Making a Holiday Card

3:13 PM

Jacqueline of Art in My Heart asked how I created the snow effect in the new blog header. Here are my steps:

1. As this piece of art was created for the purpose of using it as a greeting card and I may change the greeting on the front, I opted to use Photoshop® to create the greeting rather than paint it in as I normally do:

Click to enlarge
To answer your specific question, Jacqueline, at this point the snow is either the paper left white or a Uniball Signo White Gel Pen—these things are pure magic! Available from JetPens.com and TrendyRightNow.com. You can try other white gel pens, but there's NO others on the market (that I've found) that are as good as these pens!

2. Once I have it scanned and in Photoshop, I add my blog name rather than a holiday greeting:
Click to enlarge
3. Then I add "snow" to the top of the letters using the copy and paste feature in Photoshop. A long process to be sure. By the time I was done, I had over 100 layers in this document:
Click to enlarge
4. Once I was happy with the letters, I added an overall layer of snow. Again, this was done by copying and pasting various pieces of snow from the log, the top of the birds heads, etc. I would twist it in different directions or flip it upside down so that it didn't look the same:

Click to enlarge
And that's how I've created the new header! Because the art is untouched, I can add various sayings, ornaments or whatever my heart fancies rather than recreating each piece from scratch!

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18 Creative Thought(s)

  1. Laure this is absolutely amazing! I am pretty good on the computer but not that good! This card is so adorable. Thank you so much for sharing.
    Keep warm!

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  2. That was interesting to learn about. How cool that you will be able to use this piece of art for many purposes using the technology of Photoshop.

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  3. Phew, I am just starting to learn photoshop and I stand in awe of this!

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  4. I could tell this was made with lots of love and time. It made me think all day about how to stay focused and achieve the goals that are close to my heart. Thanks for the push :)

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  5. Thanks, Jacqueline, it's not that hard...once you figure out how to do it! It just takes a lot of time!

    KJ, Photoshop is bottomless, endless, ever expanding software.....you can do anything with it!

    Good luck with learning Photoshop, Teri!

    Thank you, Pam, interesting you bring this up. I've been having some of the same thoughts. I'm going to be doing a series of posts on creativity, focus, etc. in January.

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  6. This is adorable. I would love to have photoshop but its an expensive program isnt it? I love that pen too. I have been playing around with my watercolor brush I got. Its rather cool to use. :))I'm not good enough to show yet. lol

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  7. This is waaay beyond my computer capabilities, but I found the tutorial interesting. Love the header!

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  8. Thanks, Cris! Yes, Photoshop is, but Photoshop Elements is quite reasonable and probably all you'll ever need. Glad to hear you like the brush! Looking forward to seeing what you're doing!

    Thank you, Katie!

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  9. Laurie this is adorable. Makes me want to paint a chickadee in the snow. You are also so knowledgable in computer. I'm just doing the basics.. take care,Diana

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  10. These are just plain adorable little birds!

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  11. Thank you, Diana! I spent the last 20 years of my life being a designer. Computers have almost always been a part of that life and now it serves me well in the art world.

    Thank you, Gretchen! I think I've got "cute" on the brain!

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  12. I love the palette, Laure .. tis delightful.

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  13. 100 layers! Wow...you are a maniac. I really need to learn how to use Photoshop. i love what you've done here...

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  14. These sweet little chickadees are fabulous, Laure. And love the new blog header. It's delightful. Thanks for the tutorial.

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  15. Your blog looks as good as Teresa's at Blueberries Art and Life blogspot and thank you for sharing the process.

    FYI, there are some free plug-in filters for PhotoShop that will make snow and also several tutorials that don't require any outside filters. You probably already know about them but maybe some of your readers could use them to simplify their designs.

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  16. Kelly, you do what you do to get what you want!

    Thanks, Sue! Love the new avatar!

    Thank you, Jan! A filter? When I can do it the hard way?? LOL, too easy!!

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  17. Wow! That is beautiful!
    Thanks for the info!
    Vicki

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