I know it’s been a long time, but we’ve been super busy preparing wonderful new features that are coming up, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, I’ll be teaching you how to manipulate our new photo shapes. Now we can now combine stickers and photo shapes to make Mixbooks look all the more amazing.

The page above was made by using our photo shapes and flower stickers. Cool, right? It’s also super easy. All you have to do is select a Sticker (like flowers), drag the circle shape on top, and drag your desired photo into the circle shape.

You can do the same for the heart shape. To elongate a shape, be sure to click and drag the corners of the bounding box (the yellow border seen when an object is selected) to stretch and re-size it. If you drag the corners it will enlarge the shape, while dragging the sides will stretch it out.

Here’s another example of what you can do with this feature:

This particular layout was made by super-sizing the snail sticker, then we unchecked the border box in the “Frame” tab for the circle shape. Then we dragged and dropped the photo into the circle shape, elongating it slightly to the left to make it fit the curve of the snail sticker. We also used flower stickers and circle shapes to drag and drop photos into.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this tutorial, keep making those beautiful Mixbooks and check back soon for some exciting updates!

May Day, over and out,

Jasmine

A couple decides to take a trip to Reef Playacar Resort. This travel photo book features some awesome bird and underwater photography as well as beautiful beaches, sunsets, ruins, and downtown night life! If you want to make a Mixbook similar to this format, here are some tips to help you out:

1. Organize by Days

This is most effective with Cruise photo books. It would make a lot more sense to friends and yourself if you made a Cruise book that explained what you did on day 1, versus what you did on day 2. Because everyday is an adventure on a cruise, you don’t want to clump all of your photos together! Your photo book will not only tell a story, but it will help you remember all the good times you had each day of your vacation.

2. Organize by Events

Depending on where you go or where you have gone, you might not remember what you did on each day. But you know you have a lot of pictures of the beach, the scenery from a hike, or a night show. So just group them by events, and you will have a coherent and relavant Mixbook ready to go!

3. Narration

A photo book is just a photo book without writing, but if you include details about the trip, what happened, where you went, and how you felt, it transforms your photo book into a story book. If there is writing in your photo book, people will slow down and read your thoughts instead of idly flipping through. This is a great way to sneak in inside jokes, funny remarks, and proposals (as we have seen people done). It will also be all the more personal and interesting to read. Take a look at the book featured today and you will find a story-like narration throughout the book.

Man, all of these awesome vacation photo books makes me want to make them too. I wish it was summer! Anyways, we hope you enjoyed today’s blog post. Stay tuned next week for more photo book tips, tutorials, and features.

Also, I want to know what you are thinking. What would you like to see more of on this blog or Mixbook.com?

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

Jasmine

It’s always fun to take Polaroid photos. There’s something about them that stirs nostalgic feelings of the time where there digital photos did not exist. In today’s post, we are going to show you how to achieve the Polaroid look on your photos! This particular tutorial is simple, easy, and beginner Mixbook users should be able to grasp how to do it rather quickly. Included are also other fun ideas for your Mixbook pages.

1. Polaroids

First, Add a Text Item (found under the Layouts tab). Once the text box comes up, click on it, and then the Frames tab.

By checking background, the text box will be filled with the color black. Simply change the color to white, extend the box into a rectangle, and you have the base for your Polaroid.

Second, select and drag a photo onto the page.

Condense your photo into a square, click the Frames tab again, but this time, select the Borders box.

Once you adjust the borders to the thickness you want, just drag the photo on top of the text box, adjust its location, and you will have a Polaroid photo on your page!

Note: To make it more realistic and to help it pop out, select the Text box (under your photo), Style tab, and drop a shadow on it!

You can make lots of Polaroids that detail your adventures!

2. Windows

Another fun trick to learn is creating Windows.

Simply select a photo, click the Frames tab, then Borders check box to create a border around it.

Then make 2 Text boxes. Use the same method of filling it in by selecting a full white background, adjust the text boxes into thin sticks, and arrange them over the photograph.

This will create the illusion that you’re looking out a window to your photo! Drop shadow was also added to the photo to create depth and the illusion of shadows being cast!

Finally, here is another cool option to arrange your Mixbook page!

By selecting a photo, rearranging the shape so it becomes like a long rectangle, and adding a Border around it, this will be a a border for the page itself, or just something to enhance your page. You can also add the two thin text boxes that look like ribbons!

Thanks for reading everyone, I hope this inspires you to make more Mixbooks! Remember to post a comment if you have any suggestions for tutorials, or something you’d like us to blog about. Questions and Feedback are always welcome! Just email us at support@mixbook.com .

