Tips & Tricks: Vectorizing to get the KFC effect

First of all, I am very grateful to all of you who have offered condolences and support about my wish to create a KFC Logo-type silhouette as noted in my two posts below. Apparently, I am software challenged at the moment but still have been offered some great information like... the Funtime Delux software in fact has the capability to do this and so does Photoshop apparently.

Here's a great place to start, click on the images below:

...and a tutorial online... lookie here:

KFC Logo - converting photos to silhouettes - Part 2

You know, this is another excellent example of what I want to do with my daughter's pic... see where I am going with this? See my last post and let me knwo if you have any ideas.

KFC Logo - converting photos to silhouettes

Is anyone out there graphically inclined enough to convert a face pic (jpg) into a great silhouette, like the KFC logo of Col.Saunders?

I want to take a pic of my baby girl and convert her and her pigtails into an image like the KFC logo, is it possible? What software and what "graphics trick" would I need to use??

Thanks if anyone has some ideas!!

My pretty baby

Hi again,

I've been slowly but surely getting our vacation pics into my daughter's scrapbook album and thought I'd share this cute google find that I actually traced myself. Unfortunately though, my tired 3AM eyes and brain saved over my original file and I only have a block of "all black" and "all reds" saved that I put together to cut to save on paper and of course, sorry but I saved over the original traced file (and knowing me may never need or use it again so sorry) but I traced it in no time at all so feel free to try your hand!!

I actually gave her hairstyle piggy tails instead and added a feathery thingy on the scrapbook page it's on so she'd look more like my daughter ;)

If you're my facebook friend, shes wearing the outfit in my profile pic... and as of today you can take a peek on my very first post to see my profile pic ;)

The font I used for the layout was Chinese Takeaway and I think the page turned out quite cute!

LittleChineseGirl.GSD (This one was retraced in RoboMaster just for you Lisa)

LittleChineseGirl.JPG

Enjoy!

Tips & Tricks: Turtle surgery (reviving crappy cuts)

Siiigh... so on our cruise we also visited the Turtle Farm in the Cayman Islands. I found this wonderful dingbat font called Keya's Turtles and fell in love with one of them and proceeded to cut out a turtle in my perfect-colour green paper... and it didn't cut all the way through. Siigh... then I tried again, and again and then had to get creative with the green papers, or rather what was left of the green papers... and FINALLY I gave up and I got out my chalks and chalked the darned turtle after performing a tedious exacto-knife-surgery to cut the outside edge to FREE the turtle from it's almost-cut. So, here's a tip on reviving crappy cuts ;)

Anywhoo... still not very good at selecting paper types and thus blades yet - but at least I am cutting, right :)

I think he's cute!

Tips & Tricks: Converting KNK to GSD Files

Thanks Edita :)

Tips & Tricks: Removable Tape

I use Scotch 3M matte finish removable tape for all my die cutting.

I arrange the cut-out on my cutting mat (non-sticky) and put the tape on it, turn the whole taped thing over, add glue and position on my scrapbook page or card and press into place, then remove the tape strip.

This is how I would make my letters join when I was using the Quickutz Squeeze and then the Revolution. (Loving the weld feature on the QK Silhouette that does it for me now!)

I pride myself on still being on the same roll for 4 years, that's how much I re-use the tape strips. PLUS I can't find the darned stuff anywhere even if I wanted another roll :(

Question: What do you guys use and how do you add your adhesive and position your little pieces???

My first manual tracing file!!

I did it!! I viewed Sandy McCauley's manual tracing video tutorial and in about 4 minutes no-word-of-a-lie this came out of my Silhouette!!!

On our recent vacation, we insisted my 11 month old wear a hat so after "Hi" then "Up" and "Dada", her next word was "hat" which we thought was hilarious because it quickly became an incessant peek-a-boo tool, but at least she wore it!! The pic is of her wearing my hemp Tilley Hat to give her more UV coverage in the hot Mexico sun! I couldn't resist creating this cut-out for her scrapbook.

Enjoy it - summer's coming!! Use different colours for dimension or simply chalk the edges as I have. THANKS SANDY!!!

