Fly

Several years ago I attended the wedding of my poodle's breeder's daughter.  The theme of the wedding was medieval and everything was beautiful.  It was extra special to me because you all know how much I love dogs and Saber and Fifi, brother and sister standard poodles, were the ring bearer and the flower girl.  Now, as a child, I had this fairytale dream in my head of getting married and having a long flowing train that my dogs would  carry down the aisle for me.  I think that idea must have come from seeing Lady and the Tramp!  Anyway,  they were both perfect little attendants and sat very quietly and still throughout the entire ceremony which was about 45 minutes long.  About 20 minutes into the ceremony, Fifi sat her little flower basket down in front of her.  She was so pretty and I just love this photo of her.  But I thought it would be fun to add to the fantasy and give her some fairy wings.  I have written a tutorial with a link to fairy wings and pointers on how to add them.  Be sure to check it out if you want to try it!

Used the November Swirlydoos kit for most of this, featuring House of Three Parisian Anthology.  Also used lots of Peacock Chalkboard Glimmer Mist and Distress Victorian Rose ink, Kaisercraft pearls and bling, Prima flowers, Dusty Attic chippy painted with Tattered Angels Tinsel Town Glimmer Glam.  Those are K & Co butterflies. 

The journal verse:
 Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,

For I would ride with you upon the wind,

Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,

And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

~William Butler Yeats, "The Land of Heart's Desire," 1894

PSE Tutorial – Adding wings & clouds

This is my sweet poodle, Chili, she went over the bridge last April, 2010. She was only 7 and was suffering from severe autoimmune diseases. As all pet lovers know, it is really hard to lose a beloved pet, and doubly so when it is before their natural time to go. She was such a pretty girl and I often think of her at the Rainbow Bridge as an angel so I think it’s only fitting to give her some pretty wings!

You will need to acquire wing brushes. I think there are a lot out there. I downloaded mine from Obsidian Dawn.  There are instructions there for downloading the brushes, unzipping the file and installing the brushes as well as a “Random Brushes Tip” that tells you how to add the wing brush to your image. The instructions are easy to follow so I’m not going to repeat them. Instead I’m going to add in some other information that I hope will help you achieve the look you want.

I didn’t like the background in my picture so I decided to replace it with clouds.

Clouds - Steps for this:

1. Create a background copy and make sure that you have this layer selected in the layers box.  Do this by selection Layer, Dupicate Layer in the menu at the top.

2. I don’t want the clouds to cover the dog so I am going to use the Quick Selection tool to select all parts of the image except for the dog. See my tutorial on the Quick Selection Tool if you don’t know how to do this. I actually selected the dog and then I went to Select, Inverse. That has the effect of inverting my selection so now everything but the dog is selected.

3. Select colors in the foreground and background colors that will look like clouds. I used a white foreground and light blue background. To change the color just click on the foreground and background color boxes and select your color.

4. After picking your cloud colors, go to Filter, Render, Clouds. This should give you clouds over the entire part of the photo that you selected.

5. I wanted to reveal some grass so I used the eraser tool to erase part of the clouds from the bottom part of the image.

Wing Color

You can make the wings any color you want and before you apply the wing brush to your photo, you need to select your wing color. Use the Foreground Color box to select wing color. I chose white for mine. The Foreground and Background color boxes are the bottom tool in the picture below. Click on the foreground colorbox and click inside the color box to pick your color.

Brushes Tools
In the brushes tool bar is an Opacity setting. Manipulate this until your wings look natural. Then go to Image, Transform, Free transform to manipulate the placement of the wing to a natural appearance.   I think of wings as being somewhat transparent so you should be able to see somewhat through them. 

Next I used the eraser tool to erase the portion of the wing that was in front of her face. After selecting the eraser tool, you will need to set the brush back to default otherwise your eraser “head” will be wing shaped.

I then added a 2nd layer to place my 2nd wing and repeated the above steps.

And here is my completed project - already for scrapping now!  She is pretty angel!  One thing I learned while doing this project, you should save your projects as PSD files so that you can go back and edit your layers at a later date if you want to.  I always save my images as jpg's and now I know why I should not!!  I am going to add a rainbow to this photo but I really need to have the layers separated to do so.  Soooo, I have to do this whole thing over again in order to get the rainbow in and make it look right....sigh....we live and we learn.....

