Crossroads Cafe

Di Hickman

Hybrid: Opening up a whole new world for traditional scrapbookers!

Hi there and welcome to Crossroads Cafe! Now what the heck is that you ask yourself? Well, it’s the new monthly column dedicated to crossing traditional and digital scrapbooking. Otherwise known as hybrid or tradigital scrapbooking. Each month this column will be dedicated to introducing ways in which to incorporate digital elements or techniques into your regular scrapbook and craft projects. Your computer can be an awesome tool for your craft projects, more than just for browsing the galleries and posting on message boards. You don't even need a fancy photo editing software, although that does open you up to so many more techniques! Some things can be done with just a word processing program. Mostly we'll be focusing on photoshop, paint shop pro, and word processing but most of the techniques and tips can be adapted to the program you choose. In addition to this new magazine column for us hybrid scrappers, you'll find that we're adding a special hybrid gallery and our own forum section on the message boards! So if there is something you'd like to see featured in this column drop by the "hybrid hallway" and come chat with me!

This month I thought I'd cheer everybody up and declare at least 50% of you reading this are already using hybrid techniques! How? Well I know from the Scrapstreet gallery that at least 50% of the layouts in there have computer journaling. Yes, hybrid can be that simple! Computer journaling is the simplest technique for using your computer as a tool for your scrapbook projects. Whilst I realize that handwritten journaling is beautiful and such a personal statement, if like me you have messy handwriting it's just not going to be an option. I'd say my paper scrapbook pages feature 95% computer journaling. Unless its a one or two lined piece computer journaling is what I do. I can get the handwritten look with different fonts and still make it nice and neat (unlike my real handwriting!)

For my computer journaling I prefer to use paint shop pro or photoshop. No real difference between using a paint program or a word processing program for this technique, other than personal preference. The only reason I use a paint program rather than a word processing program is incase I decide to use a digital wordart element for a title or journaling accent, or I want to draw a border to add emphasis. For this tutorial I'll use OpenOffice. Why Open Office? Well many reasons, first not everyone has microsoft word, and I want to use a program that is accessible to everyone for the tutorials. Plus Open Office runs on many user systems, including a mac! If those aren't reasons enough then I will add that its a FREE download, just visit www.openoffice.org to download a copy! Although you should be able to replicate the steps using your own paint program or word processing software.

 For my 8.5 x 11 layout I needed a journaling panel 3" wide x 11" high so I open a new document, and resize the page to 3" x 11". You'll also note I changed the borders from the default to 0.5" all around.

 Then I begin typing my text. Here I can change the font style and size for the whole paragraph, and I can add bolding to the subtitle at the top of the paragraph.

 One thing to consider when formatting your text is justification. My personal preference is for fully justified right/left leaving a straight edge on both sides. Full justification adds spaces between the words to widen out the line of text, sometimes this can look odd with big gaps in the journaling block, use your own judgment as to which justification you use for each project. The fully justified selection is the format I used in the final layout.

 One last thing to consider before printing your journaling is the leading. The leading is the space between the lines of text. Sometimes once the text is printing the lines are so tight together it makes it difficult to read the text. In open office the leading is done by inches, in other programs its done by font size. Play with the figures to get a good space between lines so your journaling is easier on the eyes.  Steps to change the leading are shown in the photo's. One last thing before printing the text... always print onto a regular piece of paper first, and proof read the journaling. Countless times I miss words, or I get carried away in my train of thought that the sentences no longer make any sense! Proof read, correct any grammar or spelling and then print your final piece onto cardstock and assemble your layout as shown in my example below.

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