Picnik Replacement! - iPiccy

My friend sent me a link to a blog that links to a photo editing site. This site is called iPiccy. Its in beta right now so it has some kinks to work out but for now its a great alternative to learning Photoshop. Whew! Its a lot like Picnik and appears pretty easy to use.
Thanks Google for stabbing us all in the heart when you announced that you would be closing Picnik! I know several of you are upset about that also so I thought I should share this with you all. Pass it on, blog about it, shout it from the rooftops!

One downside I see so far with iPiccy is that you can't save a bunch of pictures and then work on them later, or even stop in the middle of one and shut the web page down. I was trying to edit a picture and it crashed on me. Very frustrating, but forgivable since its beta.  Perhaps I will have to save the picture often if I am doing extensive editing. At least until they work out all of the kinks.

I thought I would share a little of what they have to offer over on iPiccy. Here is a picture of one of the cutest kids in the entire world. My nephew James. It's not really the best picture to show off his cuteness. We had just finished eating  a picnic lunch and he was walking around with his hands in his pockets and chocolate on his face. Not too bad, but lets see if some editing can improve it.

Original photo

Here I have done a little with the contrast and , my most favorite tool I like to use when editing, local contrast. Local contrast seems to (I cringe to say this because I hate the overuse of the word) make everything pop. I also took most of the chocolate off of his face with the clone tool and brightened up his eyes. He has amazing blue eyes like his mommy.

Better

That's nothing you couldn't do with Picnik, but there are some pretty neat functions in iPiccy that Picnik didn't have. Like these!

I think its best in B&W

Check it out. See what you think. Its pretty simple, user friendly and free. No registration required.

Cons:

-Seems a bit slower than Picnik.

-Not as many functions.I paid for premium on Picnik and it was way worth all the extra functions. This may not be a con for you if you just used the free functions though.

-You can't make collages, which is ok with me. I use Picasa and can do that there. 

- Some of the effect functions caused the program to crash on me. Frustrating if you have just done a bunch of tedious corrections. 

Negative Covered Lamp

Several years ago I saw this awesome project online and fell in love with it. I have wanted to do it for so long and I finally did!

It's just an IKEA GRONO lamp with negatives Mod Podged all over it. Super simple. If you need a tutorial, Poopscape Projects (am I the only one that giggled over that name?) is where I got the idea. I really love the look of B&W negatives, but I only had one set and couldn't find them. Plus they were of my son as a baby, and negatives of people are rather creepy..... especially babies. You see some people in the lamp I made, but I tried to stick to landscape or objects. Like these from Yellowstone.

 The only tip I have is to bend your negatives at the corners before you Mod Podge them on. I laid them out in the order that I wanted them, bent for the corners and then MP'ed them. I chose to stagger them so the seams between each negative (photo) were not lined up. I also had to overlap some of the top and bottom seams to cover all of the lamp. That's it. See? So simple.
I would love to make another one with slides! How fun would that be?!?!?!

Photo Friday

Oh crapmas tree, Oh crapmas tree.....

Photo Friday

I haven't had a Photo Friday in a good while so today I am giving you several pictures. I just took these yesterday. We have had one of the prettiest falls this year in a very long time... maybe ever since I have lived in Georgia. It was such a beautiful day today!After having to turn on the A/C the past few days, this weather in the 50's was refreshing.
I took these at F.D.R. State Park and the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia.

 This next one is President F.D. Roosevelt's house in Georgia, Little White House, where he would stay and swim in the therapeutic waters of Warm Springs. He died here in 1945.

  Such a cute cozy house.
Thanks for looking and if I don't post before then, Happy Thanksgiving!

DIY Camera Handstrap

I am headed to England in about 17 days. This will be my very first time leaving North America. I am so crazy excited that I want to go pack my bags right now. OK..... I actually already started putting my toiletries in travel size bottles and packing the ready ones in my quart size zippered bag.
I am going with 6 other ladies in my church bookclub. We plan to visit all sorts of places, including some Jane Austen tours, towns and museums, castles, gardens, old houses. We are visiting Glastonbury Tor because we read the book. "Glastonbury Tor". Should be so neat to see it. Our schedule is jam packed and we will be there for about 10 days. Eeeeeeeee! I cant wait! Look at the cottage we are staying in!

I will be taking tons of pictures, no doubt, so I will be carrying my DSLR as well as my little purse size camera, along with lots of memory cards. I bought (yes I know I could have made it) this bag insert, and I believe it will work nicely. I plan to put it down in the bottom of a big sack like purse. 
Now I dont know about you, but I hate those neck straps that come with cameras. I jazzed mine up, but to me a neck strap gets in the way and I never really used it. I thought a hand strap would work much better for me. I dont care to carry it around my neck, and get punched in the gut every time I take a step. I also dont care to scream tourist.

