Category: Photos

Photos

How To: Create Valentine’s Day Cards + Content for Social Media using the Instasize App

JayneLeave a comment

Who said Valentine’s Day was just for lovers?! We view Valentine’s Day as a day of love – celebrating with whoever you’re lucky enough to hold close. With social media playing such an integral part of our day to day lives, avoiding the massive amount of Valentine’s Day posts that your feeds and timelines are about to be flooded with sounds impossible. So why not join in on the fun? Instasize – a premier photo editor + content creating tool kit gives you the ability to completely transform the photos you’ve taken with your smartphone into engaging content pieces that both your friends and followers will love. The app is free to download for both IOS and Android platforms: http://instasize.com

Spice your feed up this V-Day with some border love. Create custom family collages to show the special people in your life just how much you appreciate them. The app currently has two available border packs that contain a plethora of Valentine-y backgrounds.  And at the start of this week the people over at Instasize introduced a flashy new Marble Border Collection we’re obsessed with. Keep reading to find out what types of content you can be creating for your various social media platforms – all created in under 2 minutes and with the Instasize App.

Borders & Collages:

You can find the Valentine’s Day themed border packs within the apps border editor. After selecting a photo to edit, click on the border icon (it looks like a square within a square) and from there you can download the “XOXO”, “LOVE”, and “Marble” border collections. Here is the step by step breakdown on how to re-create the collage above:

  1. Open the Instasize App (download here: https://instasize.me/xcSO/OdnBzRMzvK)
  2. Tap the “plus” sign to select which format you wish to edit.
  3. Tap the “collage” icon.
  4. Choose up to 6 images to be placed in a single collage. (we chose 3 to begin with)
  5. At the top, you may swipe left to see different layout options.
  6. Tap the layout option you wish to use.
  7. At the bottom of the editing screen, tap the “borders icon”
  8. Choose either the LOVE or XOXO border packs.
  9. Select Valentines borders of choice.
  10. Use the bar above to adjust border width
  11. Next to the “borders” icon, tap the “A” icon, meaning text.
  12. Write your desired message (we wrote “XOXO”) followed by the checkmark when complete
  13. Swipe left to choose from an array of fonts. (We love “Cute Love” font)
  14. Pinch with two fingers to move or adjust size of text.
  15. To add another text, swipe right at the bottom until you see the plus sign and tap.
  16. Next type your family’s name to complete your valentines card. (The Sorenson Family)
  17. Move Text to desired area on photo.
  18. Share with friends, family, and followers!

Valentines Card w/ Text:

These easy to make cards are the perfect addition to any Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and/or Instagram feed. The Instasize App comes equipped with over 30 fonts to choose from for creating themed content online. Best part? You can make add text to any photo in under a minute. GO.

  1. Open the Instasize app.
  2. Tap the plus sign at the bottom.
  3. Tap the “photo” icon to choose your image.
  4. Apply desired filter on top.
  5. At the bottom tap the “A” icon meaning text.
  6. Type your message “My Loves” and desired color of text.
  7. Choose font (we used Playlist Script)
  8. Position text on image.
  9. At the bottom scroll all the way to the left until you see the “+” sign to add another line of text.
  10. Repeat steps 6-8
  11. To create the lines on either side of your text like pictured above above, repeat step #9 and type — side by side to create a “line”
  12. Create two and add to each side of text “My Loves”

Unlock new fonts, filters, and border collections every month with a subscription to Instasize Premium – enjoy a free 7 day trial on us: https://instasize.me/xcSO/OdnBzRMzvK

Valentine’s Quote w/ Background

Another great addition to any Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and/or feed are themed text posts. We’ve discovered that our borders (typically used with photos) make phenomenal backgrounds for quotes! Here’s how to recreate the above image on your own device.

  1. Open the Instasize app.
  2. Tap the plus sign at the bottom.
  3. Tap the “photo” icon to choose an image (it can be any image, we’ll be removing it from the frame so we can have full access to the border).
  4. At the bottom scroll to find the borders icon.
  5. Choose desired border from the “XOXO” or “LOVE” pack.
  6. Pinch your photo to make it small and slide it off to the side until you no longer see your photo.
  7. Find the text icon below
  8. Type out your Valentines message.
  9. Choose font (we used Blackout Midnight)
  10. Position text on border.

With 20 different border backgrounds to choose from there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t be posting some fun + engaging content this Valentine’s Day! Tag the Instasize app on Instagram for a potential chance at being featured.
Instagram: @instasize.official

Photos

Sharing Memories With The Family: The Fun Ways To Do It

JayneLeave a comment

We have all been there where we are snapping away on our phones, capturing the memories, and while the forever remain in our camera roll to look back on, we can often struggle to share the memories with other members of the family or friends. You may have older grandparents that don’t have Facebook profiles, perhaps technophobe parents that just don’t know how to use photo sharing applications, or even friends that just don’t like the world of social media. There are some of them out there would you believe? But yet it is unfair to segregate those people, just because of their lack of technology skills or beliefs in sharing. So I thought I would share with you some of the fun ways you can share the family memories you capture.

