Create Your Own Bubble Letter Photo Frames & Cutouts

© Copyright Arizona Kate

There are many fun uses for these fat, stylized letter shapes and it's also very good node editing practice!

With this 'Creative Lettering' tutorial we'll be drawing our own letters instead of using a font. The 'bubble letter' shapes we'll be creating are all pretty simple to create using the vector tools in Paint Shop Pro.

Because these letter shapes are much larger and much simpler in construction than a font would normally be, they are well suited for use as scrapbook cutouts and photo frames or mats, as patterns for wooden wall letters or murals, for ABC quilt patterns, for making an alphabet teaching book from fabric, or as a pattern for wood or polymer clay picture frames. You can also get creative with your image editing and make a scenic composition by placing a panoramic photo inside a word made with the bubble letters. Steps for creating such a framed photo will be described near end of tutorial.

This project is suitable for an advanced beginner, which I define as someone who is familiar enough with Paint Shop Pro to know where to find the basic commands and tools but still feel a need to have a tutorial to guide them through a project. If you are very new to using vectors, you might want to try doing an introductory tutorial such as 'Bugs with Boots' before trying this tutorial.

The following steps describe the tools found in Paint Shop Pro version X. You can get a demo of PSP X from Corel.com. Nearly any version of PSP that has vector tools could be used, however, name and location of tools/commands will be slightly different.