Saturday Inspiration - Inlaid Wood Pattern

My sister and brother-in-law have been doing a lot of renovations to their house in New Jersey.  It is an older home from around the turn of the last century and has many features that are not commonly found in modern homes.  One of the interesting features is the inlaid wood pattern in the hard wood floors.

Some of their floors have been refinished and a special stain has been placed on the wood strips that make up the interlocking pattern.  The pattern is made from a different kind of wood than the main body of the floor.  You can see a section of floor that hasn't been restored in the foreground of this photo.  The design strips are narrower and only slightly darker than the regular floor boards.

The pattern is very striking, especially after it has been stained with a darker color.   I like the interwoven look and this is the type of design that is relatively easy to replicate in paper.

The pattern in the floor is similar to a design I created back in 2008 using the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and Design Studio.  If you have an Expression and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, you can try this design using the free trial version of Design Studio.  The original post with the file and photos of many variations is HERE.

In that post I mention that the design is small and can't be enlarged easily.  This was true at the time, but you can now resize grouped designs in Design Studio by selecting the entire group and holding down the control key as you use the handle to resize the image.  If you are not sure how to do this, I made a couple of videos that give a step by step explanation.  You can find them HERE and HERE.

The Picturesque cartridge came out a while later and it has a similar design on page 74 (fourth key from the right on the bottom row).

I think it is interesting to see how the same patterns are interpreted in wood, fabric (in quilts) and paper.

I hope you had a chance to check out the information about the Spring Training 2012 course that Ella Publishing is offering from April 23 to May 4th. 

Check yesterday's post HERE to get more details and to leave a comment for a chance to win a free spot.  Only the comments left on the original post will be included in the random drawing.  There are five great instructors and access to the videos will never expire.  If the random number generator doesn't pick your number, I think the course will be well worth the price - so sign up and join in the fun!

Please take care if you are in the tornado belt of the Midwest.  We are expecting a very hot day (88 degrees predicted!) on Monday for the Boston Marathon and the Patriot's Day Parade.  I'll be spending part of the weekend getting kits together for a class next Wednesday at the Senior Citizen's Center.  I hope you have a great weekend!

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It all started with one butterfly....

I was working on some digital images for my new project (shhh, it's a surprise!) and I took a little break to check out the latest offerings on the Twisted Papers site.

It all started with this butterfly - one of a group of five in the new Victorian Nature Illustration collection.  Here is a LINK to the specific page on the site.  These images are beautiful and very reasonably priced (most are $1 or $2).  I started with the five butterfly image and cropped to this one image, then  erased the background using the "magic wand" tool in my Creative Memories StoryBook Plus 3.0 software.  If you want more information about this software you can contact me or check out the website HERE.

Once I had the single butterfly image I started rotating and overlapping the butterflies.  I filled in a few gaps using the color sample option to match the green of the butterfly. I ended up with groups of four butterflies and I added a black circle to the center to fill in the shape.  Then I took the groups and arranged them to overlap.  The antennae created a tiny lattice design where the groups met.  I added more black circles at the corner connection points.  I kept copying and pasting and arranging groups until I filled an entire 8 1/2 x 11 page.

For another effect, I took one group of butterfly images, enlarged it and put it on top of the sheet of images.   I worked with the sizing to get a pleasing coverage in the center and create a new design.

I cropped each of the larger sheets to create a square image which I can resize to suit the project in which I use the image.  I can also use this as a background paper by adding effects and changing the opacity.

Here are the two variations side by side on a black background - eliminating the white areas creates a new look for the images (background color is so important!).

It is amazing what you can do with one little butterfly!  I enjoy the kaleidoscope effect and have made quilts using a similar technique to create many patterns from one small image or set of images.

So...after I played around with the digital butterflies, I tried something similar with some Cricut butterflies.  This butterfly image is on the Picturesque cartridge.  It has several layers so you can use different colors for each to get nicely detailed butterflies.  I added a background in three layers to finish the design.

Here is a closer view of the new image.  I couldn't get a screen shot of the full design at 100%.  I need to move the file to my gypsy so I can group the butterfly layers and work with various sizes.  Working so quickly and easily in the digital program with the grouping and duplicating of grouped images made me realize that an actual "select all" and "group" function can't come soon enough (we have been waiting a very long time for an update to Design Studio to provide this basic tool).

I hope to find time to test cut this design tomorrow.  It will be fun to choose the paper colors - so many possibilities.

Tomorrow night is New Year's Eve - time to make those resolutions!  I am excited to have actually completed my year of daily blogging - a post each and every day for an entire year seemed like an impossible goal but I made it!  (or I will have made it once tomorrow's post is done...)  I have some great new plans in the works and I will share them with you as soon as I can.  In the meanwhile, I'll keep on blogging here - too many people have told me that they count on a daily post for me to stop cold turkey right now!