Choose A Theme

As I said in the beginning, we'll make a new page every 2 weeks and fill 26 pages by the end of the year. You can do this the traditional way (by printing out photos and other pieces separately and then assembling on background paper) or you can create a totally digital scrapbook. This tutorial describes steps for a digital scrapbook that assembles the entire page — the background, photos, clip art, embellishments, and journaling — all within Paint Shop Pro before printing… no glue!

Note: I will list commands from the main menu, however there are other ways of doing the same thing in PSP. Most menu commands have corresponding toolbar buttons and keystrokes. Right-click a toolbar to 'customize' buttons. See PSP Help for list of keystrokes.

I like the Alphabet Block tube from JASC and will use it as a theme for my entire scrapbook. Each page will be designed around one of the letter blocks using colors and embellishments based on the letter and its color.

The first page we'll make will be for the letter A. There are many words that begin with A that you could build a theme around: Apple, Ark, Ape, or Angel. Lots of possibilities. Tubes, clip art, and dingbat fonts are all sources for images that could be used. I will use Apple for A. You can follow along exactly as I do or select something other than apple.

Important: I will ask you to name layers as we go thru the steps. Don't skip the naming! I guarantee you'll get lost if you don't name your layers.