Tutorial- Make your own wood veneer digital elements

This might just be the single silliest page I’ve ever made. And the one that took the longest to make. And possibly the second layout I’ve made with a Katy Perry song. And I looove it! Like super duper love it. I learned so much making this page!

Using wood on your scrapbook pages is a huge trend in the scrapbooking world. More in paper scrapbooking than digital it seems. I’ve been watching a ton of Two Peas videos lately and it seems like there is at least a little wood veneer on every page. I did a bit of searching for similar products in the digital world, but couldn’t find much.

Luckily for me, Tiff has some CT wood products, so I got to play around and make my own. Just like my new obsession for making my own flairs, making my own wood elements has been a really fun learning experience.

I “wood-ified” the title by typing my text, simplifying the layer, then applying this layer style. Super simple.

The arrows were done by using the arrow shapes that come in PSE, simplifying those, and adding a style as well.

I downloaded these custom circle shapes to get the arrows inside the circles. To get custom shapes into PSE, download your files and find the file with a .csh extension. Copy that file into Macintosh HD-> Applications -> Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 -> Support Files -> Presets -> Custom Shapes. (They don’t make it easy to load shapes like they do for brushes and styles in PSE11).

For the joined hearts, I used one of these heart shapes. I duplicated it twice, then arranged them so they were in a line touching each other. I simplified the layers, then merged them, making them all on one layer. Then I applied the wood styles.

For the wooden “hello”, I used this font to type out the words I wanted to use. (note, if you want to use the font commercially, you need to purchase a license) Then I drew the outline of the shape I wanted to surround the words with, in this case, a rectangle. I moved it around so that the bottom of the word would touch the edge of the inside of the rectangle, Then I simplified all the layers and merged them before adding the layer style.

The talk bubble “wow” was a bit trickier to figure out. There isn’t an “outline of a talk bubble” custom shape, so I figured out how to make one. (with the help of Professor Google). I drew a regular talk bubble shape on my LO using the custom shape tool. Then I simplified the shape and added a stroke to the outside (right click your shape and select “edit layer style”. Check the Stroke box and play around with the slider until you get the thickness you want).Then I used the Magic Wand tool to select my talk bubble. It should only select the area inside the Stroke. Then I hit delete, which made the talk bubble disappear, leaving just the outline. After that, I just added words like in the above paragraph and continued from there.

That may seem like a lot of work, but once you’ve done it a couple of times, it goes by pretty quickly. And if you’re like me and want to make your own customized ellies, it’s definitely worth the time!

Credits-
In This Moment kit
Wood It Be overlays
Bead Blast 1
All by Inspired by Dominic
Wood veneers made by me using Wood it Shine Layer Styles by Inspired by Dominic
Flairs made by me using Bekah E’s Clear Layer Styles
Fonts- Katy Berry, Lobster, and Always in My Heart

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.

Tutorial- Putting maps on your layouts using Aperture (or iPhoto)

This layout is super simple. I wanted the map to be the focal point. It shows all the places Little Man traveled during this summer. From California to Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm, then our summer trip, with stops in Richmond, Washington D.C., Morgantown, West Virginia, back to D.C., then back down, passing through Charlotte, North Carolina. Then at the end of the summer he went to Gainesville and Atlanta with the gp’s before ending up in his new home in North Dakota. He is one well travelled kid!

I made the map using the iBooks feature in Aperture (you can do the same thing in iPhoto as well).

Here’s a quick tutorial on getting these kinds of maps onto your scrapbook pages.

1. Open a new book and choose the Journal theme.
2. Scroll through until you find the page with the map. (I’m sure there’s a way to just add the map, but I’m not sure how)
3. You can decide to keep or delete the small photo spot in the corner. I got rid of it on mine.
4. Double-click on the map to bring up the Map Options menu.
5. Click the plus sign at the bottom and start adding places. (If you want to add lines later, make sure you add the places in order that you travelled so the arrows will point correctly).
6. You can change up the look of your map by clicking the gear icon at the bottom of the Map Options menu. This gives you options for lines and arrows, plus an option to return to your starting point, for round trips.
7. At the top of the Map Options menu, you can adjust the size of your map by adjusting the zoom slider.
8. Once you have your map the way you want, go to File and Print Book.
9. In the Pages drop down menu, select Single and type in the page of your map.
10. At the bottom of the Print screen, click on PDF and Save as PDF. You can then open your saved PDF in Photoshop and add it to your layout by dragging it into your canvas.

Layout Credits-
Just Around the Bend by Mandy King

I hope this can help anyone who’s looking to add maps to their pages! If you have other ways to add different maps to layouts, I’d love to hear them!