I spent some time today, adding my design service (Graphic Design by Karlyn) to Thumbnail. Thumbnail provides a pretty cool, free service to people and businesses that want to promote the services they offer online. If have not yet connected your business or service to Thumbnail, consider getting your free account started today by clicking my referral link. I earn a few extra thumbnail points if you use my link, so thanks!

At Thumbnail, I promote my design site – karlyns.com – which was also in need of some updated information, so I tended to that. I am pleased with the new changes I made on my purchase page that include pricing changes (needed for some time now!) and more details in the descriptions of design choices and the actual design services I provide. See image..

What I do is Logo design, web banners, buttons, eBook design, animated designs, and no additional charge for high quality print design work, flyers, etc. I’ve been designing since 2000 and offer quick response and high-quality results. I welcome brand-new clients, so please visit www.Karlyns.com for your graphic designs needs. I look forward to designing for you!

Please “Like” if you enjoy, thanks.

And many thanks to the talented ShortFilmsMV for creating this video for me! Please check out her work.

I know, I’ve posted about JL’s ecard site before.. a couple of times in fact. It’s simply a favorite of mine, what can I say?

Every time I visit Jacquie Lawson’s site greetings site at jacquielawson.com, I am filled with gratitude and admiration for the amazing display of designs. I don’t know how she does it, but she sure does wonderful work.

I was just browsing the new Mother’s Day cards she added to her already hefty assortment of ecard designs and picked one out to send to my mommy friends on Facebook. Not only can I choose a beautiful animated card (screen-clip above), but it takes just a few moments to post on my favorite social network. Is that not the coolest?

Seriously though, if you enjoy stylish, fun, animated e-greetings of the highest caliber, you should check out JL’s design at JacquieLawson.com. I’m not affiliated with the site in any way other than just being a happy member. If you join though and are happy with your membership (which I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be), feel free to add me to your e-card greeting list: fromkarlyn@gmail.com.
Have fun sending ?

I love my name and am indeed celebrating it. I hope you are celebrating yours too!

Since 2004, I have been meeting (virtually) many other people with the name Karlyn and have been introducing them through my “Calling All Karlyns” page. It’s so much fun meeting other people with my same unique name. They come from all over the world, most are female and have all sorts of careers. It’s been really interesting to me, to learn how they got their Karlyn name. I have found, through the years, that a lot of my fellow karlyns got their name as a derivative of a similar name – like Karl or Carlin. I have an aunt named Carolyn, but my mother told me she saw the unique spelling of the name Karlyn in a newspaper one day and knew it was the name for me.

Where did you get your name from (besides your parents)?
Have you ever researched the background or meaning of your name?
Check out behindthename.com for help with that.

I’ve seen a couple of different “meanings” for the name Karlyn. From Man to Womanly, Little to Beautiful. I’m sure the reason for these varieties is simply based on whatever original name derivative that particular article chose to follow.. I don’t put a whole lot of stock into name meanings anyway. It’s just fun to look them up some times. Some names, as you know, go way way back. How far back does your name go?

So, take a moment to celebrate your name! Design art of your name at Wordle.net and add it to the Wordle gallery like I did. And though it’s fun to look up name meanings and history of names online, remember…

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet..

..by William Shakespeare from his play Romeo and Juliet, meant to say that the names do not matter.. it’s what you are that matters.

.. what that means is…  Despite it looking a little quiet around here, I’ve actually been quite busy – especially since the start of this new year. I have been designing, editing, blogging, blogging, editing and designing.. some of my favorite things in life!

I’ve totally redesigned the look and content (again!!) of wahmbuds.com. This time with my own custom graphic design and maybe I’ll stick with this theme design this time, who knows. Naw.. I’ll probably have something totally new by Valentines.

I was going to sell this site but changed my mind. I’m so glad I did too. I enjoy the mom content (new blogging here too) on this site and it’s been around for a while now (2004). I think all it needed was a new look. YeahMom! Can you say PINK?

I just recently started creating custom designed wordpress themes. I’m rather happy with this custom design I did for LP&P. I updated the site with new posts too.. I know it was feeling very lonely there for a while. Yes, my website have feelings – don’t yours!?

This site is easily my most posted on site.. mainly because I feel a little more liberal with it, posting more daily, life and fun stuff. It too got a new design and plenty of blogging. Also added a Good Reads widget here, great book/read tracking site.

