Between my spectacular long weekend in Norway and our phenomenal Winter Solstice, I had the perfect scrappping storm sitting on my desk. It’s all I could do to be a grown-up and pay the bills, do my job, the laundry, the dishes and then scrap. But I did it all and now, finally, I’m scrapping with the most amazing photo’s and the most amazing collection.

I threw together a quick layout to get things started, to get that initial oh-my-gawd-whats-it-going-to-look-like feeling out of my chest. I’m already happy. I think, despite it being just a weekend, Norway deserves it’s very own photobook. It’s just that gorgeous.

When I scrap quick I always use a template and anything else that will help my layout come together in a flash. In this case, I used journal cards to help me complete my look quickly & easily. The hardest part was adding a custom text box to import my journaling onto my page. Let me show you how I did it.

As always, I’m using Photoshop CC but this works in Elements as well. For supplies I am using my photo’s and:

The layout came together in a snap, my head knew what it wanted. All that remained was taking my Norway babble from the blog and adding it to the lovely journal card by Antebellum Press:

I switched over to the Magic Wand tool:

  • Choose Magic Wand tool in the sidebar menu
  • Set your Tolerance to 5 (you may need a bigger number if you are not selecting a solid color) in the top menu bar
    note: I always check Anti-alias because it gives me smoother edges
  • Double check you are on the Journal Card Layer in the Layers palette
  • Click in the center of the Journal Card Layer

You should now see the “marching ants” around the white part of the journal card. If you are using a journal card with more of a background you can increase the tolerance and/or switch to the Quick Selection Tool. For some difficult backgrounds you may need to draw a custom path with the Pen Tool.
note: make sure contiguous is  unchecked in the top menu bar.

Now simply right click in the selected area. A menu will pop-up, choose: Make Work Path

This creates a pop up box: Make Work Path. The default setting is Tolerance 1.0 pixels, go ahead & click OK. This is what you need.

Your marching ants are now a solid line, an invisible line for printing purposes. This is your text box. Depending on your version of photoshop or elements, you may also see a lot of blue boxes. These are path points and you can select and play with them. But that is a whole other lesson.

You can skip this next step, I prefer a little space around my text. To add some margins to your custom text:

  • Click on Edit in the menu bar
  • Click on Transform Path in the dropdown menu
  • Click on Scale in the flyout menu

Your top menu becomes the Scale menu. Change the values, I choose:

  • Width (W): 98.00%
  • Height (H): 98.00%
  • Click the √ to confirm your settings

You can now click into your Custom Text Box and type away, or paste in your story like I did. I used my blog post from: I Left My Heart in Norway

Your text will stay within the constraints of the text box. You can play with your text settings to make it fit. My settings are:

  • Font = Chamille
  • Size = 16 pt
  • Line height = 14 pt
  • Alignment = Left

And that’s it! It’s a lot easier than it looks, give it a try. Let me know how it works for you?

See? No path lines on my custom text box!