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[Silver]

First, I have to get my computer back up and running... I am limping along on my son's machine but I will have mine back in the race in a few weeks...
But! When I do I have an offer to make:

If someone wants to digitize something themselves, for personal use not pro-digitizing, but does not have a decent line image to work with, I have zillions... well, maybe not that many, but tons of line art, especially animals and birds, like coloring page type images that I have collected over the years. You would want to use a basic program like MS Paint to clean up stray pixels, close line areas and add color before digitizing them or even convert them to a different format or vector image (some are bmp-s some are gif-s...I don' have time to convert them all) depending on what types of images you need. Your final product would depend on YOUR level of finishing detail. Most of it is very easy to do, some images are much 'cleaner' than others.

They would be non-restricted, royalty free clip art I found posted on various websites. If you were try to re-sell these clip-art or coloring page images you would probably be in trouble with someone somewhere so we don't want to go there! I am usually very careful to check that the person who posted them originally made a point to say that using them any 'non-commercial' way you want was okay. None of them would be associated with any commercial business or professionally done logos. I do have pics of cartoons characters, but that area of legality may be a bit 'gray' and I would rather not go there. I can probably give you links to them but I will not post those types of images. The only site I have seen with nice 'original' coloring page image restrictions is a site that has all sorts of horse images and art. That lady just asks that you let her know before you post an image anywhere. Her stuff is great but in that case I would just provide her web site's link.

I just have met so many people that have embroidery machines that don't do any digitizing even though they often paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for software when they bought their machine. I want people to know they do have the ability to create basic designs themselves and even if you buy the majority of your designs (I buy my fair share!) it is fun to do the work yourself sometimes and feel that kind of pride in your final product. It also makes you appreciate the really great designs people sell like the digitizers in this group do.

This is a great art form. You don't have to be a great artist to create some basic designs tho. Heck, the first art I digitized was the 'beautiful' art work my kids did for me and their grandma when they weren't even in school yet!

So if you can be patient I may have something you can use. It will be a good excuse to have all this digital 'clutter' of data I have on my computer if nothing else!

always
Silver

[Stacylynn]

silver
i'd love to have the link to the horse page! also, got any pandas? my daughter loves them and needs to do a school report on them, so just having some clipart for her to color would be great, hmmnn i wonder if i could stitch one out on her backpack....
stacylynn

[Silver]

Most pages do have have a 'click to print' option.
I prefer to use another method as follows. (Assuming you are running Windows)

Right click image; select 'View Image'. That gives you just the image. If it is the right size go to 'File' and 'Print' or 'Print Preview' ...if not then instead 'Select All' the image will look blue, 'Copy' it and then open 'Paint' and 'Paste' it and adjust size with 'Stretch / Skew' however you want or add colors if you need it that way then 'Print'.

Beautiful horses, unicorns etc:

http://www.awhitehorse.com/centaur/
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Animals..'P' panda and paint horses

http://www.edupics.com/en-coloring-pictures-pages-photo-panda-bear-i5988.html

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/p.shtml

The site above here and below also make statements that you cannot sell, post online or redistribute images so be aware of that limitation. If you have your own web page don't post them there without permission.

http://www.freeprintablecoloringpages.net/showcover/Other_Animals/Sitting_Panda/
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The sites that ask you to download make me a bit 'nervous' because of all the cookies that they might add to your computer (unless you have them blocked) so I just use the 'click to view' and 'copy paste' into Paint and avoid any of that... you know the old saying...no such thing as a free lunch... most pages are about advertising stuff so keep in mind it may not be a place where you want your kids, if they are young, to start clicking about unsupervised... nothing bad, just lots of junk ads and banners.
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have fun!
Silver

[Stacylynn]

thanks silver, my daughtr loved the panda, i had the horse site once, lost it during it during a crash, and that enchanted learning looks like a great site.
stacylynn

[marji]

Hi, Silver,
I'm always looking for cats. Cartoon, realistic, whatever. I've done some pretty awesome digitizing for myself, but it would be nice to have royalty free kitties. If the 'Hello Kitty' police ever see me in my nightshirt, I'm sure to be arrested .
Thanks,
Marji

[Silver]

I will look and see what I have in the way of kitty art and links to the same.
I did find the cutest free kitty design not too long ago. You probably have to sign up for their newsletter but it is not like some groups/sites from over-seas (no offense intended!) that send you tons of 'junk' mail every day lol. You can always sign up, look around and get the designs you like and then if they get pesty remove yourself from their mailing list.