- Jasmine

Today we have a tutorial on how to fill in your blank pages. As you may know, every book has to have at least 20 pages in order for the book to bind correctly. Not everyone may have so many photos, so here are some tips to help you out!

Instead of blank white pages, it would be much more fun to have solid colors, or add stickers to give the page some texture.

You can enlarge the stickers, such as the lady bug, to create abstract shapes!

You can also spread out your photos by making a page for each photo, or enlarging it so it fills up two pages.

And when you don’t feel like doing those, you can always use our Duplicate tool to duplicate a page in your book, or take a quote and make a page for it!

So really, it isn’t as hard as you might think it is. I hope these were helpful and that they inspire you to fill in the blanks with the colors from your life!

-

Jasmine

Welcome to another day of February! Today’s tutorial is how to make the text in your Mixbooks look great! There is a lot you can do to make your Mixbook professional or fun, and the text tool is a great way to help you achieve that. Text can be used to tell your story or simply enhance and decorate a page. Some of these techniques we’re showing you today are pretty tasty! Not literally, of course.

Three essential tools to help you are: Borders, Reflection, and Shadows.

1. Borders

Borders help make your text looking professional and contained. You can find the “Borders” option by clicking on your text box, and there will be a tab called Frames. By clicking Frames, you can create a frame, or border around the text. Just click the check box, and select how thick or thin you would like your border to be. You can also add a background color and change the opacity of the box (which can allow you to see through the background).

Here is an example of what you can do with borders and a background for your text boxes. First create a text box for each letter, adjust them to the same size (as well as border and background), then rotate each letter to create the effect you want.

Also, the thin lines in the photo above can be made by using text boxes. All you have to do is create a text box, click the background check mark, and adjust the box to make small, thin boxes or big boxes!

2. Reflection

The Reflection tool is also very useful, it can make beautiful reflections of your text! You can find this feature under the Style tab once you click your text box. You can also change how much you want reflected (Offset), how blurry or sharp (Blur), and the Opacity of the reflection.

Here is an example combining borders (and background opacity) and reflection. You can also see I added stickers with reflections on it (also available by clicking the Style tab for your stickers!)

3. Shadows

The last tool you can use to enhance your text are drop shadows. This can be found under the Style tab, and there are options to change the Blur, Distance, Angle, and Opacity. Blur determines how sharp you want the shadow, Distance is how far from the text, Angle changes where the shadow is casted, and Opacity gives it a see-through or a solid look. Shadows help to give your text a 3-dimensional look!

Here is an example of shadows with text. The border around “You” is a separate text box with shadow cast to it and the “You” text box. By the way, those flowers are not stickers. They are actually Asterisks * (shift + blown up to different sizes in a text box. Test and experiment with different symbols available on your keyboard!

The text on the left hand page is made up of four different text boxes that are rotated and set at different sizes to make it swell.

In this example, borders and background opacity was applied, and the colored shadow look can be achieved by making a copy of your text (Right click, select Copy and paste), and making the second copy a different color (in this case, Orange.) By placing the second copy over the first, you give your text a fun colored shadow.

This last screen shot is of size manipulation, and how it can enhance a page. You can practically hear and see the Echo!

That’s all for today! Keep sending emails on what you would like to learn to do. Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Texting is fun,

Jasmine

1. Layering

Layering allows you to take several individual stickers and create something new and completely different than with one sticker alone. By simply using the “Bring Forward” and “Bring Backward” buttons (see photos below), you can stack stickers on top of each other to create different looks and pictures. The page will then seem more 3 dimensional.

Bring Forward:

Little details like this bee in front of the blue box sticker will help the page pop out!

Here is an example of what you can do with layering:

And this was just for fun…

2. Magnifying

Magnifying is stretching a sticker and using it to enhance your background and page. This is a super fun way to play with the stickers available. Try stretching them out and creating new ways to use them!

Now what can we do with these stickers?

Stretch them like taffy!

Combining Layering and Magnifying, this would be one neat page!

Here’s another page I made by stretching a swirly sticker, and increasing the thickness of the border around the photos. I also added drop shadows!

3. Creating Patterns

Finally, creating patterns with stickers is a technique that is very fun and can be quite tedious. If you have patience and time to try, venture into this realm! All you have to do is take a sticker (or more) , modify them to whatever size you want, then repeat them in a pattern. To copy and paste the sticker you want to make a pattern out of, all you have to do is select a sticker, right click, and select “Copy Item” and “Paste Item“.

Patterning stickers is a great way to make borders!

Here’s another one that uses two stickers!

