I Wrote a Blog Post for Humble & Create and You Can Read It Too!

 The following is a re-post of a blog I wrote for Humble & Create (one of the designers I make pages for). So if you read it there, this is the same thing. But if you don't know what I'm talking about.... then read on! 

:)

I’m sure the burning question on everyone’s mind (note the sarcasm) is “I wonder how a guy would go about making a scrapbook page?” 

Well, here’s your chance to find out!

First let’s talk a little about how I organize things to get ready to make a page.  I have all my digital supplies saved on Dropbox. I organize things in folders first by designer, then by kit name, then by kit “piece” (you know, elements, journal cards, etc.).

So for the page I’m about to show you, I have a Dropbox folder for Humble & Create, and nested inside that folder is one called Turkey Day Kit, and inside that are folders for Turkey Day Elements, Turkey Day Journal Cards, Turkey Day Pattern Papers, and Turkey Day Solid Papers.  This method makes things easy for me to find when I go looking!

I start off the majority of my pages with picking out the photos. I tend to pick one or two central photos to focus the page around. Sometimes it’s a bunch of photos, though, depending on the subject matter.

I usually use the Project Life app to arrange my photos, because I can’t for the life of me get anything all lined up and evenly spaced! This helps do that part of it for me. So I pick a template in the Project Life app that has the orientation and sizes I want for my photo and drop it in.

Then, if I’m using a journal/pocket card, I’ll access it from its Dropbox location, and pull it into the template as well. See, I didn’t even have to worry about lining things up, I just used the Project Life app template!

If I want to make things easier, sometimes I will use the Project Life app’s Free Form Text journaling option and add my journaling to the card while I’m still in the app. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. If I know I want to line things up with the pre-printed lines on a journal card, it can be easier to do it with Free Form text in the app than later with a text box when I’m adding my other digital elements.

Ok, this next part may seem a little silly, but will all make sense the further you read, I promise! Within the Project Life app you can change the background color (the color used in between all the pockets). I want to change that background color to some obnoxious color that isn’t in any of my photos or on any of the cards I’ve chosen for the page. So for this page I’m going to choose a bright teal color. (Hang with me, it’ll make sense in a minute!)

Then I’m ready to get out of Project Life and finish the page digitally! So I export my page from the app, save it as a 12 x 12 image, and save it to Dropbox. The Project Life app will recognize that there are “empty” pockets and ask if you still want to export it. Yes, we do! We’re gonna fill those in elsewhere!

So when I go to check out this exported page in Dropbox, here’s what I’ll see. 

The Project Life app automatically fills in all those empty pockets with that teal color (or whatever color of background you had selected in the app). I am going to be removing all that empty teal space in just a second, but the reason I chose an obnoxious color is because I knew my photos and cards didn’t have that color in them. If I had chosen a white background and also had white edges on my photos or cards, when we get to the next step which is removing the background color, it would have removed part of my photo, too! There’s a picture below to illustrate. So when in doubt, choose an obnoxious background color that doesn’t match anything on your photos or cards, and you should be able to remove it easily. That’s the next part!

For the rest of my page creation process, I use a free, online program called Photopea (https://www.photopea.com/). It’s like a generic version of Photoshop, and it has the same types of features and buttons and layer panels that Photoshop does, just located in different spots and called something slightly different than what Photoshop calls them.

Next, I download my incomplete page from Dropbox onto my computer desktop so I can easily drag and drop it into Photopea. Then in Photopea, I simply drag my page onto the main work area.

So the first thing I want to do is get rid of that teal! I right-click the Object Selection tool on the left margin toolbar in Photopea, and choose the Magic Wand tool.

With that tool selected, I click somewhere in the teal space of my page. Everything inside the dotted lines (meaning all the teal) will be deleted when I hit the delete key on my keyboard! 

Here’s what using a white background would have looked like:

So, after I hit that delete key on my keyboard, here’s what I’m left with:

In Photopea, a checkered background means that there is nothing there. It’s transparent. We’re going to be filling this up with digital papers and elements from Humble & Create!

For everything else, I’m mostly going to be focusing on using the Layers panel on the right side of Photopea. Think of making your page this way. Everything is a layer. Layers on top of layers. In the Layers panel, whatever is listed at the top, is also the top layer of your page. So right now, all I have is my Background layer (that’s the name Photopea gives it automatically). What I want to do is to add a digital paper underneath that layer.

To make adding digital items easier, I take the supplies I think I want to use on the page and download them from their storage folder on Dropbox, and save a copy of them on my computer. I have a folder on my computer desktop called Page Building, and I pull in all the bits and pieces I think I’ll use on the page. If I find later that I need something else from Dropbox, I’ll just quickly download it and save it in Page Building, and keep going from there.

Now, I’ll walk through the steps of adding some background papers, and then it’s really just the same steps over and over arranging things in layers as you add them to the page!

When I have the paper I want to put under my photos/cards, I drag it from my computer folder onto the Layers panel and drop it under that Background layer (because I want my paper to be underneath my photos). It’s hard to see in this image, but there’s a dark line under that Background layer. That dark line is where this new layer will go when I drop it!

It’ll take a few seconds for your new layer to load in Photopea, but then you’ll see it—right where you wanted it—under your photo!

After that it’s really up to you how many additional layers you want to add to your page. Add elements, add more journal or pocket cards. You can add drop shadows to your layers (more on how to do that in this post I wrote last year). 

Add as much or as little to your page as you want. It’s your page after all! You might end up with something like this when you’re finished!

The best part, is that using a kit from Humble & Create makes creating a page a snap! Throw in you photos, add a few papers and elements--all of which totally coordinate and color-match because easy Humble & Create themes each of their kits and picks a fun color palette for them, too!

That's my process in a nutshell! Nothing too fancy or advanced. That's how I roll! :)