I want to make a suggestion for sites that have free clip art or coloring pages... Instead of using their 'download' features on these pages just get to the full size image (you just click on it usually), then right click on the image and click on 'View Image'.

Then right click on the image and 'Save As' and save it in a folder for those types of files on your desktop (I always scan these files with AVG or another anti-spyware program...( go ahead...call me paranoid)
OR
'Copy Image' then paste it in Paint or a similar program then print or save. I have found that I get less 'junk' like hitbox and adaware or tracking cookies etc. this way... Nothing is foolproof tho and as my Dad always said...'There is no such thing as a free lunch' lol. Just going to some web pages will get you unwanted cookies sometimes. That's how these people pay for their web sites I guess. Usually nothing more ~threatening~ than that comes through tho.

Cute!!! Free Kitty Design
http://www.embroiderthis.com/cat1.html

later!

Silver

[Silver]

This is a site for school projects. I am assuming they are on the up-and-up. They have many of pages of just cats!
http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/kids/imageFolio.cgi?direct=Clipart/Animals/Cat_Clipart

I have gone into thrift shops and bought older programs like 'Print Artist' and 'Print Masters' and such that have disks full of such free clip art. Even older programs where you do not want the program itself but the images are in odd formats can sometimes be utilized. All you have to do is 'capture' the image. Here is how you do that:
Open the image so you can see it on the screen, then using the 'CTRL' and 'Print Screen' keys together (you are then putting the image on a 'clip board'). Then when you go into MS Paint all you have to do is use 'Paste' and voile! There they are to save or print!
We have a store called 'Big Lots' (in some places it's called 'Odd Lots') that has older merchandise (new) from all sorts of stores really cheap and they get clip art disks sometimes. I have bought 4 disk sets of royalty free clip art there for well under $10.

Dover publications also sells disks of great free clip art that is wonderful to use. You can order them online or we have them at out local Barnes and Noble store.
http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-clip-art-and-design-on-cd-rom.html

Online coloring pages you can save, I have quite a few from here (I like #15):
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/cp_pets/cp_cat.htm

Have Fun!
Silver

[marji]

Hey, Silver, thanks for the kitty information!!

Yes, I don't download either, "save picture as" works just fine, the less cookies the better, for my computer and my hips, LOL! I do manual digitizing, so I just need the outlines, doesn't matter if the artwork is fuzzy or whatever.

Re: the older programs. I have found in trying to install older programs into XP that it laughs at me. I have some wonderful stuff that I ran on Windows 95 that just won't run on anything higher, and the files are saved in the program's format, not like a .jpg that my PhotoFinish program will open. You sound pretty geeky (that's a compliment ) , got any ideas? You can e-mail or PM, we don't have to bother the folks here, unless you think it would be useful information for more people to have.

Thanks bunches, friend,
Marji

[Silver]

Yep. Saying I'm a Geek is a major understatement lol. But I do confess, I am getting to be rather out of date. Of course being a geek and being married to a geek meant that we have produced several junior geeks lol.
There are several ways to still be able to access old programs or their files. If you have an in-home Geek yourself using a dual (OS) boot setup is workable. In my eyes tho having just one version of Windows on a computer is MORE than enough lol.
My son has been able to retrieve many image, sound and resource files from the most outdated programs. I will ask him the best way to proceed. I usually start by 'exploring' program files (NOT loading the program!) one file folder at a time. I have been able to retrieve many useful files from programs that even XPs 'emulator' modes will not run.
There are also many really nice (~old~) outdated laptops/notebooks to be had pretty cheap nowadays. Unlike old desktops that people can't give away because of size, they are small and easy to store for those instances when you really need them. Ask family members and friends if they have an old 'junker' they just want rid of, look at second hand stores, auction sites, yard sales. We have picked up 2 different nice old machines for $5 each in the past year or so. As long as they run... repairing an old laptop is rarely worthwhile. The biggest failing is they usually have dead batteries that are too expensive to replace but they will usually still run on their AC power supplies! If the internal 'clock' battery is dead it will usually still work too. If the OS has failed then you will need an old Windows disk to restore it to working order. Newer versions of Windows can only be installed on one machine, Win98 and older are not like that.
My favorite digitizer was originally for Win95/98... I have kept it running despite having newer programs because I love it so much. It just took a bit of ingenuity to do so.
btw If you think XP can be an old geeks embroiderers nightmare wait until you try the 64 bit version of Vista...

Silver

[FiddlinGirls]

Hello, I would like to find the clipart company used for the realistic horses designs. I've seen theses horses on a couple embroidery webs, so I figure there must be a clipart web with them and more.Thanks and Have a blessed day......