Clip Art Press

Is Your Drinking Water Safe?

Have you ever wondered what is in the water you drink? Well now you can know with a simple and affordable home test kit. I used it and found toxic levels of pesticides and lead in the tap water.

I’m going to order some more test kits to test bottled water and water from a filter system.

Have you done tests of your own?

You can do your own tests using the kits here.

P.S. I am not affiliated with the company that makes these test kits. I will not get any money or anything in return for posting this write up. I just found these test kits to be a useful product.

If you do your own tests post your results here.

Creative Clip Art – Creating Beautiful Stencils At Half the Price

Clipart can be used to create beautiful stencils, which, in turn, can be used to decorate walls, design borders, t-shirt designs, scrapbooking accessories and much, much more. It all starts with an idea…

Turning Clip Art into Stencils

Decorative stencils have been used for thousands of years to create beautiful art. Today, they’re used extensively for room borders, scrapbooking, and wall art. You can buy the stencils you want from any craft store or at an online stencil store. However, depending on size and intricacy, you could end up spending anywhere from $5 to $150 or more for a single stencil.

With clip art and a little bit of ingenuity, however, you can create beautiful stencils for any purpose at a price even a tight budget can afford. Here’s how:

• Clip art (you can download for a FREE TRIAL at Graphics Factory)
• Stencil sheets (you can get a pack of ten sheets for less than $15.00 from a local craft store or find other options online) or use construction paper.
• Scissors ($1.00 – $5.00 anywhere)
• Utility or X-acto knife ($4.00 anywhere)

Taking the highest price, you can easily end up with ten high quality stencils for $20 – more if the designs are small. You can make your chosen stencils as small, large, intricate or colorful as needed for your particular purpose.

Many types of stencil sheets can be used in a printer, which makes it extremely easy to transfer the clip art to the sheet. Once the design is printed, you simply cut out the design (remember that you only cut out the parts you want to trace) with your knife and you’re ready to go! You can save the leftover stencil material for small designs, as well.

From decorative designs to whimsical backgrounds, clip art is the affordable answer to fantastic wall art – or scrapbooks, chairs, rugs, t-shirts, stationary, diaries, greeting cards, coffee mugs, newsletters, and much more…  What are some things you’ve used clip art for? Share your craft projects with us.

Drag and drop image into Gmail using Chrome

Google Gmail just release a new feature that allows you to drag and drop images directly into your Gmail message. Awesome job Google! This will make it easier for everyone to insert images into their Gmail email messages, which I think this is a great new feature.

What do you guys think?

Rob G.

101 Ways to Use Clipart – Not Your Average Pictures

What do you think of when you think of clip art? Do you picture the black and white sketches from the “olden days” like many people do? Black and white, colorful, animated, large or small, clip art has evolved to become a highly useful tool in many areas, for many purposes. From the playful to the practical, below is a short list of ways this versatile art form can come in handy:

1. Children’s coloring & window art project – Black and white clip art comes in especially handy for keeping children happy and occupied. Choosing appropriate clip art for the occasion – birthdays or Valentine’s Day parties, for instance – is easy. Once you find what you’re looking for, print it out and start a coloring party! When the pictures have been finished, you can spray them down with lacquer and turn them into window art for the kids to take home.
2. Learning tools for teachers that students love – Clip art mixed with any paint or document program can make an excellent learning tool for pre-kindergarten and higher. Match your choice to your current lesson plan, add titles or appropriate text with either a paint program or document reader like Microsoft Word, save and print. For instance, a black and white tepee that can be colored might complement a lesson on Native Americans.
3. Website design – Clip art is much more than it used to be. You can choose simple creations to enhance your website design, partial templates (such as navigation menus only) or complete website templates. In fact, those that want to design their own website – or even professional designers with not enough time on their hands to design every aspect – can use clip art to build a beautiful, dynamic website.
4. Stencils – Many people use wall and decorative art to enhance their homes. However, one decorative stencil can cost as much as $100 if not more. Clip art, on the other hand, is an inexpensive way to create fantastic wall and molding decorations. Simply choose your clip art, print it out and transfer it to stiff cardboard or fairly thin plastic (plastic is preferable). Cut out the design and you have a beautiful stencil for wall art.
5. Print collateral – While clip art can come in handy at home or school, it really shines in business applications. Print collateral, such as brochures, pamphlets, business letterheads and envelopes, is an excellent example. Whether the clip art is an enhancement or part of the overall design, today’s choices can turn a drab layout into a work of art. (The Graphics Factory has over 3,000 images in our clip art for business category.)

Other Ideas

Just for fun, we decided to see if we really could come up with 101 ways to use clip art. Here goes:

1. T-shirt printing
2. PowerPoint illustrations
3. Hand-made greeting cards
4. Scrap-booking projects
5. Signs
6. Website widgets
7. As glass etching designs
8. As metal ornaments, either stamped or sandblasted
9. Signature stamps
10. Potatoes stamps for kids
11. To make your emails stand out
12. Enhancements for eNewsletters
13. Art projects
14. Visual cues in reports
15. As frame decorations for pictures
16. Creating birthday stickers
17. Creating homemade party decorations
18. Decoration on promotional material (mugs, mousepads, etc)
19. On flyers
20. Enhancements for magazine articles
21. Ads
22. Business cards
23. Website template packages
24. Theme designs
25. Website widgets
26. Window transparencies
27. Creating ornaments
28. 3D cutout designs
29. 3D background scenes
30. Invitations
31. Holiday decorations
32. Bookmarks
33. Catalogs
34. Research projects
35. Illustrations
36. Calendars
37. Wallpaper
38. Coloring pages
39. CD Collections
40. Baby showers
41. Screensavers
42. Animated banner ads
43. Embroidery designs
44. Create knitting patterns
45. Create cross-stitch patterns
46. Table decorations
47. Placemats
48. Sun catchers
49. Temporary tattoos
50. Permanent tattoos
51. Labels
52. Kids’ activity sheets
53. Key chains
54. Creating custom avatars
55. Cookie cutters
56. Appliqué designs
57. Iron-on templates

Keep in mind that not all of these are possible with other places that sell clip art, due to licensing issues. All of Graphics Factory clip art is available for commercial use.

