Pictorial Backgrounds

One thing I really miss about paper scrapbooking is the wonderful pictorial backgrounds some companies produce. I kept quite a few beach ones and printed 8 x 8 digital pages to add to them. You can create all kinds of effects using a photo for your background but it's a joy when you find a pictorial background in a kit.

This one is from the huge Animal Magic bundle by CatDesignz which has several artistic  backgrounds. It really does capture the feeling of Mum and Uncle Frank's safari trip. All I needed to do was add the photos and the leaf garland. Less is more with fancy backgrounds!

Totally Tropical

A "think outside the box and go backwards" two part tutorial! I've talked a lot about using reduced opacity backgrounds in my layouts and that's easy to do but some designers actually do the work for you and provide a "faded" background in the kit. CatDesignz has one in the Totally Tropical kit. I leapt on this for a page of hibiscus photos but then I wondered what would happen if I tried to "Un-fade it" and use it for an album cover. This was the result:



I changed the background in Picmonkey (the free version you don't need to upgrade) and that tutorials is HERE.

Then I made the page in MyMemories and used the adjusted background to make a shadow box frame. you can see that tutorial HERE. It also tells you how to change the shadows on the elements and make your butterfly fly above the page.