DIY Mother’s Day Gift $1.59 – Photography with Free Textures and Border
We often just think of the final prints or the thousands of images that never leave our cyber world, but you can do so much with your photos and with money being tight for everyone this year, this is a great gift idea and you can have an 8×10 made up at Costco or Walmart for $1.59. That is a crazy deal! And I’m going to set it up so ANY of you can do it.
I learned the value of family photos one year Christmas morning. I presented my mom and dad with a beautifully framed black and white print from a trip overseas. I was pretty sure I had the “winning” gift that year. I was wrong. My brother who had started his own company that year and was tight on funds gave my parents his children’s school photos in frames from the dollar store. My parents both teared up and then I knew whatever photo I would give my parents, nothing would be as meaningful as photos of their grandchildren.
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So this year, I did a simple photo and layered it with a photo of a very personal letter and the two textures below and set the opacity very low so you see through to the original image. The result (at the top of the page) was simple and inexpensive, a project I consider worthy of “fine art” and you can do it too! I will be doing a video tutorial next week to show you how you can do it in Adobe and a free editing software, so if you don’t have Adobe, you’ll still be able to do it. Let me know if you have a program you’d like me to use. So for next week, you will need an image to use and if you want an image of a letter you have written. Make sure the layout of your letter matches your image. For example, if you have a horizontal image write a horizontal letter (and leave about an inch on the margins of your letter).
Both the border and the texture are available for free on my photostream at flickr. If you don’t want to wait until next week, here’s a great tutorial for adding textures in Adobe software . If you use another editing program, simply google it and you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for. This is a little more advanced, but the the step by step tutorial will walk you through how to do it. Hopefully the idea will inspire you to do something more with your photos. I’d love to see any finished products or ideas you have of your own. Please share them with us!
