an easy Mother's Day gift idea ~ WordCloud Art tutorial

What do you give the person who has everything and is in the 'season of life' where they are downsizing their 'stuff'?  What about a thoughtful Word Cloud Art made specifically with your loved one in mind.

Simply having fun doodling on a piece of paper a few of my mother-in-law's sweet attributes, as I was thinking of her after a recent visit, one thing led to another and within one hour this WordCloud Art was made.

WordArt and WordClouds are so popular today and are easy to make using common programs most of us already have available on our computers.  I wanted it a little more custom than what I was able to achieve using the internet websites available.   This is a new learning curve for me and thought there might be others who would be interested in how I created this WordCloud Art using Paint and Picasa programs.

Most computers are already loaded with the program Paint.  Picasa can be downloaded free from here.  With the new updated version of Picasa it is easy to add frames now.  It is my photo-editing program I like to use.

First, I opened a new document in Paint and sized it 500 x 700 px  (that would equal 5"x7"):

Then I saved it as a JPEG file.  This is important to be able to 'edit' in Picasa.   (Do not save it as a PNG file)    It will be saved in the Picasa pictures file.  Give it the name of your choice.  Mine is named Granny's WordArt2.jpg.

Now, using Picasa, open your blank 'picture' and it's ready to be edited.  This is where the fun begins!  Open the 'Edit Text', you can choose your text color now or later.

Type your list of words as separate words giving each of them a different 'font'.  Don't worry about placing them on your 'paper' yet.

 You can see how my list is taking shape.  This was so much fun choosing fonts to match the word.

Once my list was made, I began to place each word on my paper using the easy re-sizing text tool to custom fit each word exactly where I wanted it.

This is my finished copy.  I've placed and sized the words and added a simple double border all in Picasa.  Click on the 'Print' button at the bottom.  I printed mine as an 8x10 on photo paper with high quality print properties.

and I'm done!  I'll put this in a frame and it's ready to gift.

I hope you've found this tutorial easy to follow and will try your own WordCloud Art.  And yes, Granny is all the above.  Can you tell she likes anything chocolate, sweet and purple?!
~Lisa
P.S. Another creative example added 5/4/2012: