Tale's from a Reluctant Soccer mom

I know we all love to save money on things we think we can do our selves. I sure do. So this year I made my own Christmas card.

Now I am a advanced Photoshop user so don’t expect to be as good as me first try. But to help you out I will give you no fail tips on how to do a great layout for your christmas card. 

Tip #

1. You need professional photos- Yes this cost money however you wont regret it. Ever. This is an investment, one that you will have for the rest of your lives, its memory’s. Aren’t those worth some of your cash? (In Utah? Check out my photographer Andrea Hanks!)

  a. Best way to find a great photographer is friends, Facebook, and google.  Everyone knows a photographer now-a-days, heck everyone thinks they are photographers.

b. Going to a portrait studio it is harder to get a photo release.  You may have to pay so much for it that it may not be worth the price, just have them make them for you if this is the case. If its cheaper and you like what they can do, go for it. It will save you time anyway.

2. You need a photo editing program. I use Photoshop. You can download a free trial of it, my tutorial will be for this program. Go to Adobe’s website to download for free. If you use another program find a Tutorial for that one please. 

3. You will need the ability to follow instructions. Yes I do need to put this here. I dont want 10,000 comments about how you couldn’t install the brush set or the pattern I gave you the link for. Or that you just cant seem to install Photoshop. If you can’t use a computer dont expect to be able to do this.

Lets Start!

1. Open a new project in Photoshop. Make it 5x7 inches or 7x5 inches. This is the easiest to print. Also Make sure the pixels/inch are set to 300 this is the standard.

2. Make a new layer for all things you do from this point on, it makes it 40,000 times easier in the long run. Editing a layer is so much easier then starting over.  

3. Make a new layer and draw a square use the shape tool or the rectangle marquee (if you use marquee as I do just go to edit- fill- grey- or color). Use your mouse pointer that looks like a + sign to measure from the side and all future squares/rectangles. 

3. Try to make something that looks like this-

The grey is where you will put the photos. The green and red are for your text. I like to put the year in my cards so I use the green for the 2010. I can make more then one red square and put a little clip art in one, and text in the other. You can use what ever colors work best for your photo’s. 

4. Now go Google Photoshop brushes (or use this link if that isn’t enough here are more) Install these brushes (here are instructions on how. Not enough info? Here is more)

5. FOUNTS! yes I know all the photoshop basic founts are tired and used. So check out dafount.com (free!) I use calligraphy founts to do my Merry Christmas, I use a very plain one to do the names and year.

6. Add the Year, names, merry christmas, brush decoration: all on NEW layers. Yes you have a lot of layers but its ok you will be happy you did it when you want to change something major or even small.

I will show one more styles of layouts so you have ideas- Threw this together in about a minute, I think you can get one you really love in no time! (for more ideas go to card websites and just look at what colors they are using and what founts/brushes if you see something you love; Try to do it!)

I kind of hate this one but its here. whatever.