Best. Face-smoosh. Ever. I swear, these moments could not be staged. This lovely gesture was on Valentine’s Day, no less, from my 8-week old heartthrob. Just goes to show that no matter how small, everyone can show love every day. Sure, I’m still a romantic at heart (I think… don’t remember) but its certainly not the only love relationship that deserves celebrating. Spoken like a single, I know. It used to drive me crazy when my mother would buy me chocolates on Valentine’s day. Now I get it. The expensive commercial holiday? Over it. I’ll take a genuine face-smoosh over $100 flowers any day.

So to create my alternative Valentine’s card, I used GIMP for the layers and animation and Picnik for the cool Valentine’s hearts to stamp around the place like a self-made border.

TUTORIAL FOR HOW I MADE THIS ANIMATED GIF:

GIMP-tastic Steps:

1. New > 600 x 800 (white background)
2. Fill with pattern (wood grain). Change pattern color to gray with grayscale filter.
3. Open as layer > select photo > place on canvas (resizing as necessary)
4. Add text. Save & export to Picnik.(Keep open for later.)
5. Add heart stamps all over, changing color, size, and fade as desired. Save.
6. Open new file as layer in GIMP. Merge all layers for front & back.
7. Save as GIF, selecting time between frames (layers). Done!

Sound easy? It really wasn’t. But I spent more time learning how to use the tools than actually using them (i.e. the learning process). Besides the frustration and exhaustion, I secretly do enjoy learning how to do this. A lot. Hope you enjoy my animated alternative Valentine’s day card. <3

(Click here to read the details of the assignment and to see other submissions.)