Monday, October 22, 2012

Make Your Own Scrap Book Paper

I have been having some fun playing around with PicMonkey and I have found a way to make my own scrap book papers to use online or perhaps print out. These are fun and easy to make once you know the steps. There are many ways to use these 'papers' online and I will be showing you some ideas in the future. 

**Update** PicMonkey has started charging for some of it's features though most features are still free. I will be checking out other free sites to see what they have to offer and let you know what I find. In the mean time, a good free site is Ribbet.

I made this tutorial as clear and as short as I could manage, however it is still long! Not hard! but long. It will be as easy as pie once you have done it a time or two!



I like to start making my scrap book paper with an inspiration photo (the one on the left). This helps me stay with in a color palette to keep everything coordinated beautifully. For this set of papers I am using a Zinnia photo from my blogger friend Debra over at The Homespun. She takes amazing photos! I asked for permission first. 



1.   Go to PicMonkey and click on 'Create a Collage' Then click on 'Upload Photos' in the upper left corner. Upload your inspiration picture. It will appear next to the 'Upload Photo' box. Drag and drop it into your collage anywhere. 




2.   Back at the left side click onto the little icon shaped like an artist palette. The rainbow color bar appears and you will see a little dropper just above the bar to the right. Click on the rainbow bar anywhere, then on the dropper picture, and your cursor becomes the dropper. Take it to your inspiration photo and choose a color from it. I am choosing the palest yellow I can find for mine. Left click when you have your color picked.

3.    Now drag your inspiration photo off the collage. When it is completely off the collage you will see that the entire background is the color you picked. This is your base for your scrapbook papers. Click save at the top and choose a name for your collection. Mine is named 'Debra's Zinnias' :) Close the window by clicking the X in the upper right hand corner.

4.    On the PicMonkey home screen choose 'Edit a Photo', then upload your blank colored scrap book paper your just made. In the left column click 'crop' and choose '8x10' in the drop down box. Click 'apply'. Your paper is now a standard 8x10. Save this to your pictures as it will become the base for your next papers. 



5.   Click 'Overlays' in the left column and at the top choose 'Your Own', and then upload your inspiration photo. Expand it, (move your cursor over the outline around the photo. An arrow pointing to each side will appear. Hold down you left mouse button and pull) to cover a good portion of your base paper. A color bar will be to the right. 

7.    Decide what you want to design for your scrapbook papers. I will do stripes today. Again click on 'Overlays' and choose 'Geometric', then choose the rectangle. 



A black rectangle will appear on your paper. Pull it so it goes from top to bottom (or side to side) on your base paper then pull the sides in to make a thin stripe the size you want. 




8.    There will be a color bar available; with the stripe still selected, click on the rainbow bar and then click on the small bar to the right to get your dropper. Take the dropper to you inspiration photo, and choose a color for your stripe. Click when you have the color you want. I chose to fade mine 25%; the fade adjuster is also on the color bar. Now select your inspiration photo and move it all the way to the right until it is hidden. It will still be there even though you don't see it when you need it later.





9.   Once your stripe is like you want it right click your mouse and choose 'Duplicate Overlay' as many times as you would like; you can always delete extra overlays. I choose to have five strips this color and size. I moved them around where I wanted them to be. Make sure these stripes cover top to bottom completely. Then I duplicated one, made it thinner, and duplicated it four more times. 




10.  Pull your hidden inspirational photo back onto you paper and choose another rectangle overlay. Repeat with sizing, color, and when it's the way you want it, move your inspirational photo out of the way. Duplicate until you have as many stripes as you want. I choose to make a couple of different sizes in green and faded this one 50%. I wanted one more color so I brought back my inspirational photo and choose a darker yellow and repeated until I had it just as I wanted it. I decided to move some of the stripes around and change the sizes of some of them too. 



