Up for the Challenge - Part 3: Linking to the Challenge!

Okay. So you've been busily making cards, photographing them beautifully using your very own home studio and all the right settings on your camera. You've discovered the wonderful world of Splitcoast Stampers and you've been uploading your artwork into your very own gallery online. There's only one more thing you need to know in order to participate in tomorrow's Chicks Inspiration Challenge: how to link your card to our blog!

It's super easy. First, hop over to Splitcoast Stampers and login using your name and password. Click on the "Gallery" option on the menu across the top of the page. Now you will see your personal options appear in the left margin. Click on "My Gallery" and you will see a screen like this:

but with your cards, of course! Select the card you want to link to the challenge and click on it. You will get a big screen, showing just that card, like this:

This is the screen you want! Now you will go to the address bar at the very top of the page and highlight the entire address showing in the bar by clicking and dragging your mouse over it. When the whole string is highlighted, press and hold the Ctrl button while pressing the letter "C" This will copy the address to your clipboard. Now jump over the Chicks with Inkpads blog and look for this little box at the very bottom of the Challenge Post:

Click on the empty box beside "Your name" and type in whatever name you would like to publish you card under. Tab to the "Your URL" field. Press and hold the "Ctrl" button while pressing the "v" key. This will paste the copied address string from the last step into the field. Click on "enter" and you're done! Your name will immediately appear in the list above the box and clicking on it will take you instantly to your card! Cool huh? I told you, you could do it!

Now come back tomorrow and quit all this messing around - we've got the real thing happening here!

Up for the Challenge - Part 2: The Public Gallery

Welcome back! Yesterday, we went through the steps you needed to take to photograph your card before uploading it to the internet. Today, I will be walking you through how to register for a public gallery and getting that card online.

If you already have your own blog, or are posting your work to a public gallery such as Splitcoast Stampers or Two Peas in a Bucket, you can skip this tutorial. There are lots of great free galleries out there online and any one of them will do the trick if you want to participate in the challenges. For the purposes of this tutorial, however, I will be using the "Big Mamma" of the stampers' sites: Split Coast Stampers. It's free, easy to use, has the largest gallery I've ever found and provides endless resources for its members. To get started, type the following URL into the address bar at the top of your web browser: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ (or just click on the link). You should be looking at the following screen:

This is the home page and it is the gateway to hours of stamping goodness! On the left sidebar, there are a number of "quick clicks" to help you get started. Click on "Become a Member" to register. This screen will come up next:

Click on the little box, accepting the terms and then click on the blue "register" button at the bottom of the screen.

On this screen, you are asked to type in a user name and password. It's a huge site with lots of members so you may have to try a few user names until you hit on one that's not already in use. You must also provide a working email address to complete this process. Don't worry, you won't receive tons of emails and there is an option later that will allow to decline receiving any emails at all. The random question at the bottom of the form is simply a security measure should you ever forget your password info. Give an answer that you are likely to remember!

This is the next screen, where you can decide whether you want to receive emails from other members or administrators and you will select your time zone from the drop down menu. When you're done, click on the "Confirm Registration" button on the bottom.

Congratulations! You are now a member of the Worlds' largest online stamping community! You can now feel free to explore the site. There are galleries of artwork categorized by members, sponsor companies, Stampin' Up stamp sets, techniques, and lots more.... There are a gazillion wonderful tutorials available in the "resources" section and, if you are so inclined, there is a message board that will allow you to "chat" with stampers from all over the world on every subject you can imagine! But for our purposes, today, the most important feature is that you are now the proud owner of your very own gallery which will allow you to share photos of your artwork online!

At the very top of this screen is a menu with items like "home" "gallery" resources" etc... Click on "Gallery."

This is your doorway to all of the wonderful galleries that Splitcoast offers. You can explore them later. Right now, we're going to upload your first card! On the left sidebar you will see an option labled "Upload a Card." Click on it now.

Here we go! This is a large screen and I had to split it into two pictures. Above is the top half of the screen. Your user name will automatically appear, as will the option to upload to "Member Galleries." There is a drop down tab that will allow you to upload your card into any number of defined categories and sometimes a more specific gallery will be the best fit. But for now, "member galleries" is perfect.

