Halloween Prep with Picmonkey

Oh my GOODNESS!

There are only 60 days left until Halloween!

We'd better get our Ghoul on PDQ!

Here's a sampling of some family shots done up right for the season with Picmonkey.

These have all been transformed with the basic "not a member" tools.

So many cool options.

Can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Much more Halloween Help to come!

Oaknwich Lane Designs Made It With Me, The Mushroom Mood Lamp

The glowing mushroom mood lamp was on pages 44-47, in the April 2012 issue of  PolymerCafe Magazine

Back issues are available by following the link.

I used STAEDTLER's fimo effect translucent clay to create these luminous lamps. They were an extremely fun project to work on and I've had loads of feedback from folks who have tried it out. It really is the greatest thing to be able to see what folks do with an idea.

The extremely talented June Gallagher of Oaknwich Lane Designs wrote and shared these two pieces with me. Just in case you were wondering, both of these gorgeous works are available for sale at June's ETSY shop right along side some of her other spectacular polymer clay wonders.

June Gallagher is a spectacular artist. I'm tickled pink that one of Make It With Me's published projects helped (in a teeny way) her to create these fantastic pieces of home decor. Thanks so much  for sharing June!

June wrote the following:

"I was inspired to make these two sculptures using a combination of articles you wrote for Polymer Café Magazine.  For the stem of the mushroom, I used your wax melting technique featured in your Pin Up Ghoul Basic Ball-Jointed Doll.  And Your Glowing Mushroom Mood Light article gave me the idea to use Fairy Lights inside of larger mushroom caps with the battery pack in the base of the sculpt."

Wearing History's Vintage Overalls

I received this Wearing History pattern a while ago. I've been hunting for a good retro coverall patterns so I could make some work clothes that would last a bit. The men's work trousers I've been wearing just don't fit in the right spots and I needed some specialized pockets. I saw the Wearing History blog and pre-ordered it as soon as I saw it.

It really is a cute pattern and its pretty straight forward to sew together. There are three size choices per pattern and mine fits nice and roomy. I'll be able to bend and squat and turn at work without worrying about a rip. 

George decided to "help" me cut the pattern out. I had to relocate him three or four times before a friend suggested a well placed shopping bag might lure him to safer quarters.

Here are the finished coveralls. I lined the bodice and pockets with a red gingham. 

I used up some vintage buttons and double stitched all the seams with a stretch stitch. This is a pretty stretchy thick canvas type fabric. It should wear well.

Here's one of the redesigned pockets. This one holds my sticky note a permanent marker and my pen. I also sectioned off one of the hip pockets to hold my box cutter. 

I will be visiting the Wearing History blog on a regular basis.

What a completely fabulous pattern!

How I Edit My Drawings for Use as Headers

I'm going to give you the option to use the blank header I made using my 

STAEDTLER Karat aquarell watercolour pencils. 

You can also follow the picmonkey instructions I've given to create some of your own.

It's a fun way to add more of your personal style to your blogs and social media pages.

These, my friends... are my watercolour pencils..... I love them.

The very first thing I do is take a photo or scan the images I want to use into my computer. Once I have them in there, I can start to alter them. I usually crop the images in photoshop and store them in a file on my desktop while I'm working on them.

Once the image is cropped to size I load it into picmonkey by simply selecting the "edit a photo" tab on their homepage. Once the pic is in the workstation, I usually start by fixing the colours. I like to use the neutral picker. Just hit the neutral picker tab and position the little eyedrop tool over something on the pic that should be white. Then click the mouse and the pictures colours will be truer to real life.

The exposure tab will let you adjust how light or dark your picture appears. I play with the slide buttons until I'm happy with the brightness of the image. 

I go back to the colors tab and adjust the saturation and temperature slide buttons until I'm happy with the colour intensity.

Next I move from the editor page to the effects page by clicking on the little chemists bottle, second icon down in the side menu. There are heaps of effects to choose from here and you can play for literally hours experimenting with them. I use the frost option to clean up the edges of my image. My blog has a white background and I use just the plain white to help my image float. You can load your own colour in there and alter things to match your own backgrounds. I frost the edges and use the "original" option in the paint bar to erase the frost that has overlapped the main image.

Next I move to the text page. It's the fourth icon down, a capitol P. I click the add text tab and start writing. After I've written my text I can choose from a huge list of text, colours and transparencies. 

I added different sized text by adding a new text box. Then I changed the size, colour and text style for my subtitle. 

Hope this helps. I get heaps of questions about what photo editors I like to use and how I alter my drawings for use in publications. This, in a nutshell is how I do it.