Around the World

 

The optional topping for Seize the Birthday's Challenge #331 is to make a square card with a non-white base. I needed a card for my brother's 50th birthday, & found the perfect graphic that works with a square format. He is a pilot & also loves to travel, so it seemed serendipitous when I found the image of a plane going around a globe. Jules Verne's novel, "Around the World in 80 Days," inspired the first part of the greeting.

 

 

 

I had to google how many days my brother has actually been alive. What did we ever do before online search engines???

 

I opened the main image, from Magnific.com, in Photoshop. The globe in the image didn't work with my vision, so I found another one at PNGFind.com of a globe where the landmasses were outlined instead of silhouetted. I selected the globe in the main image & deleted it, then moved the outline globe & positioned it where the original globe had been. I created a circle path to type the greeting on, & then entered the text. The bottom part of the greeting was a bit difficult, as I had forgotten how to reverse the text so it curved up like I wanted, but I eventually figured it out. I also reduced the opacity of the globe itself, so I wouldn't have black outlines when I colored. Since wax-based colored pencils kind of - but don't totally - obscure outlines on an image, I just didn't want to fight with that. Finally I printed my panel onto a piece of Strathmore Colored Pencil paper.

 

I colored the globe with my Prismacolor colored pencils. In traditional globe-coloring fashion, I colored the landmasses green & the water blue. But I decided to do Antartica & the North Pole area with a very pale blue. I mean, ice isn't green, is it? 😉 

 

I created my card base from a pale grey cardstock. I trimmed my main panel 1/4" shorter & narrower than my card base. I adhered that to a piece of teal cardstock & cut the mat so it was 1/16" larger on all sides. I did the same with a green mat, then adhered that to my card base. And that finished my card. The hardest parts were formatting the lower text to curve properly & keeping track of what was land & what was water when I was coloring. Not that the latter was hard, per se, but I did have to stay focused. I absolutely LOVE how this card turned out, & am happy to report that my brother loved it, too!

 

I'm also entering my card in Little Red Wagon's "One Thing" challenge. (I used one composite image.)