Thank God It's Inkjet Friday's Posts
Chocolate Bunny Place Card Holders
If you are looking for a way to dress up your Easter dinner table you might like these chocolate bunny place card holders you can download, print out and make yourself. You can either have them hold a card with your guest's name on it or a picture of them.
Etch-a-Sketch Portraits
It's Inkjet Friday and that means we've got another great photo project for you. This week's project takes an old classic—the Etch-a-Sketch—and breaths some new life into it. What we're going to do is take a photo and make it look like it was done on an Etch-a-Sketch, then print that photo out on transparency paper (via a Kodak Easyshare AiO Inkjet Printer, of course) then slip the print onto the drawing surface of the Etch-a-Sketch itself allowing full use of the Etch-a-Sketch to draw mustaches all over the picture.
First step is to pick up an Etch-a-Sketch. If you don't have one lying around from your youth, you can get one at most major retailers or at http://www.ohioart.com/etch/. Next you'll want to get some inkjet printer compatible transparency "paper". It's normally pretty expensive in office supply stores, about $40 per 50-pack. So unless you're planning on doing a lot of prints it may be worth it to find a smaller pack, buy a sheet from a friend, or shop online for a better deal (Amazon has a 50 pack for $20). Now you'll want to select your picture. You'll want to keep the background simple and the lines clean since everything will be transformed into "sketch" drawings that pick up the highlights and outlines of objects.
Once you have all that you're faced with a choice: the hard way or the easy way? If you want the hard way you can use Adobe Photoshop to convert your photo in about 5 minutes. If you want the easy way, Kodak Easyshare software lives up to it's name and gives you a 30 second solution.
For those of you up for the challenge you can see a Photoshop walkthrough over at: Photojojo (to give credit where it's due their post inspired this one).
For those of you who want the easy way, here's what you do:
Open up the picture you want to use in Kodak Easyshare software (free download here)
Select the picture and go to Edit
Under the Fun Effects setting choose "Coloring Book"
Coloring Book Setting Applied in Kodak Easyshare (click on the image to enlarge)
Now you have the "Etch-a-Sketch" look without all the Photoshop hassle. We now need to resize the picture to fit an Etch-a-Sketch. A standard Etch-a-Sketch is about 5x7", yours may vary.
Go to Crop.
Select 5x7".
Highlight the area to keep.
Selecting a 5x7" area in Kodak Easyshare (click on the image to enlarge)
And you're done!
Now just print off the remaining image, cut it down, and slip it into the Etch-a-Sketch.
As suggested on Photojojo, I used a small screwdriver to pry up the edge of the red plastic so I could slip the transparency sheet onto the Etch-a-Sketch. They'll be a little overhang of the transparency that should slip under the lip of the red frame. That'll help hold the picture in place when you're drawing and shaking the Etch-a-Sketch.
If your picture doesn't quite come out right you may need to do the Photoshop method so you can tweak the settings more precisely, but for most photos the EasyShare way should work great!
I flipped my finished photo around because I liked the way it was framed better this way.
You're invited! - Native Americans at the movies
I'm proud to talk a bit today about a new film festival - one that grew out of Rochester's film heritage, but also from our educational institutions, with support from Kodak, and from our rich cultural heritage in upstate NY. We are right now in the midst of the first Rochester Native American Film Festival.
Spanning three months (2/4 through 4/8) and multiple venues, the Festival explores issues of identity, stereotypes, history, myth, spirituality, and life in Native cultures today. It's "designed to encourage a greater understanding of our land's indigenous peoples and their many contributions to the world we all inhabit".
The range of films is fascinating - from short cartoons to Wild West classics to modern-day chronicles - and many are paired with expert speakers (storytellers, educators, artists) to add perspective to the discussions before and after the films. Personally, I'm excited to see N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for his novel House Made of Dawn. I've had a few of his books on my list for a while and it will be very cool to see him speak.
Image Courtesy of National Film Board of Canada
As part of the Native American Council at Kodak (NACK), who helped connect the festival organizers with the company and make this all happen, I'm also excited about Sunday (March 9th) at the Eastman House - which is Kodak's day to join the party. The evening includes several silent shorts from the archives - including one with live piano accompaniment. Joe Cross (Caddo/ Potwatomi) will be there to show Smoke Break - a fun short from 2005, by Sally Kewayosh (Ojibwe/ Cree). And the feature film will be Mohawk Girls, 2005, by Tracey Deer (Mohawk) - about coming of age on the Kahnawake reserve, just across the St Lawrence from Montreal. Jason Younker, Ph.D (Coquille) of RIT will moderate the evening.
Image courtesy of National Film Board of Canada
From Kodak's side, we'll be taking and printing photos and we'll have some of our inkjet printers for you to check out. NACK members will be helping out - they're a pretty cool bunch and they, along with the festival organizers and our special guests all have great stories to share.
So come join us on Sunday at 1 for an afternoon of stories, pictures both still and moving, and fascinating insights!
- Aprille Byam