Have you ever seen gorgeous wedding stationery with watercolor text and thought ‘Ooh pretty’? Well, I’m going to show you how you can create watercolor text and make a Save the Date like the one below. It’s free and super simple. Game?
All you need is access to Picmonkey.com. Yes, you can also do it in Photoshop, but you need a subscription for that and the learning curve is pretty steep. Picmonkey, on the other hand, is totally fool proof!
Note: this post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link & make a purchase, I may receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
UPDATE OCTOBER 2017 – since this tutorial was written Picmonkey has now changed to a ‘free-to-try’ model. This means you can try it free for 7 days and save your work but, after your free trial, in order to save your designs, you do need to be a paid member. I’m a proud affiliate for Picmonkey and have been a paid member since 2014 when I was creating my own wedding invitations. Seriously, I have all the heart eyes for this program and have designed a ton of stationery and create all my blog and social media graphics on it. So, in my view, the membership is worth it… but if you’re on the fence, the 7-day trial does give you an opportunity to find out if you love it too.
HOW TO CREATE WATERCOLOUR TEXT FOR WEDDING STATIONERY
What we’ll be doing is ‘clipping’ a watercolor graphic into text so it looks like you’ve written with a watercolor pen. Here are the 6 easy peasy steps you need to do it yourself.
Step 1:
Open up Picmonkey.com, float your mouse over the ‘Design’ option second from right at the top and choose ‘Other’. Pop in the measurements you want for your Save the Date.
I’ve gone for landscape postcard (A6) sized canvas.
PSST: When I need to transfer a card size in millimetres into pixels that will print out in good quality I just multiply by 10! So, an A6 postcard is 148mm x 105mm – so in pixels that’s 1480px x 1050px! Find card sizes here in millimetres so you can easily convert to pixels when designing stationery!
It opens onto a blank canvas:
Step 2:
Navigate to the text toolbar (Tt on the lefthand menu). Choose the font of your choice. I’ve gone for ‘Spelling Night’ which doesn’t come as standard with Picmonkey, but I got it from Creative Market for $10 and it’s my favorite Calligraphy style font at the moment. However, you can totally use a free font – check out this post on 20 free Calligraphy Fonts for your wedding stationery.
Choose the font you want to use and click on ‘Add Text’ at the top of the text toolbar. This opens a text box into which you can type. I then center aligned the text and increased the font size to 300 pt using the floating options bar to the right of the screen.
I also put the text box at a slight angle to the right by manipulating the alignment option at the top of the text box (circled red).
Step 3:
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP! Once you’re happy with the placement of your text you need to ‘combine’ the layers by choosing the option at the left of the menu at the bottom of the screen (circled).
Step 4:
Now it’s time to create watercolor text.
(a) Create or find a watercolor image to use
I’m using a pretty blue watercolor piece of art that I created recently. Seeing how nice I am you can download it here to use for your own save the date!
It’s also really easy to do this yourself for your own stationery colors – all you need are some simple watercolor paints and check out this tutorial from The Postman’s Knock on how to get started. Then just scan the image onto your computer ready to use.
Alternatively, you can nab free watercolor brush stroke graphics that would be perfect for combining with text, or even purchase some from Etsy or Creative Market.
(b) Overlay the watercolor image and combine it with the text
Once you’ve chosen the watercolor image of choice, navigate to the butterfly icon on the left of the screen to bring up the overlay menu and choose the ‘Add your own’ button at the top of the screen. This allows you to open the watercolor image from your computer.
Once you have it open and positioned over the text, simply choose the ‘Add’ option from the ‘Blend modes’ section of the floating menu to the left of the screen.
Et voila! The image magically disappears into the text and you have a super pretty watercolor save the date for your trouble!
Step 5:
Now all you need to do is add your own details. Names, Location, and date. I think the simpler the better for a save the date, to be honest. I used ‘Lato’ font (which is free in the Picmonkey text options). I changed the color to a subtle grey (#979797) and font size to 55pt so that it lines up with the Save the Date text.
And you’re done! Easy as that.
Who knew it was so easy to create watercolor text for your wedding stationery? You have absolutely NO excuses now – off you go and see what you can create!
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FAQs:
How do I print it out?
You have a couple of choices:
- Print it on your home printer. It’s sized to print on A6 paper (10.5cm x 14.8cm). For more details on how to print stationery at home check out my guide on printing wedding invitations at home.
- Have it printed off online. My favorite online printer is Printed.com whom I used for the stationery for my own wedding. I love their choice of cardstock and they’re very reasonably priced.