Use Green to Highlight Winter Beautyt

This month’s blog hop theme is “Brought to You by the Color Green.” Winter doesn’t have to be blue. I decided to use green to highlight winter beauty. To start at the beginning of the hop, please visit Stamp Patty’s at  http://www.stamppattys.com/2014/03/brought-to-you-by-color-green.html. If you’re coming from there, you’re in the right place.

Words alone seldom suffice to convey the beauty and mood of nature. In this project, color, photography, and art combine to highlight the beauty and serenity of one of the snowiest Michigan winters on record.

Use Green to Highlight Winter Beauty

Green signifies things like life balance, harmony, health, and money. It also reminds us of things seldom seen here in Michigan in early March—grass, gardens, leaves on trees, and spring sports.

It’s not just my yearning for some green in my life that made me gravitate to Mel’s Brushes FREE “Winter Moss” digital scrapbook collection. Unlike the traditional blue, for me this kit carries a subtext of the dormancy of green waiting to burst forth. Though blue is known for conveying serenity, the muted greens and shadings of this layout capture a serene peaceful mood as well.

My Project

Use green to highlight winter beauty project

You can use green to highlight winter beauty

My Steps:

Using a kit made this a quick and easy project, perfect for digital scrapping beginners. Adding layers digitally is like adding paper layers.   If you’re a true newbie, see my tutorial and resources.

I use PhotoShop Elements (PSE) 10, but you can accomplish these steps with other software packages, including GIMP. GIMP is open source software that you can download free at gimp.org. You can also use the same concepts for a traditional (paper) scrapbook page.

Usually I start with a narrative, but this time I didn’t. I simply choose two photographs I wanted to show case. I started a 12” x 12” new page and started pulling the layers onto my work area. I added snowflakes that were not part of the kit to help pull the white of the now outside of the framed area.

To achieve more depth, I selected most layer and added a drop shadow (Layer -> Layer style -> Style settings -> Drop Shadow). The tree, for instance, looked better to me without the added depth.

Adding Narrative:

It’s a simple matter to add narrative to one of the frames. To demonstrate this, I chose another photo to use with this layout.

Using Green to higlight Winter beauty 2

An optional layout using Green

My narrative is simply remembering this precious barred owl.

Next Stop on the “Brought to You by the Color Green” Blog Hop

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today!  Please subscribe to my blog or my newsletter on my left sidebar.

Now, hop on over to Roxie’s Stamping Room at http://roxiesstampingroom.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-blog-hop-brought-to-you-by-color.html to see how she has used the color green.

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