Personalized Card

This one was a lot of fun! First I opened a blank document in PhotoShop and set the demensions to 4" by 6", then I made a new layer and painted it blue using the paint bucket. I darkened the edges using the dodge tool, then entered my name with the text tool. I used free transform to rotate it and make it bigger, then created a drop shadow for it. I went online and found a picture of some pretty blue ice crystals that fit the theme I was going for, and I saved the image and brought it into PhotoShop. I dragged it onto my working space and made it into a clipping mask to go behind my name. To do this, I dragged the ice layer on top of the text layer, then clicked 'layer' on the top menu bar, then clicked 'create clipping mask'.  Next, I found some pretty snowflakes and swirls online and made them into custom brushes by selecting them in PhotoShop and clicking 'edit', then 'define brush preset'. I stamped those around, rearranging them until I liked how they looked. One of the snowflakes was very powdery, so I used that one to create a snow-like texture over the whole card. I think this card represents me because I've lived in Minnesota my entire lilfe, and the cold winters are part of things here. I love playing in the snow, and I think it's part of who I am. I really like how it turned out!! I had a lot of fun messing around with the brushes and colors, and I think it looks pretty nice.

Flyer

First of all, I opened a blank PhotoShop document and set the size to 8 ½ inches tall by 11 inches wide. I created a blank layer and used layer styles to make a cloud texture on it, then selected the glass texture to go over the top of it for the background. Next, I went through all of the pictures that I wanted to use (which I took on November 25^th of this year) and corrected them all using color balance and levels. I went through the images and used the quick selection tool to select the glass doll, the two different teapots, the shoe, the two bells, the glass swan, and the two pineapples. I refined their edges and moved them onto the blank document one by one. They were all far too big to start with, so I used the free transform tool to make them smaller, and to rotate some of them. Once I had them arranged I used the clone stamp tool and the healing brush tool to remove some of the glare on the glass objects, and then I added the text. All the fonts are Wide Latin. I wanted to do a gradient on the title, so I selected the pixels of the text and used the eraser tool to get rid of the actual words so that only the selection remained. Then I used the gradient tool on the selected pixels. To choose the color for the title gradient I used the color dropper to get the gray from the streaks in the glass swan. That gray was also used on the address, and the color of the phone number was from the red on the chicken. The color of the ‘One man’s trash…’ text was taken from the shirt of the glass doll on the left, and the color for the background was taken from her hat. For each of the two bells on either side of the title text, I changed the blending mode to ‘screen’ with opacity and fill both at 100%, and I changed the opacity of the title text to 75%.

For all of the text I created drop shadows:        

Blend mode: multiply.

                        Opacity: 75%

                        Angle: 120 degrees

                        Use global light was checked.

                        Distance: 1

                        Spread: 0

                        Size: 5

All of the text also had bevel/emboss effects:

                        Style: inner bevel

                        Technique: smooth

                        Depth: 100%

                        Direction: up

                        Size: 5

                        Soften: 0

                        Angle: 120 degrees

                        Use global light was checked.

                        Altitude: 30 degrees

                        Highlight mode: screen

                        Opacity: 75%

                        Shadow mode: multiply

                        Opacity 2: 75%

Then I was done! It was a lot of work, but I really like the result. The Treasure Trove is a thrift store in the town where I’m moving to this summer. The lady who owns it is really nice, and I love taking pictures of all the interesting things in her store.