Birthday Card Digital Photo Collage

I made this card for my son's 32nd birthday {wow!} and wanted to share it here since some of my family and friends who knew I was working on it, wanted to see it. Now that the birthday is past I can post these pics. By the way, the card was very well received. Rodrigo's dad, and wife, Dianna, probably enjoyed it just as much as Rodrigo; Dianna because she loves to see photos of her hubby when he was little, and his dad because he remembers those days well.

I create custom-designed greeting cards, to order, for any occasion!}

I also made the envelope {how cool is that?} using two pages torn out of a travel magazine and these directions by wikiHow. It was super-easy, eco-friendly, and added a really fun touch to the card. Not to mention, since I had neglected to make my card a standard size, I didn't have an envelope to fit! However, I liked the end result so much that I will probably be making envelopes for all the cards I send from now on.

I located some of my favorite photos of Rodrigo during his first year of life and scanned them into digital format. I restored the faded color {these were originally stored in the now infamous magnetic photo albums!}, cleaned up some dirt and scratches, sharpened them a bit, and then popped them into a collage template {a modified version of Scrapbook Etc.'s SBEQuickCollage303 which you can find here}.

I added the arrow in the top left photo pointing to my pregnant belly, and a bit of text to each of the other photos.

To make the card I simply printed out the photo collage and then adhered it to a folded piece of cardstock using black photo corners, for a bit of an old-fashioned look. You can either type up a sentiment, print it out, and glue it inside, or just hand-write it. Easy!
Seeing the photo on the top right really brings back memories. I hadn't the first clue what to do with a baby! It's pretty obvious by the look on my face. Rodrigo's dad didn't know any more than I did, we were just kids ourselves, but we managed; we just figured it out day by day.

I especially love the bottom left picture where Rodrigo is covered with the yellow-and-white gingham tied quilt I made for him, and which he carried around for years {his blankie}. What you can't tell from the photo is that Rodrigo is in an infant seat on the floor of the front passenger seat of our 1960 VW bug {as seen in the top left photo} - that's where he rode whenever we went anywhere. Every time we went around a corner too fast he would tip over!!! Yeah, no car seat laws in those days, I guess it's a miracle he even survived, but I'm SO GLAD he did!

Happy Birthday, Rodrigo! Love you!!

My Freebies - Allow Me to Respond to your Comments!

First off, I'm terribly flattered that so many of you like my FREE Birthday, Father's Day, and Graduation photo masks! And downloaded them! And requested personalized photo masks for your graduates (I'm still making them, so send me an email and let me know what name you'd like)!

Secondly, let me just mention that all the above photo masks are still available, so download to your heart's content!

Finally, I've recently learned how hard it can be to reply to the comments that people leave on my blog. Frustratingly hard, in fact! So when I came across a brief tutorial on the LWM3B blog on how to set up your blog profile so that your comments contain your email address, I immediately knew I wanted to put a link to it here. Take a peek and, if you are so inclined, follow the easy steps to customize your blog profile so that instead of noreply-comment@blogger.com being listed as your email address in any comments you leave on other peoples' blogs, your own email address will be listed. That way the blog's owner can reply to you! Maybe even send you stuff! Free stuff!

Thx for visiting my blog, come back again, and please.....customize your blog profile so I can reply to your comments!

Happy Birthday Freebie for Digital Scrapbookers

Today is my birthday so I have a gift for you: two photo masks for birthday layouts!

I made these really large, they nearly fill a 12 x 12 canvas so in addition to resizing the mask and using it for a single photo, you could leave it at the large size and put a collage of photos inside (something I've been wanting to try).
Download them both at 4shared or mediafire along with a copy of my new Terms of Use which states that my digital designs and products are ALL copyright-free!

{Sorry, links have expired, but you can still get the photo masks here.}

You may recall a tutorial that I wrote recently on how to use photo masks? A lot of you downloaded it, and left me nice comments or sent emails. I'm glad to hear it was useful for so many of you. Because at least one person (who is using PSE 5 & who has become a goldmine in feedback) was still having trouble I added some more descriptive step-by-step instructions. I've updated the tutuorial and re-uploaded it to 4shared and mediafire. If you are using an earlier version of Elements, and had trouble with the first version of the tutorial, try this new one!

The tutorial is also copyright-free per my TOU so go ahead and share it with your friends and fellow digi-scrappers, pass around the link, or even post the contents on your own blog or website. Credit to me is appreciated but not required, as are small donations.

If you'd like to give ME a birthday gift? Send me your layouts (or a link to them) using any of my products! I really enjoy seeing what people do with my humble offerings. There are so many talented designers out there Be sure to let me know whether or not it's ok to use your layout on my blog and/or website.

Stop back by soon for more FREE photo masks - in honor of Father's Day and Graduation.

Now, go scrapbook something!

Happy Birthday Digital Layout - for my Dad

Today is my Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!!

My dad loves cars, especially VW bugs (in all their many variations), dune buggies for off-road racing, and (of course, he's a guy) fast sports cars. He has owned many cars over the years so for his birthday I decided to make a collage of photos of just some of those cars.

The top left photo is from the 50's and shows my dad holding a jackrabbit that he'd shot while out hunting with a friend. In the background is his VW bug which, if the photo were in color, you see is dark green with with red tires. How awesome is that?? The top right photo is an iStockphoto of a "new" beetle, red, exactly like one he owned some 7 or 8 years ago.

In the middle is a photo of an apple green de Tomaso Mangusta sports car. Although this is a photo I found on the internet (I didn't have one of my dad's own car handy), this is exactly like the car he owned in the 70's. I remember it well. In fact, for all I know, this may be the actual car my dad owned that's now owned by someone else. In my Internet research I found that only 200 Mangusta cars are still out there, and how many could there be that color?

Third row: on the left is a red Classic VW that currently sits in my dad's garage. It's a 1968, and is in close to original condition, including the skinny steering wheel with the horn in the center, and those funny little wing windows that you crank open with a little lever. My dad just this year acquired it from "a little old lady" who only wanted him to give her what she'd originally paid for it in 1968.

The other photo is also from the 70's. My dad was big into off-road racing in those days, along with my brother, Steve, (that's the two of them in the photo). The dune buggies were built on VW chassis, had roll-bars added, and were pushed full-throttle over dirt roads pocked with holes and rocks. A very bumpy ride that required the wearing of kidney belts and left the riders covered in mud, dirt, sweat, and grins. My dad and brother were a tough bandido in those days.

Bottom row, on the right-hand side is my Dad's bright orange VW with flames painted on the side and a souped-up and satisfyingly noisy engine. I got to drive this car for awhile during my first year in college (in the 70's) and enjoyed the attention I got wherever I went.

Finally, bottom left-hand is my dad posing in front of the Brubaker Box, aka the Automecca Sports Van, a vehicle originally dreamed up by a guy named Curt Brubaker, and then taken in hand by my dad who worked to manufacture and sell them either fully built or as a kit. You can read more about it here. And if you scroll down to the photo of the "Volkswagen Greats" magazine article entitled "The Automecca Sports Van . . . or the Brubaker is Back?" you'll see a photo of my dad, Mike Hansen, just to the right of the title.

I guess you could say my dad's had a few cool cars in his day . . . !