Watermarking Your Blog Photos (After Publishing)

Photo watermarked after original publishing on blog

If you blog, and your blog is public to anyone on the web, you probably know that you should be watermarking your photos to offer them a bit of protection from... well... plagiarism.

But what if you've been blogging for years, and somehow watermarking just wasn't a priority?  Now you're looking at hundreds (at least) of photos that need watermarking.  It's overwhelming and altogether impractical to think of going through and editing each and every photo and re-uploading it into each post.

That has been my dilemma for quite some time, but after Picnik went away (RIP, Picnik), Google integrated some of the Picnik functionality with Picasa Web Albums, and the result is that you can edit photos that were uploaded long ago, and they'll be automatically updated on your blog (and any other blog that might be hotlinking your photos) without having to re-upload anything, if you save it correctly.  I'm going to show you how to do that.  The only downside is that there is no way to batch-edit that I am aware of- you have to pick and choose which photos are most important to watermark, and do them one at a time, a little at a time until you've finished them.

This tutorial is for bloggers who use Picasa Web Albums to host their images (i.e. instead of uploading photos from your computer straight into your blog post, the images are stored in Picasa Web Albums and embedded into the post by the URL generated by Picasa).  Also, I use Blogger, so I can't speak for how well this works on Wordpress or Typepad blogs, or for using a photo hosting site like Photobucket.  If anyone tries it with another photo hosting site or blogging platform, let me know, and I'll post those results.

On to the tutorial:

Here is a screenshot from a post I did a couple of years ago, and I had not watermarked any of the photos.  I really didn't feel like I needed to watermark each and every one, but I wanted to do the first photo, shown above, and the last photo, shown below.

First, I went into my web album where I was storing my photos for this post, and I selected this photo.

Second, I went into the "Actions" dropdown menu and clicked "Edit in Creative Kit".

Once in the creative kit, I clicked text.

In the text box at the top left I typed in my blog URL and clicked the font I wanted to use, then clicked "Add".

The text was added, and I had the opportunity to re-size it and choose the placement.  Then on the menu that pops up while the text is selected, I used the slide bar to select the amount of fade I wanted.  Depending on the colors and exposure in the picture, 40%-70% fade is the range that typically works the best.

Once the watermark is in place, click "Save to my album" in the top right corner, then when the "Confirm Photo Replace" popup comes up, you must click "Replace".  Obviously, if you haven't yet published the blog post, you could click "Save a new copy" if you wanted to preserve the original for some reason, but replacing the original is the only way to update the photo in your already- published post without re-uploading the photo and re-publishing the post.

Within a minute or two, the photo will be updated on the blog.

As I mentioned before, replacing the original photos with watermarked ones in this way will not only automatically update your own blog posts using those photos, but any other site which is hotlinking your photos (that is that they are displaying your photos by copying your photo URL and inserting it into their own post, or just straight out copying the html for your whole post... this will not work if they have copied your original photo to their own computer and uploaded it themselves) will be updated with the watermarked photos as well, hopefully regaining you some lost traffic.

I have to mention that watermarking is not the most foolproof way of protecting your photos, but it probably is the easiest and most time-efficient deterrent to photo- swiping.  I think when it comes down to it, nobody wants to be the photo/ blogging police- after all, most people are well intentioned, and/or perhaps aren't up-to-date on their blogging etiquette.  In these circumstances, sometimes the best thing is to do... nothing (except watermark your photos- ha!).  Do you agree?  Disagree?

Cleaning Tip: Air Vents

This tip will work for any vent; I used this on our air intake vent (the most shockingly dirty vent in the house).

Below, my 2/3 cleaned vent is nice and white on the left side, and disturbingly grungy on the right side.  I am convinced that you cannot appreciate the actual level of grime by looking at the picture.  Believe me, it was obvious to anyone walking by.

So, how do you clean a vent without taking the whole grill off?  My dear neighbor, who cleaned professionally at one point, taught me this trick.

First, gather cleaner of choice, a metal butter knife, and a cleaning rag.

Second, wrap the cleaning rag around the knife- if it is a thin rag, double the layer.

Third, spray the vent with cleaner and  insert knife between the metal slats.  Clean side to side.

Fourth, readjust the rag as necessary so you have a clean area of the rag to use.  Rinse and repeat.

Et voila, after less than five minutes: a vent that is spic and span!

My Super Cereal Supplement: A Granola Recipe

Here's a post of Marissa's from the archives that you might enjoy!

Being young, married, tight-budgeted college students, my husband and I have been trying to get creative and think of things that we can make on our own, that we would normally pay more for at the grocery store.

Unfortunately, one of those things that a large part of our grocery budget is dedicated to is cold cereal... When we came to this realization, and talked about the possibility of reducing the cereal consumption in our home, there were tears.... Yeah, I cried! I know it sounds silly. But you don't understaaaandd! - My whole life up until now, cereal has always been a part of my breakfast. It has always been there, waiting for me, like a true friend! How could I even think of including any other breakfast food in my morning meal? And all through my single years of college, what would I have done for breakfast and dinner, if I hadn't had my cereal waiting there so patiently in the cupboard for me? I could go on, but I'll spare you my "life cereal" poetry... that's just embarrassing.



As we talked about cutting cereal out of our lives, I thought of my morning bowl of cereal and all its deliciousness and glory. I couldn't bear to let it go. I knew I had to come up with a solution. Well, I actually came up with two!

