Lets say you just did the cutest layout but the kit didn't come with an alpha, or you really love one of the papers or patterns in a kit and want to coordinate your alpha to that, or, well, any number of reasons. Here is a simple way to make your fonts work for you:
1) Select a font that matches the layout style. This whimsical kit, Camden's Buddies, has a bunch of fun, adorable dinosaurs, so I wanted a rough yet playful title art. I selected Jailbird Jenna because of its 'broken' nearly concrete feel and the offset baseline of the letters.
2) I typed the words in the size I wanted. I called my page Sizzling Saurus.
3) Then, in your Layer's menu, select 'Rasterize' (about half-way down the pulldown menu). This converts the editable type into pixels.
From here you can do a number of things. I'm going to show you 2 that are a quick and easy way to make a coordinating alpha for your layout.
Stickers
Do steps 1- 3 from above
4) Creating a font sticker is a simple as stroking your rasterized words. With your word layer selected, Go to: Edit >Stroke.
5) Use a wide point size to get a thick sticker border, lets say I put in 10 here. And then I select the color by clicking on the color box. I use the eye dropper tool to select a color within my layout to make sure it all fits nicely together.
6) Then create your shadow or use as you would any other alpha. What I love about this method is that the word can all connect. I think its a fun look.
This is my page with the sticker alpha words I created.
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Patterns/Paper
The second alpha type trick is to take your rasterized word, make it into a mask by pulling in a fun patterned paper. Do up to step 3 from above.
4) select the paper you like, then bring it in on a new layer, above the rasterized type layer.
5) holding down the Ctrl key (Cmmd key on a Mac), click on the line between your paper layer and your rasterized words in your layer palette. This clips the paper to your words.
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6) Go to your word layer and select just the letters. (a quick and easy way to do this is to select all (ctrl A /cmmd A) then using your arrow keys, nudge the selection. It will automatically select just the words on this layer).
7) add a new empty layer and, with the outline of the words selected from step 6, go to Edit> Stroke. Select the color and stroke width (I chose 10 pts and the pale yellow from my background paper).
8) add a slight drop shadow and there, you have a sticker alpha created from your paper.
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And this is the finished page using this font treatment:
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I hope you enjoyed this quick and easy way to create your own alpha words. It really makes your title stand out. Because of Christina's whimsical style, its a perfect technique to use with her fun kits.
Be sure to pop over to ScrapMatters to see what other goodies Wimpy Chomper's Creations has.
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