A Rose is NOT just a Rose!

Hi all! Julie Koerber here with another edition of...... INSPIRE ME MONDAY! Today, I'm going to drop a little digi knowledge on you that will hopefully get you seeing your digital images in a whole new way! 

I'll be using this digital stamp....  La Vie En Rose! Isn't it a beauty?

What I love about this set is that darling little love note tucked underneath that gorgeous rose! Did you know though that if you don't want to see that little love note, you can "erase" it thanks to Photoshop Elements (or any photo editing software)? 

I decided that while I love that portion of the image, I wanted my rose to look like it was a tea rose, freshly cut from the garden for my sweetie! How? Let me show you! I started by opening up this digital stamp -- La Vie En Rose -- in Photoshop Elements....

On the left side of the screen above, you can see that the paint brush tool is highlighted. I started by taking the ink dropper (fourth tool down from the top on the left side), and I used it to click on the white on my image. Afterward, I clicked on the paint brush. This told the brush the exact color of my background so that I could, in essence, color that same white over parts of my image to erase the portions that I don't want to be seen.

You can see below that I've started to do just that!

And, here's my image without the note. I even removed the little stippled dots so that it wouldn't appear as if my rose was laying on a surface.

I decided to rotate my canvas so that I could see what the rose looked like in a more upright position.

After turning it, I decided it was still a bit too top heavy for the way I wanted to use it, so I started "painting/erasing" again! You can see below, I got rid of the bud that was off to the left.

But, I decided again that the image above still wasn't enough. I decided to take off those two leaves off to the left hand side of my image.

You can see above that I am getting close! But, see those little bits of shading underneath that rose petal? I want to make sure those little lines are gone too.

Using the "Control" button and then clicking on the "+" sign, I zoom in, make my brush small (decrease it to roughly 7 pixels) and that allows me to get into those tight areas to remove those last few lines.

And you can see, I'm all done! I love the way this rose now appears as a single stem rose. It's perfect for what I had envisioned in my head.

Want to see how my card turned out?

I colored my image up with Copic markers and I used these colors, R00, R30, R32, R35, G20,G21, G24, G0000, E40, and E42. I then cut out my image using a Spellbinders die and while the die was still on my image, I sponged on some Antique Linen Distress Ink. The sentiment from Power Poppy's brand new set called Good Thinking: Love Notes. I punched it out using a 1-1/4" circle punch and then distressed it a bit by sponging on some ink. The paper is Carta Bella's Yesterday -- I loved how the paper really matched my rose! Add some paper piercing, some crochet lace trim, a decorative brad and... done! 

Here's a close up! 

Thanks so much for joining me this Monday! I hope you use this tutorial and then take a closer look at some of your digi images. You don't have to use the whole image if you don't want to thanks to photo/image editing software! Doesn't this open up the possibilities? I sure think so!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Julie