Taking Chances

Last week when I was out in California with my sister, our brother took us to this quaint little town near him, and we had fun perusing the stores and looking for little treasures.  I came across a couple of cool items, but was trying to be mindful of what could fit in my luggage, so decided not to pick them up, but did take a photo of one of them, as I knew it was something that I could easily re-create as wall art in My Digital Studio!

Here's the image I saw:

I really liked the weathered wood/painted look, and while there could have been SEVERAL ways to go about re-creating this look, here is the final design I went with:

Do you want to know something really cool about this design?!  I only used ONE item that I purchased as an additional download--everything else came in the actual MDS program--which means that you can EASILY re-create this same design at home if you like it as much as I do!!   And I just took a quick browse--the background paper I used here is from Soho Subway (Designer Series Paper (or DSP) 7--item #134845--you can take a look at it more closely in my online store), but there is a really cool woodgrain looking DSP in the Number One Kit that DOES come in the MDS program that you could use instead, and you will still be able to add the additional colors with the spatter, etc.

A brief 'how to' for this one:
1)  I created a 12" photo box that I dropped the Soho Subway DSP 7 into, and rotated it 90 degrees.  If I had just dropped the images into the page as a background, the woodgrain would have been going vertical instead of horizontal (which was my preference).  I then LOCKED the photo image on the page once I centered it vertically & horizontally.  This feature is a HUGE headache saver, so that once you get certain items placed exactly where you want them, you can lock them on the page, and still keep designing around them, but you won't get accidental shifts/moves/deletes once the item has been 'locked'.  You can always go back an unlock something later, so it's a very user-friendly feature!

2)  I added a square punch and made it the size I wanted and filled it with the Downtown Grunge DSP 4.  I also added a basic drop shadow to the image.  For fun, I also added the torn edge punch I had edited/created (and used on the cards in yesterday's post) to the spot where I wanted to create the idea that something had been torn off.  That punch was also filled with Downtown Grunge DSP 4.  Finally I created one more punch filled with the Downtown Grunge DSP 4 and outlined with a 1-point black line.  To this punch I added a text box in Times New Roman (30 pt) and wrote "A CHANCE".  I centered/grouped the two items, then rotated them 90 degrees, and copied/pasted it 7 more times and lined it up along the bottom of the large square I had created earlier.

3)  The 'Take at least one' was done using a free font I found online (and just added to my Fonts folder on my computer) called Dancing Script OT.  I sized that one at 144 pt, and rotated it -7 degrees.  I also grouped all of the blocks/images together so that I could center the entire image vertically & horizontally on the page.

4)  Finally I added Ink Splatters 3 (Cajun Craze); Ink Splatters 4 (Early Espresso); Ink Splatters 5 (Crushed Curry); & Ink Splatters 6 (Summer Starfruit) multiple times and placed them where I wanted them.

Pretty simple, right?!  If you have any questions, or need to me clarify anything, feel free to ask!

O.K.  And I couldn't resist. . . . after I realized I could use the DSP from the Number One Kit, I had to go in and do up a quick version of that one.  I just changed out the Summer Starfruit Ink Splatters for Bermuda Bay (and added a few more of 'em).  Here you go!

Happy Stamping!!

Pam