Creative Thinking With Suezie - How To Make a PC Generated Text/Title

Hi there - Suezie here!  As this week's challenge is all about using computer text on your page Karen asked me to do a tutorial to share some ideas and tips.  I'm guessing most of you are reasonably familiar with computers since you're bloggin but I wonder how many of you use them in your scrap booking?  I know it's important to have some of your own handwriting in your albums so I do but I also love the fun I can have with different font styles to suit my pages so I use my computer alot!

I decided the easiest way was to share several of my own pages and talk you through how I used my computer to create them.  I have several programmes but I go back to 'MSWord' again and again unless I need something soooo fancy I just can't do it any other way.

Okay - this page uses pretty basic computer functions.  What makes it clever is HOW you choose to use these basics!  Let me show you.

Title: open up a blank word document and type letters with several spaces in between.  Use your mouse to highlight letters, select 'font' type and size to alter as desired. 

Next use 'font colour' to select your chosen colour (or more colours if what you want is not readily available) then print, cut, alter and add to your page.  I added a large chipboard 'e' for extra interest in the page title above and remember you can always make your printed text 'bold' for more depth and colour too.

Text strips:  repeat the process as for title but with complete words rather than letters and leave plenty of space to trim them to size.  If you want you can use complete sentences or even break up your sentences as in the example below.

Sentiment or journaling: I like to use a table to make sure my journaling fits perfectly.  This is especially important if I know I will be cutting my journaling with a punch or die-cut shape as in the page below.  I will often cut my die shape and measure up the size 'cell' I need.  I will also cut my die shape in acetate so I can position it over my text to ensure it's perfect.

To work in a table open a new word document, click on the 'insert' tab and then 'table - see below

Next you will be presented with an 'insert' box where you can choose the number of columns and rows etc.  To make it easy simply choose 1 row and 1 column.

Your table will appear and you will need to resize it to fit your text.  You could do this by clicking and dragging on the lines until you see the size you want indicated on the ruler around the page but I prefer to right click the table, select 'table properties' and

then adjust the column/row heights or width to my exact requirements give or take a fraction here or there.

Once you have your table (actually one row & column is a single cell) then you can type your text, highlight it and play around with fonts, colours and anything else you want until you are happy to send it to print.

A top tip is to print it on scrap paper first to make sure it is the size and style you want.  Sometimes the view on screen is a bit deceiving so it's hard to tell for sure.  Then when you know it's exactly right put in the good stuff and print again!  I always print on a high quality (slightly thicker) white, acid-free paper.  If I want it any other colour then I will print on coloured or even patterned paper or ink it up with an ink pad afterwards.  On my first sample page I used a pale blue over the top to remove the stark white and make it tone in with my page much better.

Once you have these few basics behind you - you can begin to explore and create all kinds of fabby texts and letters using your computer.

Just to wet your appetite to experiment more I'm sharing this text strip from the 'sweet dreams' page I submitted to the Scrapbook Trends magazine.  It was my first ever submission and it got almost an entire page!

I don't own a 12 x 12 printer but you can still do 12 x 12 effects.  I typed using a 'horizontal' page orientation, left spaces in between words so I could add bling, used a pretty font and made it blue to match my page.  Then I cut it into a strip, and simply 'snipped' it in two at just the right place so I could lay it across the page.  I covered the gap with a glittered page accent that I also added printed text to.  Perfect!  Who would ever know that the strip wasn't 12 x 12?  This is a super cool idea to add a text border strip anywhere on a page - even behind photos.  Try it - I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Okay - enough time taken up on this tutorial (don't want to overkill).  I will share a few more pages using computer text and list brief details over on my blog later this week so you can check em out.

Now go try something new with your computer!  Happy Scrappin!