Fading Photos

If you print your photos yourself, you can play with them using different techniques in your photo editing software.  I wanted to see what it would look like to "fade" the edges of my photo.  But how would I cut it out that way?????  I decided to layer the photo over a background and fade it that way.  Then I could just print the background with the faded photo and not have to cut the photo out!

Of course, that wasn't the end of the challenge.  This was before I bought my wide-body printer, so the largest I could print was 8 1/2" x 11" - and I was making a 12 x 12 page!  As you can see, I managed that little challenge by using coordinating brown cardstock for the bottom part of the page, with a couple of strips of brown running from it to the top of the page.  I then cut my 8 1/2 x 11 so that it would space properly behind the brown cardstock.  Now it looks like I printed my picture 12 inches wide - even though I didn't!  The white letters set the title off nicely and help tie in the the white in the journaling block and the thin mats on the smaller photos.

Try this fade technique to create a focal for your cards.  No problem with having a regular sized printer there!