Thursday, November 11, 2010

Quilled Flower Wreath (digital)


Today I am taking a break from snowflakes - but there are bound to be more.  Our weather is predicted to be very nice with temperatures in the 60's this weekend, however, I think it won't be long until the real snowflakes start to fly.

My layout for the Cricut Cruise contest is finished and tomorrow I will take photos in natural light and send it in to Creative Memories.  The Facebook contest starts next week and I'll give you more details about that as soon as I can.  This is the first time I have ever been in a contest like this and I am excited (and a bit nervous!).  I hope you like what I made.


I tried making my first quilled flower with the Cuttlebug quilling dies I won as a door prize at the Cricut Circle Meet Up in Pennsylvania.  I used some crepe paper that I bought on vacation in Italy.  I followed the instructions and use three strips but I think the crepe paper is a bit too thick - next time I will try two layers.  I took a photo of my flower and then decided to do some digital magic with it.


I brought the photo into my Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 software and used the magic wand and custom cropping tools to eliminate the background and as much of the shadow as I could.  Then I started to play with colors and effects.


I resized and changed the colors, copying and pasting and saving lots of variations.  I used the various options in the color tab such as adjusting hue and color washing to create many additional flowers.


Then I resized and layered the flowers to create large multicolor blossoms.  I added shadows to all but the bottom flower layer.  I grouped the new flowers together so I could duplicate them all at once.


I created groups of three flowers, one large and two smaller and grouped these together.  Then I could copy and paste and rotate them to create a flower ring or wreath.

 
 
 I find it realaxing to "doodle" on the computer.  Sometimes I do it with Design Studio files and sometimes I have a digital day and just experiment with lots of possibilities with my StoryBook Creator program.  I am always amazed at the things you can do with a simple photo.


Here is another set of colors for a large blossom.


I tried inverting the colors of the first flower - this is the result.


Here is the same flower as embossing.  You can almost feel the texture.


For this variation I tried the "rough painting" filter.


Here I applied the "threshold" filter for a black and white shaded flower.


Finally, I changed the image to be a rubber stamp and made the color green.

There really is no limit to what you can do if you just let your imagination wander.  Speaking of imagining, I think it is time for my Imagine machine to get out of the box and start creating.  I have been working hard on clearing things up in my craft space so I can dedicate a table to the Imagine.  I am hoping that I will be lucky and have bug free updates - fingers crossed!


I can't resist asking - has anyone else made a snowflake that they would like to share?  Just email the photo to me and I will post it.  I'd love to see what you are creating.

Subscribe to Capadia Designs         Share/Bookmark

2 comments:

  1. Diane: You are amazing. I love your blog and have learned so much from you. I included a link to your snowflakes as part of my Fab Five Friday post! Thanks for sharing your talents with us.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW, that is just amazing. I am going to have to get busy on my digital crafting. I loved the embossed one, I think that is my favorite. Thanks for sharing
    syoung6987@aol.com

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. I love to hear from the people who read my blog. I moderate all comments to keep spam off the blog without making you decode the squiggly letters so your comment may not appear immediately.