So you have a project that requires art, and you barely have enough artistic skill to complete a game of Hangman. Well, you’re in luck, because there’s a plethora of ready-made clip art and graphics just waiting for you on the web at graphicsfactory.com. These clip art images are copyright-safe and created by professional artists and can be downloaded and embedded in any project.

What kind of projects?

Family newsletters, homemade greeting cards, community bulletins – you name it. They’re categorized in a variety of ways, such as by “keyword” or “holiday.” These databases are easily searchable so you can quickly locate just the right piece of clip art you need.

Usually a thumbnail version of the clip art you want will pop up first. Then you can click on it and it will expand to a larger preview. This way you’ll get a better idea of how it will look on the page. The enlarged images will probably have a “watermark” on them, which will disappear after they’re purchased.

Holidays Keyword Ideas

Looking to dress something up for the holidays? There’s already a host of clip art and graphics available, and more is being created all the time. Here are just a few ways to illustrate your holiday-themed projects:

• New Year’s : Party hats and streamer clip art


• Valentine’s Day : Candy, hearts, “XOXO” images


• St. Patrick’s Day : Mugs of green beer, leprechauns, four-leaf clover clip art


• Easter : The Christian cross, decorated eggs clip art


• Fourth of July : Flags, fireworks clip art


• Halloween : Ghosts, pumpkins, witches, black cats, candy clip art


• Thanksgiving : Turkey (live), turkey (cooked), pilgrims, Indians, table laden with food clip art


• Christmas : Baby in a manger, angels, three wise men, Christmas tree, holly, carolers

Other Ideas

You can also use clip art and graphics to enhance your PowerPoint presentations, business cards and personal letterhead. There’s a variety of styles available, ranging from classic to contemporary to the truly comical.

For example, if you own a bakery, you should search graphicsfactory.com for bakery-themed images, such as a chef, baker, cook, rolling pin, baked bread, oven, etc. It’s important that the clip art you choose conveys who you are and what you do at once. So a person flicking through his Rolodex will be able to identify you immediately.

When searching for clip art it’s important to use common search terms like “kitten,” not “feline” or to be more specific “kitten and ball of string.” Once a list of potential clip art is pulled up, you should consider if the image fits your needs. Is it scalable? That is, if you need to enlarge it, will it become blurry and grainy? If you have to make it smaller, will you still be able to see all the detail?
Once you locate and purchase the clip art you want, it’s yours to use however and wherever you want, for as many times as you want, unless otherwise specified in the usage rights.

Thanks to the abundance of quality clip art and graphics available at graphicsfactory.com, even the most artistically-challenged person can now produce a stellar-looking project.

You have probably seen the papier-mâché lunch bags that hold tea lights for decoration. The lunch bags pricked with a pin to display a design when the lit candles are placed inside the bag.
As a last minute clip art idea, we have created a fun and crafty clip art recipe.
You will need:

• A roll of aluminum foil
• Paper bags
• Your favorite clip art from www.graphicsfactory.com
• Tea light candles
• Glue
• Sewing needle or pin
• Stapler

Directions:

• Carefully and smoothly, line each bag with aluminum foil down the vertical sides; secure each piece of foil with a staple at the top
• Cut out your clip art to show detail
• Glue clip art to outside of the bag -whichever side you glue the clip art to is now the front
• Take the pin or sewing needle and prick the clip art every two inches all the way around
• Place the tea light on a small rectangular shape of foil a bit smaller than the bottom of the bag
• Once you are ready to show off the design use a fireplace match to light the candle

This works best in a darker area
PLEASE NOTE : NEVER LEAVE CANDLES NEAR CHILDREN OR UNATTENDED, ALWAYS BLOW OUT FLAME BEFORE LEAVING THE ROOM OR GOING TO SLEEP!

Once Halloween is over it will be on to Turkey and Santa. Clip Art is so adaptable it is truly a staple among crafters and especially if you have children in the house.
It is always nice to personalize gifts. It is easy to buy gifts that last a minute but some of the most treasured gifts are all homemade works of art.

