So what has Antique Mommy been doing for the past month and a half you ask? I have cleaned out my garage so that I can now walk in it and not trip over anything or have something fall on me. I can even set something down. This makes me very VERY happy. I am the anti-hoarder and orderliness gives me a thrill. And I’ve been playing with my camera and Photoshop and just generally goofing off and enjoying having the windows open and watching the grass turn green. There now, doesn’t your life seem more exciting just by comparison? You’re welcome.

But enough about my clean garage and neat freak tendencies. I am here today to tell you about Fotolia, a photo stock company. They contacted me a while back and offered me some some free photo stock and asked me if I’d tell you about them and I said yes because I have been a Fotolia fan for a couple of years. And I like free stuff.  Don’t ask me how to pronounce it though because I do not know.  Is it “fo-toll-ya” or “foto-lee-ya”?

Why would you use stock images you might ask. Well I use them on my blog from time to time. Sometimes a picture punctuates the story nicely. Any given post might not be worth a 1000 words, but a picture is.  I also have a company that makes photo montage presentations for businesses and people and sometimes I need an image to thread the story together, an image that I can’t get myself. A lot of what I do with Fotolia stock images is make digital art. But you can also make invitations, Christmas cards and scrapbooky type stuff.  In fact my blog background which I have had for the past five years is from Fotolia.

So, here’s some stuff I’ve done with my Fotolia images recently.

I call this Waiting for Miss Riding Hood.  It was made in Photoshop using a Fotolia stock image of a wolf (all three wolves are the same) and a Fotolia stock illustration of trees along with some stock textures. I thought it was very cool and put it on my Facebook page, but no one “liked” it.  Not even my mother.

This is a Fotolia stock graphic into which I inserted Sean’s pictures.

Below, I used a Fotolia stock graphic of a blank book and put Sean’s picture on the right and the text on the left.

So there you have it. If you are in need of reasonably priced stock images, check out Fotolia today!

By ‘The Artist Currently Known As Sean’

In this composition, the artist addresses the tension of post-modern life. Here, he uses loose strokes to invoke a sense of chaotic energy that falsely reads as a peaceful night sky, perhaps a reference to the uncertain economic conditions that are the backdrop to everyday life.

The artist creates a sense of orderliness out of the chaos by containing it in fractionalized spaces which likely symbolizes the sort of compartmentalization of life spaces – dark and light, public and private, internal and external, on-line and off-line. The deliberate use of green in places to depict the night is no doubt a nod to Remington. The brightly lit harvest moon refers to a distant hope, perhaps a statement of faith or perhaps a reference to the fall elections.

The loosely interconnectedness of the vines talk about the condition of modern man and the effect of the internet and modern technology on the human condition; connected at all times but ultimately small and alone, as represented by the mouse which appears to be sliding off the pumpkin.

Washable Markers on Notebook Paper (2010)
Currently on display on his mother’s refrigerator
Available for purchase

Earlier in the year, Scrapblog contacted me to do a product review. Heretofore, I had not been much of a scrapbooker, had never ventured into the world of digi-scrapping, although as one who loves photography and the like, it did hold a certain appeal. But, sort of like knitting, I thought it was one of those things I wanted to do but figured I’d never get around to doing.  Nonetheless, I checked out Scrapblog and really liked them. A lot. And now I’d like to work for them but they only pay in stickers.

Soon thereafter, I somehow ended up being in charge of the Kindergarten memory book for Sean’s class and I investigated a lot of different ways to get that done. What I found was that Scrapblog was hands down the easiest and least expensive way to accomplish that task. But more than that, they offered me 1000 times more creative horsepower than anyone else. All the stickers and backgrounds and stuff I used in that sweet little book was free. Free! My only cost was the printing which is on par with all other sources who do this kind of thing. All the moms were really happy with the book and I wish I could show you how cute it turned out, to show you some of the cool tricks I learned.

So then, here are the top 10 things I like about Scrapblog and I think you will too:

1. I don’t have to buy a program – it’s all on-line.
2. I don’t have to download a resource intensive program to crunk up my computer – it’s all on-line.
3. I don’t have to buy paper and other stuff that would occupy space in my house – it’s all on-line. (Bonus: I don’t have to go to a scrapbook store which overwhelms me.)
4. I can move stickers around and change backgrounds to my heart’s content – it’s all on-line.
5. I can work anywhere I have an internet connection because – you guessed – it’s all on-line.
6. Lots and lots of free stuff!
7. I can have my scrapbooks printed or just share on-line (you can set your Scrapblogs to private or invitation only).
8. I can earn points in their marketplace to buy stickers and backgrounds just by buying from some of their partners, whom I buy from already anyway.
9. They offer lots of printing options from books to note cards, all the standard stuff.
10. It’s just plain fun.

If you want to see a Scrapblog I made recently (using all free stuff) to sort of recap Sean’s first six years, you can see it here (I recommend full screen view so you can control the speed).