Faking Polaroids

Every once in a while I come across an old toy and get the sudden urge to play with it again, like a few weeks ago when I unpacked a box and found my HP Photosmart 335. It's a small 4x6 format printer that I picked up on a rebate deal a couple of years ago (I think I paid a whole $15 for it). At the time I had no intention of using it for scrapbooking, but now that I've seen how well the photos that I've printed with it (mostly for frames around the house) have held up I may have to start using it for a few layouts.

Mostly, though, I just like to play with it. Like when I got the idea to make my own "Polaroids." Yes, all those little Instax and real Polaroid prints are super cute, but I really don't want to buy another camera, and the film price is outrageous! So, how did I go about faking that iconic white frame?

I started with a photo from my Nikon, opened it in Photoshop Elements, and proceeded to edit the heck out of it to give it that "Polaroid" look (Pioneer Woman's "Seventies" action is great for this). You can see that process here.

Then I opened up a Polaroid frame file by Kitschy Digitals (purchased here).

I resized my original photo to make it approximately the same size as the mask, then dragged it over to the frame and hit Command-G on my Mac to "clip" the photo to the frame.

I realize that I've not done anything new or innovative here. It's all just regular old digital scrapbooking stuff, right? But that's what makes this cool- it's so easy...and then you can print it out and it almost looks like the real thing. :)

To print, I created a new 4x6 canvas...

And then copied the Poloraoided (yes, I just made that word up) image to the canvas.

After printing, I trimmed it up and stuck it on my bulletin board, and it looks just like a real Polaroid...if you don't stand too close. :)