One of the new features it to start from a completely blank layout. This allows you to create your own customized pages or you can also use this create custom photo sizes and have them printed for your traditional scrapbook layouts.

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Many of you have already taken advantage of February’s reduced pricing for Studio J® layouts.  Now Close to My Heart is extending this awesome pricing through March 15, giving you even more time to create and purchase layouts at the wonderful $5 per layout price.   Your order must be placed before 11:59 pm (MT) on March 15.

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1. Customize your background and texture paper. You can change the color and intensity of the background and texture paper included in whichever kit you choose. Simply select the piece of background and texture paper, change the color in the color selection tool, and increase or decrease the intensity of the color in that same popup box.

2. Crop My Stickease^® quotes, titles, and tags. The cropping feature on the My Stickease images allows you to select a section of a quote, title, or tag to use as a border or other embellishment.

3. Create a customized My Stickease image. If you have a specific image in mind to use as an embellishment on your page, you can create a customized My Stickease to fit your theme perfectly. Simply add a text box, photo hanger, ribbon, ribbon slides, and Stickease to create the little suitcase! So easy! Be sure to crop or send elements behind other elements when necessary, and add several elements together for a unique look!

4. Select more than one element at a time. If you want to move several elements of your layout at once, simply click and drag your mouse around the elements you would like to select. Let’s take buttons, for example. After the buttons have been selected, you can click the icons in the popup box to choose to align the buttons vertically or horizontally if you desire.

5. Make faux washi tape with vellum text boxes. To create the look of a piece of clear washi tape, make a small rectangular text box, filled with vellum background (this is the default color for text boxes). You can make the tape strips as large or small as you want, or even layer them for more emphasis.

6. Stretch one photo across multiple photo wells. If you have fewer photos than photo wells, instead of deleting the excess wells, try scaling the picture to a larger size and then copying the picture to other photo wells and matching the photos up until they align with an almost seamless image. This trick works best with photo wells that are adjacent to each other.

7. Create ruffled ribbon. Select “Ribbons” in the drop-down menu under the Embellishments toolset. Choose ribbon tab and rotate the tab so that it is vertical on the page. Then layer several tabs on top of one another, sending every other one to the back to create a ruffled look.

8. Create a jagged border with text boxes. You can create a jagged border simply by rotating multiple text boxes about 45 degrees and making them the same color as the background. Put these boxes on top of a long, rectangular box of another color, and you’ve got a jagged border!

9. Change the background of your layout. Sometimes you may like the photo and journal arrangement in a layout, and yet want to change the background colors. Because photos sit on top of everything else, this is easy to do. Simply pull a journaling box over the space you want for a different background and fill it with a color from the color selection tool or a patterned paper from the Papers toolset. Then, send it backwards until the photo wells are on top of your new background.

Bonus Trick! Use keyboard keys to make embellishments. Did you know that some of the best tools for creating custom embellishments are the basic keys on your keyboard? It’s as simple as typing into a journaling box with no background color. Use periods to make a polka dot pattern, angle brackets to create a trendy Chevron look, overlapping pound signs to make burlap, question marks to make rope, and so much more!

Sign up for a free account and give Studio J a try today!

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What a cute layout, and don’t limit yourself to just Halloween, it can be created for any pictures!

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Don’t for get about our sensational new Express Collections that make it even easier for you to save time and complete even more layouts!

Take me to Studio J^®

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NEW, NEW NEW!!  The recent enhancements to Studio J® make it a whole new tool for you. It is now faster and easier than ever to get professional results from your digital scrapbooking using the new Express Collections. Go to Studio J and try them out for yourself!

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Use Close to My Heart’s online scrapbooking software, Studio J®, to create a beautiful layout in just minutes by watching this month’s Love Your Layout video. You’ll learn creative techniques, including how to create a journaling box with a photo background. Watch the video here and then log in to Studio J to try it yourself!

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In this video, you will learn about toggle accents, re-sizing My Stickease, and distressing using spring colors.

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This month’s Love Your Layout installment is celebrating the sunshine. Watch the video to find out how to make another fabulous layout in Studio J®, using the Pemberley kit. Learn how to add wow to your photos and discover other techniques that will make your layouts shine!  Discover Studio J!

This layout is featured on page 25 of the 2012 Spring/Summer Idea Book.  It’s on my to-do list to recreate a version of this as a paper layout.

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Watch this month’s Love Your Layout video for instructions that will show you a cleaver way to and your title and also play with the stitching tool.

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In this latest Love Your Layout episode you’ll learn how to  create your own patterned paper, crop My Stickease  accents between pages, and learn a fun new way to use text boxes.

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This Studio J video will show you how to use My Stickease for journaling and how to create layered clusters with My Stickease.

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Try Studio J today!  It is free to try – you will only pay if you decide to purchase your layouts.

How to: Step by Step Basics

How to: Personalize Your Layouts

How to: Focus on Your Photos

How to:  Photo Editing Tool

How to: Perfect Placement

Try Studio J today!

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