A good friend and cardmaking mentor had a birthday yesterday, and I have been away on a re-decorating project with my daughter at her Oregon beach house rental. It was a sudden decision on her part to make the trip, and she needed my help and my company as she did not want to make the trip alone. This put me behind in my cardmaking projects for June, and I just finished my friend's card after returning home from my trip.
I had actually been thinking about Liz's card for some time. I wanted to do something with dogs as she has two Labradors that are dearly loved from the bottom of her big heart, a male yellow Lab and a female chocolate Lab. I was on the lookout for an outline digi image that I could use to represent her dogs. I found a dog image that I decided was close enough to use. I made a mirror image by flipping the image in PaintShop Pro so that I had a right-facing dog and a left-facing dog. I wanted to put a cupcake or a birthday cake in the middle between the two dogs and put birthday hats on them. My search was rewarded with a black and white birthday cake outline and three styles of birthday hats.
I went to work re-sizing the images and grouping them together into one image in PaintShop Pro. I thank my son, David, for his instruction on how to accomplish this as the hat images were sized in pixels per centimeters and the rest in pixels per inch. He showed me how to make them all in inches and also how to find a "average" dpi for my new grouped background, as they all varied in dpi. I was so very pleased with the outcome and really appreciate his help. I have typed a detailed instructions sheet so that maybe next time I can accomplish it all by myself!
I selected my birthday background paper and dog paw paper and chose my Copic Marker colors to color my new image based on the shades in the papers, plus making the smaller female a chocolate lab and the large male a yellow lab as Liz's dog are. I hope she is pleased with the end results!
Next, I wanted to create an inside that coordinated with the outside already finished design, per my usual card projects. I found a digi "Big Birthday Wishes" in my stash of online free digis and decided to use this with a human vs. dog years in the birthday sentiment for a little humor. I colored "BIG" with the same Copic Markers in the same color scheme on the card front. Below is the design I came up with!
Recipe: SU cardstocks: Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise. Fancy Pants/ Cake Time dsp. Basic Grey/ Max & Whiskers Tiger. Outline Black & White digital images. Copic Markers. Lifestayle dies: Ovals, Scalloped Ovals, Rectangles, Scalloped Rectangles. WRMK Corner Chomper/ Deco. EK Punch: Large Scallops. Stash: Tone-Tone ribbon. Computer-made sentiment. Computer-made verse.
As the recipient of this gorgeous work of heart, I can honestly say that it is more beautiful in person. I didn't think that was even possible, but it is. In fact, I have a whole bag of your cards that I'm framing for my new craft room. Thank you my dear friend. You are as loving as you are talented. And I ADORE you!
ReplyDeleteYou are too klind...it was a delightfully fun card to make and in make YOUR doggies...I learned a lot of stuff in PaintShop Pro from my son to get them turned, enlarged, grouped and positioned with the cake! Too fun!
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