Create a Printable Greeting Card

Tutorial created Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Windows Vista

In the September 2013 issue of Guideposts, Mike Rowe talks about how he grew up wishing he could be just like his grandfather. His grandfather was a man who “was a master electrician but could do pretty much anything. Build a house without a blueprint. Dig a well. Install a furnace. He just knew how stuff worked.” So one day, when Mike was feeling particularly inept and discouraged and resigned to the fact that he would never be as good as his grandfather, his grandfather laced him with the following wisdom: “God gave me a toolbox. He gave you one, too. But He didn’t give us the same one. Do you understand?”

What on earth does this have to do with digital scrapbooking, you ask? Well, when my assignment for today was to write an article using the ScrapSimple Templates for card making, it struck me with trepidation and uncertainty. My toolbox does not include paper-crafting skills, a Silhouette machine, or a ton of patience for gluing, and then clean up after that. Reading Mike Rowe’s grandfather’s wisdom reminded me that as scrappers, we all have different toolboxes! Yet we are all bound together by a common interest. How we all weave our talents, be they purely digital, purely paper, or hybrid, is what makes each of our works unique, special, and valuable.

So for today, I am going to show you several ways that those of you who are purely digital, like me, can take advantage of the ScrapSimple Card Templates, make beautiful works of art, and share them with your loved ones. Let’s see how easy they are to use!

First, let’s make a card using ScrapSimple Card Templates: Cardiology 6×4 Vertical by Jo Corne. Making a digital card using a template is very fast and easy. Simply open the template, and then “Save as” under a new name so the original template is preserved with no changes.

Then, select your papers to layer over each piece of the template, and then clip each paper one by one to the individual layer below it. Voilá! You have a custom-made card that didn’t take long at all. This card took me about 15 minutes to make. You can then decorate your card with embellishments as desired.

What to do with it, you ask, if you’re not going to print it or cut pieces to make it a hybrid card? Easy! Just save the file where you know where it is, and attach it to an email to your intended recipient. They will be super-excited when it’s received, and they will know that you took your valuable time to make them something unique and customized just for them. You can’t buy that at a card store!

Now let’s look at another way to use a template for a gift or card. For this sample, I used ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Bookmarks 2. The idea was to make a bookmark that could be sent in a store-bought card. This particular bookmark is meant as an encouragement for my daughter. The base of this bookmark was created in the same manner as the card above by clipping papers to each individual layer, then decorating it up. Here in this sample, the embellishments were made with very heavy shadows to look touchable. Now, just print the bookmark on good quality photo paper and cut it out. (Even I can cut a straight line!) Then, pop it in a card and send in the mail, or attach to a gift! You could even poke a hole in one end and tie on a ribbon and use as a gift tag! (Now even that is stretching my hybrid abilities for a purely digital gal, but I think with practice I could manage that!)

Let’s look at one more way to make a digital card. For this sample, I used ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: The Shape of Things. I really like the cascade of shapes, and I was particularly drawn to the hearts. But for a digital card, the sizing of each of these templates was just a little too big. So by reaching into my (purely digital) toolbox, I simply created a new card-sized document, 5×7 inches. Then, I opened the 8.5×11-inch layout template with the hearts. After locking all of the layers together on the template, I duplicated the entire thing onto my smaller card. Then, all I had to do was move all the locked layers together as one until I found the position that I liked best. Ta-da! I now have a 5×7-inch card by using a normal digital layout template! Each layer had a paper clipped to it to create the colors, and then the card was decorated in the normal manner. Now that this card is done, it can be emailed as above, shared on Facebook or Instagram for your intended recipient (and the rest of the world!), or you could even pop it into Dropbox and invite your loved one to view it from there.

We each have our own “toolbox.” Not only do we have an immense array of collections in the Scrap Girls Boutique to suit our many different styles, we also have multiple ways of using our supplies to suit our individual talents. For those of us who are purely digital, we have at our disposal so many ways to extend our work to others. Thank you, technology! For those of us who are paper or hybrid scrappers, the ScrapSimple line of cards can be printed, cut, and assembled (made even easier with a Silhouette)!

So no matter what your scrapbooking talent is or what is in your “toolbox,” remember to not compare yourself or your work to others. You are unique and special, your scrapping is unique and special, and you can do it! Whether you email your card creations to your loved ones, or print and assemble a hybrid card, or post your cards in our Scrap Girls Gallery, you will bring smiles to those around who know you made an extra special effort!

Digital scrapbooking products used: