Credits: Floral paper and elements (except stitching and staple) by Zoe Pern,Kraft paper and stitching by Stephanie2, staple by Shabby Princess

Last week, we talked about text ON a path and this week we are going to take it one step further and discuss text IN a path.  Putting text inside a path will easily make the text fit within a shape that you determine.  Sometimes, because of the design of the layout, shaped text would just look better (see above).  First, I’m going to link you up with some tutorials and then I will share how I did the text above.

Text inside a shape or inside a path for Photoshop

Text inside a shape or inside a path for Photoshop

Text inside a shape for Paint Shop

For the layout above, I had to alter the shape a little so it would work with my journaling spot.  The procedures were very similar to the ones in the tutorials but, here are the steps I took:

First, I duplicated the circle shape that I used for my template or clipping path for the kraft paper and positioned that layer above the kraft paper layer.

Next, I used the rectangle marquee tool to select the left portion of the circle where I would not have any journaling.  Then, I deleted that selection by making sure that the copied circle layer was selected and then clicking ctrl+x (or edit>cut).

Next, I used the marquee tool again to select the bottom portion of the circle that would not have any journaling (I took the selection all the way to the bottom and right side of the layout, that is why you can’t see marching ants all the way around).  Once again, I deleted that selection by using ctrl+x (or edit>cut).

Now, the fun begins.  I selected my magic wand and clicked on the partial circle to select it.  We know it’s selected when we see the ants marching around the outside.

Now, select the paths tab in the layers palette and then click on the “create path from selection button”.  This will create a path in the same shape as the black shape we just selected.

Select the text tool and then move your cursor inside the shape, it should look like the text tool in the above screenshot.  Change your font and size as necessary and then click where you want to start typing.

Click on the layers tab again, so you can see your layers.  Click on the eye next to the shape to make that layer invisible.  At this point, you can also highlight the text and click on the paragraph and character window tabs to change the justifiction, spacing, etc.  Clicking on a new layer will make the path disappear or you can go back to the paths tab and click outside of that path.

I hope you will have some fun with paths!

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