Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words--but pictures alone are up for interpretation. Story is essential to understanding your pictures! I can show you how to tell your pictures with the stories that bring them to life!
THE SETUP
I miss my granddaughters something awful! We live 1100 miles apart, but we travel to see them about 4 times a year. I take LOTS of pictures of them when I'm there, and load them directly onto my computer where they stay until I decide which ones to print. My mom doesn't have a computer, so I take my computer to her home and show her slide shows every time we get back from a trip, but I have to orally explain what each picture is about. Even though my daughter has a computer, I know she doesn't order her own prints of my pictures to frame or scrapbook. I've had to use other creative ways to give the good pictures to them.
THE PICTURES
So, obviously, these are my granddaughters as infants, snapped being cute. I'm not sure why the resolution of the second picture is so bad, but I love it anyway. That happens, doesn't it? Sometimes our favorite pictures are not the most perfect compositions--Life's a lot like that!
What can I say about them? My firstborn granddaughter was blowing bubbles. (Any new grandparent can relate--we're easy to entertain!) Our younger granddaughter (they're 2 years apart) was only 4 weeks old and laughing. Gotta freeze that moment!
But there's more storytelling that can be done with pictures, and you don't have to keep explaining them to people...
THE PICTALES
I really love these pictures of the girls, and I wanted to showcase each of them as part of a whimsical landscape.
The idea started when I only had the one grandchild, and I had a blast creating a "lullabye landscape" to hang in her room. I love the song In My Arms by Plumb, because the lyrics convey a mother's promise of safety and unconditional love, so it was incorporated into her poster. The lyrics mention "your baby blues", and "curlycues", so I found those images to decorate the landscape. She sings about castles, so I added castle and fairytale images--lots of sparkle, silver, and gold. I added the protective images of angels, and moved everything around in my digital studio until the composition was balanced.
There's a lot going on in the poster, but as a child, I liked looking at busy pictures to see what I could pick out, and I hope my granddaughter will be entertained by the picture, too.
When my second granddaughter arrived, I made her a similar poster. For hers I chose the Beatles song Golden Slumbers, and embellished her poster with lots of gold. She also has some glitter and curlycues and angels and symbols of love, but her poster is unique, too.
Finishing touch: they were framed using (reusing?) frames and mats from Goodwill. It's just a thrill to stumble upon the perfect framing supplies at Goodwill and other resale shops! (A little shimmery ribbon will bridge the gap under a mat that's not quite the right size.)
You can make this sort of fantasy landscape with traditional scrapbooking embellishments--it's probably a great way to use up scrappy leftovers. You can also make this kind of poster or scrapbook page with Photoshop and Scrapgirls.com tools. I create in Heritage Makers online Studio because I have access to over 40,000 pieces of digital artwork and complete freedom to place my elements anywhere I want, and to position and resize them and give them special effects.
If you've done this through other digital services or websites, I'd love to hear about those companies. I'm sure my other readers would like to have some variety to choose from.
THE DIGITAL EXPERIENCE
It's not obvious, but I used the first poster as a template for the second poster. In my Heritage Makers Studio, every project I've ever finished, and every project I've ever started are saved until I delete them. I can go back and recreate or tweak old projects and update them into something fresh. I can use elements from other projects and put them in the creation I'm working on. You've really gotta try it! If you're game,
- Go to www.sharefamilystories.com and create your own free account.
- Watch a tutorial in the ONLINE CLASSES section. There are live classes that may fit your schedule and archived classes that you can watch at your leisure.
- Once you've watched a tutorial, you're ready to get started!
- Look through the template gallery for ideas or an actual template to start with, if you're not sure how to start from scratch. They're free too! My posters are 18x12 landscape posters.
- When you open an account at www.sharefamilystories.com, you'll have the opportunity to have one or both of my templates placed in your account to use!
If you want a little more one-to-one instruction, email me at donna@sharefamilystories.com.
In a visual lullaby, P+S is best! ~Donna
Hi, Donna! Thanks for visiting me this week. You have such a fun place here--I love what you are doing with photos... very impressive! Happy Days to you & yours :o)
Posted by: Tracy | 02/04/2010 at 08:06 AM
I'm pretty sure I'm doing this wrong (the way I'm replying to your comment), Tracy, but I appreciate your enthusiasm for my blog! I'm pretty excited, because you are my FIRST COMMENTER EVER! That's why it's taken me so long to post your comment and then to reply to it--I don't understand all of the tech features of Typepad yet!
Posted by: Donna Raagas | 02/04/2010 at 07:36 PM