Putting a Background on Your Card

All cards start with a background.  As a default, your background is a solid white color.  You have the option of either changing this default to another solid, a pattern, or an image that you have stored on your computer.  Remember that you have already pulled your color palette down so that you can see the available colors.  The first step is to decide which color or pattern you want on your card.  To do this you need to click on the desired color on the color palette as shown here.  We have chosen a deep blue for our background on this card.
 
As you can see at left, the blue that we chose is highlighted on the color palette and it also fills the color indicator located directly under the available patterns. 

At right you will see that we have chosen a yellow for our background, which is both highlighted on the color palette and also fills the indicator.

 
Choosing a pattern is virtually identical to choosing a color.  In the following example we have chosen clouds as a background pattern.  You will see that the clouds are both highlighted on the pattern palette and fills in the indicator box. 

You have now chosen a color, the next step is to select the "Paint Bucket" from the tool bar.  Below you will see an image of your tool bar with the "Paint Bucket" already highlighted.  With your color or pattern selected and the "Paint Bucket" chosen you can now move your cursor over your card to see the actual "Paint Bucket" icon over your card.  Click once anywhere on the card to fill the background.


There are a number of ways for you to change the background color or pattern of your card.  If you are just using colors you can choose a new color and use the "Paint Bucket" tool and insert that new color as described above.  If you have chosen a pattern the process is slightly more difficult.  You are not able to change a pattern to a color using the "Paint Bucket" tool.  You are also not able to change from pattern to pattern as you would when you changed from color to color.
 

To change your pattern to a color you will need to choose "Edit"  "Erase Background" as shown at right.
The following image will appear once you choose this option.  Click on the desired color and choose "OK" to have that color appear as your background color.

To change your background from a pattern to another pattern you must first change to a solid color background.  The "Paint Bucket" tool acts as a filler tool and most of the patterns have many small spaces that would need to be filled.  This requires you to change to a solid background so the "Paint Bucket" can overwrite the entire background at once.


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