Going Digital

This week my crafty mind went digital. I have been blessed to have my Mother with me for the past couple of weeks and we have had discussions that there isn't many people left to tell about the family. We decided to start a project with some of the old family favorite dishes (next week) but first I grilled her on her brothers and sisters and all of her nephews and nieces. 

After I grilled her for all the information I turned to a photo editing software called iPiccy. I mapped out my Mom's family and all of their children and Grandchildren if I had that information. 

Using the "make a design" feature you can type information right onto a background and place pictures with the text. It is sort of like a dumbed down version of Photoshop. You can crop, adjust and edit photos easily and quickly. When you sign up for a free account they allow you to store the pictures you are working on at their site. 

This is the Webb/Richards Family From Parkersburg West Virginia 

If you notice I am the baby of the next to the last child on this. Which means that I have no idea who most of these people are. I may have met them at one point in my life, but my parents had me later in life and then moved to Florida so I missed out on knowing my cousins. My daughters have no idea who their family is. Now with this and hopefully some added pictures down the road they will at least be able to show their kids where they came from. 

Here is the collage I made of my branch of the family tree.

As you can see my branch is pretty large. 

Don't be afraid of digital editing. Make a copy of your photos on your computer (just in case) and have fun. See what each button does to your photos. You can undo many things and if the worst happened and you totally mess up your photo you made a copy so you are still good and you figured out what not to do the next time. 

Below is an example of some of the old photos that my youngest (the picture editing master) and I have digitally restored. 

We were able to brighten this enough to see the baby face on my Grandmother 

This photo was wrinkled and torn but we were able to at least get it viewable again

This was another dark and dingy picture that was able to be brightened

This one was able to be brightened so we can see the smile on the girl and the seems of the young man's cover alls. 

Don't be afraid to try photo editing out. Preserve those old memories for future generations to appreciate. I love seeing pictures of my Grandmother so young. She died the week my oldest was born so my kids don't know her, but through this project, hopefully they will see that they come from a long line of very strong women.