One of the fun things about digital scrapbooking is being able to create curves and shapes on your layouts without all the measuring and cutting. A great place to start when making these curves is by looking in your premade shapes. This quick tutorial will show you how to make some of those shapes into a stunning digital scrapbook layout.

 

First, you want to select your Custom Shape Tool.

 

Next, you are going to want to find a shape with the curve you would like to have on your layout. Keep in mind when looking at these shapes you won't necessarily be using the whole shape and you can also manipulate it some by changing the width and height. For this layout, I'm going to choose the wavy arrow.

 

After you have picked your shape, lay it out on your blank page. For this example I also rotated the arrow so the curves were going up and down.

 

Now comes the fun part. Select your Move Tool and by pulling on the lines that outline your shape, manipulate the shape until you get the desired look.

 

This is my finished shape layer. You will notice I stretched the arrow until the arrowhead is off the page and I also widened the curvy part some.

 

The next shape I want to add to this layout is a circle for the photo to be placed on. So by selecting your Ellipse Shape Tool, place a circle on your layout. Remember to create a new layer before doing this.

 

The next thing I do to finish up the template for this layout is place the two shapes where I want them and make any final adjustments to the wavy shapes.

 

The final step for your layout is filling it with paper. First, I dragged the solid yellow sheet onto the template and moved it to the bottom layer.

 

Next, I dragged my pattern paper onto the layout. If you notice in my Layers Palette, I have placed the patterned paper in the layer right above the curvy template.

 

After the paper has been placed, you can now merge the patterned paper and curvy template together. To do this, make sure the patterned paper layer is active and then press Ctrl+G.

 

The patterned paper is now placed onto your template. The next step I usually do is merge the two layers. With the patterned paper active, click in the small box next to Shape One. You will see a link appear. This links the active layer and shape layer. In your Layers Palette, click on more and then merge linked.

 

Your patterned paper layer and shape layer have now become one. Now do the same for the circle shape. For this, I choose to add a photo to the circle shape.

 

Add your finishing touches, and now you have a complete layout!

Layout by Angie Briggs

Tutorial by Angie Briggs