We wanted to show you the amazing emails that Aviary user CureThriftShop is creating using Aviary tools. 
According to Bianca Caampued, who runs PR & marketing for the Cure Thrift Shop, "Cure Thrift Shop started using Aviary because while other email templates were confusing, Aviary was easy to figure out. We are planning to do a lot of editorial type layouts and emails like this for our site CureThriftShop.com."
We are really excited to see what else they create!
This is exactly the kind of stuff we love to hear about Aviary! So what are you using Aviary for?
Aviary member & Etsy seller Leslie Hamer created some awesome banners for her shop using Aviary's image editor. Excerpted from her blog with permission:
Customize any of these Etsy banners with your shop name and info quickly and easily using Aviary in four simple steps:
1. Click the "Customize this banner"; link under the banner you liked to launch Aviary.
2. Select the text you wanted to edit in its layer on the right, and use the text tool (the letter A icon in the left hand toolbar) to type your new text. You can also edit fonts and change the text colors if you please.
3. Select ‘File < Export Image’ and follow the steps to save the image to your desktop.
4. Then, on Etsy go to "Your Etsy" and then "Appearance." Upload your newly created banner for all the world to see!
Customize this banner
Want to make your own etsy banner using Aviary? Follow this handy tutorial.
Our hosting company has notified us of some major outages in one of their bandwidth providers. They are working to get service restored but until that happens, Aviary might run a bit slower than what you're used to. We apologize for the inconvenience and will let you know when things are back to normal via an edit here and Twitter.
Edit: As of late last night, our bandwidth provider informed us that things should be back to normal!
Valentine’s day is fast approaching. And what better way to say, “I’m thinking of you a little bit.” than with the gift of an e-card?
But hold the phones! This isn’t just any old e-card! That’s right, you can send personalized e-cards using Aviary’s suite of image editing tools!
Here is a collection of free e-card templates for you to use and send to all your lovers this Valentine’s Day.
To send one, select any of the following cards, then click the “Send to Friends” link found on the right hand side of the page to send it to your lover! (Separate email addresses with commas to send to multiple lovers.)
"I picked you” by meowza on Aviary
”Tweet Nothingness” by meowza on Aviary
”Zombie Love” by meowza on Aviary
You can also use select the “Open in Image Editor” link to edit the card to your heart’s content.
To add your own text to the card, simply disable the Text layer and type in your own custom message using the Text Tool.
Or, select the File > Import File function to import your own photographs into the templates for maximum personalizing fun!
”His heart” by meowza on Aviary
”Her heart” by meowza on Aviary
Here are some more free templates for you to use, generously provided by Aviary user, jeffdoute.
"Will you be mine ecard" by jeffdoute on Aviary
”Valentine Hearts” by jeffdoute on Aviary
Or make your own from scratch using any of Aviary’s free online tools!
Go on, show that special someone that they're not too bad this Valentines Day!
Happy Valentines!
As of today, we have decided to make using Aviary's suite of editing tools FREE for everyone.
At Aviary, we believe that everyone in the world should have access to powerful creation tools. We therefore chose our company mission to be We make creation accessible to everyone. Our powerful set of tools helps fulfill this mission by enabling small businesses, students, artists & creators across different genres.
As a business, we did need to bring in revenues to cover our costs and development and to accomplish this we created a tiered pricing plan for certain types of uses. Although this was financially successful for us, the side effect of this was that our tools and their features (in their full capacity), were not truly accessible to everyone.
We have long felt that to better serve our core mission our complete feature set needed to be in the hands of everyone - not just those who could afford it. Fortunately, our recent round of funding (by Spark Capital, Bezos Expeditions & others) enables us to finally achieve this goal as we shift revenues opportunities to other exciting areas that don't limit individuals in any way. We are excited at the opportunity to stay true to our mission. Not many companies are so fortunate.
What does that mean exactly? Now everyone can:
* Save private files on Aviary.
* Add your own automatic watermark or go watermark-free.
* Access all tutorials.
Existing subscribers who signed up in the last 30 days can request refunds. [refund@aviary.com] For all other past Blue plan members, we will cancel all future recurring payments directly. You will remain on indefinitely as our legacy Blue Supporters (recognized by the blue badges wherever they appear on Aviary's site) and you will continue to gain first access to all alpha products we release (rumor has it that a new one is floating around). And of course, we can't thank you enough for supporting Aviary's growth and development. That means the world to us.
Thanks for your continued support and we looking forward to seeing what you create.
What you waiting for? Go create something AWESOME !
We recently expanded our flock to include a couple of new faces and one face that's very familiar to Aviary users.
In order of addition, welcome to Mike Peutz (mpeutz), Ana Rosansky (ana) and Ralph Hauwert.
Mike Peutz, otherwise known as mpeutz in our forums was easily Aviary's most prolific user. We like to think of him as Aviary's Mozart. He showed us ways to use Aviary's tools that even we didn't think were possible. Check out some of the top creations by Mike, to get a sense for his complete mastery of Aviary. So when it was time to bring on someone who could help round out Aviary's user experience from an application detail perspective we knew that Mike was the only real choice we had. 
