I think my favorite part of this month’s Scrap Girls Club: Mojave is all of the beautiful word art. Designer Jennifer Ziegler has given us a mixture of black type and script that is elegant and timeless. If you want to make this terrific word art pop, you can add a little color to it. Here’s a simple, quick way to do it!

Step 1: Place your word art on your layout. Size and position it approximately where you want it.

Step 2: Make a Direct Selection by Ctrl-Clicking on the thumbnail picture of the word art in the Layers palette. A Direct Selection makes all of the pixels on that layer selected (outlined by “marching ants”).

Step 3: Make a new layer. Place it below the word art layer. Make sure the new layer is active.

Step 4: Go Edit > Stroke (Outline) Selection. When the Stroke window opens, set the width to about 20 px. (You may want to play with this setting to get a thicker or thinner outline, but 20 is a good starting point.) Set the location to Outside, so that the outline will bubble around the text. Leave all of the other options on their default setting. Your word art has now been outlined, but the outline is on its own layer so that it will be easy to alter in the next step. Use the shortcut Ctrl-D to deselect the word art.

Step 5: Place a piece of colored or patterned paper on your layout. Move it so it is between the word art and outline layers. Use a clipping mask (shortcut Ctrl-G) to clip the paper to the outline. At this point, with the Move tool active, if you hold down the Ctrl key, you can click and drag the paper around to make different parts of the pattern show up on the outline.

Step 6: Add a drop shadow to the outline layer. Then link or merge all three layers together.

Now you’ve made your word art pop, it is ready to use on your layout!

I can’t wait to see how you use the beautiful word art from this collection! Be sure to post your creations in the Scrap Girls Gallery!An Amazing Deal!
If you were to buy all of the items in the club individually from the Boutique they would cost $27.64 and we offer it to you for just $9.99 a month!
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Tutorial written by Anna Mansfield