I’m still slaving away on my In-Law’s 45th anniversary video! I just finished a slide of them in Oahu in 1968. I saw this digital brush (”stamp”) by Rhonna Farrar called “Vintage Valentine Cupid” and thought, oh I can make those flourishes look like waves!

We went to Hawaii last year for the first time and my husband keeps saying he wants to go back. I’m thrilled because when we married he was a “mountain vacation” type and I was a “beach vacation” type. I now have him hooked on swimming in the tropics! I have not scrapped our trip yet but I did make a Tabblo.

Hawaii is just so romantic, I think this layout captured the mood. The “Unbelievable” caption,”Parisian Flaire”, and the “Swirled Frame” are also by Rhonna Farrar. All available at Two Peas.

I made the layout in Photoshop CS3, but Photoshop Elements would work the same.

1. Place digital “paper” on bottom
2. Open your picture, copy it, then paste it on a new layer on top of the paper
3. With your “brush” ABR file dropped in Photoshop’s “brushes” folder you should be able to see and select the brush. The instructions I followed for installation are on the Two Peas site. Set your opacity to about 50% and “click”, without moving your mouse, as many times as it takes to get the look you want. If it is too big/small use the slider in the brush toolbox to size it downward (left) or bigger (right.)
4. Create a new layer underneath your stamp and use soft round brushes of various sizes to add a color wash under your image. I colored the wings and cloud white. The “towel” color is borrowed from a dark shade on my digital paper. And the waves are blue.
5. Stamp your frame on a new layer over your picture and your stamp.
6. Stamp your caption on a new layer, clicking till it reaches desired opacity. If it does not quite show up, don’t worry, we can make it pop! Add a new layer under your caption stamp and with the eyedropper tool select a dark shade from your paper background. Then with a large soft brush “click, click, click” all around to make the detail in your word art pop.