Lettering without a machine

I always struggle producing the title for my pages. I know what I want to say but I just don't get how people get all their wonderful titles, that don't look cut out, nor printed nor stickers to go across their pages? How do you use digital fonts that I find on dafont.com for example. I couldn't imagine how to cut some of those out. Use a narrow script font for example, say I wanted it to skim over the corner of one of my photos, how could I do that with dafont.com?

Help!

Hi, I really don't have a title on everypage. Maybe a name ,like daughter or Emily or 2002. My titles comes from what is on the page. I really don't know if that makes sense. I am not familiar with dafont.com

Following this...hope someone can help...

Could you link to a LO from the Gallery that shows what you mean? Then maybe we can tell you how it was done. Are you possibly looking at digital LOs and trying to convert them into paper?

Thanks everyone so far. good idea Red Squirrel, but how do I link a layout as an example? Actually, think I might have done it..........

This is one example
http://cdn.scrapbook.com/gallery/source/4/4096 3/IMG_310...

Did that work? See the white lettering, I'll try to find others

Here's another
http://www.heritagescrap.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=14651&title=destination&cat=763

The "it's not the destination, it's the journey" bit

http://debbiehodge.com/2012/07/ideas-die-cuts-negative-space-scrapbook-pages/
The word "special"

http://www.scrapbook.com/gallery/image/digital /3258161....
The white sideways writing

http://www.cocoadaisy.com/blog/cocoa-daisy/8070/reveal-morning-sneaks-and-inspiration-2/
The blue "adventure"

Any ideas anyone - at last I feel someone might be able to give me the answer I've been wondering about for so long x x x

http://www.shimelle.com/paper/1759/is-a-digital-cutter-just-what-your-scrapbooking-needs/?utm_source=feedly

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/00/b6/2b/00b62b84f3dc3e4121efca65af137354.jpg

All those look like they were cut with a digital cutter, like a Cricut or a Silhouette. You don't need them, you can buy individual letters or even get a stencil sheet and trace and cut by hand. If you do alot of scrapbooking in the long run a cutter will save you time and money but they are pricey.

Yeah, the shimelle link talked about the Silhouette. One of the others was a digital LO.

Yes, those are made with a digital cutter. I have printed intricate fonts before and cut them out with a craft knife, but it's hard labour. You could print your font and layer your photo on top of the paper, cutting out only the part of the word that you want to overlap the photo. I've done that before with lettering and with patterned paper with pretty designs on.

The blue "Adventure" one is actually from a set of epoxy stickers which are glossy and not flat.

Besides stickers and die cuts though, you can also stamp, stencil (paint or mist), cut out with templates, use rub ons and of course print on the computer.

One of my favorite techniques is to print the word and then cut around it leaving a margin to keep the word together. It can be as thick or thin as you like. With the help of a good sharp pair of scissors I find that it isn't nearly as hard as trying to cut it closer with an X-acto. But the result is still neat.

My LO below shows some examples... rub ons in the upper left corner. On the photos, I applied stickers to spell out each person's name and then painted and finally removed the letters again (before the paint dried too solidly). Of course, on the LO as shown, only the first letter of each name is still visible. And of course, on the title, I had a ready cut die (in this case) and took my scissors and cut around for the white matting part to achieve much the same effect as I've already described.

Colorado 2005 Trip By KatieJo

Anyway, lots of way to get creative if you want/have to...

rub ons, don't forget the rub ons! they have been scarce lately, but you can still find some pretty good titles in black or white and sometimes other colors too.. LYB, Fancy Pants, Kaisercraft. Another great source of neat handwritten titles are AliEdwards stamps

I noticed the "Pure Sweetness" is a digital layout.
Some photo editing programs or labs have the option of writing on the pictures. I know people have also used stamps on pictures as well.

I second that a lot of these that you pointed our were either a machine (silhouette cameo or cricut) or printed it on card stock and cut out.

Just a thought….my LSS has a cricut and lets people cut out so many shapes/titles for a pre paid amount. If you are not ready to buy a machine it might be something to look into. I have also heard that some Michael's do that too.

Just read through this. You can also print on something like velum or transparency that is see through so when you lay it over the picture, you don't see much other than the lettering. Sure, you still have whatever it is you printed on, but that gives you some amount of flexibility.

you guys are really awesome.
i saw a music challenge here, use lyrics, titles, and such and i love the concept but my hand writing is terrible so i need to limit my use of that as much as i can. of course stamps can be rather tedious if it's something long.

And just cos, this is what i've done so far, my lettering has a tendency to be crooked when i have to do it freehand, letter by letter
http://www.flickr.com/photos/116141945@N04/sets/72157640388487456/

I'm following this one too …