Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Designing My Blog's Header

I've been trying to design a header for my blog.  It has been two steps up and one step back, but you can see I haven't been completely unsuccessful. (Still can't figure out why the image is protruding beyond the border on the right.)  Thanks for helping me get that fixed!

I have had Photoshop Elements 4 for many years.  I thought I'd take to it like a duck to water, but unfortunately that hasn't been the case at all.  However, with the helpful posting of Trish Meyer to one of my calligraphy lists a few months back, I was finally able to tackle a task using PE4.  With black sumi, I hand lettered the word Flourish, along with the little floral and wheat elements, onto white paper.

Using the instructions I had saved from Trish's post,  I inverted the lettering from black to white.


Continuing with Trish's instructions, I combined my lettering with a background I had made in Victoria Pittman's Tortured Metals workshop.  


I added some text and wahlah!... my new header.  It was so gratifying to finally accomplish something in Photoshop Elements after all this time. Yay!..and "Thank you!" Trish.


14 comments:

  1. Hi Jane!! This is very pretty and obviously you put a lot of work into it. I was also trying to make my own header and background and I posted about it on my blog a few days ago (2/15/09)...Check it out there is a really good link there with some blog how-to's that I think you would like.

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  2. Thank you Gifts of Creation! I will definitely do that.

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  3. Great job Jane! You are braver than I. I'll follow your lead and go to Trish Meyers and see what I can learn.
    Thanks for your encouraging words...coming from you my heart feels proud.
    Renee

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  4. You are the first follower of my blog! Yay!!! :-) Thank you Renee.
    I am hoping that blogging will make me more disciplined with my studio time. Let me know if you can't find Trish's original Cyberscribe post.

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  5. hi jane! congratulations on your new blog!! your calligraphy is beautiful...you did a wonderful job on your banner!! before i became so interested in book binding, i used to do a lot of lettering. i still love to sit down with my pens and my gouache...it's very calming to me (well, if it's going well, that is!). thanks for the inspiration! :)

    p.s. thanks for stopping by my blog!! :)

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  6. Hi Jane, Your header is fabulous. I had a hard time with mine too and it took forever to get it right. I love that tortured metal background!! THanks for visiting today and for your comment.

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  7. Thank you Lori! Your lettering is terrific, and your bindings....awesome! I am leaving in a few minutes for my first book making workshop. Our calligraphy guild is having a one day workshop. I'm really excited for it! I greatly admire the spirit of your blog. It's very uplifting. I can tell you and Martha are cut from the same artistic cloth. :-)

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  8. Thank you Martha! I still hope to get the header to fit within the borders. Gifts of Creation gave me some good pointers that I am going to try. The tortured metal workshop with Vicky Pittman was a blast. I'd love to become a professional workshop taker....

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  9. Hi Jane I didn't realize you started a blog! awesome. The banner looks fantastic. Asfore size just make sure it isn't wider than your blog header. you are at 660 px. So if your image is wider than that it will go over your border. also when you upload check the box that says shrink to fit.
    Oh and the moleskine journal looked great.

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  10. Thank you Toni! I won't say how many attempts it has taken me this morning to resize the header. It's embarrassing! :-) But finally it worked at a width of 650 and "shrink to fit." Thanks for your help.

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  11. Jane, your copperplate is phenomenal, gorgeous!

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  12. Hey Jane...Just saw that you had a new blog. Nice! and thank you for the workshop plug. :)

    I've added you to my blog list just now.
    Hope you are well. That was such a fun class last year.

    Best and welcome to the blogger world.
    Vicky

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  13. What a gorgeous header! BRAVA, girlfriend! And what a clever title... kind of wish I'd thought of it! You must be one busy lady... what vitamins are you taking? I need to take some! I'm very impressed... so glad I found your site!

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  14. Lisa, Vicky and Kathy: thanks for your comments and encouragement!

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