A Day in the Life

At about 8 months, Luke was crawling all over the place.  When I would put in a load of laundry, he would come barreling down the hall, hips wagging furiously side to side as he crawled to sit in front of the washer and dryer!  It cracked me up!  He'd sit there for what seemed like forever mesmorized by it.  I love portraits, but it's the day to day memories that really warm my heart to look at in a photo.  So, I decided to make another photo collage!

I did two versions.  One with a chevron background, one with a photo.  I can't decide which one I like better!  I know chevron is the skinny jeans of patterns, but I can't get enough!

Click here to download this program, Picasa, Google's free photo editing software.

1. Hold the Ctrl key and left click all the photos you want to use for your collage.  Click "Create" on the top of the screen, and "Picture Collage..." in the drop down menu.

2. Right click the photo or pattern you want to have as your background, and click "Set as Background" in the drop down menu.

3. Resize and arrange your photos as you like, then click "Create Collage at the left middle of your screen.

So simple with a big impact!

Babies Don't Keep

Today, I recorded these videos of our youngest, Luke.  I was all of a sudden struck by how much he has changed in 21 months!  Luke just in this past week has started to really talk a little bit, saying things like, "juice", "up", "please", "bath" and "down" pretty clearly.  It inspired me to make this little project, and share the tutorial with you!

I have always loved this quote.  It's so bittersweet and true.  So, I simply cropped some pictures of Luke at 4 and 5 weeks old into different shapes.  I chose 5 x 5, 4 x 5.3 (digital photo size), and 4 x 6.  You can choose whatever sizes you want!  More variation in size and shape makes more interest!  Stick with squares and rectangles for a sleeker look.

After you've chosen and cropped 5 or 6 pictures, you'll need to download Picasa here.  It's a free photo editing software from Google that I love!  Now, we're ready to make the photo collage!

1. Put all the photos you want to use in one folder on your desktop.

2. Open Picasa, Click "File", then "Add Photo to Picasa..."

3. Open one of the photos, and you should see the folder open in the main photo viewer with all your photos.  Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, and click all of the photos you want to add to your photo collage.  Then click "Create" at the top of the screen, and select "Picture Collage..." in the drop down menu.

4. Below the word "Page Format" on the left, click the drop down menu and make sure the 8x10 size is selected.  Below that choose the orientation of your picture.

5.  When you click the photos, a grey circle with a red dot will appear.  Grab the red dot with your cursor, and you will be able to resize and rotate your pictures.  Arrange them on your page however you like, but leave 3 photo sized openings for words.

6. When you like the arrangement click the "Create Collage" button on the left side of the screen.  

7. Now click the "Text" button on the left.

8. Click anywhere on the screen and type the words of the quote.  Break up the words into three blocks.  I made each block font size a little bigger, first 12, then 14, then 18.  I also added the author and year at the end in font 8 (optional).  I used a turquoise color and the font is Edwardian Script ITC.  You can personalize it however you like!

I put my collage in an 8x10 picture frame in Luke's room.  Where will you put yours?