This is Fifi and she was the flower girl in a wedding.  Isn't she beautiful?!!  I thought she, too, needed fairy wings.  The little fairy at the top is an image I pasted onto this picture.  The colors of the background, pink and blue, I achieved by using the selection tool to select the background and then  manipulate the background colors hue and saturation.  This was a little trickier when I was erasing the wings because the wings had to show somewhat through the tulle netting on her hat.  I set the opacity of the eraser tool at about 50% so that the wings would show through.

I hope this tutorial helps you on your way to your own wings!   I am still learning, it does not happen overnight.  I have spent the entire day today writing this.  But, I have learned alot and that is my objective.  If you have any questions, please post them here and I will try to help you.



Friends are the Flowers...

I love this photo of my college roomie that I took in Charleston, SC when the azaleas were in full bloom.  I used one of the new K & Co paper pads, Susan Winget, along with the Prima flower and butterfly.  I outlined the punch around the photo with a Sakura Souffle pen.  I stamped the title and then went over the letters with a Sakura Glaze pen. Again, I used Martha STewart punch around the page punches on this LO.  The big flowers are fussy cutt and inked with Victorian Velvet and Forest Moss distress inks.

So it's Thursday and I'm having lunch with my "lunchbunch".  I always look forward to that.  It's a group of high school gfriends - some 40 years after HS, its really fun to see how we have all grown up, everyone but me that is!!  LOL!!  Have a great day and TFL!!

Living in Color

I was just playing around with this photo in PSE and added ink outlines from the filter gallery. I think it looks kind of neat.  But anyway, these pps are fromTim Holtz's Lost and Found collection and they are so colorful.  Then I reflected on my friend Linda, in the photo, and thought about what a colorful life she lives.  She's an adventurer after my own heart, loves to travel and the title, Living in Color just came to me.  I think its appropriate, it matches her personality!  I was also working on a challenge for SOS  to use this picture as inspiration and that's what got  the photo edit started.

Here's what I ended up with, it doesn't really look much like the picture but that was just a take-off point anyway!

The title circle is from the BasicGrey Curio line, the background is Bazzill french vanilla sprayed with turquoise glimmer mist.  I used my Kreaxions circle cutter to cut the blue circle.  I really love that cutter, its so simple and easy to use AND it doesn't take up much space!!  You can get one here,  It will cut up to a 10" circle.  After cutting the circle, I punched it with a Martha Stewart corner punch.  All the punches I used on this page are Martha Steward punch around the page punches.

TFL!!

PSE - working with lighting and color corrections.

Whenever you are editing a photo, ALWAYS work with a copy of your photo so that you will always have the original photo available. As you learn to use PSE, you will discover different ways of editing and you might just want to go back that photo and re-edit it!!
So let's chose a photo. Here's my photo that I'm going to work with:

Let's work with the lighting. Go to Enhance, adjust lighting, levels, and work with the input levels.

In the levels window that opens you will see the caption Input Levels and underneath the graphic image,  black, gray and white triangles.  You can slide these to adjust light, dark and medium tones.  Or, on the right you will see 3 eyedroppers.  Click on the one that is on the far right and is white.  Then click somewhere in your photo that is white.  This should brighten your photo.  If you don't like that result click in the photo somewhere else.  Do the same with the left eyedropper and click on something black in your photo.  Click the center/gray eyedropper to adjust medium tones.  Sometimes, this adjusts the light and dark too radically so I use the trianges and slide them on the slider bar.  You can also click in the boxes underneath the triangles and press the up and down arrows to adjust number values.

There are two other ways to adjust the lighting in your photo. Go to Enhance, Shadows/highlights and work with the three slider bars shown:  Lighten Shadows, Darken Highlights, Midtone Contrast.  Be sure to click the preview box so that you can see the result from your changes.   Rather than using the slider,  I find it easier to click in the boxes where the number %'s are shown and use my up/down arrow keys to  increase/decrease the values.

For the other lighting adjustment, go to Enhance,  Adjust Lighting, Brightness/Contrast and work with the levels in the same manner as the Shadows/highlights.

Here is my photo after adjusting lighting levels.

Now that our lighting is the way we want it, lets work on the color.  Sometimes my photos (especially those taken in less than perfect lighting) have a bluish caste to them.  Go to Enhance, Adjust Color, Remove Color Cast.

