Free Facebook Cover Collage Tutorial and Template

Hi everyone!

This post has a free FotoFusion V4 Template you can download. :)

I've been very busy creating and learning new art techniques, but have not taken the time to share those things on my blog. Lately, I feel a bit overwhelmed with posting anything. Perfectionist me, I want it to be a quality post, and I feel inadequate, so it hasn't happened! :(

So, this morning, I decided that was enough.

I just updated the cover photo on my Facebook using my digital software, FotoFusion. People are asking how I do it, so figured I could make a little tutorial here. :)

My latest photo collage:

It's my simplest layout ever! :)

1. Download the template. (Only tested in Version 4 of FotoFusion.)
2. Open FotoFusion and load the template.
3. Simply drop in the photos you want included.
4. Output it as a JPEG at about 700dpi and 100% quality, as you don't want it to be pixelated.
5. Go to your Facebook profile, hover over the bottom left photo area, until "Change Cover Photo" pops up. Click on it.
6. Upload your layout, and VOILA! Done! :) It should be the right size. If not, email me or post a comment, k?

Note: Keep in mind that your profile picture at the lower left side of the layout will overlap onto your cover photo, so don't drop in a picture that you don't want covered in that area. :)

Here's your download link for the template:

AWCAL Facebook Cover Photo Template

Enjoy!

Annawhocropsalot

Two-Page Template

Hi all! How is your summer?

I've been busy busy busy playing with Instagram instead of my templates! I'm so sorry if you were waiting for another one. But finally it's done. :) This newest template is actually a two-page version of the previous one. So, when you download it, you will get two SCRAP packages, instead of only the usual one.

The layout I created:



The following are some of the steps I took in creating the layout from the templates.

Some of these tips might be too easy for the more advanced user, but perhaps some techniques might be new to you. :)

First, a picture of the right side template. Lots of space for journaling, and a nice big spot to place a photo or to showcase patterned paper.

♦I removed the border on the frames. I felt the journaling would looked a bit trapped with them there.
♦To change the color of the space behind the text, I increased the opacity to 255, and then used the color picker to get the color I want.

To do that:
      1. Select the frame (I had to move the text away from the frame, in order to select it.)
      2. Hover your mouse over the Frame Dialog Box and click when the image (little square) part becomes red.
      3. Move the slider on the Opacity level of the Background Fill until it is 255.
      4. Click on the little box right below the 255. The color picker will appear as your cursor and make it hover over the color you want. I simply selected the cream right beside it.    
      5.  Move the text back into place. 


NOTE: When I work with a color scheme, I bring in a picture of it, and "color pick" from the picture/paper. For this project, I used the papers to color-match, and the background of the FotoFusion interface. LOL (Love the browns and creams, great neutrals.)

♦I wanted some of my sub-titles by the journaling, so I added them where there was room. In the end, I decided to title all four of my journaling spots with my "predictions", and single words to sum up the pictures for the sub-titles in the other places. :)
♦I change the sub-title: "We will live on an acreage", so that the right margin was lined up, instead of centered.

♦There are three little different-sized circles by that sub-title. I added flower embellishments on top of those circles, instead of dropping in paper. Got these cute little embellies from Sahlin Studio called Candy Flowers. So those circles in the template work well for proper placement of embellishments, if you find that you struggle to know where to place items.

♦I didn't want the shadowed flower embellishments to lie underneath the non-shadowed sub-title, so I selected the text>right-clicked and chose MOVE TO LAYER>selected COLLAGE. By default, FotoFusion is programmed the text to be always on top of everything else. This changes the text to the same layer as the rest of the stuff on your page.

♦Next, I changed the flowers to white, and dropped in patterned paper for the flower middles. I changed the opacity of the background fill to 255, but you could also experiment: what color change would occur by simply changing the brightness of the main image. See picture below.

♦I "grounded" the journaling spots to the background by adding a brown and a white paper behind them. I also removed the shadow from each journaling block and made the top and bottom spots larger so there was no gap between the top and bottom of the page. Does that make any sense?


