Scrapbooking Coach: September

September's Question: I want to be a designer and make kits. How do you make your kits?

September's Answer: I get this question a lot. First I get the theme, then I create the color palette. Then I like to start by creating the papers. I like making papers best, so I make as many as I feel like I would want if I were a customer purchasing the kit and had lots of photos I wanted to scrap. Then I create twice as many embellishments. (That's a recipe for a good kit:  twice as many embellishments as papers). 

I start out in Adobe Photoshop with a blank slate that is 12x12 inch at 300ppi. Then I add the background color, then a design (like stripes or flowers or dots etc,) then I add a texture or two or three, like crumpled paper or sweater knit, or whatever. I almost always add more than one texture.

I always do the textures last because sometimes I like the paper without any texture for creating embellishments. The embellishments don't come as easily for me as the papers, sometimes I don't make it all the way to 'twice as many' but I'm usually really close. I like to hand-create most of my embellishments. Sometimes this is called mouse-drawn because I use a mouse or pen tablet to draw my own embellishments. This is a big selling point because customers won't find your unique embellishments in any kit anywhere else. 

When I'm done with all the papers and embellishments, I scrap with the kit to see what I'm missing, and then I create that as well and add it to the kit. Next, I send everything through a Quality Control program.

Finally, I create a preview of the kit, as well as a preview of the papers and put them all into my brand-specific packaging, and into my store.