Real Flowers - printed and cut for a card

Monday was a "catch-up" day for me.  I was finally able to find the top of the pool table in my craft room "annex" (after our sons left home I spread out into the adjoining room - and filled it up too!).  I was sorting through piles of projects and I found something that I started a couple of months ago.  So I finished this card to share with you.

This photo of a rudbeckia (brown-eyed susan) from our back yard was the starting point.

I did some photo editing and heightened the contrast to make the flower stand out.  One of my favorite things to do with my flower photos is to turn them into digital elements that I can use for my digital scrapbooking.  I have accumulated quite a few flower images as PNG files that I can use for page layouts, cards and other projects.

I used the Creative Memories StoryBook Creator 4.0 software (on sale this week for only $41.40) to remove the background and create a clean image of the flower.  I realized that with my Silhouette machines I have the capability to take these flower images and cut them out perfectly.

I saved the PNG file to my desktop and then dragged it into the Silhouette Studio software.  (You do not need the designer version of the software to do this).  Then I used the trace function to create a cut line around the edge of the flower.  I filled a page with various sizes of the flower.  For some of the images, I created an offset to leave a white edge around the flower when it is cut.  

Once my flowers were cut out, they looked very realistic - because they are actual flower images.  I could also skip the printing and use the cut lines that I traced around the flowers to cut plain cardstock in the same shape. 

I chose three flowers in small, medium and large sizes, and cut some basic card mats for an A2 card.  The card base is Bazzill heavy textured cardstock, the brown layer is Core'dinations cardstock and the green design is from Momenta.  The yellow chevron ribbon is from May Arts and the sentiment is from Craftwork Cards (I rounded two corners to make it a little more interesting).

 I placed the ribbon across the front of the top layer and folded it over onto the adhesive on the back before I placed the green layer (3 3/4 x 5 inches) on the brown layer (4 x 5 1/4 inches).

I inked the edges of the layers with some Vintage Photo distress ink.  Here is the finished card base before I added the flowers and sentiment.

I chose this ribbon because the chevron pattern matches the design in the green dragonfly cardstock.  I used Scor-Tape to attached the sentiment to the ribbon and the cardstock.

To add dimension to the flowers, I used some foam dots.  I adhered the largest flower with Scor-Tape in the center and curled up the ends a bit.  For the medium flower I used one foam dot and for the smallest flower I stacked two foam dots.

I overlapped the flowers as I placed them on the card.  This photo shows the different levels.

I have also done a print and cut project with some daisies and I am working on other flowers that I have photographed.  I really enjoy taking my photos and finding new ways to use them.  You can make a totally personalized card and once you take the time to create the files you can use them over and over again.

I am linking up this project to Link Up Tuesday HERE.  The past few months have been such a busy time for our family.  I don't go to the message boards much anymore but I'd like to keep in contact with the blogging community - I may even start a link day here.

Every so often I am asked if I sell my photographs.  I haven't done that (yet) but I am considering creating and selling SVG files to print and cut my flower images.  Please let me know (by leaving a comment or by email) if you'd be interested in these or other SVG files.  I can't sell them as .studio files (see Kerri Bradford's recent blog posts) but SVG files can be cut by a number of machines, including the Silhouette machines if you have the designer edition of the software or another program such as Make the Cut.

Our weather has started to cool down a bit and fall will be here soon.  The schools here usually start after Labor Day but I know that in many parts of the country children are already back to school.  If you have school age children, I hope that they are off to a good start for this year.

I wonder what other projects I'll find as I continue to sort out my craft room!

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