Your ?'s answered and my attempt at a tutorial...

First of all I would like to thank all of you for your kind comments and positive thoughts and prayers in response to my post about my pending job loss.
You don't know how much I appreciate all of those kind words during a time when my head is spinning and my heart is heavy. You certainly brightened my day by giving me your support. You all are the best!!!

I'm also glad my little blog renovation got your nod of approval. I really like the poll feature to get your input. It was pretty easy to do the blog makeover and I may come up every few months with a new look for my blog based on the current season.

Last Friday I answered some questions I'd received on my blog during that week and I think I will make this part of my Friday blog entries. So here is a couple of answers for this week.

M.L. @ The House of Whimsy said...
I love the glitter houses in your header. Did you make or buy them? If you made them, is there a pattern for them? I want to make several for my house for next Christmas.

Answer: I bought the little glitter houses in my banner picture BUT I do have a book that shows how to make some. I'll take pictures of the instructions and post them next Friday.

imjacobsmom said...
Beautiful pics - would you mind sharing with me what type of camera you are using? That little goldfinch is so sweet.

Answer: I actually use two different cameras. One is a five year old Sony cybershot and the other is a Canon Digital Rebel XT. The Canon has lots of options but is big and bulky. The Sony is easy to slip in your pocket and also takes really nice pictures. All of the photos of the birds for this past Wednesday were taken with the Sony.

Now I'll attempt something I'm not very good at and that is to explain how I made my blog banner. I hope it'll make sense, if not please just ask and I'll try to clarify.
I did some screen shots and you will need to click on each image to see a larger version.

I mostly use Picnik to edit my pictures. It's a great online tool and many of the features are free. I have access to the premium features because I upgraded for $25 for a year. But even with the basic features you can have loads of fun.

So let's get started:
Step 1: I picked one of my photos to use for a banner.


Step 2: Right on the front page of Picnik is a button to 'Upload' your photo.


Step 3: When the photo is uploaded you can go to the 'Edit' tab to edit your image or do what I did here and go straight to the 'Create' tab.
The first item under this tabs headers is 'Effects'. Click on it and then scroll on the left side bar down until you see 'Sepia' and click on it. The image will now have a sepia tone and in the left sidebar you can adjust the hue of the sepia tones and then hit 'Apply' to make your changes permanent.


Step 4: Next click on the 'Save & Share' tab. Here you can save your edited photo to your computer, Flickr, Webshots, Facebook, MySpace or Picasa among other things. I usually save the image back to my computer.


Step 5: This is the photo now saved on my computer.


Step 6: When you click on the 'Home' tab on Picnik you'll see an area called 'Featured Feature', I pointed to it with the red arrow. Use the left/right arrow on this menu to find the one saying 'Fancy Collage' and click on the 'Get started' button next to it.


Step 7: This is what you'll see. the arrow in the bottom left corner shows the photo on my computer. Once you read through the little 'Fancy Collages' menu on the upper right area you can 'x' out of that.


Step 8: On the left side is the menu with all the different collage sets. I picked the second Valentines day one by clicking on it.


Step 9: Within this collage set I wanted to use the fourth collage and clicked on it. It now shows up in the main window. Then click on the sepia photo we edited eearlier that shows on the bottom bar and drag it into the empty space next to the arrow.


Step 10: You'll end up with this and now need to push the 'Customize' button I pointed the arrow to.


Step 11: This will put you back to the edit menu where we edited the photograph earlier. Click on the 'Create' tab and repeat step 3 which will now turn your whole collage sepia tone.


Step 12: Now click under the 'Create' tab on the menu the 'Text' button. I added 'Happy Valentines Day' to the text box and picked my font. You can drag the text where you would like to position it on your collage and you can resize it as well.


Step 13: Now click under the 'Create' tab on the 'Frames' menu. On the left sidebar it shows you the different framing options. I picked 'Museum Matte' and changed the outer and inner colors and adjusted the inner and outer thickness and clicked 'Apply'.


Step 14: When you change the thickness of your frame sometimes it'll skew your text a little. But all you have to do is click on the 'Tect' menu and drag your text back to the position you want it.


Step 15: When you are satisfied with your banner click the 'Save & Share' tab and follow step 4 to save this image to your computer or whatever location you choose.


Here is the final picture/collage/banner.


I may be reinventing the wheel here and there may be easier ways to doing this but this is how I do it.
I'm no expert and obviously no teacher.
I can't believe I've captured your attention long enough to be reading this sentence *grin*
Oh by the way - I'm not being paid by Picnik to advertise or praise them in anyway, it just happens to be what I mostly use. You can also use photobucket and I'm sure there are many other image editing tools out there just as effective.

Even though this seems like it would take forever, if you play around on the Picnik site for a little bit it goes really fast and you'll be playing with your photos on there for hours. I did *smile*.
But making a banner now only takes me a couple of minutes.

Have fun and have a wonderful Friday,