Hi everyone! I am so excited to be back at TLP to share with you a little tutorial of how I used some awesome TLP products to put together a Document Your December album. I always find keeping a separate December album filled with holiday activities and cheer, on top of my regular weekly pocket scrapping album, difficult. I’ve learned from experience that if I want to be successful in creating a December holiday album, I need to make sure I have everything ready to go by the time the month starts. Today, I want to share with you how I put together the bones of my DYD album in hopes that, if some of you are already struggling to keep up, this will inspire you to work ahead and get back on track.
So the first thing I did was create a template that I would use for the album. I am using a 6×8 album, and am planning on using the pocket protectors that have four 3×4 slots. I will create the pages in Photoshop, and then send them to be printed at a local drugstore. More on that later. Here is the template I created. I also used part of Lauren Reid’s Insta Album templates to create a photo spot on two of the cards. As you can see, each 3×4 slot has a thin, white border around it. I did that using the stroke style, and I leave it there so that when I share the pages online, there is definition between each card. My plan is that each day will consist of two 3×4 slots. One will have a picture, and one will have a journal card with the day number and some journaling. I have the layers arranged in two groups, one for the top two cards, and one for the bottom two cards. That will be crucial later on in the process.
For my journal and day number card, I am using is Paislee Press’ This Day in December Journal Cards. There is one for each day in December, and this first page will have day 1 and day 2, so those cards are placed into my template first.
Next, I choose some papers for the backgrounds for my photo pages. This year I am using the Memory Pockets Monthly: Joy kit for my DYD album, as well as some of the great add ons that go with the kit. These two papers happen to be from Sara Gleason’s Joy Papers. Once the papers are placed, I go ahead and save the template with an original file name (in this case DD_1) so that I can use the template to create my other pages.
At this point, I work through the rest of the 25 days I will be capturing. I add the cards to the page, pick two papers to use as the backgrounds, and save it with a unique name. Here is what will be the next page in my book.
When all is said and done, I have thirteen pages ready to go (page 13 has Day 25, two photo spots, and an extra journal card). Now, as December rolls along, I will be ready to keep up with creating my pages.
For example, here is the first page after the days have passed. I have added my photos and shadowed the photo on the template. I have also added a few small embellishments from the MPM Joy kits and add ons, as well as my journaling. This step took me all of 20 minutes, at the absolute most. Once I was happy with the embellishments, I was ready to save and share my layout.
I start out by saving for sharing online. I resize the image, flatten and save for web at my desired size. Once that is done, I use the History menu to return the document to it’s original size. Now, I’ll get ready to save for printing. I start by deleting the small white stroke around each card. One that is done, I merge each group which takes the two cards and makes them one 4×6 photo. I use a Photoshop script that trims each layer and saves it as a JPEG, and I am ready to print.
I hope that this tutorial of how I put together my DYD album prior to the beginning of December will inspire some of you to try it out. With so much else going on in my life during the month of December, I need to make things as easy on myself as I can. This approach allows me to spend more time making memories instead of scrapping those memories.
Products used: Insta Album by Lauren Reid, This Day in December by Paislee Press, MPM: Joy by Memory Pockets Monthly, Joy Papers by Sara Gleason, Joy Word Art by Sara Gleason, Sprinkles 23 by Valorie Wibbens, and The Everyday by Heather Hess.
Toria says
love it! What script do you use to save the two 4×6?
Aaron says
This is the link to the one I downloaded and use..
http://www.ps-scripts.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3971