It’s easy to design your own scrapbook paper in PS to use for journaling or scrapbooking. It’s very similar to the lesson about how to create your own digital fabric here. There are a few extra tips such as how to create a brushes more efficiently. This process is also less about pattern and more about randomness, although you could certainly create paper that was more structured in pattern.

Materials:

Computer with Photoshop

Scanner

Clipart and/or doodle drawings, I also scanned some ink splatters and textures

Nice inkjet paper and/or label paper

Magazine clippings, photos, journal pages and other things you want to put in there

Paper trimmer or scissors

First create brushes

Start by scanning in your doodles and clip art, go ahead and scan the whole page. I recommend scanning at a high resolution as long as your drawings are small. In order to create a brush from an image it must be no bigger than 8 inches tall or wide at 300 dpi. I scan my 1-4 inch drawings at 600 dpi. Once, you have them scanned, open them up in Photoshop.

I set my scanner to scan a black and white photo. And even though I draw with black ink on white paper, the scanner will still pick up light shades of gray on the paper. So I run a threshold filter on my scanned art. To do this go to Image>Adjustments>Threshold. Then, adjust the amount of detail you want and press OK.

Once, the image is ready you can start making brushes out of each individual image. Use the Marquee Tool to select around the image you want to turn into a brush.

Now, go to Edit>Define Brush Preset .

Do this for each image. To save your brushes in sets open the Preset Manager under Edit>Preset Manager.

Select the images you want to be apart of the set and click Save Set. I keep my brush sets in a folder on my desktop and then when I need them I can just load them. (To load: just open the Preset Manager and click Load).

I also created brushes using graph paper, ink splatters and stamp textures.

Next, Create Scrapbook Paper Using Brushes.

Now comes the fun, easy and creative part. First, open a new file. Any size is fine, I just made mine 8×10 at 300 dpi.

Now, fill the background with a color of your choice using the Fill Tool.

Then use the brushes like stamps. Select a brush by first choosing the Brush Tool and then select the brush image from the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Stamp randomly on the page in colors you feel compliment the background page. I like to stamp in a New Layer (Layer>New>Layer) and I like vary the sizes of my brushes by using the Shortcut Key Strokes [ and ] .

Once I have created a page. I crop it so that I can create a series of papers. Use the crop tool and set the size of the page at the top menu. I made each of my scrapbook papers 12×12 inches at 300 dpi. Save each cropped page until you have set. Also, create more pages using the same color set and varying which color you use as a background.

Print your scrapbook paper onto a nice inkjet paper. I have serious love-affair with Epson Photo-Quality Inkjet paper.

Also, print your paper onto label paper to make it easier to stick into your scrapbook or journal.

Trim your scrapbook paper and stick in journal or scrapbook pages. I use glue stick for the plain inkjet paper.

Then, just add magazine clippings, journal writings or whatever else interests you.