He Came To...

It's always a little unnatural for me to set my sights on Christmas before the turkey has gone in the oven (I'm one of those people who will usually refuse to listen to Christmas music until Thanksgiving has come and gone), but this -- and by "this" I mean, the topic -- is definitely an exception. For Christmas this year, we'll be doing a two-part series called "He Came To" at Living Stones. Part one (December 20th) concerns the work of Christ in defeating sin. Part two (December 24th - Christmas Eve) walks us through Jesus' power to justify us. Such tidings of comfort and joy came at a great and gruesome price... but there's no better news than that of God coming near to save sinners and no better time to celebrate than now.

Here are some of the nuts & bolts of the artwork for those who are interested in playing around with the ideas:

• I started with a green background and overlayed it with a gold texture set at 30% opacity.
• Sandwiched in between is an old Polaroid photograph of a tree & ornament, set at 50% opacity. I also applied a cut-out filter to make the image a little less refined.
• The border was made by erasing the edges of the gold texture layer with a pattern (courtesy of Brusheezy) called "Indian Ornaments."
• The text was done in a font called "Stereofidelic." (I wonder who thinks of these names...) In order to hug some of the curves, I set some letters at different baselines.

I'll probably be tweaking these graphics for the next few weeks, so -- if anyone wants to weigh in with some ideas or recommendations -- please do!