The winner of the Creating Keepsakes subscription giveaway is commenter #2, Joscie who commented:

I love when CK offers Digital Scrap Tips. and a chance to win a subscription to a mag I love, well that’s just icing on the cake!

Congratulations Joscie!

Hey RP fans! Deena Boese from Creating Keepsakes magazine back with another quick and easy Photoshop tutorial! I tend to love simple yet strong pages. The old adage “less is more” repeatedly calls my name. But while I love to create simple pages, sometimes they need just a little something extra. So what do you do without adding more “fluff”? Create design with your text! This week I’ll show you how to take an ordinary title and integrate it into your layout design.

Creating a text border is a great way not only to separate photos and paper; it adds a great design element to any project while still keeping the page simple and the focus on the photo.

Wanna learn how simple it is to create these fun text borders? Read on! 

1. Create a new Photoshop document and position photo, accents, and paper as desired. Select the HORIZONTAL TYPE TOOL and add your title. Make sure the text runs from margin to margin and you use a connecting script font. (Here I used Carpenter ICG font.)

2. Right click on the text layer in the layers panel and select RASTERIZE TYPE.

3. With the layer still highlighted click on EDIT > STROKE. Select the width and color of your choice and for LOCATION select OUTSIDE. Click OK.

4. With the layer still highlighted, click on the MAGIC WAND TOOL and click in the area above your text.

5. Click on SELECT > MODIFY > EXPAND. Enter 10 pixels and click OK.

6. In the layers panel, click on the patterned paper layer and hit DELETE. Press Ctrl+D to deselect the area. You now have a unique text border that separates photo and paper.

And now you know! I hope you have fun experimenting with text borders and the different looks you can create! Use this quick and easy type technique to enhance your next layout, card or project. For easy reference, I’ve included a PDF handout you can download and add to your “Wanna Learn How” library. And as a bonus gift, I’ve also included this holiday card Photoshop layered template you can download for FREE (for those last-minute holiday emails)!

As always, we want to hear from you! Have you seen a digital technique that made you say, “Oooh! I wanna learn how to do that!”? Leave a comment to let us know what techniques you want to see here. I have a free one-year subscription to Creating Keepsakes magazine in my hands that will go to one random (and lucky) commenter. So be sure to drop us a line to be entered in the drawing! Good luck!

 DOWNLOADS

Tutorial — How To Create a Text Border
Download — How To Create a Text Border

Deena Boese

Deena Boese is a Contributing Writer for Creating Keepsakes magazine and enjoys designing both digital and hybrid projects for each issue. She was first published with Creating Keepsakes in early 2007. Deena has a passion for story-telling and graphic design, and brings these elements into her digital and hybrid scrapbooking.

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