Ready for a little "hopping"?

Welcome to the April blog hop for Scrap Gal!

You should have come here from Stacey's blog. You don't want to miss out on any of the challenges!!!


Today we want to give you a little taste of what we do over at Scrap Gal by sharing this months challenges in one blog hop! In addition to winning prizes along the way you can participate in this month's challenges found at the SG message board  for another chance to win a prize!


Make sure you stop by all of the designers blogs and leave a comment (we all need a little love sometimes!!!) then don't forget to stop at Scrap Gal  and leave a coment telling us that you liked about the blog hop for a chance to win this..

So, my challenge for April is the photo challenge. I thought what better challenge than to use a transformed photo for a layout/project?

Wait a minute! What does she mean by "transformed" photo?!!?

I am in no way great at using photo enhancing software...I need a baby steps book for those things. LOL. SO what I mean by "transformed" photo is alter your photo in any way you want/need.

Here's my layout using a photo I transformed:

and some closeups:

How was this photo "transformed"? Well...this was a photo that my BIL took of my DD on his cell while babysitting. (I think I should take him by the hand and cross him over to the "darkside" and start him scrapping...because he certainly does have a great eye for details!)

Here's the original..which I saved off FB!

It's cute enough, right? I just wanted to add more to it. SO...I headed over to Flickr
Flickr's full of  fun effects to play with, along with the usual cropping/editing features. You can also do the premium membership thing and do more. I've got the regular account...
 
The effect I used on my photo (after uploading, of course) just click on "actions", and then "edit photo in picnik". There's tabs along the top of your photo, and chose "create". On the left hand side you see all different types of awesome "alterations" if you will. I chose "cross process" for this particular photo. Easy peasy!
 
Then I lightly (very lightly) scratched the photo up a bit....just to give it an antique feel. Then added to the layout! Easy!
 
I also love playing along with a free program an awesome scrappy friend put me on to: Gimp
 
Now you don't need to use any program or site to alter, you can ink or distress, the sky's the limit as to how you want to go about completing this challenge.
Hope you have fun creating!
 
Mary Jo's next on the hop....
 
To make sure you're visiting everyone, here's the blog hop order:
 
Rita

Stacey
Arlene  <-----little old me :)
Mary Jo
Mette
Scrap Gal Blog  

I'll be offering a small little RAK (sorry, I don't have a picture & it's available to participants in the US) to a randomly picked blog hopper who leaves  a comment on each challenge (what do you like about it? is it easy, fun, etc) who becomes a follower, and leaves a message on the MB. :)

So what are you waiting for? keep hopping!