrapbook Ellaments.
Posted at 07:22 AM