Well, we’ve made quite a dent in the 101 ways, but there are plenty more ways to use clip art and we’d love to hear yours. What have you used clip art for? 

Adobe Creative Suite CS5?

Are you ready to hand out another $599 for the yearly upgrade that Adobe is getting ready to release? I am finding it harder and harder to justify upgrading at the prices they ask.

I just upgraded from CS2 to CS3 for $499 last year then $600 the year before that and now they want another $599 this year? I think I’m gonna pass this time Adobe. What about you? Do you think the Adobe upgrade prices are to expensive?

Read about the CS5 upgrade here.

Homesite replacement for Mac…

I have been searching for a program comparable to Homesite that will work on the Mac and it hasn’t been easy. If you don’t know Homesite is an HTML editing program that is a must have for Web designers. It allows direct code editing and fast preview options along with customizable shortcut buttons that save so much time.

• I tried BBedit which is ok, but doesn’t cut it.
• I tried Cody by Panic, which is a very cool program, but not customizable enough for me.
• I searched for others and nothing looked like it would work.

Then I decided to try Adobe Dreamweaver again because I’ve tried it in the past and it didn’t work out to well. Now it is very similar to Homesite and is actually working very well. Adobe owns Homesite but has not upgraded it since they bought it from Macromedia. Homesite is an excellent code editing program, not a click and drag page builder.

Dreamweaver was more of a click and drag program, but Dreamweaver CS4 is a becoming a pleasure to build sites in. It actually feels more like Homesite then any other program I’ve found so far for the Mac.

So if you’re looking for a Homesite like program for the Mac try Dreamweaver CS4. I think you will like it. In some ways it is actualy better then Homesite!

Good editing!

Google Chrome = Fast Clip Art Downloads!

I  installed the new browser by Google call Chrome last night and have been testing it out. This browser is really a nice experience and is getting better the more I use it. I have been a faithful IE user for years and years, but after about 5 minutes with Google Chrome I closed my IE and may never look back.  Google Chrome is lightweight and fast, all the buttons seem to be in the right place other then the bookmarks folder which is on the right side of the screen (wish it was on the left), which is only a personal preference. It is just a nice browser that is worth a try. You should download it and give it a spin!

• It will automatically import your bookmarks from your current default browser.
• When typing into the address bar it will automatically give you different options on how to search or go to your entry.
• It is easy installing plug-ins and downloading items

When trying to download clip art images from GraphicsFactory.com is was a pleasant experience and I’m sure you will find it a better download experience then with other browsers. It even has a download history page so you can easily re-download previous downloaded items again.   I expect Google Chrome to take at least 75% of the browser market share within 2 years if not 1 year.

Clip Art for the Masses

Clip art can help so many people in so many ways. Downloading clip art from www.graphicsfactory.com is the first step. It seems that we live by our planners, and PDA. For those of us that still use a calendar here is a way to spice things up.

There are always activities that we repeat on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Use clip art to choose a happy image even for the worst of chores. Cut out the image and use a pushpin to attach it to the day it should happen.

Here is a list to get you started:
Shopping
Gym
Doctor or Dentist appointment
Teacher Conference
House Cleaning
Guests coming
Children’s activities
Work related events
Church or bible study

Video Killed the Radio Star and Clip Art is Suspected of Rendering the Greeting Card Extinct

Clip art is so widely used and available there are now allegations that do to individual creativity and the inexpensive nature of most clip art that Greeting cards are disappearing at major functions. For instance, this Christmas millions of children that had access to computers went to www.graphicsfactory.com and downloaded Christmas images in both color and black and white. It was reported that the children then used scissors, paper, glue and markers to pay tribute to their loved ones during the holidays, thus eliminating the need for actual store bought greeting cards. In another example adults have been spotted downloading clip art from www.graphicsfactory.com  to use as invitations to holiday parties and as name plates for dinner parties, and last but not least as thank you notes for gifts received.

There is no word yet on whether individuals alone will be indicted or if www.graphicsfactory.com will be named as an accomplice since, they are one of the most used suppliers of clip art on the web. There is a possibility that if greeting cards to make the endangered non-perishables list their price will rise exponentially. Experts are saying if the prices of greeting cards does rise it will force even more consumers to turn to clip art. Unfortunately, this will have a negative impact on greeting cards and could render them not only extinct but also obsolete.

It will be interesting to see how this drama plays out. More news is expected after next Valentine’s Day, which is the biggest greeting card is giving holiday of the year.

Decorating for the Seasons

 It is always fun to get a fresh start. Kids will be back in the classroom within the next week and the more involved they feel the more enthusiasm they will have. Since we are in winter and preparing for spring now is a great time to redecorate. Clip art is very handy and extremely accessible.

Have a variety of downloaded clip art from http://www.graphicsfactory.com/ available for this project. You can ask each child to bring in a shoebox or you can simply decorate the room. Give each child a space of their own to depict their favorite things about winter using your themed clip art.

The cherry on top of this project is to have snowflakes downloaded from www.graphicsfactory.com and have the children write their name and one sentence about winter.