Winner of the Blue Fern Blog Hop for my Blog

 I completely forgot to post the winner of my prize from the Blue fern Blog hop. 

It's YOU, Debbie!  

Congrats - contact me by using the "Email Me"  button on this blog.   I also sent you and email. 

Thanks for playing and hopping along with us. 

Free Photo Sizing and Editing Tool

Many people need help resizing their photos or editing/cropping and adjusting their photos in order to post on-line.  You don't need to have photoshop to do this -you simply need Photobucket. 
Once you get to Photobucket, create your log-in and upload a photo?  What next?

OK I will show you a few simple tools to help resize and adjust in order to get you started.
Let's say you need to have a photo be 800px by 800px.  That means 800px wide and high- a square.  The whole px  or pixels thing can be confusing if that is not a term you are familiar with using.

Easy peasey.  Let's do it.

To crop and resize ( using 800px x 800px as our example)

Step 1. Create your account, upload a photo.

Step 2.  After you upload, the screen is going to appear like below.  You'll notice EDIT at the top.
              Select EDIT

Step 3. Photobucket will ask you which photo to select by bringing up a box with all your photos.    Simply choose the image you want by clicking on it.

Step 4.   Select the CROP tool.

Step 5.  Select SQUARE.  For this example, you need to have an 800px by 800px  square image.  If you needed  only 800px wide by 600px high, then you would choose CUSTOM.

See those white circles in the image below?  Those will allow you to choose where you need to crop by moving them around with your cursor.   Hit APPLY when done.  

Step 6.  Now to resize!

Step 7.  Pop in the size you need - which is 800px by800px.  Make sure you hit "APPLY" when you are satisfied.

Step 8.  Saving the image.  Be careful with this step.  You have two choices to make.  Do you need the original to be preserved?  If yes, then you will ant to select  "SAVE".  This allows you to rename the file.
  "REPLACE ORIGINAL" will totally overwrite the image and the original is gone.

  Done.  Easy peasey - like I said.   Now you can go on about your scrappy business and upload confidently anywhere.

Blue Fern - Tuscan Window and Floral Frame

Today I am going to show you how I used some of the wonderful Blue Fern Studios chipboard pieces.   You can find the original Blue Fern Blog post here.

Window to the Garden:
This was created using the Blue Fern Studios Tuscan Window as well as the packaging. Yes, I used the Blue Fern product packaging for the background paper and in the clustering.

As you can see, the added bonus with Blue Fern is that the packaging is as elegant as the chipboard that comes inside.  It's just begging to be used as well.   I know many of the other designers have showcased both product and packaging in their creations.  You can find them in the Blue Fern Gallery.

Please feel free to upload your work showcasing Blue Fern Studios Chipboard as well.  We would LOVE to see what you have created.  You will inspire us and so many others.

My photo image is from Magic Moonlight Free Images and is part of a collage that I cut up.
I wanted to keep this light and airy as if looking out into an open garden.  To help create this effect, I used some moulding paste and  a mask template, then topped with some mist.

I kept my chipboard very clean with  just a few layers of acrylic paint and some glitter glue which is not all that apparent here.  I realize my window frame is upside-down.  I did this because I knew that packaging and clustering would cover up the delicate beautiful scroll work on the chipboard window frame if I left it as designed.

Besides, chipboard is meant to be adjusted to make it work for you.  It's always wonderful right out of the package, but sometimes your "vision" for your project means cutting, flipping and re-positioning.  No guilt - just make it work for you.

This is the Tuscan Window #074752.  

The Floral Wreath of  Love:
February is the month of love so I decided to keep with the theme once I saw this darling postcard.   My inspiration for the colors of the chipboard frame came from the delicate colors of the vintage postcard.

Blue Fern Floral Wreath  #074486

Here is how I created this:
Step 1 - Spray the Blue Fern Chipboard with water lightly in selected areas.

Step 2.  Gently lift the wet chipboard layers up and bend/twist or pinch with your finger tips. 

