Scrap Freebees

Since yesterday's post was somewhat of a downer I decided to remove it. Today I thought I'd share a little of what I've been up to lately with respect to scrapping. I just love how this paper looks hand painted. I think it would be really great for a pre-teen or teen boy page, but could be used for almost anythng.

click to download blue striped painted paper
click here to download the bracket journalling block

Some of you may have seen the really cute "bracket" papers and journalling blocks and wondered how the heck they are done. Well, it's simple really. On your keyboard there is an actual bracket key (I also like to use the square brackets). In Photoshop, open a new document to your desired size. I set mine up as 8"x8", 300 pixels per inch and colour as Adobe RGB 1998. On a new layer, select your text tool from the tool bar and then bump up the size to a pretty big number. You'll probably want to set your font size to at least 300 (this one is 500 pts because I wanted lots of space for journalling). To do this, look at the top tool bar and you can see the font name and then you'll also see two Ts (this is the font size).

After selecting the size you can leave it a solid colour by using the colour picker or you can ad a custom paper. This is where it gets fun. One little bracket can look totally different everytime you use it if you so desire. I've talked before about "clipping" and how once I learned this through Jessica Sprague, I've never looked back. Clipping is your friend.

Select the "bracket" layer of your document (the layer you typed on). Now go ahead and open up a digi paper of your choice. If you don't have one you can use the blue striped paper I used. Go ahead and download it by clicking on the link above if you wish. Now click the "paper" and while holding the shift key down drag your paper onto your bracket document. This will centre your paper on your document.

Now, here's the magic. Over on your layers pallet hover your mouse between the paper layer and the bracket layer. When you see it change to a circle with an arrow click down. Just like magic you have masked your layer, and now you have a lovely patterned paper as your bracket.

Don't forget that you can resize your pattern paper if you like by hovering your mouse over a corner of your paper and then hold shift and drag to resize. You can also hover over a corner...once you see a curved arrow you can rotate the "paper" to give it an entirely different look. You can also move your paper around to select a different part of the pattern. All this without touching or "damaging" your original paper.

Let me know if I help you out with any of the tips I share.

Today is a full-on work day for me. I didn't get much accomplished yesterday, so it's double duty today. That's just how it is with me. Remember...all or nothing. I really have to change this!

Have a great one folks!