Wedding Date Art - Tutorial

Remember my Alphabet Photography Art project?



The kids and I had a lot of fun collecting our alphabet and my recent Country Living issue brought that project to mind with a similar one using numbers.



Wedding dates with Number Photography Art! Brilliant!




What a great gift to give a new bride at a shower or wedding, or even a couple for their anniversary. You know what...this is even a great gift for yourself. Collecting the photos of significant numbers is so fun and easy. Make a field trip out of it with a girlfriend or the kids! These numbers materialized during a jaunt around the city with my friend Joy. We found so much inspiration in house addresses, street signs, and even garbage cans! We screamed and pointed and double parked and broke traffic laws all afternoon in pursuit of the perfect numbers.

The key to this project is in the editing of the photographs...unless you are a professional photographer. (If you are a pro, I apologize in advance for this tutorial!) I am an amateur photographer with a simple point-and-shoot camera. I also don't have tons of money, so I forgo all the Photoshop software for Picnik instead.

This is an inexpensive website that offers photo editing at an affordable price. Many of the features are even free! For these photos, I liked the "Lomo-ish" edit that intensifies the color and puts a bit of a spotlight on your photo in an unnatural over-exposed way I love.

So for the first part of this tutorial, let's work on our photos.

Number Photography

1. Take a day (or two or three!) and begin to photograph as many numbers as you can find. Try to get single digits and double digits for the day and year. Too many photos should be just about right.

2. Register with Picnik and upload the numbers you need for your dates.

3. Once the photo is uploaded, click the "Create" tab, then "Effects" tab, then "Lomo-ish" or another effect of your choice.

4. Save the photos to your computer and print out matte 4x6 photos.

At this point, you could simply slide the pictures into a collage frame and call it finished. But, I like the whimsical look of this collage plaque with off center, different sized numbers. So let's move on to the second half of this tutorial.

Wedding Date Plaque

Supplies:

Scrap Wood or a Collage Photo Frame
Paint
Photo Corners
Number Photography


Instructions:

I began with the date May 8, 2010:



Using a scrap piece of wood, I painted and antiqued it with stain and paint - but if you can find a discarded scrap with natural patina all the better!



Center the photos and mark a straight line with painter's tape to assist in centering the pictures.



Attach the photo corners to the number photos and affix to the surface of the wood.



Come on, that's CUTE! You could SO do this in an afternoon. Just think, your kids' birthdays on their walls, your anniversary date, the date you moved into your new home...the possibilities are endless!

Come on back tomorrow to teach me stuff for fun and prizes! Grab a button now and I'll meet you back here for a giveaway from another great sponsor



<center><a href="http://www.HopeStudios.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/ss202/hopestudios/tutorialtuesday.jpg" /></a></center>

Linking to: