Hello Everyone!   I hope you’ve enjoyed the par-tay!   I know I have!   I just checked the stats and so far, we’ve had 1,772 people join our party this week.   Woo hoo!   Now that’s a par-tay!!!   Be sure to sign up to follow my blog via Feedburner so you don’t miss anything!   I have lots more stuff planned now that I know there is so much interest.   I need feedback from my readers, let me know what you want!   Come on, follow me via Feedburner or leave me a comment.   I’m listening… er, I’m reading!

PARTICIPATE IN A POLL: Answer the questions at the right of this post, please.   Inquiring minds want to know!

I’ve received some wonderful comments (you know I L♥VE comments, please leave more – you could win a prize!) and I appreciate each and every one very much!   Random.org picked 5 winners from all comments posted yesterday, 3/1/12.  Our winners are Kathy Fox, Michelle Mc, Shelby P (x 2), and Kathy Fabre.   Winners, please visit my website www.SwingShiftDesigns.com and pick out a collage sheet or digital stamp set, let me know which one you want and I will be happy to email it to you.

MORE CHANCES TO WIN!!!   Everyone who leaves a comment today will be entered in a drawing for a free collage sheet or digital stamp set.   Pick up your party favor freebies below and leave a “thank you”, a “birthday wish”, or just some love and you will be entered into the contest. Five winners will be picked by random.org.   Click on the “quote bubble” to the right of the post title to post a comment or click on the reply link below my signature (after/next to the category tag).

Now, for the Fabulous Friday Fifth Birthday Favor Freebies.   Click on each pic for a high quality 300ppi full size version and then save it to your computer.   Please credit SwingShiftDesigns.com if you use the image in your artwork, the images are copyrighted ~ all rights reserved. If you need more info, please visit our TOU & FAQ page on our website at www.SwingShiftDesigns.com.

For today, I thought I would mix it up and give you a variety of some of my favorites.   Since we are five years old this week, I am sharing five graphic ~ plus one to grow on.   Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by and remember, the “earth” without “art” would just be “eh”!

NOTE: I am sorry this post is so late today! You’ll see why below.

Hello friends!   Thank you so much for the comments!   ♥ I feel the love and I love it! ♥
The party is still going strong!   I have five more winners from yesterday’s (2/29) comments drawing: Marian S, Jodi, Annette L, Sally, and Eunice C.   Pick any collage sheet or digi stamp set from my shop: www.SwingShiftDesigns.com and I will be more than happy to email your prize to you!   We are having drawing tomorrow with five more winners! Random.org will draw 5 more names from all comments dated today, 3/1/12 for tomorrow’s drawing.   Pick up your Birthday Party Favor Freebies below and leave a birthday wish, a thank you, or some love and you will be entered into a drawing to win a Swing Shift Designs digital collage sheet or digi stamp set of your choice.

Today I thought I would share a little bit about copyrights.   Some of you might be wondering how I could possibly copyright something that someone else created over 100 years ago.   Allow me to explain!   Take the graphic below for example.   It is a typical vintage graphic, most likely a label.   As is, it falls within the public domain because it was originally published before January 1, 1923.   The key words here are “as is”!   Before I started writing on it and working on the revisions below, anyone could use and sell this graphic.   It was royalty free and copyright free, because the copyright expired.

I really liked the design (I ♥ flowers), but I had no use for it as is.   I want to give you, the people that use my collage sheets, the very best quality graphics possible!   Swing Shift Designs is known for our high quality images!   (Yep, I am very proud of that!)   I want you to have the option of using it in the best possible condition or distressing it yourself they way you want it to look.   So, I went to work on it.   I fixed all the unsightly spots and missing parts of the picture.   I replaced the end of the banner that was cut off, I replaced the wheat that was cut off of the top, and I balanced out the bottom.   Then I did some color correction to really make the colors pop!   I know some people like vintage with white backgrounds and some like vintage with beige backgrounds, so I did both.   I also thought a nice blue would look pretty, so I did that too.   All the work I did on this graphic is pretty typical for a vintage image.   Imagine doing all that eight more times to come up with enough graphics to make one collage sheet!   You know why I do it?   Because I ♥LOVE♥ it! Click on each graphic below for the full size 300ppi version and save it to your computer.

So, the question remains, where does the new copyright come in?   It comes in now!   I did a lot of work on that image!!!   It took a LOOOOONG time to clean it up and make it usable, so I get to copyright it as my own.   The original is still in the public domain, but my version is now copyrighted and protected under United Stated Copyright law.   So, please, if you use any of my images and post your art online be sure to credit SwingShiftDesigns.com.   I would really appreciate it, plus it gives me the warm fuzzies!

I also want to show you the different things that you could do with a vintage image and photo/graphic design software.   As with all the images I use, I cleaned it up and fixed any damage, discoloration, etc.   I left the antique patina in the first version, but I removed it for the second version.   I made the image black and white for the third version and sepia for the fourth.   Last, but not least, I made a digital stamp for the 5th version (jpg) and sixth version (png).   Creating a digital stamp from a color image is a lot more time consuming than creating one from the line drawing graphic that I converted for yesterday’s post.   It can take several hours to make just one stamp, depending on the detail and how much has to be done “by hand”.   This image has a lot of detail, which is the reason this post is soooo late today! I think the results are worth the time!   I hope you think so as well!   Please click on each image for a high quality 300ppi full size version and then save the full size image to your computer.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post!   Thank you very much for stopping by!   Remember, the “earth” without “art” would just be “eh”!

