A Digital Scrapbooking Layout: The Perfect Wedding Gift

What do you get for friends getting married for the second or third time? They already have all the household basics. My friends, Lorraine and John, are retired from very successful careers. There is really nothing that they need. So I decided to make a very personal scrapbook layout and have it framed for them as a wedding gift. Lorraine cried when she opened it; so I guess it hit the mark. Lorraine has a lot of artwork. One of her favorite pieces is Jack Vettriano’s “The Singing Butler”. It really reflects the way she lives her life to the fullest. I could have photographed the large print Lorraine has hanging in her dining room. But then it wouldn’t have been a surprise and, since the painting is copyrighted, I didn’t think that would be right. Instead I bought a small print of “The Singing Butler” that I could scan and use in this layout. The layout was created in Photoshop CS and uses the following Scrap Girls products: * TKA_AutumnGold_12x12_FallWords paper * KSC_Timeless_Paper * USC_ChelseaClaire_MicaPaper * EHI_FamilyTies_12x12_BrownMotif paper * KSC_VintageNursery_DigiFrame The phrase under the painting says, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass … It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” I used SlashHmkBold and Vivaldi fonts except for the capital “D” in “dance”. I typed segments on separate layers so that I could position them just so. The capital D is in SignetRoundhand. I rasterized the D; and then drew a flourishing tail to tie it into the design. I photographed a live red rose; opened it in Photoshop; and used the Magic Wand tool to select and erase all of the background (after duplicating the locked background layer). Then I deleted the locked background layer so that all that was left was the red rose on a transparent background. Having a transparent background allowed me to save the file as a .png and use it as a scrapbooking embellishment in this layout. And of course that means I have it available for future layouts as well. The little tag hanging from the rose says, “Lorraine & Johnny “12-28-07”. The wedding was beautiful. May they have lots of dancing and not too much rain! Here's a tutorial on how to make the Digital Tag. Article by: The Artful Crafter