I'm back Sherry. I turned 17 today!!
Hi there, Kaitlin!
I'm very glad you're back!
I'm so sorry it took me this long to wish you a happy birthday - but a very belated
Happy Birthday to you!!!!!

I hope it was a great day for you and that you had fun. I remember when I turned 17 (100 years ago). It was a fun time in life.
Hi Sherry! I finally got a chance to pop on and see what's new. Love all your photos with the special effects. Bet you did have fun playing around with them. I missed my chance since they are already gone. Boy, you gotta be fast! I also loved your flower photos. You sure must have a lovely neighborhood.
Looking forward to seeing what you have in store for us next.
Do tell! What's the name of this fun little app?
Hi Marie!
Thank you! My neighborhood - and many of the surrounding residential streets within a mile or two radius - is full of all kinds of interesting flowers, gardens and front yards, but you have to be on the lookout for these things and not just kind of zooming by them in a hurry to really notice! I will go out to run typical errands and sometimes I will alter my route a bit, choosing to walk down a different street here and there. That's how I stumble upon a lot of these flowers.
A few weeks ago, I had to run out for an emergency mission to get a cheap coffee maker after my old one died (I cannot be without a coffee maker). I went to a store I don't usually shop at just to get the best deal. This allowed me to walk
past my usual destinations and onto a couple of side streets I am less familiar with. One street had some interesting front yards, with cactus, rock gardens and colored glass, and then another street had the flowers I showed you on the previous page (the cascading pink ones, etc.). It was a bounty of flowers! I did not have my real camera with me that day - only the cell phone camera - but I knew I wanted to get pictures with the camera.
So, the following week, on Mother's Day, I marched myself back down to that one street with the bounty o' flowers (over a mile away) and took photos. I was hoping the flowers had not changed in appearance too much. That tends to happen - I'll see a gorgeous rose with a vibrant, rich color one week and then the next week that same rose has lost some petals and looks haggard!

Fortunately, these particular flowers looked just about the same.
I do take pictures of many other things besides flowers when I am out walking to and fro, but beautiful flowers are always a big hit.
As for the effects pictures - I'm glad you enjoyed them! I don't know what the deal is with Photobucket. I have no idea why they offer some really cool effects - like the holiday effects from last year and these Disney Parks ones - and then pull them just a week or two later!
First of all, as far as I know, Photobucket never announced that they were offering Disney Parks effects. I checked their Facebook page just to be sure, and I saw no mention of Disney Parks effects for the last month.
So how was anyone to know that there were Disney Parks effects there, unless you just happened to be in the editing section and saw the small Disney Parks box? That's what happened to me - I think I was going in to crop a picture because it had a little too much space on the end, and I just happened to notice that there was suddenly a Disney Parks box.
A week later that same box was gone!
I assume that Disney and Photobucket must have had an agreement to offer the Disney Parks effects only for a certain period of time - and it is all in conjunction with the current Share the Memories promo/campaign that Disney has been pushing. But, really...only a week or two at the most? And no announcement about it? How odd!
At least the holiday effects stayed up on Photobucket for a few weeks last year, BUT they mysteriously disappeared right before the major holiday they were celebrating - Christmas! What sense does that make? Wouldn't people want to use some of their Christmas photos with the holiday effects?
In any case, my advice to anyone who edits photos on Photobucket (and they have a new editing feature that is more professional than the last one they had) is that if you suddenly notice a new or special option for edits that you have not seen before, and you like it, start using it immediately and get those effects on as many photos as you possibly can right away, because the option could be gone in a week!
I did see one thread on the other side of the DIS (the WDW side, but I can't recall which forum) that was about the Photobucket effects. A DIS'er was asking if anyone else had noticed that there were Disney Parks effects in Photobucket, and she showed an example of one of her pictures. (She actually used a fireworks effect that I never got a chance to use - because it did not look right with any photo I tried it on!) There were a few replies and then it stopped. I am guessing that the effects disappeared before anyone else got to do anything with them.
I was really starting to get the hang of working with the different intricacies of editing the effects - adjusting the sizes, figuring out the exact placement within the photos, layering one effect on top of itself or on top of another effect, using the effects on PhotoPass pictures that already had borders and effects, etc. - and then it was all taken away from me in the blink of an eye!

Those pictures are really good. I wish I could do this.
Kaitlin -
Thank you! You could definitely do it if Photobucket had not removed the Disney Parks option. It takes a minute to get used to the effects and learn exactly how to size them/layer them/use them to where they will be most effective, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy - and fun to go through your pictures and try to find the ones where the effects are a perfect fit (not all of them are).