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Phew! I’m back. It’s been a crazy month. I’m just finally getting better after having a virus that turned into sinus+ears+throat infections, and from having weddings every week for my videography business. It’s that time of year!
I’ve also been playing catch up with my digital scrapbooking and crafting. When I was sick, I had no desire to do anything but watch TV (lame!). And the designers I CT have been pumping out the cutest stuff! This weekend, I decided to do some hybrid summer art for our house. It’s looking a little sad right now and needed some sunny inspiration! Julie, of Creations By Julie at Gingerscraps, came out last week with a duo of cute summer cards, “Summer Fun Card Templates”-a flip flop and sun. I thought they’d be fun for my art pieces. Anyway, here’s a little tutorial for making your very own $1 art pieces (yep, just a buck!).
First, you need some canvases. As you know, I LOVE the dollar store. Awhile back, I saw these canvas art pieces there and thought I’d snag them because you never know… And canvases can be a little expensive. They are about 7×7 in size.
I found a great kit by Cari Cruse called “Shimmering Summer”. The kit is absolutely gorgeous-just like a summer sunset! I created two new 8×8 (2400×2400 pixels) documents in Photoshop Elements at 300 dpi. I chose one paper for each piece and dragged it onto the document and resized it. I’d show you pictures of them, but a little person (ahem) turned the power off on the computer before I saved them and they’re lost! A great lesson on the importance of saving things before you get going on them too much.
I opened up the card templates. Because I wanted to add wordart to the pages, I dragged the actual flip flop or sun shape onto the new documents, just to get a feel for I wanted to place the wordart. There are other ways to do it, but that’s how I did it. Once I had my placement for the wordart, I deleted the flip flop or sun image. The wordart I used also came from Creations By Julie, her “End of Summer Wordart“ at least on the Flip Flop Piece. The word “summer” from the sun piece is part of the “Shimmering Summer” kit.
Next, I decorated the card images. Because I wanted the inside decorated too and wanted to print them front and back, I had to reverse the image to get the inside to fit the shape of front and back. I first decorated the front and back of the card and then printed it on cardstock. To get the three dimensional looks to the pieces, I also printed the flowers (for the flip flops) and the ribbon/bow (twice) as separate images to cut out and adhere. I hope this all makes sense! To reverse it, I used the move too, scrunched the image (on the template) towards the middle and then out again. To get the dimensions correctly, I placed guides at the edges before I reversed so I knew exactly how far to go. And then I decorated the inside and printed it as on the back of the cardstock I printed the front on.
Once everything was printed, it was time to mount it! I used my score guide to score an inch around each side of the background papers. Then, I folded the sides over and adhered with glue dots (love them!). I’ve also used Modge Podge before to do this, but it gets messy and can be a little irritating. To make it look right, I folded the top and bottom of the paper first, and then the sides (see photo). I did not adhere the front with anything-I liked how it looked with just the sides glued down.
Finally, it was time to assemble. I cut everything out, distressed them with some watercolor colored pencils (they were easier to use than distressing ink for this) and glued the cards down, then added the elements. For the sun, I printed a second ribbon/bow (it comes as one piece) and cut just the bow out. This gave it an even more 3D look. I crinkled up the edges on both the bow and flowers (on the flip flop).
Voila! Cheap, cute, and fun summer artwork! If you really want to go the extra mile, you can cover it with a good coat of Hard Finish Modge Podge. I may do it eventually, but it sometimes changes the color of printed paper… I’m sorry I didn’t have screenshots of everything, but I’ve learned my lesson. Thankfully, I got it printed before he turned it all off!
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