The Creative Mom

Everyone dig out that little pencil sketch you’ve got stuck in a drawer or on a bulletin board.  You know the one, the one you want to add some color to, but you don’t want to mess it up.  Let’s digitize your artwork.  It’s easy!  I’m using Photoshop CS3, but this tutorial will work with […]

 
101 ways you can use a simple note card to enrich your life and the lives of those you care about…
 

Send a thank you note for a gift received.  Your mother always said to send thank you cards.  Your mother was right.  Everyone appreciates being appreciated.
A friend is recovering after surgery, send her a little […]

One of the great childhood substances, mac and cheese is an indispensable tool in the modern mother’s arsenal.  It’s soft for toothless little mouths, easy to pick up for learning little fingers, gooey and fun shaped for distractible little minds, and it’s also edible for demanding little tummies.  
But, even though we both love it, i always had a small amount of mac […]

Are you a doodler?  I am.  Let me introduce you to Pokey the baby dinosaur.  Pokey has graced the margins of my notes since junior high.  I draw him on napkins, on scraps of paper while I talk on the phone, on painfully blank dry erase boards and even on my websites for luck.  He […]

Before I sat down to write this article I looked up “writing for artists” on Amazon.  My search came back with dozens of books on basic grammar, technical writing and sentence structure for us language impaired visual artists.  This was disappointing.  I wanted to find references on learning styles and creativity that focused on cross […]

In the spring of 2006 my husband left for a deployment.  It wasn’t our first, and it certainly will not be our last, but it was his final deployment before we became parents.  I was able to take advantage of the flexibility of our before-kids lifestyle, and, among other things, I became a nomad, tried […]

My first computer was an Apple 2C.  My dad bought me a “drawing” program that let you color pictures like a digital coloring book.  It was crude, awkward, had only eight colors and was utterly magical.  My current computer is a brand new iMac, complete with Adobe Creative Suite 3, which allows you to color […]

Never underestimate a toddler’s ability to create chaos.  This is never more true than when on vacation.  We recently returned from a family cruise aboard the Carnival Pride.  This was our first substantial family vacation since joining the “with kids” club, and we learned a lot about our daughter, our family and what really defines […]

How do I make my digital photos smaller?  How do I make them bigger? These are two of the most common questions I get asked.  Usually I walk them through the process using whatever image editing software they have (See the instructions for reducing image size in Adobe Photoshop below.) And then I usually have […]