There are a number of color corrections available in the color drop down menus.  Go to Enhance, Adjust color, adjust hue/saturation. Click in the number box above the Saturation bar and press the up arrow key to pop up your colors a bit.  If the color is just off a bit, try adjusting the hue.  Work with these three sliders to achieve the color levels that please you.

My photo after editing for lighting and color.

Want to change your photo to black and white?  It's easy, just go to Enhance, Adjust color, Remove color.

After converting to black and white, you may need to adjsut the lighting and/or color levels (discussed above) to get just the right look in your photo.

Want to made an antique looking photo in sepia?  Go to Enhance, Adjust Color, Hue/Saturation and near the bottom click the box Colorize.  Adjust the hue and saturation levels to get the sepia color that you want.

I hope this is helpful to you.  If you have questions, please post them here and I will try to help.  Since I am just learning PSE, we can stumble along together!!

King of my Heart

Here's a layout I did for a challenge at Crop Suey and at Swirlydoos.  The challenge at Crop Suey was to use 9 different items on a LO.  I think i have 11.

1. Core'dinations cardstock

2. pictures
3. patterned paper
4. chipboard
5. Tim Holtz fragment
6. Tim Holtz tape measure
7. Dymo tape label
8. 7 Gypsies Gears
9. Circle
10. Banner
11. brads

Great challenge!  Here's mine:

Also for the challenge at Swirlydoos to create a LO showing dh at work.  He's always in the garage so that wasn't too hard to do.  But OMG, those jeans he has on!!!

Leibster Blog!

My blog was tagged by my scrappy  friend Shona, Such a Wonderful Mess .  Shona is an awesome Canadian scrapper who says hey instead of eh!  Shona's work is beyond gorgeous so you really should pop over to her blog and check it out!

The Liebster Blog award is given to bring new blogs to light. It's a great way to share blogs that might not otherwise be seen.

If you have been tagged and want to participate, create a post where you post the 'LOVE BLOG' image. Then choose 3 - 5 favourite blogs which you also link in your post.
Here are my 3 picks:

Denise's awesome blog,    Vintage Scrapping

 Pam's wonderful blog, full of all kinds of projects,  Pam's Eclectic Stuff

Christy who does some really creative things, Creatingwiththegirls

Be sure to stop by their blogs and leave some love! 

La Belle Fee

The beautiful fairy -  La Belle Fee.  I made this arch for the Arches challenge at Swirlydoos and for the Tres Chic challenge at Bella Creations.  I just LOVE making these arches.  At 6" tall, they are just the right size to try different techniques without wasting a ton of product if you "mess" up!

 I was having fun with PSE and added the wings to this very sweet standard poodle. She was the flower girl at my poodle's breeder's daughter's wedding and she was just an angel sitting very quietly throughout the entire ceremony. About 20 minutes into the ceremony, she very quietly set the basket of flowers down. Her brother, Saber, was the ring bearer and he was a perfect gentleman as well! Both were better than many children I have seen in weddings. This was such a fun wedding for me for as a child I always dreamed of having a really long train on my wedding gown and having dogs carry my train when I came down the aisle. LOL! Must have been from seeing Lady & the Tramp when I was very young!!

Beautiful Fifi who was a sweetheart of a standard poodle, she is at the rainbow bridge now and I can just see her with these beautiful wings.  I used HOuse of 3 Parisian Anthology paper and inked it with Victorian Velvet distree ink.  The pearls are Prima e. , Dusty Attick chipboard frame painted with tattered rose Distress Crackle Paint.  The flowers have been "glassed" with UTEE, it gives them such a refined look don't you think?

Swirlydoos give away!

Check out Swirlydoos blog here for a chance to win an awesome Bo Bunny give-away full of new products straight from CHA!

The obsessions continue...

LOL!!!  I really am glad that I am semi-retired because I really am obsessed with the need to create something!  Perhaps it is the artist in me re-emerging after a 40 year nap.  Once upon a time I thought I wanted to be an artist.  Then I went off to college enrolled in the art school.  Oh my, it took about 6 weeks to decide that I was a horrible artist and I hated college.  I stayed through the end of the semester and that was the  end of chapter one in the 12 year saga of Maggi finally gets a degree, in accounting no less.  How DOES one go from being an artist wanta be to a CPA?  Got me, I think I'm out of balance now and back to being an artist! LOL! 

