SSD’s One Word Challenge:BLOOM

August 21, 2008 | Category: Layout Share

It’s my turn to host the One Word Challenge for SSD this week and I chose this word:

BLOOM

1.
a. To bear a flower or flowers.
b. To support plant life in abundance: rains that made the yard bloom.

2. To shine; glow.
3. To grow or flourish with youth and vigor.

And here is my layout:

**Click on it to view it larger.

I have had that word stuck in my head for awhile now because most blogger friends would comment that Martha is blooming under my care (iba daw talaga ang alaga ng ina). I have had Zoe’s Bloom and Grow kit specifically for it and when I saw Gina’s layout using Fuchsia’s Give Me Green Grass alpha (it’s on sale at Catscrap right now – 25% off) I knew Id like to incorporate it somehow.

LO process: I did post processing on the photo (had the contrast upped a bit with more saturation) did creative cropping and “extended the photo”. I dont know if you noticed but I had the left side of the picture extended with another grassy picture . Then I wanted somehow to convey I “cut” the alphas from the grass in the picture so:

I put the alpha on the picture, selected the alpha (“shift+click” on CS3) – youd see there will be marching ants around the alpha, went to the layer of the picture and click on “Delete”. The photo will now have a “mark” of the alpha. Then I just positioned the alpha under the cut portion.

I also thought the wings would be a nice touch so I put the wings on top of the picture layer, made the opacity down to 50% so I can see the picture underneath and then just erased the overlaying part of the wings that cover Martha with a lasso tool (that’s how I did it, if you have better ways, please let me know). It can get edgier and unreal so I softened the edges with a blur tool.

That’s it! I hope to share more of my process with you