A while back, I told my readers about Picnik — an online photo editing site. In 2010, Google bought the company. Alas, as of April 19, 2012, the Picnik is over. It is gone –  never to return.

So what’s a person to do who wants simple photo editing tools but doesn’t want to pay an arm and a leg and give up their first born to purchase Photoshop?

Ah! I’ve just recently stumbled across a fabulous answer that I want to share here. Get Paint.

Paint is a free software (for Windows based machines) that started out as an undergraduate design project for college seniors who were mentored by Microsoft. It was originally meant to replace Microsoft Paint that comes with Windows. It has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editing tool. It is a much, much, much, much, much better program than the one that comes with a Windows machine!

It has some fun effects.  I’ve taken a photo of  my sweetest new grandson and applied ink, oil, pencil, emboss, and soften effects. Take a look. (The original  photo is the top left one.)

I have found a plugin that allows you to do fun things with text. Like this. (Be sure to click on the image below so you can see it in a bigger size.)

If you have a granchild that wants Photoshop but can’t afford it, this is a fabulous alternative. Tell your grandchild to go here to download Paint.

Go here to download the dpyplugin6.1 zip file that does cool things with text. (It does more but the text was the main reason I installed the plugin. When you unzip the file, put the plugin contents in the Effects folder. The Effect folder will be on your C drive, then Program files, then the Paint.NET folder.)

Grandma,  you might  have to stretch your technology muscles and get out of your techno-comfort zone when you install this software. But that’s okay. Leaning new technology is always good. (If all else fails, one of your grandkids could get it up and running for you.)

You’ll have loads of fun playing around with this program. And that’s a guarantee.

Okay, all of you iPhone totin’ grandmothers!  Whip out your iPhone, connect to the App Store in iTunes and download a fun lovin’ app for your grandchildren.  And that app is iCrayonMaker.

With iCrayonMaker, your grandchildren can have loads of fun drawing on your iPhone.  They can choose from four different drawing styles: crayon, chalk, glitter, and felt marker.

To select the color that you want to draw with, tap the color of the crayon that you want. (In this picture, you’ll notice that the hot pink crayon is selected because it is slightly higher than the rest of the other crayons.)

Then you tap inside the circle and start swirling your finger around.  This will fill in the circle.  When it gets to be the color that you like, tap the Crayon Draw tab at the bottom of the screen.  This will take you to a blank screen where you can start drawing.  Now, draw away!

When you want to change the color of your crayon, tap the Crayon Marker at the bottom of the screen to go back to your ‘box’ of crayons.

There is an undo feature that lets you undo your last three strokes.  (I wish it had more undo levels . . .)  There is an erase feature that erases everything on your screen so you can have a fresh start on a different drawing.  If you want to change the style of your crayon, simply tap the Change feature.

Once your grandchild has finished her drawing, you can send the picture to Facebook.  (How cool is that?)  You can e-mail it to someone through e-mail — like grandpa or your grandchild’s mother or father or sibling.

You can also save it to your phone’s camera roll.

The only drawback (to me) is that it doesn’t change orientation when I rotate my phone. I would like a horizontal screen.  Having this capability would give a wider screen to draw on.  (Maybe my fat fingers just need to go on a diet.  Hmmm, maybe?)

Here are two of my fabulous artistic renderings.  Watch out Rembrandt.  Here I come!

This fun little application will keep grandchildren — and grandma — happily and busily occupied for quite some time.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Grandma Robin e-mailed me with a conundrum.  (We pause here for a vocabulary lesson.  Conundrum is pronounced kuh – nuhn – drum. It means a riddle, something puzzling, a mystery, a problem.  There.  You’ve had your vocabulary building for the day.)

Grandma Robin’s conundrum was how to use Skype effectively with her 16-month old granddaughter who lives in Philadelphia while she (that’s Grandma Robin) lives in California.  (Drat it!  Don’t we just simply hate it when our grandchildren live so far away??)

I shared some ideas with her that I want to share here with you.  I’m even going to throw in a couple more for good measure.  Kind of like a baker’s dozen — only this isn’t baking and I don’t have a dozen ideas. . .

Before I share my ideas, I want you to keep this rule of thumb in mind: the length of a child’s attention span is one minute for every year that the child is old.  So, if the child is four years old, the child will generally have a 4 minute attention span.

Knowing this will help you adjust your expectations on how long you can expect your grandchild to pay attention and be involved in a Skype conversation with you.  Knowing this, you won’t be disappointed (hopefully) when you want to keep interacting but your grandchild would rather get down and go play somewhere else.

So, here are some Skyping ideas that you could do with 16-month old grandchildren.

1.  Before your Skype call, collect a few pictures from magazines or newspaper ads (a cat, dog, doll).  Hold the pictures up one at a time.  Make a comment about a feature such as the color of hair or what the dog is doing in the picture.

