Saturday {late night} Picnik

I don't know what has been wrong with me lately.
Ok actually I do.
Lets just say this wasn't a great week for me... and not just because of the camera incident.  Lots of little things adding up and piling on me and making me not feel up to blogging or being creative or peppy.
I would share my Halloween costume with you, but the whole lack of a camera thing put a damper on that.
I'll have to wait to get some pictures from my friends.

I decided to make the best out of the situation and make some pictures of our beach trip this week (you know the one where both my friends and I got our cameras stolen)
It was my friend Stephanie's Birthday!  We were out on the beach exploring and celebrating and then BAM! THIEVES!
Stephanie and Sarah had never been to these beaches before (they're an hour and half away) but luckily I had and had some pictures of the beaches from this summer.

These are what the picture would have looked like had we not gotten our camera's stolen.  Good ole picnik.

A photo of Stephanie and I taken about a month ago at another beach.

A little use of the cloning tool & there we are on Bathway Beach!

Steph sitting by a pool...

Steph in the boat on Levera Beach!!

These pictures aren't anywhere close to how awesome the real thigns would have been... I took some darn good pictures that day... but I know these made us smile and feel slightly less horrible about the situation. 
Happy Birthday again to my sweet friends Stephanie!

Saturday Afternoon Picnik

Have you checked out Picnik's Halloween features??
They are so cool!!

These are two that I made last year (Picnik still has the same effects this year, with a few additions)

I was going for that romantic, glamorous vampire look... because I admittedly am a completely sap for the Twilight saga...

 My husband hates this picture because he looks girly... but vampires are a tad feminine wouldn't you say?? That's obviously blood on his lips and not lipstick after all...
This photo of me below actually almost scares me.  I'm a pretty convincing vampire, huh? 

This one is new.  I used the "ghostify" effect.  Pretty creepy.

If you're the type who likes frames and stickers on your pictures they have an awesome selection of those as well!!

Go make yourself an extra creepy (or silly) Facebook profile picture for Halloween!

Saturday Afternoon Picnik

My sister and her husband are doing a vow renewal this New Years!!
I think I am more excited about it than my sister is :)
I have so many ideas and projects I'm working on for her big day!

I recently took on the task of making her save the dates.  I know, it's on New Years and she hasn't sent out save the dates yet.... but they really are more fun than they are informational.  Everyone who's anyone already knows.

So where does a girl like me go to create save the dates??
Picnik of course!
I tried other avenues and really just decided that picnik was easiest!

Here are a few that I made. 
We finally got to the last one because my sister kept saying fancier! fancier!








Happy 10 years of marriage to my sister Molly and her husband Rocky!
I cannot wait to help you celebrate and ring in the new year with all our family and friends!

Saturday Afternoon Picnik

I have been so busy that I haven't had time to blog.  Good busy.  Fun busy.
I currently have 73 days left in Grenada and it has been my goal since day 77 to go to the beach every single day.  To soak in the scenery and revel in the joy of living here as much as I possibly can.
No more complaining about the grocery store, the heat, our apartment, the lack of clothing, the lack of.... everything.
There is no lack of beauty.

I took these pictures on Tuesday at sunset and did the 1960s effect on picnik.

What about you? Have you had a busy week?  A good busy or a blah busy?
Take a couple minutes to appreciate the beauty around you.  If you're in the north/midwest enjoy those gorgeous changing fall leaves.  I'm slightly jealous.

Saturday Afternoon Picnik - collage

A couple weeks ago Picnik started allowing you to layer photos.  Before this my biggest complaint about Picnik was the limited collage options.  I used Picasa to create the collage and then added text and effects with Picnik... well not any longer!  I can do it all in 1 place!

This is an example of how I would make a blog header.

Start by selecting collage on the main page.

I chose the 3 box collage, but only for the shape.  Remember you can move and adjust the pictures in any way you want, and use way more than 3 images! 
In the bottom right corner it says the dimensions... around 1000x400 is a great size for a blog header.  Adjust the proportion to change the dimensions.


Click 'Done' and now you  are ready to add pictures from the 'Photo Basket'


I start by adding the background images... scrapbook paper, fabrics, or patterns I have created from colourlovers.com


I used a muted green and blue color scheme and added the plaid to get a bit of a fall look.
By right clicking on the images you can change the order in which they are layered.
For instance the plaid is much larger than what is shown here, but it is layered behind the stripes.  I right clicked and said 'send to back'


Next I added the images of Lee and I that I wanted to use.


Once you have all the images in place how you want, now is a good time to save it.  Saving it before you added text or stickers allows the layers to be secured so you don't accidentally drag a photo when you meant to drag the text (trust me it can get frustrating when you're dealing with lots of layers & as of yet Picnik doesn't have a grouping feature to lock in the layers).
It also allows you to go back later and add different text or stickers to the collage if you decide you want something different.
Once it is saved upload it to Picnik and open it as you would any other picture to be edited.


Next add text if you want to.  This is from one of my favorite songs...


I added a few 'whimsy trees' to my collage since it is fall after all.



And you're done!




Today I signed up with Picket Fence Blogs! and I realized that my blog button was super tiny... but hopefully that's fixed now!  Both are on the sidebars... let me know if you have any feedback for me.
Have you been picnik'ing anything fun??

Saturday Afternoon Picnik - free textures!

One of my very favorite effects on Picnik is textures, but this is a premium feature and this week I wanted to blog about one of the free features for all of you out there who haven't upgraded yet!  There are tons of cool things you can do for absolutely free too!