Ana Rosansky, (Ana in Aviary), joins us from IAC where she worked on CollegeHumor (internally, one of our favorite sites to waste productive time on) and other IAC properties doing market analytics and user experience. Most recently she worked with Vogue on their digital marketing strategy. She will direct Aviary's marketing strategy going forwards and work on crafting a site that is easier to use and navigate for everyone. Additionally, she will help unite the Worth1000 and Aviary brands more closely.
Lastly, Aviary's success has always been about the depth of its engineering team. Today we are excited to announce another All Star to our roster: Ralph Hauwert, one of the first members of Papervision3D, a frequent speaker at top Flash conferences and frankly, one of the most respected names in the Flash space will be joining us to lead development on some of our top-secret initiatives. His work (several awesome demos of which are viewable on his web site) is enormous and in great demand. We are absolutely thrilled to have him join the Aviary flock.
We will be profiling these new members of the Aviary flock in individual blog posts shortly. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming them to the Aviary team!
Hey folks! Do you remember playing with those Magnetic Poetry kits? You know, those novelty products featuring words adhered to magnetic tiles which you can arrange to form lines of prose on your fridge?
If you don’t, today I present to you a template from which you can create these fascinating refrigerator poems in Aviary!
And if you do remember them, today I present to you a template from which you can create these fascinating refrigerator poems in Aviary!
To begin, launch the Refrigerator Magnet template.
The application is very simple to use. When you launch the template, you’ll be presented with a graphic of a refrigerator, with a series of words surrounding it.
To compose your poem, simply click then drag your desired words onto the fridge.
Then, it’s just a matter of arranging your chosen words on the canvas to create your very own poem!
Simple, isn’t it?
Sometimes, the challenge of making a creation comes in the form of limitations you’re presented with in a particular setting. In this challenge, the goal is to make your own lines of prose, poetry, one-liners, philosophical meanderings, using only the words and word fragments presented in the application.
What may seem like a simple challenge at first may throw you off down the line, as you find yourself scrambling for words outside of the present inclusions!
When you’re satisfied with your poem, click the “Save As” button in the top right corner and follow the on-screen instructions to save the image to Aviary.
Additionally, you can save a flattened copy of the graphic to your computer by selecting File > Export > Export Bitmap.
Once your poem is saved, you can go to your creation page and select the “Send to Friends” option in the right hand column to send the poem to anyone you desire.
Go on try making some poems yourself, using Aviary’s Refrigerator Magnetic Poetry generator! And you won’t even need to get up to go to the fridge… unless you want a Coke.
Next blog post, Brewing Homemade Cola in Aviary. I may need to sleep on this one.
Here are a few examples:
Old Man Poem.egg by meowza on Aviary
Abe.egg by meowza on Aviary
Try making some of your own!
You can post them as comments here, or participate in the forum thread.
I'll include my favorites in this blog post.
One of the cool things you can do with the online creation tools on Aviary is to create graphics to apply on your own custom products.
In this example, I’m going to show how to create and place your own personalized image on a coffee mug that you can order online.
Personalized products always make great gifts for friends or loved ones or friends that you love.
What better way to say “I care” than with a gift of a personalized… “mug”!
There are a number of online shops that allow you to order custom products. For my example, I’ll be using Zazzle.
To begin, open Raven, Aviary’s Online Vector Editor.
Using Raven’s powerful vector drawing tools, you can create fully scalable art, suitable for printing on various products.
New to Raven? Here's a tutorial on the basic functions of Raven to help you get started creating vector art. Or, check out the Raven Documentation for further information on the application.
When you’re satisfied with the image, you will need to download the image to your computer.
To do so, Select Export > Export Bitmap from the Menu, select your file extension from the pop-up (I would recommend the PNG format for the least destructive compression), then select “Generate Image” to download the image to your computer.
Once your image is downloaded, launch Zazzle’s custom mug creator.
Select “Add Image” and add the Raven creation you had previously saved to your computer.
Then it’s all a matter of moving, resizing and positioning the graphic where you want it oriented on the mug.
When you’re satisfied with the graphic and orientation, go on and purchase the product, park your seat in front of the mailbox, and wait for your very own personalized mug to arrive!
Additionally, you can even post your mug for sale in Zazzle’s marketplace to earn yourself some serious money for every sale you generate from your design!
To open and explore the vector file used in my example, click the image below to launch the design in Raven, Aviary’s online vector editor.
Octodrink.egg by meowza on Aviary
When I first heard about an earthquake hitting the nation of Haiti, my first thought was, Yikes. I hope nobody got hurt. Then, the pictures began flowing through the media stream online and on t.v. and it was apparent that we were dealing with one of the greatest disasters in many of our lifetimes.
The humanitarian in all of us wants to do whatever we can to help.
So what can we, as a community of artists, do?
One way to spread awareness is by creating and bearing graphics, banners, or avatars on your website or social media networks showing your support for the relief efforts.
One of the sad realities is that during situations of major disaster response, rights management for photograph usage become ignored or overlooked, and finding graphics to use to show your support become scarce.