I hope this inspires you to make more Mixbooks and use more stickers! Remember, if you have any questions (such as a certain tutorial made) or comments regarding the tutorial (or anything about Mixbook), feel free to post a reply.  Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Keep sticking those stickers,

Jasmine

This trick requires high-resolution photos (at least 4MP) so you can zoom in on the details of the face.

- For this layout, click on the layout drop down menu and select the 4 photo layouts. Choose the one that looks like the above photo.

- Use pictures that are similar in size or proportion and also in the same pose. For this layout I used photos that were all portraits of faces, where everyone was facing forward. Then I zoomed in on key features of the face – the top of the head, eyes, nose, and mouth and connected them where they best fit.

- There you have it! Silly funny faces, and it was so easy to do.

Try to play around with it, and you’ll get some neat effects. Try using other layouts, like the ones below:

This one is like a puzzle, so try switching it around to make it more fun!

This is another funny face photo that you can try. Play with your friends faces, or even use animals.

The possibilities are endless! It’s a lot of fun, and can be done with almost any layout.

You have a funny face,
Alison

Some things to remember:

- Frames can be made thick or thin, and give a different feel to each photo.
- The color of the frame can drastically affect what the photo looks like, just like a matte (in a real framed photo) does the same.
- Pairing a frame with a matching or contrasting background can highlight the colors in the photographs.

1) Photo Slides

This simple frame trick makes photos look like they are individual slides and focuses the eye on the main subject, which is the photo.

- Simply click on the “Create Custom Frame” button in the Frames section of the tool.

- Increase the thickness to the highest setting by dragging the tiny arrow all the way to the right, until it is 8.00 in thickness.

- Change the color of the frame if you wish, or leave it at white — which is clean, bright, and usually works with any photo.

- Drag the photo frame to your layout for the book page, and re-center your photos where they need to be.

- Finish by clicking “Save” to save the frame to your drawer for later use!

2) Playing with Frames

This is just a little exercise in fun, to change the look of a page by mixing up the thicknesses and colors of the frames.

- We used the same method as the “Photo Slides” trick only we used the thinnest setting for frame as well and changed the color to match the blue water.

- This page is fun because of the bright background color contrasting with the dark skin of the seals, and the placement of the different frames.

Try mixing your own combination of frames and remember to save the styles to your drawer so you can play with them again!

Alison

Sound too good to be true? Keep reading!

Trick My Mix – Scrapbook Type

This trick is similar to the last one, as it focuses on how to decorate the pages of your book with type/words. The following are three examples of how to integrate words by making text boxes look like the cute letter cut-outs you’d see in scrapbooks.

- The biggest part of this technique is picking a layout that has square text boxes. My personal favorite is the 4 photo layout with two text boxes (as seen in the pink layout), but you can experiment with any layout.

- Next think of any word or words that you’d like to represent in the boxes. Here we have “C-U-T-E” and a series of words (silly, goofy, funny, us being us) for the boxes. For the word “cute” we set the font to Chaparral Pro Bold and the size to 59 or 60, and centered it in the box. You may have to play around with this to get it right.

- Create a Custom Frame by selecting the border color from a color on the page, and setting the border thickness to “8,” which is the thickest setting. Then to create a colored text box go to the “more” button in the Frames section, and click on any background color of your preference. Set the transparency to 1.00 so that the background of the text box will be completely solid. Click “Save” and your custom frame will be saved for future use. Drag the custom frame onto your text boxes, and voila! There you have it! Letter cut-outs to personalize your Mixbook – who would have thought?

- Play with your words - highlight only portions of text to enlarge,bold or italicize them. See below for our final example of this Scrapbook type method, then have at it!

The Mixing Bowl 5

This week’s Mixing Bowl is full of greens! Only one serving though, since we have jam packed this post full of other things.

Community Garden 2007 by Mark S., Lisa L. and Michelle B.

This book caught my eye because of the delicious fresh veggies that are on the front cover. This Mixbook is all about a group of folks that got together every week to spend an evening at a community garden. Months later, they enjoyed the literal fruits (and veggies) of their labor. This colorful and picturesque book makes gardening look like so much fun – I’m ready to pick up my gloves and go! I love how the Mixbookers used our textured backgrounds to add to the theme of the book – the first page has our grass background.

Mix-ins 4

This week’s Mix-ins come from our love of best friends and all the love they bring into our lives. Use a Mixbook to pay tribute to your best friend, the love of your life, or even 10 of your closest homies. Make a Mixbook about the memories and good times you have had together – just because. I’m willing to bet that your best bud will love it. Check out this sample from Mixbooker Libby S., and her best gal pal.

Well, that’s all she wrote for today. Enjoy!
Alison

Crazy like a Mixbook,
Alison