Other Ways to Use Digital Kits & Photoshop - PART 2

Ok. This is the second part of a three part series on OTHER ways to use your kits. It is my opinion that once you've got a firm grasp on digital scrapbooking, it's worth it to BUY kits. Sure, get the freebies when you can and if they are good, but buying kits is worth it because they have so many other uses. In Part 1, I showed examples of how I used kits or just Photoshop in projects related to my job as a teacher.

Today's post is how I've used it in my church. Now, I am LDS, and most of these projects are for Primary--kids 3-12. But, I'm sure these projects can be used for many other purposes other than church. A lot of them are just really great for kids. You could adapt some of these projects for birthday parties or toys for your children.

Paper Boxes

Now, I've already done an entire post on paper boxes. I've made a ton of these in the past, from various patterns. Sadly, I can't seem to find the files for very many of them. Guess I threw those files out! If you want to learn more about this, you might want to read my post about it - Making Paper Boxes Using Photoshop.

Here's an example I made for when I had the six-year-olds a few years ago.

Paper Boxes are one of my favorite things to make. When I used them in Primary last week, I made up six of them, put a piece of paper with a song written on it inside. Then I called on a kid, let them find a box (I had them hidden all over the room) and they would open it and get the song. Then--they got to keep the box. Total excitement at this point. I've also used them to put CTR rings in as a gift for the kids, and another time they were an invitation to a birthday party. Each kid got a box with their name on it, and there was a piece of paper inside with the details. There are SO many things you can do with this! Another time I found a pattern for a triangle shaped box. I put a poem on it, and inside was a little candle for them. So cute.

Oh--and here's something REALLY fun. Panos actions has a really cool action that will make a box FOR YOU. All you have to do is choose the photos. When its done running, it will have a box all ready to print and fold, and each side will have a photo you choose! It's so cute! This is a FREE action, too! You kind find it here: Panos Effects Paper Box Action

Paper Bag Puppets

I wanted to make paper bag puppets of all the prophets for a song called "Follow the Prophet." So, I used a combination of digital and material. This is Noah, just one of the four that I made. I did the face by drawing a box and rasterizing it. Then I used the dodge and burn tool to do the shading on the face. (I haven't covered those tools yet--I'll do it soon!) The eyes and eyebrows are just shapes. The nose is actually from a picture. I cut it out and dragged it in, then lightened the opacity and and used the feathered eraser to blend the edgest into the background.

The clothing is all from a kit. The umbrella is clipart, and the teeth and tongue are shapes. I then used actual white batting to make the beard and hair. Here's what it looked like when finished:

Chain Rings
This was kind of silly I suppose. I could have done this very easily with regular paper. But I was just starting to digital scrapbook, and I was obsessed with my kits.  It was actually a really good way for me to see what I had and mess wit lots and lots of kits. So I made these strips. I printed them and cut them out. Then the kids made a chain. I can't even remember what we wrote on each strip now--a scripture or something. I don't know. But the kids loved it!

Envelopes

I'm so frustrated. CANNOT find this file, but I swear I saw it the other day! Anyway, a few years ago I made envelopes for the kids. Very similar to boxes. I found a pattern for it, converted it to be more workable in Photoshop, and then used my kits to scrapbook the envelope. Then I printed and folded. I placed a little flat rock inside the envelope as part of my lesson, if I remember right. So sorry I don't have a visual for this one! But I DO have a tutorial on it, and a downloadable file for two different sizes of envelopes. You can find it here: Making Envelopes.

Church Posters

You know how you walk into the foyer and there's ALWAYS some advertising poster there? I got to do one once for Relief Society. It was so cute. I just had it printed in a larger size. It looked so nice!















Singing Wheel

I did this just last week. I created a singing wheel for my calling as the chorister in Primary. I made individual sections of a wheel, all of them scrapbooked with kits, showing different ways to sing. Then I glued them on to a poster board wheel, used a brad, and had my dad, whose a carpenter, back the poster board with wood.

So, that's all I've got for church stuff. I'm sure there will be more--there's ALWAYS more!

If you would like a downloadable and printable copy of the Primary Song Wheel, you can find a post about it here.