SOLUTION #1: only cut back on cereal, rather than cut it completely out. Instead of going through 3-4 boxes of cereal per week, cut it down to 1 box, and supplement it with other foods like eggs, toast, fruit and yogurt. It's been working pretty well so far. I tried buying two kinds of cereal and splitting them each in half, so that we could have a variety still, but keep it at 1 box's worth of cereal. That has worked decently well - I just put the other half in a gallon ziploc bag.

SOLUTION #2: (This one is my favorite) Make. Granola. That counts as cereal, and do you realize how much cheaper it is to make it??! I found a recipe on allrecipes.com for really simple granola, with typical ingredients you would have on hand. I have made it 4 times now, each time, changing it a little so I liked it better, and now, I have come up with a recipe that I really like! I'll share it with you because I'm just hoping it will give you as much joy as it has brought to me. :)

Honey Almond Granola

2 c. old-fashioned oats (or 1 c. quick oats and 1 cup old fashioned if you want it to be in clusters)
¼ c. Sliced almonds
¼ c. + 1 Tbsp flaked coconut
1 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1 ½ tbsp vanilla pudding powder, divided
½ tsp cinnamon
Scant ¼ tsp. salt
½ c. orange blossom honey (or clover honey)
* milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract

Directions:
1. Combine oats, nuts, coconut, sugar, 1/2 Tbsp vanilla pudding powder, cinnamon and salt in a mixing bowl.
2. Measure 1/2 cup honey into a liquid measuring cup, an then add milk on top of the honey* until it is up to 2/3 cup.
3. Add 1 Tbsp vanilla pudding powder, vanilla and almond extract to the honey and milk, mix together and pour into dry ingredients. Mix well.
4. Bake at 280 degrees for 35 minutes. (check every 10 minutes, stirring each time) Bake until golden brown. Let it cool (and if you want it to be in clusters, let it cool before you stir it again), and store in an airtight container.

For a low sugar version - I have made it without the brown sugar or pudding powder, and just let the honey do all the sweetening, and it is still delicious.

I have found that Granola is a very forgiving recipe - you can really tweak it to meet your desires - If you want to add something or leave something out, you can, and it won't mess it up!

*EDIT 7/28/10: I found out that boiling the honey for 1 minute and then adding it to the dry mixture helps to soften the oats so they aren't so hard and crunchy and hard to chew...

**Rochelle's notes 6/18/12:  An alternative to using quick oats is to just pulse the old fashioned oats in your blender for a few seconds.  I have tried this recipe with agave and it works well.  A fun way to change this recipe is to add in some dried fruit after the bake time.  I usually go with craisins, but you could add whatever you like.

A Quick Modesty Refashion

Just a quick post to show one of my more recent refashions; alas, I took no "before" pictures, but just imagine this shirt without any of the white fabric, and with a neckline that goes halfway down to my belly button (well, don't imagine me wearing it that way, just imagine how sad it was in my closet, never being chosen because of its refusal to comply with my decency standards).

Those who know me well know that I have little patience for shirts that require tank tops or camisoles underneath.  Hence why I stopped wearing this shirt.  Adding in a faux tank top modesty panel helped with that, but didn't fix the issue completely, so I inserted a far-from-professional-looking single box pleat in the back of the neckline.  I also added the sleeve "extensions" because the sleeves were so wide that they didn't help me much.

Now this shirt is much more comfortable to wear!  Oh, and I forgot to mention that all the white fabric came from a camisole I found at D.I. for about $3 last summer for such a purpose as this!

Camping, and Kiddie Sleeping Bags

I grew up in a camping family.  Not so much your ordinary campsite camping, but the backpack in a few miles in and stay a few days kind of camping.  Every summer, usually around mid-August, we would pack up and go.

My dad was there too, but he is taking the picture!

There was usually some of this...

sometimes some of this...

and we certainly did this...

After I got married, we went with my family a couple of times, but then life got busy, and we had kids.

Last week we went camping for the first time since we have had kids; in actuality, it has been about 7 years.  We were excited to let the kids experience it (even though it was your standard campsite kind of camping) and let them play with rocks and sticks and dirt, but we were also a little concerned about how to keep them warm at night (with temperatures in the low 40s) since our kids don't stay in sleeping bags or keep their blankets on well.

What ended up working for us was to layer as much as we could.  So, each of my boys had on an undershirt or onesie and socks, pajamas I made for them out of my husband's old thermals (pictured above), and zippered footie pajamas on top.  Each of the boys had their own little sleeping bag (made by me) and their usual blankets they sleep with on top.

I made this sleeping bag a few years ago for my oldest son.  I used 4 matching quilted pillow shams- I just sewed them together, leaving one side partially open and adding velcro for functionality.

Fully extended sleeping bag

Velcro closures

The end of the sleeping bag folded up for more warmth

I also made this sleeping bag for my younger son in preparation for our camping trip.  It is made from a hodgepodge of different fabrics I had laying around.  I figured if I had to go buy fabric I might as well just buy a sleeping bag, so I made it work with what I already had and busted some of my stash in the process... win!  (I used two different kinds of batting, two different kinds of fleece, and two different jersey knit fabrics, and and old 24" zipper- a real mish-mash).

Well, the kids didn't keep their sleeping bags on too well, but that might partly be due to the fact that they were so excited to be sleeping in a tent that they could barely hold still.  Once they fell asleep we had readjust the sleeping bags/ blankets a couple times but they stayed warmer than me! (I checked, and while I had ice cold ears and nose, they felt nice and toasty warm.  I obviously should have implemented the same layering strategy for myself.)

I forgot the camera on this camping trip (shame on me) but we have a couple more camping trips planned, including a backpacking trip with my family later this summer!  Woot!

Has anyone camped or backpacked with toddlers?  What advice do you have?