ADFD - Very Special New Release Image

It's new release time again at A Day for Daisies and this one is very special to me.  The DT was asked to send Tammy their favourite picture, so I sent one of my wedding pictures.  Its a picture of me and my husband kissing after we were announced husband & wife.  Tammy took the picture and made a digital stamp from it.  How cool is that!  I think its beautiful!  So here's the card I created with "my" new stamp:

Supplies:
Stamps:  My Story Begins and Ends With You (A Day for Daisies), Sentiment & floral flourish (unknown - clear stamp set)
Papers:  Recollections card stock (red & brown), Wausau Exact Index 110# (white), patterned paper (CatScrapFever Designs), Staples matte finish brochure paper
Tools & Embellishments:  Fleur De Lis pennant dies, Renaissance Hearts border dies, Fancy tags dies (Spellbinders), Cuttlebug, Walnut Stain distress ink (Tim Holtz), Red & Star Dust stickles, rhinestones, crayola markers (red & brown - to ink the stamp), PSPX 

So first, I didn't have the paper I wanted for this.  I couldn't find anything in the stores near me close to what I wanted, so I had to design it myself.  I use PSPX to do 95% of my graphics work and I used it to design the paper.  The paper was done using a bunch of stock brushes on the background layer.  Then I typed the poem "How Do I Love Thee" over and over on the top layer of the paper.  I used a couple different blending layer options to get the paper to look the way I wanted and it was done.  I really like it.  I printed it out on matte finish brochure paper.  I like the look of matte finish papers for this type of thing rather than glossy or semi-gloss.  However, I do prefer to have my photos printed on glossy.  Once I got all the layers for the card cut, and the patterned paper edges distressed with ink, I cut the shapes with my Spellbinder dies.  The frame for the image is two dies glued together.  I cut one large shape from the Fleur de Lis die set and then 2 of the next largest die.  I glued the two smaller shapes to the top & bottom of the large shape - making sure they were the same height and centred.  Then I glued rhinestones in the centre design on the top and bottom of the die cuts. For the sentiment, I first stamped the flower in red, cleaned the stamp, inked the sentiment, lined it up and stamped.  Then I cut it out with the Fancy tag die making sure the sentiment was centred.  Then I cut off the curly queues on it and sanded down the edged to smooth off the scissor marks.  I cut the same shape again in brown and layered the white onto the brown tag.  For the heart  border, I cut the red with the bottom border die, then with brown cut the top layer.  I had to trim the bottom layer since the die doesn't cut the entire shape out (I guess its meant to just go along the bottom edge of the paper).

Next was to work on the image.  This was actually fairly simple.  I used a couple filters in PSPX to make it look like a cartoon (Posterize & Pencil lines filters), then I lowered the opacity to about 40%.  I layered the new stamp over top of my photo and deleted any of the original photo that didn't fit inside the stamp.  Then I printed it out onto my white cardstock.  I used stickles on the image for the flowers in my hair and what looks like "confetti" floating down.  I think this image is so cool.

Tip:  remember to make a duplicate of your digital photos before you work on them.  If you make a mistake and have saved the image, you still have the original as back up.  Never use your original and always back up your photos.

So that's it for this one.  Remember that there is still time left on the challenge, so get your entry in.  You could win yourself an image of your choice from the store.

Take care.

Cat