Wedding Card, and an Exciting Photoshop Breakthrough!

Here's a card that I'm extremely excited about that I made for my very good friends, Louise and Jeremy, for their happy wedding day.

I'm really proud of this card for a couple of reasons:  

I've never had much success combining rubber-stamped images with paper punch cut-outs.  Sure, I've had some triumphs such as my heart apple tree card that combined a rubber-stamped tree with a punch-out fence, and my cute kissing goldfish card that had two little fish punch-outs in a huge fishbowl rubber stamp.  But for the most part, whenever I tried to combine the two elements, it was a flop.  (I don't have any examples to show you since I tended to discard - pun totally intended - the cards I wouldn't give to anyone.)

I'm not sure why the two don't work well together.  Perhaps the textures are too different and just don't meld?  In any case, I used a number of stamped and punched images in this card - the hearts and grass were done with paper punches, and the neat tandem bike as well as the tree branch are stamped images.

I especially like how I used mostly pink hearts for the leaves (or, I suppose they could be apples), and two shiny red ones for contrast.

The other major reason I am thrilled is because I finally found a relatively simple and effective way to edit my photographs in Photoshop so that the background is pure white!

For over a year now, I've read tutorials, watched YouTube videos and discussed with friends, to no avail.  I tried a variety of methods, which were all complicated and none very effective.  I have had had near-victories such as with my washi tape birthday cake card and bunny Easter card, but if you look closely towards the bottom fourth of the card, you can still see purple-grayish outlines of the background that I was unable to completely eliminate.

More frequently, however, I didn't even succeed a tiny bit.  For instance, I adored my Thanksgiving card from last year, but I couldn't for the life of me white out the background.  Even worse was the Jeweled Blooms Get Well card - the card was gorgeous, but the background of the photograph of it was atrocious!

I finally found a technique that works and is easy to boot!  I am behind on video tutorials, but consider this a placeholder for one that shows how I do it, coming soon(ish)!

Here is another picture, just because I'm in a show off-y kinda mood!  : )

Louise and Jeremy's wedding was wonderful.  We kick started the celebrations with a Napa Valley wine tour, which was amazing.  I have gone to vineyards in Long Island and in the Finger Lakes area many times before; it was always fun, but the wines were subpar.  But Napa Valley was really somethin' else - I wanted to buy a case of every single wine I tasted!  As it were, I only managed to carry back a Pinot Grigio and Zinfandel.

Louise and Jeremy planned every detail of their wedding with a thought towards making their guests welcome and comfortable.  The food was Paleo style, and I have to admit I was a bit surprised that it was some of the most delicious food I've ever had!  There were also food and wine pairings that were marvelous:  fresh-shucked oysters with champagne, and walnuts and Stilton cheese paired with an amazing port wine.  You can read all about it - Louise blogged about the wedding food at her site, Ancestral Chef.

Although I've gotten close with Louise (and later on, Jeremy) only this past year or so, we totally get each other on many levels.  Louise used to work at my prior law firm, but she quit right before her wedding, and is on to bigger and better business and personal ventures.  (So jealous!)  She and Jeremy moved to San Francisco after their wedding, and I miss her dearly.  I can't wait to join them for parts of their planned global-trotting adventures throughout the next few years!