To help my son get over a recent loss of our family dog we created a memory quilt. It was full of pictures of my son and the dog and various clip art cartoons that would replace the memories of the loss with happy memories.

All you need to make a quilt, blanket, set of napkins, or towels is a color printer, transfer paper, clip art, an iron and the fabric of your choice.

www.graphicsfactory.com and downloaded it to your computer, you will need to follow the instructions that come with the transfer paper to print the clip art on the transfer paper and then to iron the art on your selected fabric.

Okay so it was a really long title but you are still reading so it must have worked!

TOP FIVE LIST

5. You can save popsicle sticks to paste your clip art puppets to and that will save money on apples
4. You can paste clip art on a plain white t-shirt instead of springing for an real costume
3. By handing out clip art instead of candy you will be confirming the rumor that you are cheap so the neighbors can stop talking about you
2. After handing out clip art instead of actual treats you will probably save plenty of money on toilet paper
and the number 1 way that clip art helps cheap people at Halloween is by ensuring that no one knocks on your door expecting candy next year!
Seriously, to contribute to a safe Halloween for neighborhood children create clip art popsicle stick invitations and host a trick-or-treat party to get the kids ready to go trick-or-treating in groups.

You will need:

• Your favorite downloaded clip art from www.graphicsfactory.com
• Scissors
• Glue
• Popsicle Sticks
• Permanent Markers

Directions:

STEP 1) Print and Cut out your clip art images
STEP 2) On the front of each piece of clip art write the words “Trick or Treat Party @ Add the time of your party (see example)”
STEP 3) Glue each piece of clip art to a popsicle stick
STEP 4) Repeat until there is one for every child that is coming
Trick-or-Treating is a great way for parents and kids to explore their neighborhood and celebrate Halloween.

TRICK OR TREAT PARTY SAMPLE INVITATION:

Trick or Treat Party

4-5 pm Oct 31st

404 Elm Street

Bring your friends!

With Halloween parties for older kids on the way we thought we would share a few party ideas!

Guess Who?????

Guess who is a new twist on an old guessing game.

As each of your guests arrive you tape a piece of paper to their back with your favorite clip art that describes their character.

As they mingle with their friends they ask yes or no questions until they discover their character that is taped to their back.

The older the children are the more complicated the characters and clues can be.

If the party is for adults use characters from “monster” or “vampire” novels, or actual authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Rice, and Bram Stoker.

Character Cards

You Will Need:

• Your favorite Halloween Clip Art downloaded from www.graphicsfactory.com
• You can either use word to create the names of the characters or use marker or gel pens to write by hand
• If the party is for children you may want to type some character hints

 Directions:

• Downlaod your clip art and save

• Go into Word and create one character card for each expected guest

• Open a new document in Word and insert a picture from file on the first page

• Type the characters name in bold

• Type five clues under the character name

• Insert a page break and repeat until you have a character card for each guest

   Character Card Sample

Character: Dracula

 Clues:

1. Sleeps all day
2. Drinks blood instead of juice
3. Allergic to the sun
4. Always wears a cape

Have a Howling Good Time!

As Halloween approaches many grade schools will be hosting parties and having the children dress up. A great way to decorate the class room is to have the children make mobiles and then hang them from the ceiling. This is also a great contest, because the children can focus on attention to detail and creativity and then the class can do a brown paper bag vote to decide the winner.

You will need:

Colored Craft Sticks

Craft Glue

String

Pipe Cleaners

Hole Punch

A Color Printer

Clip Art

Directions:

• Glue two craft sticks together in the shape of an X
• Once the craft sticks dry wrap the center with the string to cover the glue and secure the sticks together
• Download your halloween clip art from www.graphicsfactory.com
• Encourage the children to focus on Halloween or create a theme that explains with out words what they are dressing up as
• Cut the clip art out with as much detail as possible
• Punch a hole at the top of each clip art cut out
• Tie a piece of string to to each end of the craft sticks
• Then attach the clip art cut outs to the ends of the strings
• When all the clip art cut outs are attached wrap a pipe cleaner around the middle of the craft sticks and twist the top of the pipe cleaner to use as a hook

When you are using clip art the possiblilties are endless. If you have Halloween clip art crafts that you would like to share with us and other crafters please feel free to send us an email and we will do our best to post your ideas.