In the next box, you will be asked to tell Splitcoast where to find your photo. You can upload as many as five pictures at a time, but I usually do it one at a time. Click on the "browse" button to the right of the first blank field. Navigate your way to where you stored that precious picture of your photo yesterday and select it by clicking on it. Then you can name your card in the next field. Whatever you call it will be displayed as a caption under your photo in the gallery.

Next, you will come to a large blank box that asks you for a description of your photo. This is where you can get chatty and tell people how you made your card, why, what you had for breakfast... or nothing at all. It's up to you! When you're done, click on the "Upload/Submit" button at the bottom of the screen. Depending on your internet provider and the size of your file, this may take a few minutes. Be patient! Eventually, you will see this screen:

You're almost done - there a few more fields on this screen asking for more information about your card. You can skip all of them if you want to. But the more info you provide, the more people will be able to find your card in this vast sea of artwork. Adding keywords such as the manufacturer of the stamps you used, the technique, or the name of a challenge you're participating in makes your entry more "searchable." Enter as much, or as little info as you like, then click the "Process" button at the bottom of the screen when you're ready. Again, be patient!

Woo Hoo! You did it! You have successfully uploaded your first card into your very own gallery. You've gone public! You Rock! Soon thousands of people will see it (some of them may even leave very nice comments on it - if you enjoy that sort of thing, it's a great idea to go browse the gallery and leave some love for other people's efforts).

Have fun exploring the site and uploading lots of lovely cards today. Tomorrow, we'll learn how you can link yourself up to any of the wonderful challenges out there online such as...THE CHICKS INSPIRATION CHALLENGE!

Up for the Challenge - Part 1: The Photograph

As promised, this post is the first of a series of tutorials to help even the first timer successfully participate in our upcoming Chick's Challenges! Today I am going to walk you through how I photograph my cards and get them ready to be uploaded.

First things first. Clear your schedule. Obviously this is far more important than your paying job, the needs of your family or cleaning your house. (Just kidding - this won't take long at all - but I'm still not gonna clean my house). You're going to need a card to photograph. You can use any card at all, but this is a great excuse to go make one!

The most important step in photographing your card is natural light. Find a surface in your house near a window where you get lots of lovely sunlight streaming in. This is where you want to set up your card. Using overhead lights or your camera's flash tends to make your card look washed out and the colours can turn kinda funny.

Next you need a backdrop. White or gray are the best colours for this. I made my own little photo studio by cutting a cereal box up. Just remove all the flaps on the top and bottom, and one of the largest sides to create a tri-fold screen. Here's a pic of mine ( Jumbo Corn Pops, I believe).

I also have a vey plain easel from the Dollar Store set up in mine. I find it helps keep the distortion down, but it's really not necessary. Set up your card inside your new photo studio so that the light shines on it.

Turn your digital camera on. Use the auto setting. Turn the flash off. If you have a macro setting, enable it. The macro setting is symbolized by a little flower icon. It allows you to get nice and close without overexposing the details or distorting the frame. Get as close as you can, keeping your card square in the viewfinder and snap! Take a couple if you like - they're digital and you can choose whichever one you like best and delete the rest!

Now you want to upload the pictures from your camera to your computer. Every camera comes with it's own software and they are all different. They are generally very user friendly and will walk you through the steps. Most will give you easy steps to crop your photos, size the photos, colour correct, etc... Go ahead and play until you like the look of it.

There are only two key things to remember at this point. One, re-size your image to no bigger than 8 x 12 inches. This will help to keep the file size manageable when you upload to the internet. Secondly, you need to save this file in JPEG format. Whatever software you are using to get those pictures off your camera will have an option for this. Usually, you just select "Save As" and then you are given two blank fields. One for the name of the file which you will type in, and one for the file type which is a drop down menu with all kinds of file extensions listed. Selecting JPEG will condense your file, again to keep the size manageable for uploading. You may also be given the options for file quality - go for maximum, it's your artwork after all and you want it to look good!

That's it. Give it a try. Play around until you feel comfortable. Tomorrow, we're going to go get you a free gallery to upload that picture to!