Selectively Colourizing Clip Art

Free clip art can be a wonderful resource for anyone needing images for online use or scrapbooking. These are images that are free for your non-profit usage. The easiest way to find such images is to do a simple Google search for 'free clip art'. Once you find the image you would like to use, right click on the image and download it. The following instructions are for using Photoshop®.

Black & White

In some cases the clip art is presented as simply being a black and white image in either gif or jpeg/jpg format. What is important when choosing an image that you would like to colourize is to look for strong outlines. The strong outline is what will help with the later colourization by forming clear boundaries for each colour.

The format will depend on how you proceed with the colourization. If the file is .gif, open the file then click select all to duplicate. Click create new in the same size as the original image. Use the move tool to drag the original selected image to the new image. This creates an unlocked layer you can now work on. Close the original image in case you would like to use the black and white version in the future. You are now ready to colourize your image.

Colourized

Think of selective colourization as a digital paint-by-number. You will be using two tools - the eyedropper to choose a colour and the magic wand to choose where you want that colour. Set your pallet to swatch that will show a range of various colours in neat, little squares. Clicking on any of these squares with the eyedropper will change the foreground to that colour. Once you have the colour you want, click magic wand to highlight what area you want to change. You will see the dancing ants indicating the area is selected. Go to edit/fill then click on colour. The last colour you used will show in the new pallet window. Double click your foreground colour where your new colour will appear in the top half of the small colour preview window with the old colour on the bottom. Click ok. You selection will now be filled with the colour of your choice.

Notice that each time you make a selection the strong outlines will contain where you want the selective colourization. Continue on in this manner changing colours using the eyedropper, clicking on fill then colour and double clicking your new foreground colour for the fill until you have selectively coloured your image the way you would like. Once you are happy with the results, click save or save for web depending on the intended use and name your file. You now have a great colourized piece of clip art.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Let's Talk Garbage

Both Earth Hour and Earth Day are quickly approaching, serving as a reminder that everyone needs to adopt an eco-friendly lifestyle. One of the biggest changes we've made towards and eco-friendly lifestyle is how we view garbage. Here's a few things we do:

• reduce - We are very conscious of excess packaging. If we have a choice between an over packaged product and one with less packaging the less packaged product wins out. We have virtually eliminated foods packaged in cans by about 85% simply by home canning and using fresh in season produce. We've greatly reduced a lot of food packaging by not buying pre-packaged food, choosing to make our own less-expensive, homemade convenience mixes stored in glass mason jars. We buy used when possible which further reduces packaging and we only buy what we need. In short we don't using shopping as a form of entertainment.
• recycle - Most people equate recycling with mainly packaging and containers. In particular we try to reduce what goes to the recycle bin by not getting the container or packaging in the first place. We see recycling as much more than that. Everything from clothing to household goods to building materials can be recycled. We buy used and anything we no longer need is donated to local charities that help those less fortunate as well as resell the donations to raise funds for their charities. Recently in addition to resale stores three new recycling resources have come to light - Freecycle, Kijji and Craig's List. Freecycle works on the premise that if you have something you don't want someone else will so you offer that item for free to keep it out of the landfill. Craig's List and Kijji are free online sources where you can post an ad to either give away or sell items you don't want.
• reduced kitchen waste - My theory is that every part of kitchen waste you toss costs money so my first goal is reducing this wastage. Some peels can be left on the fruit or vegetable while those removed can be dried down and powdered to be added to soups and stews. Bones are saved to make stocks then passed onto friends who have a large dog. I'm constantly looking for ways to reducing kitchen food waste.
  
• compost - As with most home gardeners we compost. Vegetable scraps that were used for making stock end up in the compost. Certain compostable foods like coffee grounds and egg shells are quite desirable in the garden before they break down for pest control. Compost forms a cycle in which kitchen waste makes free soil ammendment which in turns provides the necessary soil and nutritional ingredients for growing healthy fruits and vegetables. Vermicomposting is on my to do list for the new house which will help with the composting during the winter months.
  
