Do-It-Yourself Christmas Cards

DIY Romantic and Elegant Christmas Cards: Make it Easy with Free Digital Scrapbooking Pages -- "Making your own beautiful and romantic Christmas cards has never been easier--or this cheap! Using your computer and cute, free digital scrapbooking supplies, you can easily create stunning, personalized results and only pay when you go to print."

DIY Western Christmas Cards: Homemade for the Holidays -- "Making your own cards at Christmas time can be fun for everyone. Even if they don't turn out to be the most amazing cards ever, the crafting process can still be fun and cost-effective. Here are a few tips for DIY cards with the example theme of Western."

We Love to See the Temple

Well this looks funny, but I can't even put my finger on as to what in particular it is that makes it humorous. :)

Details: The frame and picture of the Provo Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are from edited photographs. The background scrapbook paper was made in GIMP. And the two free fonts used are Scriptina and Adorable.

Halloween Photography Tips!

Ten Halloween Photography Tips

"Halloween is a great time for making memories and taking pictures. Here are ten photography tips to remember for the autumn-holiday."

You can find more Halloween articles HERE.

Beast of a Photo Shoot :)

I had a serious makeup photo shoot this weekend. Not that the pictures turned out that great, but I just don't have anything else to post. :) You can read the corresponding fall makeup article here if you're interested. I mostly edited the photographs in Microsoft Office Picture Manager and I created the model "sketches" in GIMP.

Look I'm Catherine Part II

You recall Catherine, the home decor extraordinaire. :) She's in the works for a good character quotation from a United States historical figure. So, as the meddler that I am, I found a couple of options and put them on a background I made. Assembled in PowerPoint, the word arts use the the free font Requiem for both the text and the underline.

Blue Paper Revisited

I previously made and showed some of these beginning blue pages, but I've added some embelleishments to the kit so I'll go ahead and post the collection. :)

Created in GIMP, the free version of Adobe Photoshop.

Another Digital Scrapbooking Kit

Details: Created in GIMP.

Fall Photo Shoot

Edited in Microsoft Office Picture Manager. I took this to go with a Fall Crafts for Kids piece.

More Landscapes

Original photographs courtesy of ChrisChris. Edited in GIMP. My results were nothing special, but ChrisChris gets antsy if I don't post my playing around. Haha. :)


I hesitate to post this, since it's really weird (even for me). But to prove I played with more than one pic . . . :)

More Makeup Photo Shoots :)

To go along with new articles about Mineral Makeup Foundations and Homecoming Makeup Tips (not yet posted), I decided I needed some new makeup pictures. I, of course, did some editing afterwards in GIMP, Microsoft Office Picture Manager, and PowerPoint.

LunaPic, LunaPic, it's a Favorite Dish! :)

I've previously informally written about this great site, but here's a full writeup if you're interested in learning more about the cool and free online photo editor LunaPic.

Free Online Photo Editor: LunaPic

"LunaPic is my all-time favorite online photo editor. The website is easy to use and the results are astounding. For fun and free picture editing capabilities online, try LunaPic.com."

Fun, Free Dingbat Fonts!

Best Free Dingbat (Symbol) Fonts for Digital Scrapbooking & Crafts: Hearts, Animals, & More!

"Great and easy to use in digital scrapbooking and other projects, dingbat fonts are full of premade-shapes and graphics that can be inserted just like text and customized to any size. Here are some nice, free alternatives to clipart."

I Made a Button!

Okay, so maybe it's not that cool. But I've never made a digital button before. :)

And I even put "Think" on it using the free font Jay Cons from 1001Fonts.com.

The creator of Jay Cons originally labeled his font Japanese, and an uproar apparently ensued over if it was really Chinese. Hehe. I love people. :) I'm too sleepy now, but maybe someday I'll explain the new GIMP tools I learned to do this: shrink and grow.

More Digital Scrapbooking :)

You can see more of my recent scrapbooking pages, if you're interested, on my Associated Content page.

DIY Digital Scrapbooking Kits: The Free Way to Digitally Scrapbook "I love making my own digital scrapbooking papers and supplies in the free editing program GIMP. Here are some samples of what you can make on your own absolutely free! You can also see some related tutorials on my source page."

Some Nature Edits

Chris Chris sent me some photographs ages ago but I never got around to playing with them until now. Sorry! :)

Details: Edited in GIMP. I used some of the digital scrapbook paper I've recently made for the backgrounds and overlays in these three shots while playing around with various opacity levels and recoloring tools.

Football Photo Shoot! :)

So, I wanted a picture to accompany an article I wrote about where to find cheap NFL merchandise online. Since I couldn't find one that really worked, I went ahead and pulled out a few football things and had a shoot of my own. Hehe.

