This is a slide, for my latest video template, is a picture (from the local newspaper) of our family touring Holland in the early ’70’s. I used the bird graphic from Tracy Ann’s Graphics because there are other photos of me from that day standing among pigeons looking at the miniature city exhibit.

Journal strips are something I have not purchased yet because they seem too easy to make.  The other night I needed some and didn’t want to pay $14 to buy the ones I sourced with “Scrap For Hire” licensing. I polled a message board in search of someone else’s product with cheaper professional fees. But, I didn’t get a reply in time so I made my own.

First I painted my strips with an oblong brush set at 180 pixels. I set the brush up to have a hard edge and checked “shape dynamics” so it would start small and get bigger as I pressed harder. Next I clipped a plain aged looking paper to the brush strokes. I merged the layers and then applied Atomic Cupcake’s Pristine Chipboard action. WaLa, cute journal strips with a photo wrap layered on top! This mock up was done after the fact to show the stages. With this technique the shapes will differ because you are freehand “painting” the shape which is why my final chipboard strips are shaped differently.

Just for fun I did one more quick sample with tonight’s strokes and the “sketch and paint” action from Atomic Cupcake.

Later I went back to my ISO post (In Search Of) and there were some great options that were less than the $14 option I sourced. The hand doodled ones are especially cute, and I think the ones with the text paths might be a time saver? I’ll probably add some of these to my wish-list:

• http://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/sweetshoppe/product.php?productid=18288&cat=0&page=2
• http://www.elementalscraps.com/shoppe/product.php?productid=19913&cat=0&page=1
• http://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=22414&cat=0&page=5
• http://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/sweetshoppe/product.php?productid=18406&cat=0&page=1

Products Used In The Layout:

Artists include Christina Renee (frame, flower, paper), Tracy Ann (bird and paper overlay), Bisontine (paper), Lotta Designs (greenery), New Life Dreams (greenery), Katie Pertiet (ribbon) and Atomic Cupcake for creating the journal strip.