The fun side of what I'm doing these days includes photo editing and that's kind of obsessive too.  Hmmm I think a pattern is emerging here.  OCD anyone??  Well I've been playing around with brushes in PSE and have started working on an angel poodle.  Stay tuned, I'm going to try and write a tut on this once I master it.  Look for it in a few days I'd say!

Well, I hear my other obsession, although often ignored, reading calling me.  Deep into Tom Clancy's and whoever his other writer is, new book.  I'm enjoying it but I fall asleep after reading about 4 pages so I'm not getting far fast!  By the time I finish the book, I will have forgotten the beginning.

And so it goes...

The Mirror

I love this picture of my Mom, it's just very serene, like she is.  The measuring tape ribbon and tiny scissors tucked into the flower are visual references to my Mom's incredible talent as a seamstress and tailor.  There really wasn't anything she couldn't sew and she made so many things for me that I designed including my wedding dress.

This LO was made with the February Swirlydoos kit and it features TPC Studios Grandma's Attic papers.  I made the flower and used a Dress it Up button for the center.Behind the flower is gathered crepe ribbon from Tattered Angels.  The Lace is Reflections and that awesome tree is a Dusty Attic piece that has been inked with chestnut roan and painted with glimmer mist.

Adore - my grandparents

Did this one for the February sketch challenge at Swirlydoos and also for a challenge at Sisterhood of Scrap using the really beautiful SD's February kit.  This is a picture of my maternal grandparents that I love.  I just love this new Core'dinations paper with the clockfaces on it!  Also used TPC Studios Grandma's Attic Embroidery and Reflections, Pink Paislee journal tag, MM Brun Antique Dictionary, Prima felt border, .  I made the gree flowers and used a Prima center for two of them.  The vine is also Prima and the black flowers are Petaloo velvets.   Oh and there's a Prima flower ribbon on the felt border.  TFL!!

Beware the Black Widow

This has to be one of my all time favorite images, the lady in red.  My version is a hybrid as I added the spider and web.  When I look at the picture I just think of a mysterious heartbreaking woman that is kind of evil - hence the title.

This is for an arches challenge at Swirlydoos.  I've not heard of arche before but I sure do love the concept.  They are 6" tall, so a bit larger than an ATC, I love that, more real estate!  On this I used alot of silver ink to color the dusty attic chipboard chandalier and the leaves on the flower were a bronzy color until I took the silver inkpad to them!  The flower is really cool IRL as it has the effect of being glassed.  I did that by covering it heavily with clear UTEE.  It is awesome, you should try it!  Too bad you can't really see it, but I highlited the spider web with black diamonds stickles and it looks cool IRL.  I love this, I love black and red so go figure. LOL!!  TFL!!



Lady -Arch with G45

Oh was this an ever fun and new project, it's an arch and is just a 6" piece of artwork using G45's Steampunk pps.   So while I was building this arch my imagination decided that "Lady" is a woman who lives in a belfrey and only comes out at night.

The stained glass piece at the top I made by first using a Cuttlebug die to cut the black frame.  I heat embossed that  using clear UTEE.  Then I took a square transparency and stained it with Ranger alcohol ink.  I put a piece of white paper behind that as the stain just didn't show up well enough without it.  The birds are stamped using a Tim Holtz stamp.  The chipboard is a Dusty Attic piece sprayed with glimmer mist and stickles added to highlight.  The arch is also outlined with blakc diamond stickles.  IRL the DA chippie is a darker color that matches the rest of the piece. There are two Timmy fragments dangling from the bottom.  Finally since I thought we were peaking into Lady's world, I added black netting to add a layer of mystery.  TFL!!

Tutorial for adding a border trim to a circle

This is such an easy thing to do but thought I would share it with you.


1.Cut out a border strip using whatever border punch you want. Below I have cut two different borders just to show that each will work.

                                                                                                                                                                                         .

2. Cut the punched border strip into segments as pictured. It looks good to ink the segments particularly if you are using paper with a white core

 

3. Glue the individual segments to the backside of the circle:

4.  And that's all there is to it, easy and it looks great.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a layout I did using this technique to go around the diecut on the left.