And here's the finished page for the right side of the layout.

Now, on to the left side of the layout. Here's a pic of the template:

♦First thing, I dropped in the coordinating paper.
♦Edited the text.
♦Dropped in the pictures.
♦Added patterned paper to one flower circle and one little confetti circle.
♦Changed the color of the flower to white.
♦Substituted the leaves and some of the flowers from Sahlin Studio's Precocious Felt Leaves kit and from her Candy Flowers kit.
♦Added stitches by Anna Aspnes at O'Scraps. Made sure to remove the shadow, as it looks more realistic without.
♦Removed the shadow on the little strip of paper under the title. Used the color picker to coordinate the paper strips with the other papers.

In the end, I put the two together to see how they would look side by side, and decided it looked too dark. So I switched patterns and changed the background color.

I also made the top and bottom pictures go off the page, like I did with the journaling spots on the right side layout. I also widened the paper strip under the main title so that it reached the very edge.

This is the end result: It looks a little busy, but sometimes I'm okay with that. :) To see larger, just click on the picture.

Enjoy!

FotoFusion Tutorial: Separating Alphabets

I have a friend who just started with FotoFusion. Her first question was, how do you use the letters that come on one page in FF? We texted back and forth, me giving her the step by step, so I figured there might be others out there who would like to know how to do it too. So I've created a tutorial for you. Here goes! I have a set by Traci Reed from Sweet Shoppe Designs called Little Miss that needed to be separated. It looks like this: 

Step 1: Open a New Project.

Step 2: Choose Custom size.

Step 3: You want a small canvas, about 500 pixels square. Go to your Canvas Settings tab, and input 500x500 pixels. By default, the measurements are in inches, but you want pixels. Click APPLY TO THIS PAGE.

Step 4: Right- click the area beside your workspace, and choose MAKE CANVAS TRANSPARENT. You want the letters on a transparent background.

Step 5: Go to the ORGANIZE tab, and find a set of letters you want to separate. I have a set by Traci Reed from Sweet Shoppe Designs called Little Miss. Drag the the letters into a bucket.

Step 6: Go back to the CREATE tab, and click on the BUCKETS tab, and drag the letters onto the transparent canvas.

Step 7: Remove the shadow from the letters. Hover your mouse over the FRAME dialog box, once the shadow is highlighted in red, click on it, and the shadow will be removed. Once you have separated all the letters, you will bring them back individually into the bucket, so you don't want shadows doubled. Hope that makes sense.

Step 8: Now, with the letters selected, right-click and select LOCK ASPECT RATIO and IMAGE FRAME. This will allow you to pan and zoom on the image, like you would with a picture. 

Step 9: Maneuver the box of letters with the blue handles, until it fits nicely on the canvas, with a bit of space all around.

Step 10: Zoom in and pan the little yellow star in the middle of the box and the yellow boxes on the corners until you have only one letter (start with A), on the canvas. Make sure NOTHING else is on the canvas.

You might have to move the whole image sideways so it's centered on the workspace.

Step 11:
-Go to the OUPUT tab, and create a new file for this letter.

-I like to include the store, designer, kit, and then the letter name. So, for this one, I called it SSD TReed Little Miss-A (SSD stands for the website I purchased the alphabet from. TReed stands for Traci Reed, the designer of the product.)

-Browse your files and pick a spot to store the new letters. I made a new folder beforehand, under Digital Scrapbooking>Alphabets. The folder name includes the store, designer and kit name.

-You want to render it as a PNG, not JPG, so be sure to change that, and then make sure it will be rendered (flattened) at 300dpi, which is the standard quality for digital scrapbooking products.

-Click RENDER.

This is what it looks like once you've rendered it.

Repeat steps 6-11 with the letter B, and on and on.

Each time you are ready to render, all you'll need to change in the File Name box is the letter name, unless you have worked with other files in FotoFusion in between this project. :)

Happy Scrapbooking!

