Thursday, January 17, 2008

White on Black

A "How To" by Amy Walton

Ok, gather around everyone and I will unfold the mystery of the white on black journaling. The truth is you don't "print" white at all; That's impossible on most printers. Really, you're just printing out a whole lot of black on white paper and just leaving the words white. What a let down, I know, because in order to pull this off you have to have a really good printer and be willing to use a lot of ink. When I use this technique on large sections (ie. the last three layouts posted), I use my printer at work. It's a big fancy 'kinkos-style' Canon color printer. But, I also do it on my cheap, little, came-with-my-computer printer at home. I just do smaller sections like the brown tag on my Queen Elizabeth Park post.

If you're using word to try this out, draw a text box to your desired dimensions (that's in the drawing toolbar). Color the words white and fill the box with whatever color you want. If you need more colored space around the text, draw an additional box around the whole thing and make sure it goes behind your journaling. Because the color on your screen isn't always the color that comes out of your printer, I print out a series of swatches by drawing little boxes and filling them with various shades of that color to help me find the one that's going to match the paper I'm using.
Ink cartridges and Bazzill paper are my fundamental scrapbook supplies. Now, if they actually came out with an affordable printer that did that white embossed writing on black cardstock, I'd be all over that, but this works pretty well too.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Monday, January 7, 2008

Black is the new... black.

Yes, black is the color of the month. I just like the way it looks with my outdoor photos. Plus I know it drives Mary insane with the mystery of my white on black writing. Come visit me in Utah, Mary, and I'll unfold to you the complicated secrets of my journaling.


This was a fun set of pages to do. I would look at the photos and break into giggles at the memory of that disgusting, stagnant, smelly water.