PS: At the rate I am going, I better start tomorrow’s post now! LOL

There’s a party goin’ on right here, a celebration to last throughout the… week!   I hope everyone liked the poppy freebies from yesterday.   Thank you for the comments!   I really do appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment after you pick up your freebies!   To leave a comment, just click on the “quote bubble” icon to the right of the post title.   You can also leave a comment by using the reply link below my signature (the link is after the category links).   Every comment left this week is entered into a drawing for the day it was left.   We’ll have five winners every day, Monday through Friday!   Leave as many comments and you would like, every comment counts as an entry.

We have winners!!!   All of the comments dated for February 28th were numbered in the order in which they were posted.   I used random.org to pick five winning numbers.   The winners are Jodi, Sherry S, Beckie H, Julie I, and Michelle M!   Congratulations ladies!   I just sent you an email.   Please let me know which collage sheet or digi stamp set that you want and I will be happy to email it to you!

For today’s Birthday Party Favor Freebie I am sharing a few stamps that I created from a magazine that was published in 1891.   I loved looking through this magazine! I was thrilled when I came across an article about greeting cards.   It suddenly dawned on me that the graphics *of* the greeting cards would be perfect *for* greeting cards!   So, I scanned the pages, did some cropping, cutting, copying, pasting, adjusting, coloring, etc and made them into digital stamps!   It is not hard to make digital stamps from vintage images, it is just VERY time consuming.   Some take longer to create than others.   It all depends on the condition of the original graphic.   These were really easy!   I was lucky that the original magazine was still in pretty good shape.   Here are some pics of the scans with some notes on them to give you an idea of what I did to make these particular graphics suitable for use as focal image stamps:

Below are the Digital Stamps that I created.   They are 300ppi, in both jpg and png formats.   Click on each graphic for the full size version and then save the graphic to your computer.

Last, but not least, here are a couple of vintage postcards.   They are 300ppi, in both jpg and png formats.   Click on each graphic for the full size version and then save the graphic to your computer.

I hope you like the freebies and I hope you are enjoying our week long party!   I know I am having a blast!

Thanks for stopping by and remember, the “earth” without “art” would just be “eh”!

Hi Everyone!  We are still celebrating our birthday!   I hope everyone has found the “birthday cake” on our website, www.SwingShiftDesigns.com.   The freebie is still there if you haven’t had a chance to find it yet.   It will only be there until Friday though.   Please see our previous post if you need more details.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who left comments yesterday!   I LOVE comments!   (Can you tell? LOL)   Our lucky winners from Monday’s drawing are Debbie S, Vicki C, Cathy V, Vicki C, and Julie I.   Yep, you read that right!   Vicki C won twice!   She left more than one comment, so she received an entry for each comment and that upped her chances!   You go girl!

You can win too!   Leave us a “Birthday Wish”, a “Thank You” for the freebies, a “Hello”, or just a friendly comment in the comments section by clicking on the “quote bubble” to the right of the title of this post to be entered into a drawing for a free collage sheet or stamp set from our store, www.SwingShiftDesigns.com.   We are five years old this week, so I am picking 5 winners every day, Monday through Friday of this week.   All comments posted from 12:01am to 11:59pm for that day count as an entry.   One entry per comment, you can comment as many times as you like!

I have more party favors for you today!   I love poppies, so I chose a couple of vintage images that I have.   The first one is actually an old crate label for oranges.   I can see this on a “thinking of you” card.   What do you think?   The second graphic is from an old botany book that I made into a digital stamp, in both jpg and png versions.   I hope you enjoy them!   Click on each graphic for the full size version and then save the graphic to your computer.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some cool new freebies party favors that I am working on.   I really think they are fun and I am hoping that you will enjoy them as much as I do!

Thanks for stopping by and remember, the “earth” without “art” would just be “eh”!

I would like to take a moment to thank Suzanne @ Pennywise Arts and all my Beadie Buddies over there!   Pennywise Arts sold our first collage sheet five years ago today.   They have supported and encouraged Swing Shift Designs from day one!   I couldn’t have done it without Suzanne!   I would also like to thank my Beadie Buddies.   They have inspire me in so many ways!   They are an awesome group of women whose talent is as big as their hearts!

Now, for the party!   We are celebrating our birthday this week, Monday through Friday, right here on this blog.   As with all birthdays, we need a cake, guest book, party favors and presents!

Monday’s Celebration

Find the cake and get a present (a free collage sheet):
I’ve hidden the cake graphic below somewhere on our website, www.SwingShiftDesigns.com.   Find the cake, click on it and then save the collage sheet to your computer.   It is our gift to you!

Sign the Guest Book:
Leave us a comment or a birthday wish in the comments section below and you will be entered into a drawing for a free collage sheet of your choice!   We are five years old, so we will pick 5 winners per day, Monday through Friday!   All comments will be assigned numbers in the order they are posted and the winner will be picked by random.org.   Be sure to enter by Midnight Pacific Time. Come back tomorrow and enter again by leaving a comment on Tuesday’s post!

Party Favor:
Below are a couple of party favors for today.   Click on the pictures for the full size version and then right click and save them to your computer.




Be sure to come back tomorrow for another party favor!

Thanks for stopping by and remember, the “earth” without “art” would just be “eh” ,