Friday, April 20, 2012

Farewell Picnik

For a number of years now I have been using an online picture editor to 'enhance' my pictures. I chuckle as I type the word enhance because for the longest time all I did was crop, add borders and add words to Lucy's weekly pictures. The program is called Picnik. Shortly before Christmas this year I decided that I would upgrade my free subscription to the paid Premium subscription. It was something I had wanted to do for a while and just couldn't justify paying the fee (all $30 a year...lol). Anyway, I upgraded and started playing around with some of my shots and proceeded to kick myself for not doing it sooner. Not long after the upgrade I received an email from Picnik informing me that the website would be shutting down and until it closed, all Premium features would be free! Yay for free upgrade!! (they refunded me my money for my subscription) Booo for closing Picnik!! Well, yesterday was the day for the end of my beloved Picnik - and now it is gone for good :( 
Thankfully the folks at Picnik were kind enough to suggest a few alternate photo editing sites. One site was Aviary.com. I didn't really check this one out much but do intend to try it out soon. I did check out the other alternate site that was suggested - Picmonkey.com. It was nice that there was no sign up to try out the site, though once I got using some of the features it became clear that they intend to run their site similar to how Picnik ran, they are simply offering everything free right now to get you hooked. Works for me! 
So if you are looking for a fun way to 'enhance' and play with your pictures - check out these sites! And let me know which you prefer (or maybe you have another option!).


 The top picture is unedited and the bottom picture was edited using the Premium features on Picnik.




The picture above is unedited and the picture below is edited using the new PicMonkey site.



Thursday, April 12, 2012

Quick Update

So as quickly as I came into the blogging world - I was gone! Well not really GONE...more like, preoccupied! I worked full time for the month of February and most of March too which made family time hard to come by and creative time basically non-existent (so what would I even blog about right?) In the midst of working five days a week I got a bad sinus infection and Lucy had a bad cold/flu and croup. As we are finally on the mend and getting our feet back under us, my step-father passed away quite suddenly and we were knocked back down to our knees. Need less to say, the last few months have been busy, long and hard. And on top of everything Jason and I found out we are expecting baby number 2 in the fall so nausea and first trimester exhaustion have been my loyal companions! I am out of the first trimester now however and feeling great - almost like my normal self...only bigger :) So that has been my life the last few months and with spring here, the weather warming up and a little one on the way, I am super-excited to get back at my crafting and creating! Thanks for dropping by!