Need help from you heritage experts

[dathamary]

Okay, I need some help, FAST, and I thought this would be the best place to go. I am designing a GIANT scrapbook page for a float I am helping with for the Pioneer Day Parade. The theme is "Making memories, preserving heritage." The parade is on July 24, and the float needs to be done by the 19th (and I just got this assignment tonight) so I need ideas quick. I need something simple but cute, and it has to be visible from 40 feet away. I think I will design the layout on the computer and then build it bigger with 3d embellishments. It will be a two page layout, and I was thinking of using the page title "Bushels of fun" to tie in with the other elements on our float (which include huge bushel baskets of fruit). I am not sure if I will use actual enlarged photographs, drawings, or cutouts. Then I need to add lots of fun embellishments, which will be the 3d part of the page. I will probably have to make them out of foam or something. And we only want to use a few colors so it's not too distracting.

Also, if any of you have any generic heritage type pictures I could use, that would be great. We are going to blow up some black and white pictures of different family members and put them in a tree. Oh, and I also need to design labels for canning jars, which happen to be 7 feet tall.

Anway, I am not sure if this post is making any sense or if I am portraying what I need, but I need to have this layout designed probably tomorrow, ready to work on by Tuesday, and finished by Friday at the absolute latest. Right now I'm just trying to brainstorm. Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated.

Tomorrow I will try to take pictures of the float and the scrapbook so you can see what I'm talking about.

I am always so impressed if all of your wonderful heritage layouts and am looking forward to your ideas and suggestions.

THANKS!!

[Meryl]

Wow, dathamary I am really battling to get my mind around the enormity of this project, you however seem to have some great ideas. I am at least bumping this till we see photos of the float and the scrapbook.

In view of its being urgent, I would post this in more threads - the Grannies thread comes to mind lol - VERY helpful ladies, as does step-it-up, general scrapbooking?

Sorry not to have more real ideas!

[dathamary]

thanks! I am posting to grannies right now. Photos coming soon.

[Vallie]

I remember ages ago somebody did a giant life size copy of their parents wedding photo to be at their 50th or so anniversary. They blew up the wedding photo to life size and printed it out in pieces and stuck it to a foam cut out of the couple the same shape as the photos and it looked really good. I think they laquered it all with some sort of sealer (but be careful some laquers melt foam). Just a thought.

[dathamary]

thanks for the ideas so far. I appreciate all your help. I found out how big the book is. It is a two page layout, and each page is about 44 inches high and 30 inches wide. I think maybe I'll just have one large picture on each side with a few big embellishments. That's a good idea to blow up the picture and just print it in pieces. I will try to post some pictures of the book and the float.

[Meryl]

Great idea from Vallie - I think its going to be fabulous!

[hoozieg]

There's a program called Rasterbater (I know, it sounds bad) that will take your photo and print it on however many sheets you need. I think you can choose the size of paper. It turns the pixels round and spaces them farther apart, but from far away it looks fantastic.

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

This one's six by six 8.5 x 11 sheets. Then you tape them together on the back. You can set the pixelation (that may not be what they call it), to a high or low level depending on how you want it to look. Einstein is set with pixels close together...the second one is far apart.

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery/i/10955.jpg

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery/i/10636.jpg

Some people choose to cut off the white borders (above), others leave them (below).

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery/i/10668.jpg

This might be just what you need?!? There's a huge gallery - you can check out other images.

Oh and it's free!

Good luck!

[evergreen100]

Wow, what a huge and exciting project and so little time (I'm sure you didnt need to be reminded of that:D)...I am totally clueless but cheering you on from the sidelines and awaiting LOs in your gallery:)

[dathamary]

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=6159 Here is a link to my album with the float pictures. Once I saw the scrapbook, it actually looked a little more manageable.

[sammdc]

what an amazing project I would try and make it as 3D as possible use fabric for bg papers and torn cardboard bits of lace ribbons dried flowers and find elements suck as bits of chains keys and really just do very large paper pages with A4 sized heritage photos photos

[dathamary]

that's a great idea to use fabric as bg paper. So you think the photos could just be letter size? Do you think I should just use silhouettes?

