Digital Scrapbook Page Tutorial

Since I hyped up the world of digital scrapbooking, I thought I would give a tutorial on how to make a page.

For this tutorial, I am using digital files downloaded from http://www.computerscrapbook.com/. 

I chose the "California Cool" set. 

Look what great papers and elements you get with this set!

Now it's time to get Microsoft Publisher open and ready to use...

Select "More Blank Page Sizes"

Select "Create New Page Size"

Create a 12x12 blank document with 0" margins.

To insert your background, go to 'Insert' and select 'Picture'.

I decided to go with the brown with teal dots background.

The paper you selected shows up like this above so you will

need to adjust the size by click and dragging the bottom right corner.

The next thing I do is select my pictures. 

Use the same steps used for inserting the background.

One of my pictures was taken using Instagram so it has a white frame around it.

To make all of the pictures look uniform I will put a white frame around the other 2.

To make a border around the pictures you have to right click on the picture,

then scroll down to 'Format Picture', then select the 'Colors and Lines' tab which is below:

I used 10pt weight for the border which seemed to be about the same size as my instragram border.

So now my pictures all look the same. 

The next step is to decorate.

Using the same steps used to insert the background

and the pictures, I added ribbon.

Circled in this picture is the 'Bring Forward' and 'Send Backward' buttons.

These are important buttons.

Notice that the ribbon towards the bottom is laying on top of the picture.

By selecting 'Send Backward', the ribbon will lay behind the picture.

Next I added the buttons for decoration. 

(Add them the same way as pictures and background)

I decided to add more ribbon. :)

For me, the last step is to add writing. 

I prefer to do it last but you can do it at any point.

I inserted the paper graphic and cropped it down using

the crop tool as shown on the picture.

After cropping the piece of paper, I realized that I needed to

move everything to the left.  Don't waste time moving each piece one by one.

Instead, hold down control and select each of the things that you want to move.

Then select 'Group'.  This allows you to move all of those items at once.

Next, select the 'Insert' tab, then click 'Draw Text Box'

Bear with me on this next picture.

I wanted to point out the green button that allows you to rotate the text box. 

The same button is on pictures as well. 

Click on the green dot and rotate the text

box so it aligns with the piece of paper.

One important part of this: always have your layout wrapping

setting set to 'None'.  If not, you're inviting lots of frustration!

Your last step is to save the document. 

I always save it as a pub document so I can edit,

then I save it as a jpg.

Here is the final page:

I HOPE THIS TUTORIAL WAS HELPFUL. 

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT

DANAJAGGERS@GMAIL.COM IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS!

Stayed tuned for my post next week featuring one of my favorite Digital Clip Art Etsy Shops!