By Barbara Eastwick

This tutorial is available as a short video and as a written text with screen shots.

Print Shop is a very useful graphics software.  It's been around forever.  I've been using it for over 20 years.  With the ability to custom create your own page sizes, one could have always used it for duty scrapping.  Now, however, starting with version 22, Broderbund has developed a scrapbook section, with the most popular page sizes.  For this tutorial, I'll be using a 12 x 12 quick page.

After I start Print Shop, the Project Picker automatically appears.  Choose "Scrapbooks", and toggle the button for "Start from Scratch", and click "Next".

This will bring up the available scrapbook page layout sizes.  I will choose 12 x 12 and click "Finish".  With my 12 x 12  canvas in front of me, I choose "Insert" > "From File", and this brings me a browser window into my hard drive. 

I find where the quick page is stored, and click "Open".  This will insert the quick page onto my canvas. 

For Print Shop, you'll want to stretch the quick page only to the printing border - not to full size.  It only saves to the printing edge.

There are spaces in this quick page for three photos, or I can use one of them for a textblock.  To add a photo, I will proceed the same way as I did for adding the quick page.  I click on "Insert" > "From File" and then choose the image on my hard drive.   Sometimes your photo will be too large for the frame, and you'll want to crop it.  To do this, click on "Photo Tools" > "Crop and Orientation".  Choose your cropping shape (in this example, the square), and crop your photo to the desired size.

Add the other picture for the space, and crop, if needed.  Then place the photos over the spots where they will go.

You can either layer the photos backwards, or bring the quick page forward.  To do this click once on the quick page to select it then click "Arrange" > "Layer" > "Bring to Front".  The photos will fall behind the "holes" in the quick page, and will be framed to fit.  You can click on the photo and move it, if it is not centered where you want it.

For that third 'hole' I think I'll add some journaling.  To create a text box, I'd like to have a colored backdrop (otherwise it will be the white that is showing now).  To create a color box, choose "Drawing Tools" > "Insert Shape".  I wish to create a square.  I click on the "color" of the square (by default it is black) and a color menu appears.  I choose my color and click "Okay" and "Okay" again on the New Shape menu.

Just stretch the color block to fit the size of the space, and layer behind ("Arrange" > "Layer" > "Send to Back").  To add some journaling to that color block, just click on

"Text Tools" > "Insert Text Box".  A Text Box will appear on your page,  you can begin typing. 

The font choice and size are in main tool bar - in this example: Times New Roman - size 24.  That is a drop down menu and you can choose from any of the fonts installed on your computer.  It is a text box, with stretchable corners - you can move it to any place on the page.  I want it to be over the the color block I created earlier.

The text can be highlighted and changed at any time.  You may want to try out a few fonts to see which ones best fit the space and style of your layout.  The layout title can be added the same way as the journaling.  Click on "Text Tools" > "Insert Text Box" and type in your title.  Stretch the text box to fit the space, and enlarge the text font to fit.  The font is black, by default.  To change the color of the font, highlight the text, and click on the 'rainbow strip' from the main tool bar, then choose "Object".

The layout is complete!  To save it as a .jpg file extension for online viewing or emailing, you'll want to save it as a smaller file size.  To do this, click "File" > "Export As" - and this will bring up the save menu for exporting as a .jpg.  Choose the file size you wish to export at, click "Save".

Here's the finished layout, saved for online viewing:

You'll find more tutorials by clicking on this link: free scrapbook tutorials or by looking inside the member area. You can also learn more by visiting Jessica's Scrapbook Blog.