Christmas Card 2011

Like last year, we decided to have both digital and analog Christmas cards. Since Georgia is much more prone to manipulating electronic images, she was again elected. But what would we say this year? What would be the theme?

A little while ago Georgia had been playing with her image software and found an interesting effect that reminded her of a box. She wondered if that would be a good foundation for the e-card.

After several attempts one day she discovered that it just wasn't going to work the way she thought it would. Time to restart the project.

OK, the idea would be to have Christmas wishes coming out of a gift box. Now how could she do that? After trying some more, she finally came up with a box. What else? Well, while the wishes could come out of the box, it would be easier to put them on the ground around it. Peace, Joy, and Love seemed like good sentiments, and proved fairly simple with the image software.

Georgia looked in her collection of computer clip art. Finding a large collection relating to Christmas, she browsed, trying to find other items to round out the Christmas e-card. First step, the gift box needed a lid. Georgia found a gift box in the collection, and thought it could be modified into a lid for the box she had already created.

Modifying the image to create a gift box lid with bow proved a little more complex than Georgia had anticipated. She finally figured out a way, and inserted the lid next to the box.

The e-card was still rather bare, so Georgia kept looking for appropriate elements. A Christmas tree showed up in the collection. After opening the image our artist found that there were purple ornaments on the tree. That would never do. We are not "purple" people. Photo imaging to the rescue, and the ornaments were transformed.

While there was now a present under a tree, it was rather bare. What else would fit? Georgia found some pine cone images, and sprinkled them around the e-card. That was better. Holly sprigs were next to be added.

But there was still a large hole in the image, so much "white space" would never do. More holly and pinecones later, it was looking better. It still needed something else. Of course! It needed a "Merry Christmas". Fumbling around and trying out different approaches produced a satisfactory Christmas wish. After adding the last wish, the holly and pine cones needed a few more adjustments and additions. That was looking pretty good!

Georgia brought the finalized image to Randy for approval. Breaking away from his phone call to a sister, he nodded his acceptance. It was finished! All that was left was to send it out.

Merry Christmas!