Have a spooktacular day!

With Halloween right around the corner, here is a tip that will have trick or treaters howling for more.

Mystery Bags are a great way to ensure that everyone receives a treat and they still have a choice. Each bag will be sealed and put in a basket by the door. In the event that you are not home or have to step away from the door you can label the basket “Take One” this will increase the excitement since there will be several different bag “styles” available.

You will need:

• A set number of brown paper lunch sacks – based on the number of visitors you expect
• Glue sticks
• A stapler
• Clip Art
• Internet connection
• Computer printer
• Candy

Graphicsfactory.com is full of fun clip art downloads for all occassions. We have selected several fun halloween clip art images for this activity.

Directions:

• Go to www.graphicsfactory.com
• Go to the search bar and enter the word halloween
• Select your clip art pictures
• Once you have downloaded your clip art pictures print them out and make sure you have one picture for each bag
• Once you have printed the clip art pictures, cut them out and use the glue stick to glue one to each bag
• Fill the bags with candy and staple shut
• The bags are ready for your visitors!

Happy Haunting

Thinking about the perfect color combination can be as perplexing as thinking about how to build a self-sustaining raft with a slab of cement with a metal chain connected to it. What makes selecting color combinations equally scary is that the wrong combination will send your company into bankruptcy and you’ll be the talk of the business world if you mess up (what did he/she expect would happen after pairing those colors together. Amateur!) Okay, none of that may be true, but that is how many people feel when confronted with the task of color coordinating. Choosing hues for your website doesn’t have to be a dreaded task, and with a little planning you will be more successful than you thought possible.

The first step is to write down the objective of the web page for which you need these graphics (and colors.) Is the content formal (business) or informal (fun or personal)? What is the tone of the site? The voice of the content? The message you wish to pass on or the action you want the reader to take? Knowing the purpose of the content will immediately help you eliminate colors from your choices.
Now make a list of colors that best convey your message.

One way to do this is to look at websites, magazines and TV ads. What colors trigger certain emotions in you? Which grab your attention? Even black and white trigger emotions (ask any marketer.) If your website is for fun, you may want to stay away from gray or brown. Fun choices would be hot pink, bright green, or yellow. For formal, business sites you will want to stay away from purple or pink unless those colors are associated with the business.

Choose Your Colors

Another great way to choose a color scheme is to simply find a web template or graphic that you really like and pull a color from it to inspire the rest of the site. Once you choose a color from the graphic, select a light, medium and dark color that complements it. To help you with color ideas, go to ColorSchemer, a web studio with free ideas for color schemes. Print out a color copy of your graphic and hold it up to each of these combinations to see which works best!
Just remember, some basic design tips are that the background is always the lightest color; the largest graphic isn’t the darkest or the lightest color, but somewhere in the middle; and your accent graphics are your darkest or brightest color.

Color Wheel

To further help you choose colors, look to the color wheel which shows us how colors are arranged in the spectrum. By using each color’s position in the wheel we learn which go best together, which complement others, and which are contrasting. Okay, so let’s say you choose red-violet as your first color. Where do you go from there?

Colors next to one another are not complementary. If you were to choose red and violet, the two colors next to red-violet you’d be selecting a bland color scheme. The most complementary colors are listed opposite of each other on the wheel, so the color that will really make red-violet pop on the page is yellow-green, while yellow and green (the two colors on each side of yellow-green) are also complementary to red-violet.

Source: Cornell University

The color wheel is a basic tool that should always be consulted when pairing graphics on a new or existing site. You are making a terrible design error if you think color coordination and schemes do not apply to graphics on a web page. You can avoid this by brainstorming the purpose of your website, listing suitable and unsuitable colors, and then making sure that any new images added complement your existing website by consulting the color wheel.

Have a colorful day!

