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Love is in the air, and so is the crisp cool scent of autumn. Make your autumn wedding perfect with this great autumn wedding themed idea:
MAPLE LEAF MENU
What you'll need:
-Digital imaging program
-Digital outline of a maple leaf, birch leaf, oak leaf or any other leaf you like.
-Photo of your favorite autumn foliage scene
-Your wedding menu
-Access to a color printer
-Card stock printing paper
-Scissors
STEP 1 – Find your leaf
The first thing you need to do is find a suitable digital outline of a maple leaf, or any other leaf you wish to use. You can use Link 1 at the bottom of this article as a template, or find your own by searching the internet.
STEP 2 – Find an Autumn foliage digital image
STEP 3 – Merge images
Using a photo editing program, you are going to merge the outline of the page and your autumn foliage picture (any in the Adobe® PhotoShop® family should work) & insert it to a MS Word Document.
If you are using the leaf template we provided, you can skip steps 1 – 7
1. Open the image of the page you found in the photo program (for purposes of this article, we are going to assume the image is either a gif or jpg)
2. Using the Square Marquee Tool, select the entire image
3. From the menu, select Edit then Copy
4. From the menu, select File then New (on this screen, specify your new image to be approximately 15 x 12 inches in size)
5. Once the new image file is open, from the file menu, select Edit then Paste
6. Save the image as 'template.psd'
7. You will want to remove the inside area of the page, to do this, use your Magic Wand Tool, click on the inside of the leaf, and then hit delete on your keyboard (this will only work if your page is a solid color.
8. Repeat steps 1-3 with your Autumn foliage picture
9. Paste the autumn image into the template.psd image
For the next step you are going to need to make sure your layers window is open. You can do this by going to the main menu, select Window then Layers. A window should appear on your screen that has 3 layers, your background, the leaf and the autumn foliage. By default this window may already be open, if the Layers option under Window is checked off, that means it's already open.
10. The leaf layer should be above the autumn foliage layer, to move the leaf layer, place your cursor over the leaf layer, left click and simply drag and drop the leaf layer above the autumn foliage layer.
11. To adjust the size and dimensions of the page, go to the main menu, select Edit then Transform then Scale. You should then be able to change the dimensions of the leaf layer. When you are done, to keep the changes click on any of the actions in your Tools Window. When asked if you want to keep your changes click yes.
12. You can move the autumn foliage image around the same way [as step 10] to fit it inside the leaf image.
We are now going to remove any part of the autumn foliage that is outside of the leaf outline.
13. While active on the leaf layer, use your Magic Wand Tool to select the inside of the leaf.
14. Go to your main menu, select Select then Inverse.
15. Make sure you switch back to the autumn foliage layer.
16. Hit delete – all portions of the autumn foliage picture that were outside the outline of the leaf should now be gone.
17. You do not want the image of the autumn foliage to over power your menu text, so you are going to lower the Opacity of the image. You can adjust this until you find a level you like. To change the opacity make sure you are active on the autumn foliage layer, in your Layers window, in the upper right hand corner look for the word Opacity, we suggest a level around 25 to 30%.
18. Save your image again as template.psd.
19. Save the image using the 'Save for Web' feature. Save the image as template.gif or jpg.
20. Open MS Word
21. From the main menu select Format then Background then Fill Effects. Click on the Picture tab, select Select Picture (browse to where you saved template.gif). Hit OK to return to the main window.
22. Type in your Menu, centering the copy. If the copy is not centered directly in the middle of the leaf, change the image, not the copy. Go back to your photo editing program and use your Move tool to move the leaf and autumn foliage up / down and left / right. Repeat steps 18 – 21 until your background image is centered properly in the Word document.
Helpful Hints:
You can switch back and forth between layers by simply clicking on the layer you wish to edit. You can not edit any layer that you are not actively on.
The Tool Bar should automatically be open on the left hand side of your screen. It contains 2 columns and multiple rows of icons. If it is not showing, go to the main menu, select Window then Tools.
The Square Marquee Tool is the first icon in the Tool Bar in the left hand column
The Magic Wand Tool is the icon in the Tool bar second down in the right hand column
The Move Tool is the icon in the first icon in the Tool Bar in the right hand column.
You can name your newly created layers by double clicking on the word 'Layer 1'
STEP 4 – Print!
If your background is not printing, check your print options to make sure the 'Print Background Images' box is checked.
STEP 5 – Cut your menus out
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Source by Lynn Regali