As an aside, my apologies to my GSD friends, I will figure out how to convert the KNK files from my KNK Studio GE program to GSD files, please bear with me on my learning curve... in the meantime I encourage you to get the program cause I am having a BLAST!!!

TilleyHat.jpg & TilleyHat.knk

~Nikki ;)

iloveknk.com

YAYYY!! Sandy's got a new tutorial on how to make hearts and shamrocks and I did it, I made a 4 leaf clover and it's cute ;) I'm still a perfectionist so before posting, I'd still like to play a bit but it's so awesome how the smart bar changes to reflect what edit mode you are in - just awesome!!! Check out the free video and see how easy-peasy it is to do! Thanks Sandy!!!

On a sad note, I am going to have to figure out how to convert a KNK file to a GSD file for my fellow scrapaholics, any advice?? I was thining of uninstalling the Craft Robo 5.1 version and putting a much lower version on my machine to see if converting from KNK to that version of GSD would work - who knows?? I'll figure it out one day - right :)

6 degrees of separation...

In one of my Yahoo Groups, there was a post where we all told each other where we lived and I have met (by email) someone with the same first name as me who lives less than 30KMs from me and her son was born exactly one day before my daughter and their birthdays are in less than 2 weeks!! More specifically, my dayghter was born on Easter Sunday and her son the day before Easter only one city away from each other.

So, I thought I'd share what my baby-giveaways will be for my Baby Easter Bunny's five little friends who are coming for a birthday play date, it's called a Boo Boo Bunny and they are so darned cute and easy to make!

The inspiration came from Avon and Cheeky Monkey.com where I saw these cuties and of course I thought, there's no way I am spending 10 bucks and that there has got to be a way to make them myself for a loooot cheaper! Of course, I found a great how-to on About.com and these are what my lil one will be sending home with her little friends.

Here are some cute poems you can recite to your little one when they have a boo boo that needs your TLC:

Boo Boo Bunny is here today,

To help your boo boo go away.

This funny, fuzzy, furry friend,

Will cool the hurt to help it end.

She'll make the ouch go bye-bye fast,

So hold her until the pain has passed.

And when the boo-boo is all through,

She'll still be here to play with you.

When the tears begin to flow,

From a bruise or bump or blow,

Boo-Boo Bunny is so nice,

In its tummy holding ice,

Gently soothing all the while,

Sadness turning into a smile.

If a boo-boo has you feeling crummy,

Stick an ice cube in my tummy.

Hold it to your boo-boo tight,

Soon everything will be alright!
I'm the Boo-Boo Bunny.

I turn sad faces into funny.

I'm addicted and LOVING the KNK Studio GE !!

Hey fellow newbies ... I saved up the coffee coins and made the plunge!! I purchased Sandy McCauley's KNK Studio GE from the package deal link on the right at http://www.iloveknk.com/ For those of you who've read about my frustrations you know I was going nutz because I couldn't erase a stinky little line in my Valentines card... IMAGINE! One line, driving me to drink!! Well, I had some generous people try to help me but we were limited by software capabilities and time but in the end, this is the video that sold me on this product. That's as well as Sandy's very generous responses to my questions and posts on Yahoo groups.

Seriously no one's paying me to say this... this software is amazingly INTUITIVE, with bright colours, simple easy to understand icons and for goodness sakes the darned thing makes sense!! No rocket science and trying to make-do becasue of software limitations, and I can finally enjoy designing and manipulating images to cut on my Silhouette. I've got a pep in my step and got joy in my heart as I plan to make my scrapbooking pages of my lil' darlin' EXPLODE now that I have this under control!!

I haven't had much time to actually start playing with real files but have experimented with things and adjusted my preferences as aI go page by page through the manual and I am SO THRILLED I feel the need to use an expeltive I am so thrilled !!! I can't wait to completely get through the manual that SHE, Sandy McCauley wrote and the free video tutorials on her website and the additional ones that come free with your purchase!! Siiiigh... it's a certainly a great day :)

And... our vacation was wonderful BTW, thanks to you know who you are for asking; I am back to work on March 23rd (that part sucks) tee hee

...and since you're still reading, here's a beautiful heart card I made; the R is from my QK Finale alphabet and the inside of the card was hand-cut (how archaic) to give the two-toned look. Enjoy :)