Featured Blog: The Mom Nerd

The Mom Nerd blog is a little bit of everything. Books, kids, crafts...

Parenting Tip: I am a mother of four boys ages 8, 4 and twin 21 month olds. So as a mother I know, Phew! But my best tip to all of the other parents out there is that the most important thing for your children to know is that you love them. And that you shouldn't be as hard on yourself as parents usually are.

Blogging Tip: My best blogging tip, huh? I think that would have to be that as much as we love to have readers and reach an audience, blogging should be for you. I think it is a wonderful way to open yourself up, learn more about who you really are, and hopefully touch others along the way. My children are such an enormous part of my life that I find when I'm blogging I often talk about other things. It is amazing to me how many truly amazing people I have met that I would never have otherwise. What an amazing world we live in with the opportunities that we have.

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Photoshop Tip: Resize Pictures Using Transform

I'm by no means a Photoshop expert. For years I didn't use it for anything other than re-sizing and add text to pictures. But a working knowledge of Photoshop can be handy to a blogger and so, over the last year, I've learned a few things that have helped alter banners so I don't have to keep bugging the ever-talented graphics designer Gisele with little fixes. So in a series of mini-tips geared to bloggers with little or no Photoshop knowledge, I'm happy to share my knowledge if it's helpful in any way.

Photoshop Tip: Use "Transform" to easily re-size images and keep their dimensions. (In other words, not make them look screwy.) Just hit Ctrl and T or Edit and Transform to bring up the transform tool. Next, hold down the shift bar in order to keep the dimensions as you re-size. Finally, just hit Enter to apply the changes. I won't even tell you how I re-sizes images before learning this little trick courtesy of super smart artiecht-in-training, Ricky.