Crafts for the Un-crafty

Alternately titled: "How to steal art and put Bible verses on it."

Let's just get this out of the way right now.  I am not an artist. 

I would never pretend to be.  Even my stick people look like horses.  Although I desperately whish I was, I'm not exactly "crafty" either.  While I'd like to think that I know how to arrange a bookshelf and throw a super cute birthday party, that's about where my creative juices end. 

A lot of my design inspiration comes from the internet.  (In fact, even when I think I've found a creative, original idea, I tend of discover through the glory of the web that I'm not original at all and someone's already done it.  Better than I could have, for that matter.)

As I was browsing recently, I came across this, this and this.

My first thought was, "Cute!"

Then I saw the price, and my next thought was, "You've got to be kidding me!  Who pays $65 for one tiny picture?!" 

But after looking at it for a few minutes, the wheels got to turning.  "That doesn't look so hard.  I bet I could do that."  And because I have a husband who tends to think that too, he agreed with me. 

It's totally my kind of crafty project - the kind that doesn't involve drawing, sketching, painting or anything which I will inevitably make look like a horse. 

So, with the help of my extremely handy hubby, google images and photoshop, we came up with these.

**The important thing here is that you have a high resolution image to start with.  If you use an image that is too low quality, the edges of your image will be pixelated and jagged. 

Step 1: Save the image to your computer from google and open in photoshop.
Step 2: Create a mask of the shape using the magic wand tool.  *This will only work if you use a sillhouette or other uniformly-colored image.  If you find an image you like with multiple colors, you'll have to go about it a different way. 
Step 3: Fill the mask with the desired color.  You can either use the color wheel or pull the color directly from another image.
Step 4: Add the text.  Preferably, all artsy and fancy like.

 

Casey took the document to Kinkos and had them printed on off-white card stock, and I found the frames on sale at Michaels (for half off, thankyouverymuch!).  For a grand total of about $25, we were able to replicate the original art work that I liked.

The best part is, this could be done with anything that you love.  Any image, any saying.   We chose Bible verses and stuck pretty close to the original since I liked it to begin with, but there is really no limit to what you can create.  Lyrics of a favorite song or poem, quotes from a book, movie or eccentric family member, family names and birthdates... anything! 

Happy (non)crafting!