Photoshop Quick Cuts Tutorial: Selecting with the Magic Wand Tool

The silhouette is a timeless and classic staple of good design. And more and more the silhouette, paired up with a trendy color, has been showing up in many of the latest scrapbook collections and as a popular design motif on the indie scene. Last week I shared a card I made using a little easy photoshop magic to create my very own re-vamped version of the classic silhouette. I thought I would share a quick tutorial  for the photoshop novice to make their very own re-vamped silhouette.

Start off with a black and white silhouette and open up the image file in the photoshop program. Using the magic wand tool highlight the black area of the image.

Using the Select drop down menu tab, choose inverse to select all of the white positive space on the image.

Select the color you would like to use for your background, and then choose the Fill option from the Edit drop down tab. When the fill box pops up, make sure to select foreground color and 100 % opacity.

Now deselect the image by clicking on it once. Again, using the magic wand tool select the black portion of the image. I set the tolerance for the Magic Wand at 50, which should insure that all of the black pixels will be selected.

Select the default colors black and white in the color selection boxes and make sure to select white as your foreground color.

Use the Fill option again on the Edit drop down menu to change the black portion of the image to white.

Go on and give it a try. Flickr is a great source for images, in fact I probably found my silhouette image from one of the photostreams on that site. You can also reverse the colors for another interesting look, giving the image a white background and a fun and funky colorful silhouette. Have fun and let me know how it goes!

The Shabby Tea Room's White and Bright Challenge

It was just about a year ago that I discovered The Shabby Tea Room blog and their adorable card challenges. Unfortunately, at the same time I had to temporarily take a break from crafting in order to focus on my then brand new baby. So you can imagine how excited I am to finally participate in a challenge!

Not only am I finally able to participate in challenges again, but I'm also getting back in to blogging--another long neglected pastime of mine.  So what better way to celebrate my new blog than with a new challenge and a card celebrating one's bliss. Joseph Campbell said to "Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls" and that's exactly what I intend to do in 2011; spending time with friends, nurturing my family and making beautiful paper creations all bring me my bliss. What brings bliss into your life?

I love using vintage images on my cards, and it's something I intend to focus a lot more on in my crafting. To make this card I used a silhouette image and re-vamped it a bit with Photoshop. Originally the image was a black silhouette on a white background. I am planning out a Photoshop Quick Cuts tutorial for you to show any Photoshop novices exactly how they can create their own re-vamped silhouette. So please come by and visit me again early next week if that sounds like something you are interested in.

Have a blissful day!
Tina

Vintage Snowflake Garland Tutorial

Happy New Year and welcome to the very first post of my new blog Vintage Haven Studio. I'm so excited to be here writing about the things that I am passionate about. Blogging is not something new for me, but over the past year I had very little time for it and sadly my former blog, Indigo Wings was neglected as my family and I adjusted to life with our newest baby.

Now that baby is nearly a year and my little guy is busy with pre-school I feel that I have that bit of space I needed to spread my creative wings again, and I am ready to share my creative journey with others of the same interest. To signify that return I felt a new blog was in order with a new focus. I'll still be blogging about paper crafting and making handmade cards, but I also hope to write about my love of all things vintage and my passion for repurposing anything old into something completely new.

To celebrate my first blog post I wanted to share a tutorial with you on how to make your own one of a kind snowflake garland. I was inspired to make this garland one day when I was crafting with my son. I love to sit down with him and take out the craft supplies and get all messy crafty. He's becoming quite the little artist himself. One day I realized I had never taught him to cut up paper to make it look like a snowflake; I loved making them myself as a kid. So we made snowflake after snowflake and one thing lead to another and I added this and added that and ended up with a cute banner to brighten up my kitchen throughout these bleak winter months.

The great thing about cutting out snowflakes yourself by hand, just like the real thing, is that not one of them is the same as the other.

To make your snowflake garland you will first need a sharp pair of scissors, a bone folder and two square pieces of paper of a thin quality preferably computer paper. Unfortunately, cardstock would be very difficult to cut for this project.

1. Fold the square piece of paper corner to corner to create a triangle half the size as your original square. Make sure to score the creases with your bone folder.

2. Then fold this triangle along its height to create a new triangle 4 layers thick.

3. Take one of your lower corners and fold it 60 degrees across the base of the triangle. Now fold the remaining corner of the triangle to line up with the other edge and snip off the two tails at the end of the triangle.

Now you’re ready to cut like crazy!

I started with a 7 inch square paper to make a larger snowflake and then a 5 inch square paper for a smaller snowflake which I then layered. I added lots of distress ink to my snowflakes to give them their aged look.

I finished it off with a paper rosette and a die cut vintage beauty that I highlighted with a ring of glass glitter to add to her vintage charm. I then attached my three snowflakes to a piece of satin ribbon.

Here's a tip if you are not happy using plane computer paper for your flakes. Find a piece of patterned paper that you love and scan it into your computer. Then go ahead and print it out on computer paper to add a pattern to you lighter weight paper that can then be easily cut into a snowflake.

Have fun creating and make sure to stay warm!

Tina