Template 21

I made a layout of the latest template. With this template, it's important for you to copy the snowflake mattes that come with the file to your mattes folder on your hard drive, the place where the FotoFusion files are stored. If you don't know how to do that, please let me know, and I can help you.

Products Used:

Papers: KPertiet: From My Bookshelf - Solids

Alphabet: CD Muckosky: Suzie Q

Stitches: Traci Reed: Bad Sewing Machine-Write It Down, Brittish Designs: Tie It Down

Flowers,leaf, paint splat, number rub-ons: Vinnie Pearce Placid

Font: Century

Snowflakes: my own mattes made using a snowflake font.

Here's a preview of the template. Note: this is a Scrap. template which is made for use in Lumapix FotoFusion. 

For the background, you could put in a solid paper or a pattern. I used a patterned, and added two others from the same line. 

Occasionally I like to keep the border around the paper.

Three of the snowflakes are somewhat see-through, so if you would prefer them at regular opacity, just change that in the image dialog box. You could also drop in papers, since they are mattes, not embellishments.

I added some additional elements to the background: the numbers in the bottom right corner and some snowflakes, but reduced to a low opacity, so that they're not as bright. I just wanted to add a little bit of detail, not something that would stand out too much. Now these snowflakes are the same ones as I put near the large photo, but with shadow removed and "moved" to the back (Right-click>Send To Back).

Instead of using the title font, I brought in alphas by CD Muckosky. I love these letters!

For the stitches, I made sure they didn't go off the paper, only to the edge of the top paper. In order to "cut" short the stitch, right-click>Scrap Image Frame. Then adjust the blue handles until you have the stitch at the size you want. Sometimes this method doesn't work for some reason. LOL  If I don't do that, but want to shorten the stitch, it would make the whole stitch smaller.

Do you scrapbook a summary of each month? I always plan on it, but I somehow get lost in all my other projects. :)

Here's the download link to the template:

Happy Scrapbooking!

FotoFusion Template No.12

This time I decided to stick with the color scheme of the template preview picture. I love yellows!

Template tips:
1. The flower petals and and some of the middles are see through. (Low opacity) You can change that in your image dialog box. The opacity levels affect the way any pattern paper you drop in to the image frames would look. To change everything back to normal settings, Click on the little arrows on the top right of the image dialog box>RESTORE TO FACTORY SETTINGS.Play and see what cool affects you can come up with!

2. There are empty photo frames behind the slide mounts.

3. You can change the shadows on any of the elements.

4. Add your own text to the background wordart. Each line is a separate text frame. You can change the font, too, to add more detail and interest.

Products Used:

Yellow Papers: Annawhocropsalot Designs

Blue paper (strip), journaling mat: Kim DeSmet Her Personality

Flowers, wordart,: OScraps Cinzial Moments

Stitches: Kim DeSmet Happy Days

Fonts:Fineliner Script, Burst My Bubble, Esat Hoxha, Juice

Come back next Friday for another free template. 

Do you have any suggestions or ideas for upcoming ones?  

After these ten, I'll create a series of two-pagers. 

New FotoFusion Template and Layout

Have you seen this amazing sale?!?! Kim DeSmet is retiring, so her entire store is on sale for twenty bucks! The following layout was created using one of her kits. It's called Her Personality. I love it. Click here to go there.


I've made another template and created a layout with it. I hope you like it.

Template No. 11

Tips on using the template No. 11:

1. I created little circles for the flower middles, but you could always add brads, buttons or bling. 


2. You might have difficulty moving the little circles. The mouse tends to click on the yellow "panning" circle. To cease your frustration----:P----click on the blank area around your canvas to reset your mouse. Then click and drag. (The panning tool won't be activated with that first selection.) Does that make any sense at all? If not, just disregard my tip here and figure it out yourself. LOL (And declare Anna plum crazy.) Oh, don't select and release, click and drag is the order of business here. :)


3. You can add patterned paper to the slide mount (the little rounded frame). Just select it, go to the paper in your bucket you want to use, right-click>APPLY TO SELECTED FRAME.

