You’ve heard of the Waterlogue app for iPhone/iPad, right?
Right?!
Oh man, if not… let’s just say it’s rocked my world. Coming from someone who actually IS an artist, this app is phenomenal. Basically it translates any photograph you take into a watercolor “painting” in a very fluid and intuitive way.

There are hundreds of uses for this kind of digital art, but the week I bought the app ($3), my lovely friends were having a housewarming party for their very first home. And you can’t show up to a housewarming party without a handmade gift! (or at least I can’t)

This is the photo I snapped of their house when they were unawares.

It helps that it’s a seriously gorgeous home to begin with.

I ran the photo through 2 of the different Waterlogue filters and combined them in photoshop to get this:

Inkjet printers work great on cold press watercolor paper – just adjust the settings to “cardstock.” It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the textured paper makes it look like an actual painting.

“Home is the nicest word there is.”  –  Laura Ingalls Wilder

I also folded heavyweight cardstock paper and printed some personalized notecards with matching envelopes. Cute, right?

I only had birthday and christmas wrapping paper in the house, so I doodled with a sharpie on a roll of brown kraft paper instead.

A little bakers twine and banner topped it off just right.

Buying your first home is such a big deal and I couldn’t be happier for them! It doesn’t take a lot of money or time to put together a meaningful housewarming gift – just a little creativity and a very cool app.

* as of this posting, waterlogue is not yet available on Andriod devices. :(