
I remember those days! Which program are you using?
Quick run down:
Find your freebies to use, download and unzip (with a program like WinZip) into a folder you create just for them. Hint Make a new folder for every downloaded kit you get. this will really be important later!
Open your program, find the paper you want to use as your main background paper, (Make a duplicate working copy of this paper so you don't save over the original image and always work on a copy)
Add new layers and place your photo's and elements each on a layer of their own. Add Text and whatever you want and then save it in the native format for your program. Ex Adobe Photoshop = .psd, Paint Shop Pro = .pspimage and so on.