Sourced

Create a scrapbook

A scrapbook is a great way to capture those memories differently. Snapping away on your phone, printing the pictures off, and then piecing them together in a book with souvenirs along the way like beer mats, leaflets and shells. You can choose to be specific like scrapbooking a holiday, or even choosing to be more general like creating a scrapbook of the summer holidays. They remain as great keepsakes and your children will love bringing them out and showing anyone who will look through them.

Send postcards or letters to friends and family

Snail mail is making a comeback. Not only because people have an obsession with beautiful stationery, but because there is something quite magical about receiving a letter or a postcard. These days you can even send photo postcards online to satisfy your need for the quickness of the internet, but enabling someone to receive a lovely surprise in the post. Include snapshots of your day or holiday, and everyone is happy. A letter takes a little more time, but including pictures and sharing stories in your own words can be a priceless memento for someone to keep in the future. Decades ago it used to be the only way to have a conversation.

Print pictures out and frame them as gifts

Before social media profiles and even camera phones with albums to keep your pictures, we use to have our pictures printed. Not even being sure how some of them would turn out. Remember the days of the throwaway camera? But while technology has advanced enabling us to capture pictures and videos as they happen and share the instantly, there is something quite nostalgic of having your favourites printed. Even adding them to a frame and giving them out as a gift to friends and family.

Create videos and burn them onto a DVD

Finally, more people are loving the idea of capturing memories in video format. But unless people are willing to log onto YouTube, some of your older relatives may not even get to see them. So why not take the time to burn them onto a DVD and physically show them. It can be something they can re-watch time and time again.

I hope that this has inspired you to share your memories in other ways tan just your online social media platforms.

Closer to Nature · Photos

Closer to Nature

Jayne2 Comments

This weeks Closer to Nature comes courtesy of a very industrious spider, a beautiful morning dew and the macro setting on my camera, which is my favourite setting to play with. I took a few photos which worked with varying degrees of success but I still couldn’t choose my overall best so I thought I’d show you them all:

If you have any wonderful photos of anything nature related, link up below. There’s badge code that you can grab in the sidebar too.

 

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Personal · Photos · The Gallery

The Gallery – The 80’s

Jayne4 Comments

I’ve not joined in with The Gallery for ages, mostly because I’m so rubbish at blogging that I only find out the theme once the linky is almost closed, but as a child of the Eighties, I felt it was my duty to show you some photos and generally give myself the chance to show off just how damn CUTE I was as a child. So here goes…

Me, looking cute in a bouncy chair:

Me, looking cute (but grainy) sitting in a cardboard box with a dog…(yeah, I don’t know either…):

Me again, pulling some fairly obnoxious faces in a photo booth, but still looking cute:

And finally, the pièce de résistance – The cutest photo EVER TAKEN of me:

(I’m even in a caravan – how 80’s is that?!)

If you want to see some fabulously 80’s-tastic hair and fashion, head over to Sticky Fingers where everyone else has linked up.

Family · Parenting · Personal · Photos · Pregnancy

Treasured Secrets

Jayne4 Comments

I discovered something the other day; my Husband is a complete and utter sneak.

I’ve spoken about my pregnancy enough here and in other places for most of you to know that it was utterly miserable, but for those of you who are new here, I found out I was pregnant because I was puking so much that I tore a hole in my oesophagus. The hyperemesis gravidarum continued for near-on five months during which time I also developed SPD, gestational diabetes, polyhydramnia and a number of other oh-so-pleasant things which meant that the famous ‘pregnancy glow’ eluded me completely. I was ill and miserable for 8 and a half months out of the nine that I was pregnant.

Because of all this, I became completely phobic of seeing myself. I banned all photography around me and as far as I knew, not a single photo of me pregnant existed. Four and a bit years on, I felt completely rueful about this, cross at myself for my own stubborness and gutted that I had not a single pregnancy photo.

Until, that is, I discovered my Husband’s sneakery! We were going through some archived photos the other day so that we could show Sausage the pictures of the sharks we saw in the Maldives and we found not one but several photos of me, with-child! I honestly had no idea they existed, convinced that any photos that he did manage to get at the time had been deleted. And because I’m so pleased, I thought I’d share some with you, so you can see how NON-glowing I was, but also how young I looked!

So, for once, I can honestly say that I’m glad my Husband didn’t listen to me and although I was huge, covered in stretch marks, washed out and looking utterly miserable in most of these photos, I’ll treasure them forever.