How to Make Clip Art from your Kids Artwork

Homemade clip art is easy to make. You can use your kids artwork to decorate your blog or create personalized avatars, or in any other graphic design, including family Christmas Cards. You can also use this technique to have your local photo lab print pictures of your child's artwork, for framing or for scrap booking purposes. Learn how to make your own graphics using free software and basic computer skills.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• white printer paper to draw on
• markers or crayons
• clean hands
• a scanner
• GIMP software

1. Give your child the white paper to draw on. Make sure their hands are clean. They can draw the picture as large or as small as they'd like because after it's on the computer you will be able to resize it quickly and easily.

2. If you're decorating your blog or using the artwork on a family website, consider having them draw pictures of each family member. Don't worry if they're all different sizes; again, you will be able to resize them later.

3. If your child is able to write their alphabet, have them write each letter individually so you can use the letters to spell words. These instructions aren't for making your own font; although that is possible. You will, however, be able to use the free GIMP software to copy each letter and arrange it at the bottom of the pictures to spell things.

4. After all of your artwork is secured, scan each image into your computer. Follow the directions on your scanner, they all have different commands and file saving options. You'll want to save it as a .jpg or .jpeg, sometimes written in all caps (.JPG or .JPEG) and give it a meaningful name if you can (instead of scanimage00009149, or whatever your machine defaults to.)

5. Download the free GIMP software (if there isn't an ad for it on this page, just try entering www.gimp.org into your address bar. I think it stands for “graphic image manipulation program” but I could be wrong. Maybe its “management.” My daughter thinks it's “making,” but she's 8. She could be wrong, too.

6. Once GIMP is installed, you want to go to the file where you've saved the image and right click on it, then choose “edit with the gimp” If that's not an option, open your GIMP software and then click on file... open... then choose the image. You can browse images by clicking on the little white square icon next to the “look in” bar and selecting “thumbnails.” Select the one you want and get started.

7. Use the selection tool to crop away the unnecessary white spaces from your image. After you've done that, you'll want to go to the top bar and click “image” and then go down to “fit canvas to layers.” To use their letters as artwork, use the selection tool to copy and paste each letter from one image to another.

8. When it comes time to save your picture (you're done making changes) chances are you'll want to save them at the highest resolution because most web design programs will resize the file for people with slow connections.

Tips & Warnings

• Use the magic wand tool and the transparent layer feature to create art you can rearrange. For example, if your child draws stick figures of everyone in the family, you can put them all together to make one family portrait.
• You can upload your images to Walgreens or Wal Mart and have prints made on photo paper, then pick them up at their photo desk. That's a nice way to surprise grandma who's far away. Just have them delivered to her Walgreens and cell her to go pick them up one day. VistaPrint also makes things from your digital images. In fact, you can have Tshirts and other things made, too.
• If you want to preserve the original scan, like if you're afraid you'll mess it up or something, be sure to copy the folder and save it as a backup.

Resources

• How and Why I write 3 articles a day for eHow