I'm left confused by a GIMP!

I was playing with a GIMP last week, as one does, to find a way to create a banner for my etsy account. Two hours later and several failed attempts at producing anything looking remotely like a banner, I gave in to GIMP!

For those of you who don't know, GIMP is an open source FREE alternative to Photoshop. And seeing how that program costs a load a moola, I decided to give GIMP a try.

I don't blame GIMP for my failings, I blame my ignorance of all things remotely photoshop-like.

I'm not sure why I find it so confusing, but that and Illustrator bring me right out of my comfort zone.

So, here is the banner I created....

NOT a good start. I worked with a photo I had of my nestled casserole dishes.

It is fuzzy, lacking in interest or excitement. I tried to transform a portrait photo into a long narrow banner and it just didn't work. I think I'm gonna have to wait until I take some more photos to get a better source for the artwork. Back to the drawing board!

The good and lucky thing is that I know two fab people at Oscar and Dehn (you know who you are!!) how I can ask instructions and tips from regarding web graphics!

So, two weeks after my start with Etsy, I still have a dodgy banner and only one item on to sell!

I'm working on my shop policies and the whole shipping internationally thing at the moment. Once I have sorted out those, I will retype my profile and add more pots...until then, I'm afraid dodgy is all I got!

The great news is that one item got 15 views!!! So, that is a start.

Finally, I just found a groovy icon for my blog to link back to Etsy!