4. There are empty image frames behind the slide mounts. If you find your picture does not want to fit into the little rectangular window, try changing the shape of the image frame. That worked for me. :)

5. The best tip is #5: The "title" and "subtitle" text is on the COLLAGE layer, not on the default text layer. In plain English, that means you can move the title backwards and forwards in your layers. You vant to know how I didit it?:)
Here she goes: Select the title>right-click>MOVE TO LAYER>check the little box that says COLLAGE.
You're welcome.:) (You just don't know how excited I was when I discovered that little tidbit.)

6. FOR THE NEWBIES. If the above tip made absolutely no sense to you, you gotta know this! If you would like a flower petal, for instance, to be BEHIND your photo, but you dragged it onto your canvas after your photo (so it's above your photo),you can change it! Select the flower>right-click>choose SEND BACKWARD. Whoo hoo! Isn't that great?


ABOUT THE LAYOUT:

1. The patterned paper that kind of fades into the background on the left side of the canvas was created using the matte called BLACK HORIZONTAL GRADIENT. Drag the paper onto your canvas, resize it the desired size, open your BORDER DIALOG BOX. In here you will find that coooooool matte. Select it, and VOILA! I also reduced the opacity of the image so that it wasn't quite so bright on my page. You know, it was gettin' busy and all. You understand.:) Remove the shadow on the paper. Very important.


2. I always remove the shadow on my stitches to make them look sewn to the page.

3. I split the largest image frame into two to better compensate my photos. If you don't know how to use the splitting tool, check out my tutorial on that awesome tool.


There you have it. All that blatherin' has come to an end. I heard the sound of relief from all you. See ya'all a little later!

Products Used:

Papers, flowers, buttons, bling, etc: OScraps: Kim De Smet Her Personality 

Stitches: Designer Digitals: Anna Aspens Stitched by Anna White No.07

Mask on upper right area of layout: Designer Digitals: Anna Aspens FotoBlendz Clipping Masks No.6

 (I "copied" this mask into my FotoFusion Mattes Folder.)

Fonts: Arial Black, Burst My Bubble and Cheri

ANOTHER TEMPLATE NEXT FRIDAY. I hope to, anyway. I'm not very good with my promises sometimes. I gotta work on that.


If you have any questions or comments, please email me at customscrapbooksbyanna(at)gmail(dot)com.

Creating layouts With FF Templates

I created this layout using the first of ten free templates available here as freebies, called 12x12 FF Template No.01.
To decorate like we like to do, I used stuff from three different kits, plus I used my own Chocolate Canvas Cardstock, available for free download here at my blog. It is listed in the right sidebar. :)
The one below is from OScraps called Patisserie which is by Paislee Press. I used the frame and a scallop border. The scallop I recolored.

I also used stitches from this kit called Tack it Down by Britt-ish Designs. I find I like to use stitches on every page I do.  LOL

For the paper stars, I used one of the gorgeous papers from this kit by Joyce Paul Designs at MScraps.

Tweeking my template: Instead of using the two small frames as is, I replaced them with the decorative frames and tilted them a bit. One feature I use a lot in FF, is duplicating elements instead of dragging a second one in, like I did with the frames. I dragged one in, resized it to my liking, and since I wanted two the same size, I just pressed Control + D on my keyboard. You can also find the command under the Selection tab. Make sure you have the element selected that you want duplicated, or else it won't work.

I wanted my title a little larger than the template had it, and I didn't want the title sticking out above the pattern paper behind the title, so I enlarged the paper frame a bit too.

My Chocolate Canvas paper looks blocked when I just drag the paper and drop it into the empty frame, so I zoomed in closer on the paper to create that Bazzill paper affect. (If you have been paper scrappers before you were a digi scrapper, you know what I'm talking about. LOL) I'm not sure why the zooming in works, but it does. :)

Now looking at the text, I wish I'd brightened it a bit more, so that it would be more readable. Oh well.