Step 3.  Peel only a few layers from selected flowers, turn and glue back on top of flower in a different direction, giving more volume and definition to the various flowers. 

Step 4.  Pinch and bend the leaves.  Dry with heat gun to firm and strengthen.

Step 5.  Paint chipboard with gesso to seal it and prep it for your finishing acrylic paint topcoat.  I also painted the edges.  

Step 6. The fun part...decorate as desired. 


In this piece, I painted my altered chipboard flowers a buttercream yellow and a pale soft peach/pink.  I painted the leaves pale willow green and added veins in the leaves with my Tim Holtz distress marker.  To finish them, I stamped some cursive print onto the leaves..

I also topped some of the chipboard with flowers and floral berries.

The ZVA flourish adds a nice accent.

I added angel wings made from stamping a piece of vellum paper and then embossing with clear embossing powder.  After it was cool, I cut it out and ran some ink over the embossing to tint it a bit - giving it a glowing effect. 

This just shows the dimension of the chipboard on my page as a result of the water alterations. 

Thank you for stopping here.  Please remember to stop by Blue Fern Studios and see all the newest releases. 

Blue Fern Supplies :
Window to the Garden:
Blue Fern Studios - Tuscan Window chipboard #074752
Blue Fern Packaging for the paper and clustering
Studio Calico - Mister Hueys Colormatts Chevron Mask
Studio Calico - Mister Hueys Opaque white colormist
Martha Stewart Punches - Wild Flowers/Cherish/ Doily Lace Egde
Tattered Angels - Glimmer Mist Sea Glass
Petaloo Chantilly Collection - Mixed Blooms Red 1279-192
Recollections Brand small white paper flowers
Adirondack Acrylic Paint - Snow Cap
Stickles Glitter Glue - Crystal
Gesso/ Moulding paste/ cheesecloth/ misc flowers and butterflies

Floral Wreath of Love: 
Blue Fern  Studios Chipboard -Floral Wreath #074486
Adirondack Acrylic Paint - Willow/ Lemonade
ZVA CRB-05CA-117 Fancy Olive and Lime Flourish
Tim Holtz Distress Marker  Corduroy
Mixd Media Inx  Mossy/Vintage/Peaches/Chiffon
Vellum
Stampendous Big Boss Gloss Embossing ink/ clear embossing powder
Le London Script - wooden stamp
Tim Holtz Vintage Photo
Gesso 

Misc floral berries and flowers
Sweet Stamps.com - Lace Border H418

FabScraps -Flying High - Adrenaline Collection

Here is the FabScraps Adrenaline Collection.  

This is FabScraps  - Adrenaline - Cloud Jumping C54008.  

I used two sheets of this.  One for the base layer and then I cut the airplane out from the second sheet and used some cardboard behind it to give it lift - make it more dimensional.  Scroll down to see my cardboard.

Here I used the FabScraps Chipboard  - Adrenaline Collection –Flying High grey  chipboard 6.5”x2.5”  DC54 011

I laid the chipboard on the background paper and painted it with turquoise paint acrylic making sure to get paint on the paper as well.  

I accented here and there with FabScraps Marine C54006  paper.

Here are some better views of how I used the Marine paper to make some accents by ripping and sewing in place or by attaching some metal pieces.

Photo courtesy of the National Library of Congress Flickr photo share site.  The Library of Congress release the rights on photos from the 1910-1920 time frame as the photo restrictions have expired and no one has renewed them.

Supplies:
FabScraps Adrenaline Collection - Cloud Jumping C54 008
FabScraps Adrenaline Collection Marine C54 006
FabScraps Adrenaline Collection Chipboard Flying High DC54 011
Tim Holtz Peacock Feathers/Walnut ink
Gesso
Jacquard Neo-opaque Turquoise #585
Eyelets and Big Bite eyelet punch/set tool
Misc fibers, metalis mesh, burlap
Tim Holtz Long Fasteners - brads

Thanks a ton for looking and spending your time.