MomsRewards.com – my oldest site (2000) saw a little bit of a face-lift with a new main image on the front page, a new design on it’s rewards blog and some new quality freebies of course. I’m happy to report it’s been seeing a lot of new visitors lately too.

I just get around to this site as often as I would really like to. Maybe this is something I can change for 2011. I did however, spend a good amount of quality time with this site just this morning, blogging about my favorite teachers blogs.

Also, worked on some custom graphic designs for a client and updated my design portfolio and paid some attention to AnotherBabyBoomer.com and Wahmiam.com with new blog posts.

It’s been a good couple of weeks at home on holiday vacation being able to get these updates done. I did manage to get up from my desk once in a while and eat, sleep, visit the gym, visit relatives and enjoy some quality family time playing many many rounds of Scene It too.

Wishing you a happy and fulfilling new year 2011 too!

Not sure what to do with the tons of digital photos laying around in your virtual shoebox? Try www.photovisi.com, a website where you can create collage completely online without installing any software. They’ve tried to keep the process as simple as possible:

1) Choose you collage design
2) Add your photos
3) Re-arrange items by dragging, resizing & cropping
4) Save the final image for download in one of the available resolutions.

Photovisi offers an assorted choice among a set of pre-defined collage designs, with new ones added every week. The service also features an option to add photos directly from an attached webcam or photo camera by using the tool’s auto-shutter function. This allows you to fill a collage with 30 pictures in under 60 seconds, by using live photographs! Want to try it out yourself? Visit http://www.photovisi.com to start!

I was recently accepted as a writer for the Examiner and would love for you to check out my articles. I am the Riverside web and graphic design Examiner for the Gadgets and Tech category of Examiner.com. Stop by and subscribe, will you? Then you’ll get notified when I post new content there.

I will also post new article notifications on the FB page I created specifically for this new job of mine. Visit here. Consider becoming a fan there as well. I really appreciate your support – Thank you!

So, after getting my mini all made up, I decided I wanted to display it on my blog. Then I thought it would be nice to add some bling to it.. you know, badge bling. So, I edited the mini graphic to display some of my favorite pogo badge icons and buttons. I realized this makes for a nice pogo-related signature as well. I added it to my profiles at MyPogoSpot and at PogoAddicton. That brings me here, where I’m posting on my blog and offering something to you.

If you have a blog, website or pogo-fan profile where you might like to display some bling’d-up pogo mini and pogo badge art too, then let me know. I love design and I would be happy to put this together for you with your own mini and badge content. All you have to do is leave your comment below or email me if you prefer. You can speed things up by providing your username, as I will have to view your pogo profile to get your mini and badge icons. Give me a few days and I will email it to you.

Here are a few I’ve done for myself and others so far.. Just click to view. Happy Gaming!!

This program is available free for private and educational use and I’m seriously considering getting this added to our computer lab at school. I think this would be a great addition to my design curriculum for next year. My students really enjoy the filter effects they have access to on the design programs we currently use (artweaver, paint.net), but PhotoFiltre comes with way more options, right out of the box, including masks, a great variety of filter effects, and even automated batch image operations – very nice!

For commercial use, you will need to register and pay a modest amount. Well worth it if you ask me. Check this program out at photofiltre.com.

Site Re-Designs..

I spent some time this last week on a couple of re-designs. If you click on the images here, you will be brought to the website, where you can see the new design as it is meant to be seen.

First up, was WahmBuds.com. This old site of mine has been around since 2005.. not my oldest site, but still.. over the last few years, it’s seen it’s share of design changes. This most recent decision to re-design was actually forced upon me as the site had some database casualties in my recent web-hosting move. But no tears shed here. I like the occasional challenge.. especially when it involves design. I went out there this time and had the idea of going nostalgic. I just went with the idea and kept an open mind to see where it brought me. I ended up being quite happy with the final design and felt that it represents women of all ages and background in their quest to find quality work at home, quality time with family and a good balance between the two.

Next up, was my BabyBoomerDivas.com site. I was simply tired of the old design.. two years with the same colors is one year too many in my opinion. So, I indulged myself and re-designed this site based on my mood of the day, which was fun, light and full of bold purples and burgundies. Some times, you just have to see where things take you, you know? Most often than not, I’m happy with the results when I give myself time to do just that. I like the bold colors and fun feel. Do you?

You know what would be great? If you could visit these sites and then come back here and let me know what you think. I truly do appreciate feedback. I think these sites feel pretty, what do you say? :)
Hope to hear from you..