When I logged onto Picnik the other day I saw that they had added new "featured effects" with a pirate theme. {Picnik often has featured effects to coordinate with upcoming holidays and events like 4th of July, Back to School, and Christmas} I was disappointed because I assumed it would be super cheesy and I'm really not one for adding the stickers to my photos.  But I was intrigued by "Pirate Textures" and decided to give it a whirl... and they have some pretty cool ones! for free!

I used the picture of Lee and I's silhouettes from our recent photoshoot because I knew it would show the textures really well.

Click on Featured & choose Pirate Textures.  There are 12 different ones to chose from.  With premium you can chose from 57 different textures in addition to the new pirate textures.

love me some maps!

under the sea :)

Play around with the advanced modes and see which way you like it the best!  You can also adjust the fade so you see more or less of the texture.

Happy Picniking!

Saturday Afternoon Picnik #7 - Pop Art

I have been picniking all the new pictures Lee and I have from our photoshoot... and I discovered a new really cool feature - totally unrelated to our photoshoot that I want to share!

How to make what I like to call pop art out of your pictures!
This technique uses another premium picnik feature called Dots and Dots.For this project you need to start with a head-shot, a closeup image of a face.  To decide on a picture I went to my Facebook and looked at past profile images and found one I knew would be perfect for pop art!

my beginning image

go to Effects and find Dot and Dots in the left side toolbar

Click on Dots and Dots and then chose Color Spots from the drop down menu

I wanted a more abstract look to my image so I made the dots larger, 
but you you can decide according to your preference.

then to kinda gloss over the image I chose the Add setting in the advanced mode.
I liked how it took out the in-between dots and kept only the bold colors.

I saved the image after this step and went back and played around some more and I also liked  the way this one turned out using the News Print style.

I also had the idea that this would be an awesome paint project!  Enlarge an image of someone's face, use the Dots and Dots effect and then reference it for an amazing custom piece of art work!  It would be so simple!
I did a project similar to this in college, only it was a painstakingly horrid process.  We had to print out an image, cover it with a clear grid overlay and paint each square on the canvas according to what was in the corresponding square on the grid. And it wasn't even in color.
I vote for this technique instead!

I dare you to step back from your computer & be amazed at how cool this is from a distance!

Are you up to any awesome picnik projects? please share!

we love colors

I just entered the We Love Colors design competition on facebook!
I heard about the contest (and the company) through colourlovers.com and decided what the heck, I'll enter!

We Love Colors is based out of Miami, Fl. and they specialize in leggins, tights, socks, and accessories.  They were recently featured in Seventeen Magazine!

I created my submission on picnik (duh) and used an image of my own legs! ha! 
I didn't want to "steal" anyone else's images, but knew I wanted to use legs or feet somehow and I remembered a picture of my legs from a What I Wear Wednesday entry a few months ago.
This is what I came up with.... if nothing else they can't say I shyed away from color! (is shyed a word? shied?)

If you'd like to help me win this competition (there are prizes and your image becomes their profile picture on fb) then go to facebook, "like" the WeLoveColorsFanPage and "like" my submission!

If you want to enter for yourself check out http://friends.welovecolors.com/ and then post your image on their facebook page!  Contest ends September 10th!

highlight of the day

I broke down and started using twitter. 
Mostly so I could stalk even MORE blogs, designers, companies, famous people...
and also because Cat told me she followed Picnik on twitter & they commented on her blog!
jealous much?

I signed into twitter for the first time in over 2 years the next day.
and today Picnik started following me!!
O happy day!

This brings me to a mid-week Picnik update.

Lee and I had pictures taken for Christmas this past year & while we absolutely love the pictures... Lee has never been happy about the fact that his shorts got splashed by a huge wave moments before we started.
kinda surprising that a man would care about such a thing, huh?

anyway, with my new found love of the cloning tool I went in and simply erased the water spots by cloning areas of his shorts that were dry!

a little 1960s effect

See my last post about the amazing cloning tool here
and duh... follow me on twitter!

a saturday afternoon picnik #6

This week for our anniversary I spent some time editing some of our wedding pictures.  I have a picture of us in the "getaway" car that I love, but unfortunately my Aunt and Uncle are just chilling the bacground kinda messing it up... so I erased them!

This is only available with a premium picnik account (it's only $25 for the whole year!)

Under the advanced tab there is a feature called Cloning.With the cloning feature you can select a point in the picture and copy it elsewhere on the image.
Here is the original image -

Love you Uncle Larry but your bright yellow shirt has got to go...

What I did was clone the trees in the background to kind of cover up my uncle.  Then I did the same technique with the car to cover up my aunt.  I'd do a play by play but it would take a million images to show... this is a slow process of changing the area you're getting the cloned image from and changing the size of the area to fit in very small spaces like the car around Lee's head.

Here is the after. 

The trees look a little funny, but would you notice if you weren't looking for it?? I probably wouldn't.

 I decided to try it out in black and white as well to see the difference.

 What do you think?
I think Picnik should hire me as an advertiser! :)

a saturday afternoon picnik #5

Twp pieces of good news to share!!

1. Picnik now allows you to layer images!! No more sticking within the square collage boxes, you can go crazy and create your own collage! Wonderful!

2. My friend Lea (ok I admit it's another friend that I've never met in real life, but I KNOW we would be friends) is having another baby!! And she asked me to create the blog header to let the world know that her sweet little family is growing!  I'm so honored to be apart of her announcement and I cannot wait to see how precious this 2nd baby is going to be.
Stop by her blog http://rolandbaby.blogspot.com/ and congratulate her!!

This is the celebratory big announcement header, colorful and fun!

And this one is for later on in the fall, when she doesn't want a rainbow blog anymore...  
I can't wait to make her a header with her cute little baby bump! So exciting!

If you would like for me to take a stab at a blog header for you shoot me an email at kelsey.coghill@gmail.com