2.  Say a nursery rhyme incorporating appropriate actions.  See if your grandchild can do the actions with you.  If you have a book of nursery rhymes with pictures, show her the picture that goes with the rhyme.

3.  Sing a little song like the Eensy Weensy Spider or Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  Have her do the actions along with you. Here are some more examples of songs that you can learn and sing with your grandchildren.

4. Ask her to point to her eyes, her ears, etc.  Or, you could have her point to “your” eyes, etc., which means she would touch the computer screen to indicate where your eyes are.

5. Before you Skype, ask her parents to have her favorite toy nearby.  Then, ask her to show you her toy.  Ask her a question or two or make some comments about the toy.

6.  Ask her what sounds different animals make such as ‘What does a cow say?’

7.  Have some alphabet blocks nearby.  Hold up a block and tell her which letter it is.  See if she can repeat the letter after you say it.  Also, see if she can spell her name as you spell it out loud with her.

8. Read her a very short picture book.  Point out items in the pictures for her to look at.

9.  Have her draw a picture (while you are watching) and show you what she has done.  Comment on the beautiful colors she uses and how artistic she is.

10. Have a finger puppet and have it ‘talk’ and ‘play’ with your grandchild.

11.  Have a bottle of bubbles and blow bubbles for her while she watches.  She may get frustrated and want to do it herself so maybe her parents can have a bottle on hand for her to use.  Then, the two of you could blow bubbles together.  See who can blow the biggest bubble.

12.  Play peek-a-boo where you go ‘off screen’ then come back on.  Play peek-a-boo with the finger puppet or some other item.

13.  Have her create something out of Play Dough while you watch.

14.  Touch your finger on your computer screen and move it around.  Ask her to see if she can follow your finger with her finger on her computer screen.

15. Have her show you how she can play catch with a parent.

16. When she gets older, play Candyland.  She will roll the dice and move the marker for both of you.

17. If you are really adventurous, put on some music and dance.  (You can’t be self conscious to do this activity!)

Well, lookee there.  I didn’t think I would have twelve ideas and I’ve ended up with 17.  Remarkable!

Remember, keep it short.  If your grandchild doesn’t seem to be interested in what you are doing, change and do something else — even be willing to end the conversation.  Good luck!

What Skyping activities do you do with your grandchildren?

My children think I’m a geek.  When compared to my friends and peers of the female persuasion, I have to admit that yes, indeedy, I am rather geekish.  So, what’s a body to do when she comes across a site that converts pictures into ASCII code? Why, give it a whirl, of course!

Take a look.  What do you think?  I think the ASCII code pictures are rather charming, if I do say so myself!

Isn’t this totally cool? It’s amazing how you can recognize the picture even though it is programming code instead of picture pixels.

(This is so radical I think that the next time I wake up at 2:00 a.m. and can’t go back to sleep, I’ll ponder how this all works. I might even wake up Grandpa to have an in-depth conversation about it. What do you say about that, Grandpa?  Huh?  What’s that?  You know, if you’d stop grumbling in your beard, I’d be able to understand you better . . .)

You don’t have to be a tech whizzard to do this.  You don’t need to be moderately geeky.  (Is there any such thing as moderately geeky, I ask you?)  If you are reading this, you have ample technology skill to create some ASCII pictures yourself.  (See, a website does all of the work for you.)

Photo2Text.com is where you go to create these types of pictures.  You simple browse to the picture you want to upload and click submit. You’ll need to enter in a nickname.  (You’ll see why in a moment.)

Then, you have the option of downloading a text file that can be opened in TextEdit on a Mac or Notepad on a Windows machine.  You’ll also have the URL that you can share with others to see what you have created.  (The URL has your personal nickname that you selected — so that people will see YOUR picture and not somebody else’s.)

Here are a couple of ways how you can use this idea with your grandchildren:

• Invite your grandchild over.  Take some simple pictures of the two of you to submit.  Print out the picture from TextEdit or Notepade.
• Have your grandchild bring a couple of digital pictures (of their family, friends, their pet) to turn into ASCII code.  Print up and give to friends or family members.
• Make a photo album of several ASCII pictures.
• Do a ‘through the years’ photo album of your grandchild using their school pictures turned into ASCII pictures.
• Get a mat board that has cut-outs for two pictures and frame a copy of the original photo and the ASCII code.  Or, do a collage of your grandchild using original pictures of family members or  cousins or friends and the ASCII photos.
• YOU create the ASCII picture and then e-mail or snail mail it to your grandchild.
• If your grandchildren live far away, e-mail them the URL.  Then, have them e-mail you a copy of the pictures that they create.
• Turn pictures of you and grandpa into ASCII code and snail mail them to your grandchildren.  Whether or not they live close by or far away, getting a letter in the mail with one of these pictures would be great fun for your grandchildren.

A while back, I received an e-mail from another grandma who suggested that I put my picture on my site.  That was a great suggestion!  So, here’s a picture of me holding sweet Kaylissa on the day that she was born.  Don’t we look lovely?