• garburator - We had a garburator in our last two houses, none here but will be intalling one at the new house. A garburator is not as eco-friendly as composting since waste put through it ends up at the municiple treatment plant and it uses electricity. However it is a viable option in locations where composting is not possible and compostable material is not picked up at curbside.
• clothing - We aren't huge clothes shoppers and definitely don't shop the clothing trends. We buy good quality clothing that lasts for years sometimes. Any clothing we no longer make use of is donated. Quite often I will take a piece of clothing we no longer use and turn the material into something else. Some of the things I've made include cushions, draft stops from pyjama or pant legs, shopping bags, doll clothes, rag rugs, patch work and even used swatch of favourite clothing in scrapbooking.
• small appliances - When it comes to small appliances my theory is less is more. When an appliance needs to be replaced we either donate the working one or put the non-working one beside the garbage to be picked up but with a good space in between when people scouting the neighbourhood the night before garbage pick-up will take it.
• other household items - We either donate or sell depending on the item. We seldom have much in this area to get rid of which is a good thing.
• actual garbage - Ideally we aim for as little as possible. I think we do pretty good but still would like to reduce it further. Actual garbage includes food packaging that can't be recycled, clothing well beyond any usefulness, some fats and meat scraps, chicken bones that the dogs can't have, used vacuum sealer bags, butcher's wrap, paint cans/empty caulk tubes, and those typed of things.
  

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Green Bags

Earth Hour 2010 is March 27 at 8:30 PM with millions worldwide turning out their lights for one hour in solidarity for this environmental cause. Earth Day 2010 is April 22 with many communities worldwide planning special events for the entire weekend. Both of these events are designed to bring an awareness to environmental concerns in the hopes of individuals adopting a more eco-friendly lifestyle. What is important is each small change we make towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle can make a huge difference not only in our personal lives but also in the health of our environment.

It isn't often that I get to use a video on this blog. In North America we have become accustomed to using plastic shopping bags but these have long been the focus of environmental debate, especially the debate between plastic verses paper grocery bags. In fact The Canadian Green Consumer Guide (1989) even discussed this issue so the debates have been going on for well over 20 years! Adding fuel to the plastic bag issue is some stores have been charging 5¢ per bag for ages. However, recently it became mandatory that all stores in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) charge 5¢ per shopping bag. What is interesting is if you look outside of North America many shoppers use wicker baskets and cloth bags for carrying groceries.

In recent times cloth bags have become a popular eco-friendly statement not only by the grocery store chains that see one more way of getting their store branding in front of people but by those wishing to eliminate the use of plastic shopping bags. Using cloth shopping bags is an easy, low cost and cost effective method of reducing your carbon footprint. Most grocery store chains and even department stores are selling cloth or coated shopping bags usually ranging in price from 99¢ to $1.99. On the low end a bag will pay for itself after 20 uses while keeping 20 plastic bags out of the landfill. So it is a win/win. At the same time when you participate in certain eco-friendly activities such as recycling toners some companies will reward you with a free cloth or coated shopping bag. My husband has empty toners from office equipment picked up and in return receives a free coated bag for each pick-up.

I haven't done an actual count but we have somewhere around 30 of the cloth or coated shopping bags. We use them for any shopping not just groceries. We also use them to cart things back and forth to the boat, carrying my latest knitting project to work on while traveling, carry library books back and forth and so much more. My husband has one given away free as a promotion for the Detroit Redwings that he carries his lunch and any other things needed to the office in the morning then brings home any dirty lunch dishes, drink bottles and that sort of thing back home in the evening. So these bags are very useful and they can easily be washed as well. The down side to using the cloth bags is it takes little time to run out of plastic bags for garbage which simply means re-adjusting how to deal with garbage, something I will discuss in a future post.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Detail Sander

Everyone who has ever painted a room has come across the need to make a few wall repairs prior to painting. One problem with using spackling or wall repair compound is getting it nice and smooth so the repair does not show through the new paint job. Using manual sanding methods can be time consuming and frustrating if you end up creating a few more shallow marks from sanding than anticipated. The work around for this for some fillers was to use a wet sanding method but even that didn't get things to nice a smooth finish that wouldn't show through the new finish. I came across the idea of using a power sander to quickly get a nice smooth repair finish that doesn't show through the new paint.