Then to finish, I chose 'Merge' on the top bar to merge all the overlays together. Merging fuses your design; you can add more to it but you can't change what you already made. Then, I saved my stripes to my computer using my design name, Debra's Zinnias stripes.




Here is my finished paper in a collage! I love it and it coordinates perfectly with Debra's Zinnia photo. 

Linking at these parties.


I have had a lot of content theft lately. If you are reading this post anywhere else but at Family Home and Life then it was used without permission! Copyright© Family Home and Life 2012 All Rights Reserved

28 comments:

  1. Great tutorial. I love Picmonkey. It's just great for compiling collages for my blog and so many other things. I never thought about using it for scrapbook pictures. Good idea!

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  2. Thank you for all the tutorials you share! They are always clear and specific. Your finished page is beautiful!

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  3. Great instructions! I really have to check out Picmonkey! And I agree -- Debra does take great pictures AND people should always ask!

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  4. Love it!! Great idea! I love picmonkey!

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  5. Thanks for the tutorial! I use iPiccy.com and PicMonkey.com - this will come in very handy!

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  6. What a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing!

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  7. Excellent idea! I love PicMonkey and need to try this...when I have time. Thank you for writing it all up and sharing in the GRAND Social!

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  8. Great idea!!! Thanks for joining us at the CHQ Blog Hop this week :) Hope to see you again next week!

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  9. Fabulous tutorial, great for those projects where you just can't find the paper you want! I can't wait to give this a try.

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  10. Very cool, and great tutorial! Thanks for sharing at The Fun In Functional!

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  11. That is incredible! I love it! What a beautiful idea.

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  12. Now, that is really a great idea! Great tutorial. Thank you for sharing this at my Make it Pretty Monday party at The Dedicated House. Hope to see your prettiness again on Monday. Toodles, Kathryn @TheDedicatedHouse

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  13. Love Pic Monkey and now there is another reason why! Pinned this for future reference. Thanks for sharing your easy to understand tutorial on Busy Monday!

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  14. Great idea! I've been using PicMonkey for awhile and now have something new to try. Thanks! I am visiting from Tatertots and Jello link party.... :-)

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  15. I had no idea you could do that! I have pinned this to pinterest to try later, very cool.
    visiting from flash blog friday
    Stacey-Lee :D

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  16. Really great idea. Love scrapboking and love Pic Monkey. Works for me! Thanks for linking up for Flash Blog Friday :-)

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  17. What a fun way to make your own scrapbook papers. Thanks for linking up with us on Must Try Monday. :)

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  18. Thank you for sharing, Ive wanted to know how to do this for a long time. I'm so glad I came across your page! You are greatly appreciated!

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  19. This is a great tutorial!! Thanks for linking up at Romance on a dime!

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  20. How awesome that you shared this tutorial on Sharing the Shelter. I am eager to try it and hopefully will before the week is over. I use Picmonkey for my photos but this is certainly a step above.

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  21. I guess I need to take more time with PicMonkey and figure out how to use. I'll come back to your tutorial. I've been using picasa but sounds like PicMonkey may have a few more options to play with than Picasca. Thanks for sharing.
    Found your blog via the link at Sew Many Ways.

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  22. Wow what a clever idea. Thanks for the tutorial and thanks so much for sharing it on "I Gotta Try That"
    Marcie

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  23. What a wonderful idea! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!

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  24. Hello! I’m stopping in to invite you to join us at the Clever Chicks Blog Hop this week!
    http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/11/clever-chicks-blog-hop-7-country-craft.html

    I hope to see you there!
    Cheers!
    Kathy
    The Chicken Chick

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  25. Hi Connie,
    Thanks so much for sharing this with Share Your Cup. I love picmonkey and have used it quite a bit but have not tried this. Great tutorial!
    Hugs,
    Jann

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  26. What a great tutorial!!! I am sorry that people are stealing your content! How awful!

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  27. Just found this tutorial! It is fabulous! Thank you.

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Thank you SO much for taking the time to leave a comment!