Tutorial: Project Life Layer Masks

One of my goals for March is to FINISH my son’s baby album (which is a Project Life album, using the Baby Edition for Him…it started out as a regular Project Life album but I changed it up completely when the baby editions were released even though I was about 80% complete with the original album. That’s another post entirely.) I’ve only been able to squeeze in a few hours to work on the album in the last few weeks but I’m so close – just a few photos to have printed and some things to cut on the Silhouette Cameo. Since I’m going back and filling in instead of spending hours sorting/processing/finding photos, etc., I’m taking a bit more time with each page than I normally would, experimenting with the digital version of the kit (purchased in addition to the paper version – You can find the digital kits {here}).

I imagine most people are either digital OR paper scrapbookers, but I really like a mix of both. My goal was to add in more elements of the Baby Edition since much of what I originally did used such a variety of papers + the Clementine + Cobalt kits. What I really wanted was a more cohesive album. To achieve that, I’ve added digi elements where I can by using layer masks with the journaling cards from the digi kit.

{Note: You need the mask so you can create the frame around the photo. You could just try to crop and resize your photo to fit within the border of the card, but it’s actually easier to create the mask.}

This is how I did it:

1. Open the Project Life digital card that you want to use. I’m trying to fill up some 3×4 slots so I chose a 3×4 card.

2. Crop out the outer edges of the card so that you only have the center part left. Make sure your crop lines look pretty even all around the card.

3. Save this cropped version as a new file with a new name. (I named mine PL-3x4mask.png)

4. Click the undo arrow to restore the original version of the 3×4 card.

5. Open up the cropped image and drag it onto the 3×4 card as a new layer. Make sure the cropped image is the top layer.

6. Open the photo you’d like to use. Drag it onto the 3×4 card as the top layer.

7. From the Layers menu, select “Create Clipping Mask.” (or click CTRL+G on a PC) Adjust the size and placement of your photo as desired.

8. Save the file as a jpeg for printing. It’s that simple.

I also played around a bit with some of the elements from other cards in the set.

Fun, right? I extracted the “swoosh” element from the card on the top right and added it over the photo with some text. I’m thinking of using that same “swoosh” shape as a cut file for the Silhouette Cameo. I think it would make great week number cards.

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