Making a recipe card in PSP

Hi and welcome to my first tutorial. Our printable recipe cards have been so popular , I thought it would be nice for those who make thier own graphics to have a go for themselves. All you need is a basic working knowledge of psp. I use PSP7 but this tutorial is good for PSP6 too.
I have supplied one printed tile and two tubes of mine, but please feel free to use whatever pleases you :-)
So....... ready to get started? Off we gooooo.....



Start with a new image 100 x 100 white background. Choose a color for your lines . I usually find a color in the tube I am using, that will look nice. I used #726E85.
Now with the line tool set as in the screen shot below, start your line at 0, 20 pixels. ( Check the numbers in psp while you are doing this to make sure it is accurate, where I wrote in red.) You will pull the line over to 100,20.


Ok, got your first line done? Now for the others. It does help to zoom in on your tile so you can see what you are doing :-)
Ok, next line down will be at 0,40 to 100,40 (we are going down by 20 pixels) Next line 0,60 to 100,60...... then 0,80 to 100,80
The last line will go right at the bottom, so it will be 0,99 to 100,99

Now you can save this tile in either psp or jpg format, and then its on to the next step :-)


Make a new image white background size 450 x 250 and flood fill it with your line tile, so it looks like in the image below. Easy huh?

Ok, next step is to add a border. I usually add a border of 10 pixels all around image, but you can do whatever you like. Use your magic wand to select the border. Then you need to flood fill it with a pattern tile. I made one to go with the gingerboy I am using. You can save it here and use it too if you like.


If you use psp7 you can resize the tile in the flood fill tool to 40 so that it fits nicely as a border. And if you use psp6 then you can resize the actual tile before you flood fill with it. Now it should look like this.... but you need to go to selections and select none before we go onto the next step.

I think now I will add a border of 2 in the nice dark color (#726E85) just to give it a crisp outline, and make it easier to cut when printed. Again, its up to you what you do. You might want to add a larger border or another border. I also drew a rectangle on the inside of the border with the dark color size 1 just to finish it off.

Ok, ready to decorate your card? You can save my gingerbread boy and rolling pin tubes or use one of your own. The tubes will need to be resized to fit on the card, they are saved at 100% and even though they are both small they are bit too big for this card.

*Note ~ These tubes were made in PSP7 so will not open in PSP6. Sorry...

Click here to get zip file of both tubes

All you have to do now is copy and paste your tube onto your card, and on another layer using a nice country font, ( I used Kristen ITC) write "Recipe For" and or "From the kitchen of", or what I do is "From, then a blank space (to write in your name),then Kitchen", using the dark blue color. I even darkened mine a bit more so it will look better when printed.
Merge any layers you have and save its as a .jpg file for better color quality.

Now you have a nice recipe card to print. You can print it right from psp on good card stock at good color and they print out really well. If you add them to a web page they print out smaller. So just fiddle with the printer settings in psp until you get it the size you prefer.

I hope this tutorial has been easy and enjoyable. Its my first attempt at writing a tutorial so go easy on me *grin*



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This tutorial was written Oct'9th 2002 ©Dreamwork Designs