The tricky part was that I'm not really supposed to use copyright images and logos, so I tried to work around the telling parts of the items I was working with. And then I did a little bit of airbrushing in GIMP over some parts I couldn't avoid in real life. I don't know, maybe I should have edited out more. :)

Look, I'm Catherine. Howdy, howdy, howdy. :)

Come on, who doesn't like Toy Story? Hehe. So Catherine does word art pieces and I usually just stick to making the backgrounds, but these two scripture verses found in Moroni, which is contained in the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, were just asking to be put on backgrounds. :)

Details: I used portions of the font Scriptina to make the design for the white flowers. Then I used the following fonts for the text: Scriptina, Journal, BlackChancery Ultra-Light, and Book Antiqua.

Making Your Own Scrapbook Supplies

Digital Scrapbooking: How to Make Your Own Frames, Borders & Other Embellishments "A how-to in creating your own embellishments for digital scrapbooking and other computer-based crafts. Whether you can't find what you want, or you just want something uniquely yours, knowing how to create your own supplies is a great skill to have."

I've been working on a lot of random scrapbooking stuff lately in GIMP. Good times. :)

Love One Another

So I made this, but I realize it looks really tiny on the blog. Although not amazing, it really does look better as the .jpg itself. :)

Playing around with various textures in the editing program GIMP, I inserted one of the classic Bible scriptures from John to make a WordArt. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35).

I used three free downloadable fonts in the image: "Journal" for the main text, "Beyond Wonderland" for the word "LOVE," and a self-edited version of "Scriptina" for the shape of the background hearts.

Mystery Party Game on Ebay! :)

So, I decided to sell a mystery party game I wrote on ebay: Clean "Murder" Mystery Party Game for 8: Missing Jewels. Since I needed a picture to go with it, I whipped out my old jewelry photo shoot and found one that I thought would be okay. I used the free Scriptina and Journal fonts and designed the graphic in GIMP.

And you can see the cute screenshot. :)

Recipe Cards

In conjunction with posting my mom's chicken enchilada recipe, I wanted to find a picture to go with it. I couldn't find anything that really worked, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. :) And I'll go ahead and post the recipe link for if you're interested.

Easy Recipe: Chicken & Green Chili Enchiladas (Gluten Free)
"Want a chicken enchiladas recipe that will feed gluten and gluten free eaters alike? Look no further: your gluten free chicken, cheese, and green chili enchiladas recipe is here!"

Details: I edited my note cards photograph in GIMP, adding a black overlay to the edges and using the free font Dear Joe for the lettering. Dear Joe is my current go-to font; I just love it! You can download it from 1001Fonts.com.

Abstract Editing

I already posted some of the pictures on this blog, but if you want more and with full descriptions, here you go. :)

Do You See What I See? Abstract Photographs Edited
"Using various digital editing transformations, here are a few graphics constructed using ordinary photographs."

No New News

I've actually worked on taking and editing some pictures lately, but none of them have turned out. And since you know I often have sub-par posts, you can guess at how bad these ones of late really are. :)

Today I took some more but haven't looked at them yet. Maybe there's hope for another day. Or, maybe not.

Happy 4th of July! :)

Details: Edited in GIMP using a font downloaded from 1001fonts.com.

Original Blog Backgrounds

I finally broke down and wrote an article about creating your own blog background. :)

Do-It-Yourself Blog Background Ideas: How to Create Your Own!
"Want a personalized blog background but not quite sure what to create or how to go about it? Here's a tutorial on how to create your own blog background."

You can see my latest blog background here at Guide to Denver. I know it's really simple, but I only have html coding experience from an introductory college class so I was pretty pleased. :) I don't like how my blog backgrounds don't scroll up and down along with text, and this latest background kind of disguises that. Good stuff. Hehe.

Blessings of Liberty

4th of July Word Art Images
"With thoughts taken from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, here are a few patriotic word art images in honor of July 4."


Details: Made in GIMP with the background originating from a photograph of a piece of wood. Font downloaded from 1001Fonts.com. And a shout out to Catherine for exposing me to this kind of stuff. :)

Tutorial: How to Create Your Own Word Art!

Digital Scrapbooking: How to Create Your Own Word Art
"Do you want cute and customized text for digital scrapbooking, but you're not quite sure where to start? Here's a how-to in creating your own word art designs."

Details:

(1) The "Smile" is in the free font Scriptina and is filled with a gradient fill pattern in GIMP.

(2) The "David & Sara" is in the free font Beyond Wonderland and is filled with the same edited photograph that I used to make this blog's background.

(3) The "Best Friends" is in the free font Love Letters and another free font that I downloaded from 1001Fonts.com, but I can't seem to recall it's name. If it comes to me, I'll let you know. :) "Friends" is filled with a GIMP preset pattern--I think called water. I did this one a while ago, can you tell? Hehe.