So lets answer the first question. I use EVERYTHING. Yup. WHY? Because I am a graphic Artist that is my business and sometimes I need the versatility of a broad range of graphics programs. Some may do the same thing but one may do it better etc... I use the following; Corel Products, Photoshop Elements, AI (Adobe Illustrator), as well as some additional elements like 3D renderers etc. Now on to the other questions from above. For the general user who likes to scrapbook, card make, Journal Creation, Pocket Letters (TM) etc...Pic Monkey will be great for you. First because its free. Yep free. And if you do more than 1 to 2 images a month than you can join the Pic Monkey Royale. The Royale version gives you more editing tools, its a subscription and they are letting you try it right now for free! The best part? Its super easy to use. Here's the other cool factor; I love the Graphics Fairy Site and get a lot of cool tools and inspiration from Karen & Emily over there. These two ladies use Pic Monkey all the time and do some awesome tutorials on how they did stuff using Pic Monkey. So if I show you how to use it/get it you can use her tutorials and get more stuff as well. So its a win win. Using Pic Monkey you will also be able to use/edit and create with all of the wonderful packages I offer in the store. So first lets start with finding Pic Monkey. Wait what is Pic Monkey again? Simply it is an online website where you input an image, edit it through an online interface, and then save it back to your computer. You are not opening software stored on your computer or downloading anything; it’s all done online. What is super awesome about this feature is that having extensive software programs not only takes up a huge amount of space but also uses a gross amount of memory. This can cause your computer to freeze up and a need for a reboot. Unless your a Mac user in which case that rarely happens lol. I use a PC because I like headaches... … . . . … Uh Yeaaaah ok moving on... Lets get back to where to find Pic Monkey... We are going to start by opening it in another window for you so you can go back and forth from here. Once you have it open be sure to book mark it so you can find it again easily. Click on the words here: Pic Monkey
When pausing over/choosing either Edit, Touch Up, or Collage you will see the screen options above that let you choose where to pull the image you want to edit from. Your computer, Facebook, One Drive or DropBox. When hovering over the Design Choice you can choose a canvas size to start with. If you choose custom, you can make any size. Note you wont be able to do it in inches it will request pixels. Thats ok! We will help you through that. First it will be important to understand the following. If you want to create something that looks great printed you want to use 300 DPI. If you are creating an image for the internet/web commonly you will use 72 or 98 DPI. this will help in determining the quality of the image you wish to create. Now lets convert inches to pixels. The easiest way is using this tool, click on the words... Pixel Tool. Don't forget to book mark this page too. Plug in the inches of the creation you want to make on the inches line. So in this case I want my image to be 2X2 inches (but if you want your image to be say 2X4 you will need to plug in the 4 to get your other axis which is 384). As soon as you plug in your inches the converter will tell you how many pixels and 192 pixels equal 2 inches. Now I know that when I choose Custom on Pic Monkey what to plug in for my pixels when it asks. If I want 2X2 I will type in 192X192 or if I wanted 2X4 I would type in 192X384. You with me? It will look like below! Now click on Make it! Your image sized work space will show up and your editing tools on the left. It will be fun to play around with the different options available so try all kinds of things. If you wish to edit an image that I give you for free off the freebie page you will choose the Edit option instead of custom. So which do I choose for my project? Here are some guidelines.
Which button should I use to get started? I personally use the Edit and Design buttons the most. Here is how to choose one option over another.
This will hopefully give you a clue as to what option; free or paid Pic Monkey would be best for you. It's around $33 for a year for the Royale paid subscription which is the best for the money, you just can't beat it. Now the other option which is not free but you buy a copy and its yours to work with forever and that's Corel Paint Shop Pro. I use this a lot and its my go to Program I LOVE IT. I will be showing how I do things using both Pic Monkey and or Corel most of the time. Pic Monkey because its free and Corel because its very inexpensive compared to Photoshop and just as strong. You can pick it up for around $30-$70 at Corel.com depending on the constant sales they have. I appreciate you stopping by today and hope this helps you determine what will be best for you to work with. Save one of the images you like off the freebie page to your computer and try playing around with it in Pic Monkey. I will give you more tutorials later. Show us what you came up with in Pic Monkey please do by sharing through the contact page you image and how you did it.
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This is part 4 in a series based on The Art of Halloween Preparation. I want to share with you a fun alternative to candy to give to your trick-or-treaters and or to make with your kids. These are also great party items for treat bags for classes. We will cover homemade treat bags later in the series but today we are going to cover making Ooze that you can use! As you can see on the left this is the finished product. You can add flys, googly eyes or plastic spiders and eyeballs and you can get these items at the Dollar store! There are many jars you can find and use for this project. I am including this link for the fun purple jars on the right. I have ordered from this company before and the product was excellent quality and inexpensive. The 4 oz. jars they have in the purple would be perfect for our project since they look so Halloweenie and yes "Halloweenie" is a technical term. Please note that I do not endorse any company but I will point out where I got things as well as any good deals I find. In this case you can get 24/4 oz. plastic purple containers with lids for $13. 92 not including shipping. If you do the math it comes out to less than .60 cents a jar. Now depending on if you want to use this as a party favor or for trick or treating these will go over great since they are so cute. I am so digging the purple over the clear. The 4 oz. jars are unit #0066-08. Here is the link for the jars: http://www.sks-bottle.com/fin133y.html Moving on. To make your own Ooze you will need the following; Note this recipe is for each jar or you can split it so adjust accordingly: Jars with Lids 2 Tsp Guar Gum (available at Health food stores) 2 Tsp Borax 5 1/2 cups Hot Water around 110 degrees (So boil and let sit a bit till it cools down) A few drops Green food coloring Strainer Spatula Print out labels; Double sided tape for this or a glue stick to adhere labels to top of jar. To make the slime you will take the Guar Gum and stir it together with green food coloring and 4 cups of hot water in a glass bowl (Glass;to assist with non staining and cleanup). Once the concoction is mixed you will push this green stuff through a strainer with your spatula to remove any lumps. Set this aside. Next take your borax ( Adults only here) and mix it with 1 1/2 cups of water till its dissolved then slowly stir it into your Guar & Green booger mixture. I know you were thinking it at this point come on. Once mixed let it cool down in the glass bowl. Now all you have to do is decant it into your awesome purple containers and add your plastic creatures. I also found some cool "Slimy Spider" Labels on Martha Stuarts' for Slime which I have included here for you to print and add to your lids. Or you can make your own using our cool free Vintage images. Just secure with double sided tape or glue stick.
