Win 25 Cards from Shutterfly: Photoshop/Shutterfly Tutorial

Each year, I save those little epiphany phrases that tumble out of my kid’s mouths (Mom, why is my hair blonde? It’s from the sun. Now, it’s like this even in the shade.)  and save them for our Christmas Card. Our family Christmas card is all about the quotes; the photos take a backseat to the words printed on the card.

This year, Shutterfly gave me a challenge to use one of their Christmas cards. Was there a way I could incorporate my traditional “Top Sayings” of the year into a 5×7 photo card? Doesn’t all that text lend itself to a folded card?

Didn’t seem possible. Yet, I  love the simplicity of using Shutterfly — I love how you can simply upload your photos, and grab them for a a project, and Shutterfly has already done the back-end design work for you. I need these time savers around the holidays. So, up for the challenge, I figured out a way to incorporate Shutterfly’s Photo card designs into my traditional “text” card. I did it by turning my text copy into a photo:

Here’s what I came up with:

In PhotoShop, I created a new image, 3×1 inches.

I gave this a white background — with all the text I didn’t want anything too busy.

Then, I chose the color — I wanted for the text, a sepia tone look, so I chose 321c1c.

Then, I started typing in those little quotes I’ve been saving up all year.

To create that brown border, I clicked “resize”

and choose canvas:

I chose 50 width and 50 height pixels. Hit OK. You will see the little checkerboard around the the border in the photo above.

That is your new border. To color it, simply choose the paint bucket

(make sure the background layer is selected) and fill it up. I simply used the same color as the text, and pour the bucket over the checkerboard.

Every time I hit “print screen” the paint bucket would disappear…  the arrow is pointing to the bucket for you to grab.

Here is the Print photo:

And then, I went to Shutterly, and chose a design that held the most photos. For the main “photo” I dropped in my text photo.

Here’s the result!

Now, here’s your chance to win 25 5×7 Greeting Cards from Shutterfly:

How to Enter: Leave a comment  telling me the funniest “quote” you heard all year.

Earn Extra Entries – valid only after completing first mandatory entry. Leave a separate comment for each, if you do, please.

• Write a post linking this post on your own blog.
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Giveaway ends December 24, midnight PST. Open to US residents only.

Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.

You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.