Yesterday on my post about Picnik, Lisa commented that she uses Picasa.  Good for her!  That’s another great technology to use.

Her comment made me think that maybe, just maybe, there are some of you grandmothers out there who don’t know about Picasa.  So, I am taking it upon myself to fill in all of you unenlightened souls and tell you about Picasa in comparison to Picnik.  Aren’t I nice?  After all, isn’t that what a digital grandmother would do?  Sure ’nuff.

As I mentioned yesterday, Picnik is a photo editing, scrapbook making online program that you use through your browser.  So if you want to edit a photo and add those scrapbooking type of elements, then use Picnik.

Picasa is more of a photo management system. If you have lots of photos on your computer, Picasa is a great way to organize and view them.  It does provide you with basic editing options such as cropping, eliminating red eyes, adding a soft focus or sepia tone, retouching blemishes, or adding text — to mention just a few.  But nothing cutesy.

Picasa reminds me a lot of iPhoto in that you can add geotags or name tags or other personally determined tags to photos. You can also put photos in web albums.  An, you can create collaborative albums where you can directly upload pictures to a friend’s album.

You can also create a Quicktime movie from selected photos.  You can’t fine tune your movie like you can in iMovie on a Mac.  Rats!  However, I think that I like Picasa for creating movies better than MovieMaker on Windows.

Here’s a little movie that I created in Picasa to show you what the end product would look like.  It’s 4MB and might take a moment to show up down below.  (Please disregard that there are two of the same picture.  A little technology gremlin sneaked the extra one in when I wasn’t looking.)

Since Picasa and Picnik have different purposes and both are free, I highly recommend that you take a look at both of them.  They can sure make your digital photo life easier — and more fun1

I thought that I would share a fun site with all of you grandmothers out there who have set a New Year’s resolution to increase your technological skills. (You HAVE set a goal to improve your tech skills, now haven’t you?)  This site is a great one for grandmas — it will help us as we brag about our darling grandchildren.  The site is Picnik.com.

Picnik is an online photo editing program that you use in your browser.  You can fix red eyes, crop, rotate, sharpen,  and fix exposure and colors.  It’s like Photoshop — only cheaper.  As in free (with a catch that I’ll mention in a moment).  There are fun fonts, shapes, frames, effects, and stickers that you can add to your photos.

You can create scrapbook pages that you can print on your own printer or with their printing services.  You can have your creation printed on a mug, postcards, regular cards, calendars, a poster, and even wrapping paper.  Yes, wrapping paper!  I can see it now — a grandchild’s picture on the wrapping paper used to wrap his birthday present.  How fun is that?  You can even send it to Flickr or Facebook (which works slick as a whistle).

Here are a couple of pages I created.  (Be sure to click on them so you can see them in their full sized glory.)

Aren’t they the cutest kiddos ever?

Print up pictures for your wallet, your office, your fridge, to hang on your walls, to pass out to the random man on the street (who, I’m sure, would be absolutely thrilled to get a picture of your grandchildren).

Wouldn’t it be fun to print some of your pictures as postcards then send them to your grandchildren?  I think they would enjoy getting a postcard from grandma with their picture on it — especially if grandma lived far away or was traveling to tropical climes (like I will hopefully be in a few weeks) and sent a postcard during her travels.

So what are you waiting for?  Skedaddle on over there this very minute and have yourself a look see.

Oh, whoops.  Come on back here.  I forgot to talk about this free business.  Ever heard of the saying ‘Nothing in life is free’?  Well, that is only partially true.  Picnik is free.  But, if you fall head over heels in love with it and you want more options, you gotta pay.  Which, I guess, is only fair.  You can pay $4.95 a month, $19.95 for six months or $24.95 for a year.   (You can see that paying for a year is much, much cheaper than by the month.  And I’m all about being cheap.  Just ask my kids . . .)

So there you go.   NOW, you can head over to Picnik.com.  With my blessing.

So many clever grandmothers out there!  And Gramma Kathy is one of them.

She commented on my Pillow Pal post (lovely alliteration there, eh?) and mentioned the mailboxes that she made for her grandchildren.  Intrigued, I scurried over to her site and was absolutely delighted!   Since I think her idea is a ‘must see’, I’m linking to it from here (with her blessing, of course).

She found darling little mailboxes at Target that she decorated with fun stickers.  She also put her granddaughter’s names on the boxes.  When the granddaughters come for a visit, they can check their mailbox.  If the flag is up, they have mail. (Grandma’s ‘mail’ were bracelets, socs, stampers, and necklaces.  It could even be candies or coupons for activities to do with grandma.)

Isn’t that the greatest idea ever?  She also has a wonderful idea of how to handle mail items that are too big to fit into the mailbox.  Read all about it on her Sealed With a Kiss.

So, for all of you organized grandmothers out there that are prepared for holidays weeks in advance, here is something that you can do for Valentine’s Day for your grandchildren.

Do your grandchildren love stuffed animals?  If so, here’s a fun idea of a little something that you could make and give to a grandchild.

Now, I’m assuming that you can sew a simple straight line.  Nothing fancy.  Just plain straight stitching.  Can you do that?  Good.

The idea is to sew a pocket on a pillowcase where a small stuffed animal can ‘sleep’ while your grandchild sleeps.

Get a pillowcase and sew some matching material on the open end to extend it in length.  On the extension, sew on a pocket in a contrasting fabric pattern that is big enough to hold a small stuffed animal.

Here’s a picture to show you what the finished pillowcase will look like.

You can give the stuffed animal and pillowcase to a grandchild as a birthday present, a Christmas present, a Buzzard’s Day present (yes, folks, that’s a real holiday — on March 15), or a just-because-I-love-you present.

If your grandchild is old enough (I’d say around eight years old or so), you could spend time together picking out material and sewing the pillowcase pocket.

Then, you can have a sleepover party with your grandchild, her pocket pal, you, and Grandpa — as long as Grandpa doesn’t snore too bad!