What a Difference a Day Makes | Pinterest Inspired

It's probably no secret that I am a fan of fonts, so naturally, when I saw this loveliness on Pinterest, I saved it away for future reference - uh, future craftiness!

Source: etsy.com via Rebecca on Pinterest

I love  making things as gifts, and so I got to work adapting this idea for a friend of mine who had a birthday yesterday. Here's how hers turned out (with details on how I put this together below!):

The frame you are seeing in the image above is a digitally-added frame. I picked up a super-cute frame in this red color, because it would match her decor. 

On to fonts (of COURSE!) I used three fonts in this project, all of which are available as free downloads. The large numbers are JF Ringmaster, the script font for the names is Pacifico (a recent addition to my collection!) and the line "what a difference..." is Santa's Sleigh.

At first, I was going to simply copy the black-and-white look from the original Pin, adding red as the accent color to match the frame. But then I had a better idea: using more colors to add interest. So I turned to one of my favorite online tools - kuler from adobe. I searched for color palettes including red and when I found Japanese Garden, I knew it was perfect for this project. With kuler, you can search for, create, alter and download color swatches for Photoshop/Photoshop Elements. I use it all the time when creating projects like this. If you create a free account, you can save swatches as well. (The link to Japanese Garden goes to my copy of the swatch, not the original, which, sadly, I can no longer find to give credit.)

In kuler, you can view the color makeup of any swatch, so if you don't have Photoshop, you can still use these swatches in other programs. In this view, you can see my original swatch and all the colors. Here is also where you can play with the various colors and adjust them if you want to make changes to the swatch. 

To put together the finished look you see here, I altered the tan/yellowish color in the middle of the swatch, mostly by lightening it a bit. I wanted my background to be fairly light, but still have contrast to the white letters.

In the large letters, this font is normally not filled, so your background color will show through. I filled in the main part of each letter with the white from the swatch, and then the small swirls and dots with the aqua color. I LOVED the end result, and my friend loved it, too, and that's the best part! Success!