Jacquelin Vanderwood
November 2004
I started this greeting card by scanning in a brown paper bag. I scanned as much of the area as possible.
In Photoshop I selected the Rectangle Marquee tool and set about to make Style a Fixed Size of 9" x 8". This size was chosen so that a 9 1/4" x 4 1/8" envelope would accept it. This will be a bi-fold card.
Here's the actual 9" x 8" selection.
I right-clicked on the layer to select Layer via Cut to give me the exact size of paper I needed. I then held the Control key down and clicked on the new layer and then pressed Ctrl+C to copy it. I then pressed Ctrl+N to make a new composition which, after copying the cut layer, would give me the exact size of comp I would need.
I opened the ruler (Ctrl+R) and placed guides for the center. I also measured for the right half of the paper 1/4" edges on top, bottom, and right edge.
I used Lock Guides so that I wouldn't accidentally move the guides while I was working.
I then scanned in two colored pencils and used the Pen tool to draw a selection around each pencil and used the Layer via Cut option.
I then used Levels (Ctrl+L) to make adjustments to the quality of color of the pencils before transferring them over to the brown paper bag comp.
I then used Ctrl+T to rotate the green pencil into an upright position. Next I selected the red pencil layer and rotated it into a horizontal position. Then I used the Rectangle Marquee tool set to Normal and selected the part of the red pencil I wanted to keep, then pressed Ctrl+I to invert the select and hit the Delete key. I subsequently used the Alt key to drag a copy and used the same previous method to make copies of the pencil one layer at a time until I had the tree made as shown below.
With the Selection tool I held down the Control key and clicked on each pencil I wanted to move. Once the pencil layer was selected in this manner, I dragged the layer below the green pencil layer. I did this for every other pencil layer.
I then scanned in some notepaper and made a tree topper.
I then chose created a new layer above the brown bag layer and used the Pen tool to create a triangle. I filled with the same color as the base of the green pencil and then changed the layer mode to Soft Light so we could see the texture of the brown bag underneath.
I added Merry Christmas in a font that appealed to me and looked Christmassy and then added a drop shadow.
From this point on I printed the piece on good card stock, folded it in the center, glued in some coins I had scanned to the interior, signed it, and slipped it into a brown paper bag envelope I made and sent it off. Be original with your ideas. Isn't that what a computer is for, to give us the ability to be creative and original?
Copyright (c) 2004, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved
