Today’s post is part of the  “May Flowers” Blog Hop.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your hop so far and I’m glad you’re here.
If you’re coming from Krysthle Poitras’ blog Krysthle’s Designs you are in the right place! (If you landed here first and want to do the full hop, start here.)

Remember the Family Gardener

Memories about a gardener or garden really need photos or illustrations of some sort. A scrapbook layout (digital or paper) is a great way to remember or honor the gardener in your life. Mine is digital, but yours doesn’t have to be.

© Laura Hedgecock

This layout was inspired in part by  gift to my father-in-law: his neighbor, Sharon Van Leeuwen gave him a ShutterFly photo book with a season’s worth of photos of his garden.  He absolutely loves that book.  I decided to see if I could utilize photos of his flowers in a scrapbook layout.

Instructions

These instructions are for PhotoShop Elements, but most softwares will have similar functions. I started with a blank 12 x 12” page. Because I anticipate printing it, I set the resolution to 300. For online displays, 72 pixels per inch is sufficient.

To add the backdrop for my text, I created a new, 8 ½” x 11” sized document, then imported it into my larger 12” x 12” page. (You can size it later.)
As always, I started with my narrative. In this case, I kept it short. I edited my 100 word text in Word, then copied and pasted it into my digital layout. Pay attention to your font size.Text that is smaller than 12 pt will get lost. Text bigger than 24 pt will seem more like a headline than a narrative.
Adding the Picture:  I had better, higher quality pictures of my father-in law, Larry, but I wanted to use one of him in his garden. To get the text to wrap around the photo, I divided it into separate text boxes. Hint: Once you have your photo and text situated on your “paper,” lock those layers, so you can move them around together.

Framing the narrative with flowers:  You can use flowers from a kit—digital or paper. The “Natural Breeze” kit from Digidesignresort.com has some nice realistic flower options.
Inspired by (feeling competitive with?) the photo book idea, I decided to use actual photos from Larry’s garden, which I admit was pretty labor intensive.I didn’t like how the flowers alone looked as a frame, so I used this one that was included in the Natural Breeze kit.

For each flower close-up I had, I used the Adobe PSE Magic Extractor tool. (Tip: Always Preview before you hit OK.  It can save you tons of frustration.

After I had several flowers isolated, I started placing them around the frame. As I placed individual blooms, I fine-tuned the background removal with the magic eraser tool.
Once the majority of my flowers were placed, I choose my background. I used a stock background called “Kimono” that came with PSE8. Ironically, I found it a tad too green for this garden theme, so I adjusted the color (Enhance -> Adjust Color ->Replace color).

After all the flowers and embellishments were added, I selected each layer and added a drop shadow (Layer -> Layer Style -> Style Settings).

Next Hop:

Go on over to Connie Umstead Walsh‘s blog and see what beautiful project she has prepared for you.