Detail Sander

Pictured is our small hand held Jobmate detail sander. It is called a detail sander because of the shape that will allow you to easily get into corners. This light weight hand held sander makes quick work of smoothing those repair patches. The sand paper attaches via velcro and is available in several grit grades. A vacuum cleaner hose can be attached to minimize the dust and I do recommend using a dust mask when using the power sander. Once the repair patch is smoothed out be sure to vacuum and/or use a tack cloth to remove any dust. You wall is now ready to paint to a nice, smooth finish that doesn't show any repair patches.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Finished Painting The Room

If you recall, we tore apart a spare room to turn into a craft room a day before getting news that would set in motion major life changes. As a result our house is currently up for sale. While this was discouraging as far as creating a craft room our minds are already with the new houses. Unfortunately we could not leave the room in limbo so decided to go ahead and finish it.

Painted

I think the room looks wonderful painted! The colours came out as I wanted so no complaints there. We are putting new trim around the windows and will be installing a laminate flooring along with new baseboard. We will also be replacing the electrical outlets just to make things look nicely finished. This will at least show this room nicely. Watch for a bit more on that as I will post our progress.

It is very important especially when trying to sell your home to have each room show the best possible. We could have left the room as is and explained but this way it will show nicely. If listed with a realtor we will likely stage this room to look like the third bedroom it is supposed to be. At best you will re-coup any costs for updating the room and at worst if you don't sell the room still looks great!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

It's Official - We Are Selling

It is official! A couple of weeks ago we got a deal of a lifetime so decided to act on it. Then after talking about the new changes that deal would mean we decided to do a bit of house hunting with a couple of goals in mind. We found a lovely house we really like in a location that will eliminate a lot of driving. After a bit of haggling our offer was accepted so we set about getting the word out that our house was up for sale.

Our intentions are to try selling our house privately to save on realtor fees but within a 2 week time frame for a firm offer. If we don't have a firm offer after that period of time the house will be listed with a realtor. Last week we showed the house twice with one encouraging showing. Friday we placed an ad and yesterday the for sale by owner sign went on the house. Both have been encouraging by generating phone calls and emails.

So we are off on another exciting adventure! It's surprising in that we both are excited about the changes, talking about what we are going to do at the new house. The house is a bit larger than this house but has more personalization potential. It has electric baseboard heat so my husband has already arranged HEE furnace and AC. As soon as things are finalized we will arrange an energy audit as that will allow us to take advantage of a couple of government grants. I'm excited that my kitchen will have more counter space and will be laid out better so am already shopping for dual fuel ranges. Unlike our other houses we plan on going in with renovation guns blazing so this really is going to be one of the more interesting homes we've tackled!

The next few weeks worth of posts will focus on our selling experience including what we did, what worked and what didn't. At the same time other topics will come up as well so please stay tuned.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

A Bit of Progress: Was Going to be Craft Room

Oh my gosh so much has happened since my last update here regarding converting a spare bedroom to a craft room. The same day we painted the ceiling in the soon to be craft room my husband got a phone call that has thrown our lives into a huge but exciting turmoil. As a result of that great purchase (more to come once everything is finalized) we decided to sell our current home privately. If that doesn't work within a couple of weeks we will list our house with a realtor. Essentially what we are doing is taking one house and turning it into two. We have found a house we want and have an accepted conditional offer. So we are now in the process of showing our home which means quickly finishing up the room that was going to be my craft room. Don't worry though as our new house will have the craft room so you will be able to watch that progress as well as a lot more!

Painted

Paint has to be one of my favourite mediums to work with. There is just so much you can do with it without breaking the bank. Since this room was intended to be a craft room I wanted rather neutral colours that would not cast overtones on my craft projects. I also wanted light colours to make the room seem bigger and brighter. I went with a bright white for the ceiling and a light dove grey for the walls. What a difference the paint makes! I couldn't help but get excited as the improperly faux paint finish was covered up. I can't wait to see what the room looks like with a new floor! Unfortunately we won't get to enjoy the room ourselves but we will happy knowing someone else will enjoy it.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010