I'm working on some ‘in-use' designs for a few manufacturers. In-use designs are focused on showcasing a specific material in an innovative way that will inspire the customer to buy the product. I love this kind of design because it's uniquely challenging.

The designs I'm currently working on aren't bead related, which is honestly refreshing. I can do much, much, much more than throw some beads on a string. I think any good designer is capable of working beyond their signature medium because ultimately that's just a vehicle for their creative impulse. I've always been a mixed media sort of a gal, even way back when I was a kid making kooky quilted sculptures and clay figures with wire armatures...every time I go to the craft store I find something new that excites me and gets my creative juices flowing. So much so that I have shelves filled with things I haven't gotten around to exploring, yet I keep bringing more things into the studio. Yes, I'm a crafty pack rat! I bet many of you are too. Creative people tend to be restless folk.

Yesterday I got it into my head that I wanted to do a design using the Eiffel tower. I Googled for some permission free images, but since I wasn't getting anything that fit my vision I put a shout out on Twitter. Within ten minutes I had a host of replies! Wow! Twitter rocks! Thanks to all of my Twitter Pals! Thank you so much to Sarah Hodsdon for letting me use her vintage photograph and to Tara Reed for sending me her personal images from her trip to Paris. (Also while I'm here a crafty shout out to Tara for the mention in her blog and to Crafty Chica for the blog link and this fabulously inspirational post you simply must go read! I have more links to share tomorrow to other gals who've shown the Linky Love recently...so tune in tomorrow!)

 Initial Eiffel Tower vintage image copyright 2009 Sarah Hodsdon

Eiffel Tower 1 Copyright 2008 Margot Potter

Eiffel Tower 2 copyright 2009 Margot Potter

Eiffel Tower 3 (final design) copyright 2008 Margot Potter

I've been playing with Photoshop over the past few years on a very rudimentary level. It's such a huge and powerful program that even skating across the surface you can do amazingly cool things. I think digital crafting is the next wave along with mixed media and repurposing. I'm sharing this here because I wanted to show you how you can translate your vision into something very cool digitally without too much effort. I want to give a crafty shout out to my friend Helen Bradley for her help yesterday while I was knee deep in this project. She's a digital dynamo! Thanks Helen!

(Excuse me while I pause for an important message from The Impatient Crafter^TM: These images and all images and designs and videos on this blog are under copyright and it is not permissible to use them for anything at all except your viewing pleasure without prior written permission from yours truly. I hope I've made myself perfectly clear.)

The idea here was to take an iconic architectural structure and see how far you could break it down and still recognize it. I've played with this idea before with my St. Basil's Box I created for Swarovski. In fact, before I discovered computers I created some designs for my theatre design classes in college using copy machines and photos that also broke down images in this manner, but the computer makes it much easier!

I made this vintage photo look like a pointillist painting by playing with the contrast and manipulating the image until I had a tower that looks like it was made from cascading confetti. I felt like there was too much negative space so I added some repetition of the pattern along the bottom left edge, but it still felt like there was too much stark white even with the lettering layer. Then I created a ghost image that looks like a waterfall or a reflection in a pool of water that is shadowed behind the lettering.

No, I'm not telling you how I did it! Get thee to Photoshop and play because I don't have to write a tutorial for this one, phew!

I can't show you exactly what I'm doing with this image until it comes out and I have no idea when that will be but when it does I'll share it here. Yes, I'm being obtuse...again. I'm off to make more digital magic today in my signature poke around and make glorious mistakes manner.

Until tomorrow, remember to "create without filters^TM."

xoxo
Margot