[dathamary]

I would love to take a picture of the scene on the back of the float for the pictures. It's a grandmother and little girl making a pie. Only trouble is, they don't have any heads yet.

[Roberta T]

You mentioned jam labels. I have a freebie from a designer with line drawn labels if you're interested.

[dathamary]

Hmm, that would be helpful Roberta, but the labels have to be HUGE, so I am not sure the freebie would be a high enough resolution. I could sure try it though. Now I am just having a hard time figuring out how to do the pictures. I don't think actual photos would work, as you would lose a lot of the detail in order to blow them up enough. I tried tracing my DD's silhouette, but she is just too darn wiggly.

[Roberta T]

What if you made your photos into drawings on PS? You could use the heaviest 'line' you could get and that might blow up nicely?

[Lynnie]

Costco prints out poster size pictures if you have one with good resolution. See if you can find either a few heritage pictures with good resolution OR have someone go to a local photographer who specializes in that kind of pic and see if they will take one and give you permission to use it. Then get it blown up and scrap a real page on there...

Alternatively, if you have a 12x12 printer, print out some pics in sepia toned that resemble heritage shots.

[kaybutler@mweb.]

It is too early in the morning for me to make any meaningful contribution..but I'm cheering you on too and looking forward to the end result !! Good luck !!!

[Meryl]

It is too early in the morning for me to make any meaningful contribution..but I'm cheering you on too and looking forward to the end result !! Good luck !!!


Goodness... not often I see you up and about at this time of morning Kay!

Teriffic Thursday to you!

[dathamary]

Thank you all for the wonderful ideas and positive support. I finished the scrapbook project tonight!! Whew! I tried to post pictures during the planning phases to get CC, but the galleries were not working properly. I decided to go way simple. I found a cute silhouette picture of a grandmother cooking. With the help of PSP, I changed the soup into a pie, spliced in a little girl from another picture, and made it into an outline. Then I copied it onto an overhead transparency and blew it up using a projector. Traced that onto black posterboard and cut it out to make a silhouette picture. Then we added wooden letters at the top and a few embellishments, and VIOLA! You kind of have to change the way you think about scrapbooking for this kind of project. It was fun though (just don't ask my husband. He may disagree).

I am going to take some pictures tomorrow and try to post them if the gallery is cooperating. You ladies are WONDERFUL! Thanks so much!

[Meryl]

Thanks so much for the update! Sounds fantastic - well done on your creativity!!! I just love how it sounds. really look forward to the pictures! (and a page???)

[dathamary]

Here is my finished product http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=6159
Please check it out and tell me what you think (but only if you like it, because it's too late to change it LOL). I am going to try posting some more pictures to see if I can get help with the jars to help them be more easily identifiable.

[Meryl]

Wow, wow, wow - you are a STAR!!! what a really great job you have done - take a very proud bow!

[dathamary]

Just an update. The parade was yesterday, and it was AWESOME! Our float looked even more lovely rolling along the "vard." We won the Children's Choice award. The lady who presented the awards said that is the best one to win because parades are really all about the children, right? I agree. It was sure fun watching it with mine.

[dathamary]

Hey Hoozie, guess what? Picasa can do the same thing as that rasterbator program in just a few clicks! (Just wish I had discovered it about a week ago!) You just select your picture, go to CREATE and choose "make a poster." Then you choose what size you want your poster and what size your paper is, and the program splits it into pieces so you can print it on multiple sheets and piece it together. It even has an option to overlap tiles so it is easier to put together. I used that feature to print a poster-size version of one of the parade pictures to hang in the church building. I LOVE PICASA!!

[hoozieg]

Hey Hoozie, guess what? Picasa can do the same thing as that rasterbator program in just a few clicks! (Just wish I had discovered it about a week ago!) You just select your picture, go to CREATE and choose "make a poster." Then you choose what size you want your poster and what size your paper is, and the program splits it into pieces so you can print it on multiple sheets and piece it together. It even has an option to overlap tiles so it is easier to put together. I used that feature to print a poster-size version of one of the parade pictures to hang in the church building. I LOVE PICASA!!

I didn't Know that! I'll have to check it out! Thanks! :tup: