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Bye Bye Picnik

January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Picnik has announced that it is closing its doors in April. Boo hiss!

Wait, did you just ask me what Picnik was?

If you’re a blogger, you probably already know this, but Picnik is an online photo editing site. You can upload your photos, do all sorts of edits from basic stuff to adding text, frames, borders, stickers and more, then save the edited photo to your computer. I’ve been using it a lot for some of my blog graphics because it’s super easy to use, and offers quite a bit, even in the free version.

But that’s all changing in a few short months.

Picnik will be moving their services to Google+, where it’s already available in limited form. Not all of the editing capabilities are there, and the biggest downside to doing it on G+ is that no only do you need a G+ account to use it, but there is no ability to save the edited photos to your desktop. They’re all saved on your G+ profile. I do not like that at all, as I would like to upload things directly to my blog.

Pretty much anyone who’s ever used Picnik is upset about this change, and discussion has already turned to what the alternatives are.

This older post from Daily Gyan includes Picnik, but also 9 other alternatives.

Chris Perillo lists is favorite alternatives.

You can check out what Susan thinks of some of the alternatives over at Between Naps on the Porch.

Mashable has something to say about this as well.

And this whole post was inspired by Centsational Girl’s post on some alternatives she found and some tutorials.

As for me, I’ve already started searching for the best one for me. I’ve played around a bit, and so far I like Pixlr best. I do need to learn the whole layers thing, though. For those who have never used layers, it’s not really user friendly for a beginner to figure out on their own, but I think I had a breakthrough the other night, hence my latest header:

The one thing I’m not keen on in Pixlr is that the effects and the edits are two different parts of the site, so I’d have to make my edits, save them, then upload the photo to effects to do any of that stuff. It’s a bit much.

I’ve been thinking about springing for Photoshop Elements. I had it a few years ago, but never really figured it out too well. I do know that there are lots of tutorials available for it, and any Photoshop tutorials should mostly apply to Elements. I can’t use Gimp of Paint.net because they aren’t available for the Mac, but those are excellent alternatives to Photoshop if that’s the direction you want to go in.

Maybe this is one of those silver lining things on the clouds moving in on Picnik. I might actually learn some photo editing skills.

What about you? What will you be using when Picnik as we know it is gone forever?

Filed Under: On the Internet, Photos

Top Posts of 2011

December 29, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’m normally not addicted to my stats, and have for the most part stopped checking them altogether, but I figured that for a good year-end roundup I would have a look at what my most popular posts were. These are the ones that were read the most. I do have some other posts above these in the stats, along with individual pages, but I wanted to keep it in 2011 so I picked the most popular posts read and written in 2011.

Also, if you’re trying to bring in more readers or get them to go deeper into your blog, review posts like this are a great way to do that!

Here’s my list:

Soda, Pop, and Tonic
I declared that I was seriously reducing my intake of soda in an effort to improve my health. Mister and I have made more changes since then, and I am feeling good. I recently went over a month without a soda of any kind, but slipped a bit during the holidays and had some Diet Coke a few days in a row. I noticed that I had joint pain in my knees and generally wasn’t feeling well, so I’m even more determined to stay off the stuff in the future. And for those of you thinking that soda made with real sugar is better – you’re still ingesting massive amounts of sugar and calories. Is it worth it?

10 Tips for Personal Bloggers
This was originally written for one of Ben Barden’s blogs, but he shut down the blog earlier this year and gave the post back to me. I had a series of personal blogging tips going for a while, but it’s such a niche-within-a-niche that it’s difficult to write for. This post sums up a lot of my personal blogging tips.

Aqua Addiction
It’s no secret that aqua is my favorite color. I geek out a bit more on the color in this post.

The T-Shirt
Mister had a few holes in one of his t-shirts. I fixed it using a needle and thread, a dash of resourcefulness and a sprinkle of mischief.

Cone of Shame
Greta hurt her foot and was sentenced to a cone of shame so that it could heal. I don’t know who was more upset by the cone – me, for having to keep it on her, or Greta for actually having to wear it.

Christmas Songs That Need to Go Away
I generally like most holiday songs, but there are a few I can’t stand. I explain my reasons in this post.

Introvert
I’m an introvert, and I found a great graphic on Pinterest about caring for introverts.

The Best Friends I’ve Never Met
I’m part of a wonderful online community of women who are always there no matter what, and always willing to go above and beyond for each other despite the fact that many of us have not met face to face. I just want to dive into a big virtual hugpile with them.

Gemini
I’m a Gemini. I’m borderline shy/wild (two points to anyone who knows where that is from!). I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a tattoo to represent the dual nature of my personality, and I really like the idea of a constellation tattoo. In aqua ink, of course.

And my number one most-read post of 2011…..

The Good, the Bad, and the iMac
I needed a new computer this year, and opted to go the way of the Mac. I love everything about it, and after using it for six months, I wouldn’t change anything I said in my initial assessment.

Did you do a link to your top posts of 2011? Any other year in review posts related to 2011 that I should read?

Filed Under: My Blog, Personal Blogging

Theme of the Day

December 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Every now and then, most bloggers get dissatisfied with their theme – the visual part of their blog that makes it look the way it does. Last year, I purchased a theme for the first time – the Pixel Happy theme from StudioPress. I mostly like this them, with one glaring exception. See the white part that the text is on? And the dark aqua border? That’s an image. I tried to change the sides of the image to match the colors I want, but as I’m not very good with photo editing software, and I’m using what I can get for free (aka Piknik), I’m not confident that the border edges are the exact same size nor are they the size I want. So I need to figure out how to separate that so I can have a different colored background from the body area, and put a proper border on there. It would certainly make future edits much easier, and I’ve have the option of a patterned background.

Overall, though, I do like the theme. It had pretty much everything I wanted in a theme, so I bought it. And I’ve been mostly happy with it. But lately, I’d been getting bored. So I went to the StudioPress website to look at what child themes were available, and they had some new ones. I ended up buying the Vintage theme.

This one also had elements that I liked and disliked. I liked the headings in the sidebar, I liked that the header had a little flair to it and that, as an image, I was able to edit it to put my blog title on it. Also, the background and body area are properly separated, so I was able to get rid of the chevron stripes (ugh) and put something else in there. I didn’t like that I was having a hard time with bullets in the sidebars, mainly with my BlogHer ad. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the bullets to indent properly without affecting other sidebar widgets that I didn’t want to indent.

Then I got experimenting. I went to Pattern Cooler and COLOURlovers to play around with patterns and color schemes. I came up with a few that I kinda liked, and tried them out, mostly on my Twitter profile since it’s a quick and easy change there. And I was MEH about all of them.

So, I decided to do some research. I went blog surfing, fast and furious, to see what I liked. I perused the portfolios of design sites to see what struck my fancy. And I realized a few things: I like simpler designs. I like a lightly patterned background, maybe a texture, but something subtle. I like headers with mostly text in them, simple but not plain and maybe with a few embellishments. I like color schemes that use a contrasting accent color. Basically, I like clean, simple but not plain.

I tried, with my limited design skillz, to come up with something on my own. Here’s where I’m at today:


I have 2 shades of the same color, but no contrasting accent color. I have a very plain header, but it’s along the idea of what I want. I don’t have a contrasting accent color. I’m having a hard time with that one – what color, and how do I integrate it into my theme so that it looks decent and not jarring?

That’s where I’m at with the theme. I mostly like what I have so far, but I’d like to find a way to spice it up just a bit. And separate the background from the body so I can edit it properly.

How did you decide which theme to use and what customizations you wanted?

Filed Under: My Blog

Coming Up…

November 15, 2011 By

Ok, I know it’s been a long time without a post. I’ve had every intention of posting about my trip, but life gets in the way. So, as soon as I write and schedule them, I’ll be posting about my trip to Florida, my apparent allergy to Florida, Greta’s inability to deal with me being away, some more baloney with the house situation, and anything else that comes to mind while I’m on a posting frenzy.

Filed Under: My Blog

Back to Basics

September 1, 2011 By

In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been blogging a heck of a lot lately. I’ve gone from writing daily, to a few times per week, to a few times per month. I still have spurts when I get a burst of inspiration and crank out some posts a few days apart, but lately it’s been, “Gee, I haven’t posted in nearly two weeks. Maybe I should write something.” But then I find I don’t have much to say.

It never used to be like this. I used to love blogging and putting all my thoughts out there. But then real life started interfering with my blogging time, then it started interfering with the content. And I started thinking about all the hows and whys of where I am today and realized that I didn’t want it to be like that anymore. I want to blog, and I don’t want to hold back. Another catalyst for this was a recent post on the blog Trading Pounds. Stephanie wrote, “it’s really difficult to chase the desires of your heart when you are busy pleasing everyone else.” Ain’t that the truth!

Because I really love blogging, I really wanted to share that with the people around me. But once I knew that real life people were reading, I changed. I started writing for them, what I thought they wanted to hear, instead of writing for myself. As a result, I stopped enjoying blogging so much and started seeing it as a chore. I also got caught up in all the things a blogger should be or should want. Apparently I should want tons and tons of readers, be a stats whore, be tripping over myself to work with different brands (aka sell myself out for free stuff) and all that jazz. And I don’t want it. I mean, it would be nice to have a lot of readers, but this blog started as a place to put my thoughts down, no matter how mundane, and I want to do that again without worrying about what people think. So that’s what I’m gonna do.

From here on out, I’m going to try to blog more often, and more authentically. I don’t care if anyone reads or not. And I’m not going to worry about what anyone else thinks. It might be difficult to put some stuff out there again after getting so used to holding it all in for so long, but I need to try. It feeds my soul to be able to blog openly, and I need to get back to that.

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, My Blog