Digital Scrapbooking Tutorial - Make Your Own Birthday Invitation Using Clip Art and Digital Scrapbook Paper

Have you ever wondered what exactly to do with all those digital scrapbook papers and clip art you have saved on your computer?  In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to make you own 5x7 birthday invitation.

For this invite, I am using one of the digital papers from my whimsical love pack and clip art graphics from my birthday elements pack.

For this tutorial, I am using Gimp.  It is free to download, however, you can use another image editor if you like.

Remember to save often as you go!

1) To start,

-Open Gimp
-Choose File-New to create a new document
-Make sure the resolution is set to 300.00
-Set size to 5.0" x 7.0"

2) Next, you want to open the for the digital paper you will use for the background.


-Select File - Open and locate the file you wish you use.

3) Make sure the active window is the one with your paper and select the scale tool to change the size of the paper to 5x7.
- Press Ctrl+c to copy the paper to your clipboard.

4) Go back to the window with your 5x7, blank invitation.
 - Press Ctrl+v to paste the paper to your invitation.
- On the layers tab, you will now see "floating selection," press the "New Layer" button to place the paper in its own layer.
      - The "floating section" will now be labeled as "Pasted Layer"

Next, I will insert the clip art graphic I want to use for decoration on the invitation.  For this invite, I am using the birthday cake from the birthday clipart pack, found here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/189459946/pink-birthday-party-clipart-purple-green

You may choose to open and insert your clip art using the same copy and paste methods you used for your paper, or you can try this technique instead:

5) Choose File - Open as layers.
-Find the file with the graphic you want and after opening, you will see, it is now a new layer on your invitation.

(You may need to resize your graphic.  You can play around with the text you would like to add as well.)

6) Before your final save, press CTRL+m to merge all layers.



If you have any elements going over the 5x7 size, use the crop tool to get it back to the size you set.

My completed, custom birthday invitation looks like this:

All you need to do now is save and print, or you could always choose to save the environment a little and send the invitation digitally, through email :)

Enjoy!

Be sure to check us out on Etsy for birthday clip art, digital scrapbook papers scrapbooking embellishments and more!

www.etsy.com/shop/ChangingVases