 

(Oh mercy I can't believe I just posted this pic of me)

I considered buying a hand strap but then in the back of my mind I recalled seeing directions on making one on Photojojo... please visit that site if you love photography stuff. They ROCK!

 Their directions for making a "Dashing DIY Handstrap" are super easy to follow and super easy to make. Here is my new strap.

 Man its hard to take a picture of my right hand holding a camera with my left hand and trying to make it look good. 

 I bought black webbing and took their suggestion to add ribbon. I just used Crafters Pick- The Ultimate to glue it onto the webbing. Fabulous stuff!

I found the slide at JoAnn in the notions section. It was gold so I spray painted it black to match. I decided to go with the metal slide because it seemed more sturdy to me.

Here are a few things I did differently. I decided to use a cotton  webbing instead of polyester. Its much softer on my girly hands. Since I used cotton I couldn't melt the ends. Instead I dipped the ends in Mod Podge. It worked perfectly!

 

In their instructions they said to use a 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch long bolt. It took lots of searching (they had a bazillion nuts and bolts), but I found these at Lowes and they are 1/4 long. Also, the top is nice and flat. I didnt need to use the nuts and washers that they recommended since my bolt was shorter. 

  

See! Nice slim profile. I think I like mine better than theirs.

 

It was so fast and easy to make. I know it was only a few bucks (or less) for materials, I just didnt take the time to add it up.  Thanks for checking it out.

Photo Friday

My "baby" is going to be 9 years old tomorrow. I can hardly believe it! Here she is on Easter, 2009 in the Easter dress I made for her.

Photo Friday

Another astrophotography picture. This is from Fall 2009. I really do love astrophotography, but its hard to do here most of the year because of the humidity. Being outside at night in the cold is no fun either.
 I love taking a pictures of Earthshine. Thats light reflected off Earth onto the dark side of the moon (the grayish part you see in this moon pic). You dont always see it with the naked eye. Usually I just see the Crecent Moon shape, but with the camera it takes on a whole different look. I love it.

Photo Friday

September 2009. Just some campfire smoke through the late morning trees. I thought it was pretty.

Photo Friday...on Saturday

Well I totally forgot about Photo Friday, for the past 2 Fridays, so I thought I had better not wait another week and post one today. Saturday.

This is a picture I took recently. I have never seen such a pimped out bug before. Isn't it the coolest?

Its a Golden Tortoise Beetle - Charidotella sexpunctata

You can see my reflection (mostly the camera)on it! I am the big blob and the little blob to the right is my daughter. So neat. I found out these like to eat Morning Glory leaves (thats the leaf it is on). I dont mind since they are such cool bugs and Morning Glory vines are a pest also.
Here is another. You can see that its legs and head aren't sticking out in this shot, hence the Tortoise in their name. 

On another note. My Shabby Apple knockoff dress made the top 10 over at The CSI project. YAY!

Photo Friday

I just love clouds. Not sure why, but they make me happy. I took this picture in Fall 2009 while riding down I-85 toward Atlanta. Our car has darker, blue tint up at the top of the windshield so I think that's why it is so extremely blue up at the top of the picture. 

Photo Friday

I love Astrophotography. This was one of my attempts at taking pictures of the stars. It was pretty difficult this particular night because it was humid outside and my lens kept fogging up.  I kind of like it though because it gives it an ethereal effect.  This is facing (just about) north.

Taken September 2009

Photo Friday

I took this picture in March 2009. Not sure if you can tell or not, but it is actually a lake and the silhouettes are my daughter and nephew who were throwing stuff into it. I was uphill from them which gave it a unique effect and I took this without a flash, hence the silhouettes. I think if I cropped the reflection of the trees on the lake out, it would look like I was the one on the bottom of a hill and they were facing me  at the top with a big sky behind them.

Photo Friday

Some of you have seen this before, but I am sharing again. This is another oldie from May 2008. The little girl that is not paying attention to the teacher... thats my baby. She kept looking for me in the crowded room and I she found me. This picture always makes me smile.

Baby Bird

Ok. I know its not a Photo Friday, but this picture I took yesterday was too cute not to share.
We have some Phoebes that built a nest in the corner of our porch. I caught this little baby resting his head on the side of the nest. Awwwwwe! Isn't it the ugliest cutest thing you have ever seen?