Let’s all take a moment to look at our walls. Walls in our office, hallway, bedroom, kitchen, family room, heck even the laundry room. Aside from the occasional light switch plate, are your walls pretty much bare? The sad fact is that many walls go neglected because wall art is either expensive, so inexpensive it looks cheap, or simply not the right design for the homeowner. Stop the wall abuse! Stop walking around your home or office like a drone because you have no art to liven things up! With the abundance of free and inexpensive web graphics you can now create your own wall art that looks like it cost a pretty penny. Start an art revolution in your home and free your walls from their boredom.
Artwork is not just for the discriminating collector, enthused investor or crafty creator, it is also for the freelancer who works at home and is sick of bare walls, the half-drunk college student who needs posters to cover damage to apartment walls, and anyone who simply wants more color and interest in a room.

So, what are we talking about here? Are you suggesting you print out some clip art on your laser printer and tack one up on every wall? Interesting, but no. You must think “clip art” and beyond, seek out art prints, posters, paintings, images of framed prints abstract, impressionist, children’s art, figures, sketches, landscapes, photographs, art deco, old ads, old record albums, movie posters, pop art, vintage maps, seascapes, vintage, modern, still life, and classical images-just to name a few. If you can find copyright-free or royalty-free images, then you can use those images to create art for your walls.
The copyright on many vintage art prints has expired, which means if you find an image online (try a google.com image search) on a domain free of copyright restriction you can use that image. It is important to know that while the classic painting may no longer be protected by copyright, the digital image of the picture may be. Be sure to check with the website owner for permission if you have doubts. Libraries, museums, and art organizations are a good place to start. To give you an example of what you might find, the original WPA (Works Progress Administration) posters that were commissioned from 1936-1940 are a great way to decorate and most of the images are available online for free. You can easily download these bold, graphically hypnotizing images, email them to the local copy store, and create an instant poster. These posters are interesting enough and don’t need fancy frames. A $7 clear poster frame will do just fine. Reproductions of these prints sell for $30 to $200! And the originals? Forget-about-it!

Old Prints

Old books have old prints and decorative block text. Old children’s books have old children’s prints. Old historical books have old maps, See were we are going? Many books– images and all–are online for public use. If you find one without copyright restriction by the site owner, you can download images of maps, decorative borders, pictures and prints. You can create framed prints, posters, or use vintage designs as borders in a room. A huge design trend (as seen in all the decorating magazines and even Crate and Barrel’s catalog) is to frame portraits of varying sizes from old books. The originals are etchings from old books (1800-1825), usually of the monarchy or aristocracy. You don’t even have to download these images, just print them out on beige paper to give it an aged look. Go to garage sales, flea markets, thrift and dollar stores and buy wood frames in varying sizes to match your prints. Paint the frames the same color (such as brown or black) and add your new “aged” pictures. Group them on your wall over a bed or dresser. Expensive look-low cost. You can take this grouping concept, and use old prints of animals, pictures from old children’s books, images of vintage playing cards, covers of old books, you name it!

Vinyl Wall Decorations

Use simple images cut from vinyl to make wall decorations, which can then be perfectly integrated into your interior like painted art, and they’re removable. The picture to the right is an example of vinyl clipart intergrated into the interior design. Imagine how much it would of cost to have a professional artist paint this image on your wall. The cost involved when using vinyl would be about $20 for the decoration and you can apply it yourself or hire a professional. Either way it would be allot cheaper then having to hire a professional painter. See some fantastic samples from vinyl wall art.

Now for the grand finale: turning an online image into a work of art on canvas. This can be done easily and inexpensively. Find your desired image and then go to the local art or craft store and buy a canvas of the same size. You will also need some spray adhesive and acrylic gel. These items are very inexpensive. The first step is to lightly spray the adhesive on the back of the printed image and attach it to the canvas. If you need to realign the picture, gently peel the paper up and reattach. Next, use a soft brush to gently cover the image with the acrylic gel. This will add a polish to the image that makes it seem painted on the canvas. You can also create those lumps and bumps we often see on oil paintings. When the gel dries you can frame and hang your new picture!
Will you ever look at web graphics and clip art the same way now that you know how to use them offline? Use these ideas not only to decorate your home or office, but to redecorate inexpensively and often! You can even create gifts, or create a new business doing this for other people.

Have a creative day!

Robert Gillen

http://www.graphicsfactory.com