On Monday I showed off my brand new Erin Condren Life Planner in all it’s awesomeness, complete with a custom-designed collage cover. Six of my twelve collage images are quotes, which are very simple to create using a free photo editing program found online at Picmonkey. I’m going to show you step-by-step how to make these for yourself!
First, go to Picmonkey.com and you’ll see a screen like this:
You don’t need to sign in – this can be done completely free of charge.
First, click on “Create a Collage”:
You’ll be taken to a screen like this:
Don’t do anything to this image – just save it to your computer somewhere easily accessible. If you plan to make more than one printable, name it “Template” or something similar so you’ll know to use it again.
Ok, now that we have our template, we can actually get creative and make a cute printable!
Go back to the Picmonkey home page, and this time, click “Edit a Photo”:
Select the template we just created. Your screen will look like this:
On the left, you’ll see “Basic Edits” like Crop, Rotate, Exposure, etc. To the left of those options, you’ll see little icons for various tools.
Click “Crop” and select “4×6” from the drop-down menu. You can rotate the 4×6 box that appears, make it larger or smaller…whatever you want. To make a quote for your Erin Condren Life Planner, you will need your 4×6 box to be horizontal, like this:
Once you have it set up the way you like it, click “Apply”.
Now, see those little symbols I mentioned before? The fifth one from the top looks like little quote bubbles. Click on that one and you’ll see a bunch of different overlay options.
We’re going to use the “Geometric” overlay in rectangle. Click “Geometric” then click on the rectangle, and you should see something like this:
All you need to do is stretch that bad boy out to completely cover your white rectangle, then move the little color box around until you find just the right color to be the background of your quote printable.
Once you have this part completed, you need to combine your layers so the blue rectangle stays in place while you add text.
To combine layers, look at the top of the Picmonkey screen and you’ll see a little icon that looks like two sheets of paper and a downward pointing arrow. Click on that:
Now we need to add some text! On the left side of the screen where all the icons are, click on the big “P” to go to the text options.
Now, if you have the free service, you won’t be able to use all of these, but that’s fine because there are a lot of great ones to choose from!
For my Life Planner quotes, I used the font called “Sacramento” – scroll alllll the way to the bottom of the list and you’ll see it. Select your font, then click “Add Text” at the top. A box will appear on your rectangle, like this:
Just do what it says, “Type your text here”. You can resize the box, move it around, stretch it out…whatever floats your boat.
*If you are going to print out your quote, leave space around the edges for framing. Same goes for the Erin Condren Life Planner. The photo spaces on the planner are not exactly 4×6, so some trimming will be done once you upload them to the site to create your planner.
Anyway, play around with different fonts, sizes, colors, etc. Make it as bold and colorful, or simple and sweet as you like. For my Life Planner, I chose a simple white text, like this:
Once you get your text to look exactly how you want it, click “Save” at the top of the screen and save your masterpiece to your computer!
If you would like to use the one I created for this tutorial, it’s free for you! Just right-click on the image below and save it!
That’s it! Easy-peasy lemon squeezy! 🙂
Don’t forget to enter to win a $75 gift certificate to Erin Condren!!! Giveaway closes at midnight Sunday!
5 Responses
Thank you for this tutorial!
I LOVE PicMonkey, I’m always learning new things I can do with it. Thanks Kirsten!
Great tutorial. Thanks..
What sizes are the actual photo squares you used (not the 4×6 quote squares)?
Honestly, I can’t remember – I made this over a year ago. However, I would recommend making them large because, when you upload them to Erin Condren to use in your Life Planner, you can size down or crop without losing the sharpness of the image. I hope that helps!
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