Did you guys happen to read my other posts about family yearbooks? You can still check them out if you haven’t!

Introduction to Family Yearbooks {Traci Style}

Why I use Blurb

Okay! Now that we got that out of the way! My final thoughts, collages!

Have I ever mentioned that I am probably THE MOST indecisive person in the world? I am pretty sure I am {see, I am even indecisive on whether or not I am the most!} So, when I take pictures I take a ton, and then when I put them on the computer I love them all so much I can’t choose just once. Sound familiar to anyone else? Which, was getting quite frustrating. So I decided I would do collages for my blog posts that later end up in our family year books. That way, I can put more pictures in the book, with more of an organized space. I get more pictures in that I would if I just stacked them on top of each other! So I would like to share a few places I have tried, and my favorites. By the way, I have not been compensated by any of these companies, I just love them

             A.Pic Monkey {THEY ROCK! My friend Tina told me about them, and I absolutely love their program. You just go to their website, and throw your picture in and create! You can also edit your photos, add text, and do a lot of fun things. Right now they have a Halloween theme where you can edit your pictures to look like Vampires. I love that they change their website based on the holidays! How fun!  They let you use their website for free, but you can also pay for a membership and get extra fun features! It is $4.99 for a monthly membership, and $33 dollars for a year. But do have a lot of really great FREE features.

            B. Photoshop- Yes, I do have photoshop, and I adore it, but, you do not have to have this to make your yearbook or your collages, it’s just somewhere else you can make a collage if you already have it and know how to use it   I am still learning how to make collages in photoshop, but I love the freedom it gives me to customize it exactly as I like.

           C. Picasa– This is a free photo organizing program. You have to download their software to use them, but you can also make collages/simple edit/organize your photos. I used to use them ALL the time for my collages until I found picmonkey. Their collages work, but you don’t get to make very many adjustments, which drove me crazy, so I switched over. But, they are also a place to make your collages if you want to check them out.

Let me know if you have any favorite places to make collages/organize your photos! I am hoping to get better at making collages in photoshop to do a few tutorials, stay tuned for those!

Happy Journal-ing! I hope you enjoyed my pots, let me know if you have any thoughts or comments! I would love to learn, too!

Traci

The post Family YearBooks {Using Collages} appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

Is anyone else out there a journal-er? I LOVE journaling, I really enjoy watching myself grow as a person, and be able to look back and see and remember things and feelings and thoughts, that I would otherwise just forget. I love remembering the little things, not EVERY little thing, but some of the little things.

And, being married, I love to write, often, all the big and little things I love about my husband. So that I am always focusing on the good, and remembering how wonderful he truly is.

And, having kids… I want so savor every minute. I am CONSTANTLY told that they grow up fast, and it scares me. I don’t want to forget or not have documented their sweet faces, and the incredibly innocent things they say. All the little things that I love, I want to remember, and again focus on all the good that comes with being a mother, even if sometimes it is hard. Journaling helps me to focus on the good, and remember all the little things I will miss so dearly.

I am going to share {in a few posts} How I document our little family life together. This is basically how I do it, and I will go into more details later…

1. I blog. That is how I journal. I know there are a lot of other ways, but I appreciate blogging because I can keep it private and allow only certain people to look at my blog. It gives me the privacy I want, and gives me a place to document our little family life. I choose this as my personal way to journal, but I know others use facebook, wordpress, your own notebook! However! Just find your thing and stick to it. Find a rhythm that keeps you regular, maybe that has more than one positive aspect. We live very far from family, so my blog serves as a way that I can let Grandma’s and Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Brothers, Sisters in touch, and seeing cute pictures of my kids without having to do too much work. I update periodically, and they can look periodically. I really feel that it keeps us connected to our families, and am grateful for those who also do blogs so I can keep up on their lives, too!

2. I take a lot of pictures. I am not a great writer, but I hope that in a way, my picture can speak louder than my words. I do NOT post/blog about every picture I take. I pick a few that I want to remember, and post about those.

3. I take notes all day everyday. Not tons and tons, but just here a little, there a little. I will have a little document on my iPhone/Ipad/iPod touch or just a notebook, and whenever my little one says or does something funny, I write it down. I don’t blog right then, I just write things down. Funny conversations/phrases/habits/faces/etc. Then after about a month, I do a post just on funny things I want to remember. I do not remember everything, but I hope to be able to document a few of the things to be able to look back on and remember and have my children remember when they ask me what they were like as a baby, 1 year old, 3 year old, etc.{Check back on a post on this, too!}

4. I make collages. Like I said before I take A LOT of pictures, but I want them to be organized, and be able to fit them better in a book and save myself some time when I make the actual book, so I will post my pictures in a collage.  I am also the most indecisive person on the planet, so I throw 5 pictures into a collage instead of having to decide on one At times I will just post one picture, but for the most part, I do collages, and it saves me a LOT of time when book making time comes around. {Check out my collage post coming up in a few days!}

5. I get my books printed once a year from Blurb.com. I have actually tried a LOT of different places who create photobooks, and these guys are my absolute favorite {price, quality, service/etc.}  {Check out my post tomorrow to learn more about printing your books and why I adore Blurb.}

6. I get a book printed for each of my children also, starting from when they are born. My little boy was born in 2010, so he will get a copy of every book from that year on. I know some people think it would be annoying to have 18 years of books, but I think it will be a treasure. I debated a long time how to do our books, if I should do just pictures of each child individually and make separate books, but decided that I would do one book each year, for everyone. Saving me time, and I think siblings like to read about each other, too. I really hope that my children enjoy this someday. They sure do love looking through them now!

7. Lastly, make a plan for your family yearbook that YOU think and KNOW is doable. That even when you get busier, you can keep up on. Right now I only have 2 children. I know I will have more, and wanted a system that I knew I could keep up with even if I have 10 kids! {I will not have that many, but I like to exaggerate!} Find a System that you like, and go with that. Find what YOU personally have time for. If you only have time for 2 posts a month, that is OKAY. It will be worth it! And Maybe you don’t take pictures, no worries! I bet you are a great writer, just write things out!

I am excited to expound on this a bit for you! I hope this inspires you a bit and helps you with some ideas on creating your own family yearbooks!

Happy Journaling!

Love,

Traci

The post Introduction to Family Yearbooks {Traci Style} appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

I love taking pictures! Second to it is editing. So much fun! I have a friend who taught me how to do this, and I actually do this with almost every picture I edit, I thought I’d share this Photoshop tutorial with you! Pretty sure for the first few months of picture editing I was cropping pictures with the basic crop tool, and the dimensions were WAY off. Which, is fine, until you want to print your photos. So! Here I will show you how I crop my photos.

I use Photoshop Version CS4. This tutorial can definitely be used in newer/older versions.

To start, open up your photo,
Press Command A to select your photo.
You will get some dancing lines around your picture…

Then Go up to Select and scroll down to Transform Selection.

Hold down the Shift Key, While dragging/cropping your photo from one of the corners. {Don’t use the Control Key! It will mess things up!}

Then once you have it cropped where you would like, press enter on your keyboard so that it knows you are done.

Then Click on Image and scroll down to Crop.

Then press Control D {Deselect} on your keyboard and Ta Da!

All Done!

I hope you enjoy this and it helps a bit!
Happy Editing!
Traci

The post Basic Photoshop Tutorial {How to Crop your photo, and keep the original dimensions} appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.