Necklace Chart

Soooo today, I decided it was time for me to start putting my necklaces for sale on my Etsy shop.

 When it came time to measuring necklace, I didnt really have a chart.  I did the hunt on Pinterest and found a few I like but I didnt want to have the normal looking images...you know me, nothing is simple!  So I thought...heck why not make my own chart.

I did a little diggin in my Graphic Stock image folder and found a really cool face...but I needed a body too! LOL  So I looked a little more..and found a fun ballerina image.  I really liked it, but I had to do a little editing to get it all to work out.

I think I will write a simple tutorial on her a little later...but for now here is what I came up with...

Is she AWESOME or what???

Preparing for the RAW event

I have been super busy preparing for this event and I sure hope its worth all of the work...  I have not only made jewelry but I also made the tags, labels, I even made my own displays...  I have some stuff already but I want this event to go very well for me and I want to present myself as being not only professional but also quite creative...and FUN!  So first I want to share with you the tags I have been working on.  Its all a learning process for me since using the Cameo Silhouette is still a piece of new machinery for me.

So what I did first was do the hunt...I went to Graphic Stock and found a really nice graphic I thought would go well with my style.  Below is the process with which I went through to create it.  It looks like a lot of work, but really it goes fairly fast.  I use PaintShopPro and Photoshop to do most of me editing, but with this particular image, I used PSP.  I removed the background and some of the shadow and put a white circle on the top.  Then step 3, I put the image into the Cameo software, (by the way, it only accepted a jpeg image, so dont try to use a png!), traced out the image.  Once I was happy with the results of the line drawing, I grouped the pieces then copied and pasted them and put as many shapes as I could on the page.

Save the file..always save before you cut or print..I have made enough mistakes over the years that its something I automatically do.  Although the Cameo software does a nice job of autosave.  Then step 4 as you see is the final results after cutting.  I am going to eventually put another little label on the bottom half of the tags that say THANK YOU.  I found the exact shape on Graphic Stock and digitally cut out each label and saved them with different names...  I am really liking Graphic Stock.  There are far more designs I can use for more than just eye candy!  Anyway, I hope you like the tags...  When I get the second label made and adhere it to the tag I will show it to you then.

More fun stuff coming soon!

Thanks for stopping by..Chris  :-)

My New Watermark for my Photos

You know how it goes when you want to leave that special watermark on your photos and you want something that stands out..something that is YOU and represents what you make.  I am constantly changing my watermark signature to find the one that really works and stands out.  

I was looking online one day for who knows what..hehehe and I saw this beautiful signature that was so simple and it had this cute simple flower that was I think blue and the rest of the signature of her name and then her website...I LOVED it...  But you know me, I can not do simple. 

 SOoo, I did the hunt on Graphic Stock where I have found so many amazing graphics already.  I searched for WINGS since my business is Wings N Scales..Wings represent Fairies and Scales represents Mermaids just in case you didn't know... So I found this great graphic that is a PSD file so I can edit it in Photoshop..YAY.

So, this is the image I found and fell madly in love with. This image is a JPG, so what you see is what you get.  The PDS file has all of the layers.  So, I separated the layers and kept just the woman and the wings and got rid of the background. Then changed the colors.

Then once I found the picture I wanted, I needed to find a fun font.  I usually go to DaFont.com, the trick is finding a font that is free for commercial use.  They are there, but take some time to find them.  Most are for personal use.  Always read the rules before you install them on your computer just in case you want to use them for anything that is considered commercial.

I think this turned our rather cute dont you?  Now this is a jpg so its not the file I use for my watermark but I just love the colors...sooo me!  I thought maybe the girl was too large at first, but I think any smaller would have been not as powerful or noticeable.

I would love to hear your feedback on this.. 

If you think its too colorful, or to big.. I can always change it, or leave it alone!  

THANKS...

Graphic Stock review

I was given this gift from Graphic Stock and was asked to do a review of their digital products.  In doing so, I was given full access to their website and was able to pick and choose any of the graphics they have on their site. The beauty of this, is that any of the graphics I download I get to keep for life...and I can use them on my commercial website without paying an extra fee as many other graphic sites charge.  Being that I create slideshows for students who graduate in the program I work at, I can have so much more fun with the variety of designs I have to choose from.  I also do my own website and my sisters so, this is going to be much more fun once I start updating our sites.

So let me begin with how much I honestly love their website.  

Its very user friendly.  Once I logged in, I was able to move around the site very easily.  I am going to show you some screen shots I took of my dashboard and explain what I see.

This is what you will fist see once you log in, you can see on the left are your account management options.  It tells you the date when you opened your account and welcomes you by name.  Just below that are a couple of search engines where you can get to work right away looking for a specific graphic 

This screenshot is on the same page as the picture above only it has drop-down menu's where you can explore the different categories if you just want to browse around and see what the have. The first time I did this, I must have spent hours looking around..so much to see!

This is a screen shot of the images on the DESIGN ELEMENTS category.  You can see that I have it set to 48 images per page and look how many pages there are..OMG..I could not even look at the all.  One thing I do want to know you can search by file type too...look where it says VECTOR, RASTER, PHOTOSHOP near the upper middle area.  You check off these boxes and it will refine your search for these file types.  

This is what you see when you type in jewelry, you see all the different ways you can search for something you are looking for.

Here are some examples of what they have when I looked up Jewellery. Pretty designs.

These are GREAT! I love banners, and these are perfect of blogs and even websites.

I love these too...LOL  now as I mentioned earlier, I create slideshows...and one of the best parts for me is how to make the slides FUN for the students...so with this picture, I would take it apart and use the mustache on one student, put a pipe in their mouth..or maybe add the glasses to a teacher...anything to make the pictures stand out...  I will eventually add more examples of this particular image later..  :-)

One thing I really like about Graphic Stocks images is they give you a variety of designs using some of the same elements.  Look at the difference here... and again, I could use the graphic above and put it in my own background or maybe one of the other backgrounds I find here...

As for my conclusion of this review, I will say this... Graphic Stock is AWESOME..and I am not saying that because I am being partial to them.  I have used other graphics from other sites and have had to pay per item, and had to pay more for commercial rights.  Some graphics I have paid up to $30 just for that license plus the price of the graphics.  With Graphic Stock, that is not so.. You pay an annual fee, you get full benefits of their graphics including commercial rights without an extra fee.  And as always with any graphics on line, they are copyright protected, so your only limit is to not make money off of them, claim them as your own and a few other limitations which you can read in the Support Center before you decide you want to join in.

So, what are you waiting for?  Check out their website.

 You get 7 day free trial...

I promise it will be worth all 7 days to explore everything they have :-)

Thanks for reading this post and I hope you take advantage of their offer..

HUGS

Chris