Now the cautionary to ruin your fun. Just remember this stuff can stain so be sure to supervise play, keep off clothes, carpets and pets. Do not eat it and its not for kids under 3-4 years of age. Borax, sodium tetraborate decahydrate, is not acutely toxic and a very significant dose of the chemical is needed to cause severe symptoms or death. Even so please please use caution when mixing it with the water. Do no breath the fumes and make sure only an adult does the borax step so as not to breath in fumes and or powder. Borax is after all a cleaning chemical and I say always err on the side of caution. As like anything too much of a good thing can be harmful. Have fun at your own risk.
Join us for The Art Of Halloween Preparation Part5 where we will design cute treat bags using Vintage images from GrafXQuest. Thanks for coming all the way from your place to mine today. So quite a few years back I noticed a spot that kind of looked like a mole under my left eye. Then the mole grew and it kind of looked blisterish. I went in to the dermatologist and lo and behold skin cancer. The big C word. Now to be honest I do not panic when they tell me things like this. Why? Because honestly no one gets out of this life alive and SOMETHING is going to get you one way or another. I find both the humor and the beauty in it. Because out of death grows new life and how odd to know everything will continue the same when I am gone. I can only hope that I have a positive effect on those around me and continue to reach out and touch the world before I check out. But check out time isn't until later and luckily enough it was Basil Cancer on my face and not a Melanoma. So what do they do with Basil Cancer? They cut it out and try to make sure they get the skin around it too. So there I was laying on the operation table wide awake with a local stuck all around this growth. I did tell you it was under my eye didn't I? And just left slightly down from the bridge of my nose. I could hear the cutting through skin as the skilled plastic surgeon slipped the scalpel into my face. Sort of an odd scraping noise. She cut a little triangle portion out and then expertly sewed it back together with instructions on how to avoid scarring. Can you see a scar? Yep barely and mostly if I point it out. But I think that's the beauty of a scar isn't it? It shows we are not indefectible. Sometimes the flaws make a face more beautiful and real both in art or movies. Look at Brad Pitt for instance. Beautiful. Gorgeous walking art work and guess what? He has a scar under his left eye too. From what you may ask? Briefly, he was in junior high when he got hit in the eye with a baseball. Sixteen stitches. I only had three. Anyway the point is the human body is gorgeous with its flaws and non-imperviousness. Because we are not perfect and because we have flaws we are beautiful one of a kind creations. However scars may be ok but Cancer is not. Not in any form. As a matter of fact because I was so severely burned by the sun many years ago I have lot of watching to do on my skin. I thought I would share with you today how I have to check my skin over for Skin Cancer periodically and I may currently have some spots again. My hope here is to make you aware of how bad the sun is for your skin as well as maybe educate you to a new place you never thought you should look for Cancer. Now I know you know how bad the sun is for your skin. More than likely your mom harped you about it growing up. For good reason. I knew a woman who had cancer so severely on her nose that it looked carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey when they removed it all. Beautiful to me? Yes, to others? maybe not so much. So lets try and avoid that shall we? First I have a really cool free PDF for you that you can download. It goes over how to check your body for skin cancer. Cool right?
So you lost, left, don't have a job. You are considering going freelance. First let me say if you are trying to be my competition choose another venue...HA! Kidding but freelance definitely has its ups and downs. Including the fact there is so much competition out there. I love the competition. It gives me an opportunity to fine tune my skills learning from those who may be better and assisting those who want to learn. There is always a lot of work out there to be had and done. Just do your best and remember customer experience is ALWAYS the most important. Today I am assisting you in your endeavors to strike out on your own with a free E-book that is available for just seven days. Be sure to go get your copy ASAP. This E-book is the first in a series that is geared towards becoming a successful freelancer. Click on the book cover on the right to get your free copy. Here is what you will find in this book: 1. Thinking about Going Freelance? Here’s a Few Tips 2. How to Become a More Productive Freelancer 3. The Daily Schedule for Freelancing Success 4. The Successful Freelance Web Worker: Increase Productivity and Reduce Stress 5. How to Make Your Freelance Business Stand Out If you wish to discuss this book with me check the bottom left to see if I am on for live chat. I would be more than happy to assist you. Best of luck and tune in often for tips! |
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Life in general is an art and I will show you how to find the beauty in everything you see and do. Subscribe and receive a free weekly download and updates. Archives
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