So in this post, I've included a template for you to personalize and customize for free use on your site.
Personalizing the Banner
To customize the banner, first, click the following image to open the template in Aviary's online editor:
To customize the Helped Haiti text on the banner, select the "Help" Layer from the Layers Menu and select the Text Tool. Then, just type in your custom text over the existing words.
You can also change the "Support relief aid in Haiti"Â text by selecting the "Support" Layer from the Layers Menu and following the same instructions.
To import your website or personal logo to the image, select File > Import Image from the Menu.
Follow the on-screen instructions to upload an image from your computer, from a URL, or from an online photo sharing site into the template.
If the uploaded image is larger than the canvas size of the banner, select "Resize Image" to resize the graphic to fit the canvas when prompted.
Then, use the Transformation Tool to resize, rotate, and move the graphic where you want on the banner.
To save the image to your computer for uploading to your own site, you can either save the image to Aviary's server by selecting "Save As" and following the on-screen instructions, or you can save it your computer.
To save it to your computer, select File > Export Image and select the file format you want, probably JPG from the dropdown.
Then select "Generate Image" to generate and download the graphic to your computer.
You are now ready to upload your custom banner to display on your website so all your friends, family, and followers can see you support the relief efforts.
Here are free templates for you to use and display on your own sites:
728 px x 90 px:
300 px x 250 px:
Please do not hesitate to create your own graphics, banners, and templates as well.
If you create a template that you would be willing to share with the public, please link it here or in the forum thread, so I can share it in this blog post.
Our hearts go out to you, Haiti.
Staff Member: Meowza
Welcome to the first in a new series of staff spotlights. I thought we would start of with the awesome Mr. Meowza Katz. Author of Aviary’s first book, technical reader for the second, (Introducing Aviary), artist extraordinaire and all round funny Mr Nice Guy. If you haven’t seen his work you don’t know what you are missing. And if you have, this may be a small insight into the world of Meowza...
So, Meowza, introduce yourself
Hi, my name is Meowza. I'm a drawler of things from Vancouver, Canada.
My likes include peppermint gum, erasers that look like food, and my yittle fiancéface.
My dislikes include erasers that look like pink.
Q. What do you do here at Aviary?
I'm an illustrator, designer, brander, writer-of-bloggy-things here at Aviary. I drew all them birdy and egg icons you see on the site. I wrote many of the Phoenix tutorials and lessons found in the Tutorials section, forums, and in the first Aviary book, More Than One Way to Skin a Cat. I also help design graphics, slides, promotional material for external use in presentations, shows, exhibitions, etc. I'm also a contributor to the Aviary [url=http://aviary.com/blog]blog[/url] where I post things that interest me and probably two other people!
Q. Walk me through a typical day on your end of Aviary?
I don't have a typical day here at Aviary, as different needs arise for different occasions. I usually prioritize requests made by members of the team who need graphics for the site, promotional material, etc. so that if anyone else needs a design, I'll make sure to get the most urgent needs addressed first. I'll also spend my time trying to come up with relevant projects, challenges, design ideas for tutorials, threads, and blog posts for you cool cats to play around with.
Q.How did you get started with Aviary?
I was a frequent contributor to Aviary's sister site, Worth1000.com. When they started Aviary, Avi asked me early on to design some of the early logos, ads and teasers for the suite. As the site grew and evolved, I continued on designing new thingies to go along with the new thingies on the site. Wait a minute, if Aviary was birthed from Worth1000, but Worth1000 is Aviary's sister...
Q.Tell us something that no one might know about you.?
What I look like.
Q. What are the 3 things you would most like to see happen to (/at/on) Aviary?
The three things I want to see happen most at Aviary are, *********** ** *** ****, ****-**** *************, and *** ***********. These are all features that are currently in development to be released this year, so I can't really mention them quite yet. So my 4th, 5th, and 6th, things I would most like to see here are:
· Additional user stats and rewards that would give users to create frequently, such as creation milestone awards.
· Challenges given more prominence on the site somehow so they're not just reserved to those who come check out the forums.
· A frequently requested feature and one that will probably be implemented, is for users to be able to organize their own creations.
Q. What is your favourite junk food?
Coca-Cola and popcorn.
Q. What are your favourite creations that you have made here on aviary ?
Some off the top of my head are:
Matching Light I just think elephants are cute.
SeaMonster I just think the little lizard is cute.
In The Clouds I just think massive deities with full 'stache/beard are cute
Q. Who or what influences your art and is there any other form of art that you particularly enjoy doing?
I'm most inspired by cartoons in most of the forms of art I do, especially the fundamentals nurtured through the characters of Looney Toons. Even in my non-cartoony creations, I still draw inspiration from my cartoon roots in terms of trying to make images with strong readability. Cartoons are caricatures of life, simplified to maximize appeal and relatability to a viewer. If a design doesn't work in it's most basic stripped-down ideals, all the fancy bells and whistles you add won't help it.
In my spare time, I mostly enjoy playing around with character design and experimenting with textures, evident in some of my personal work at www.meowza.org.
Anything else you would like to say ?
I graduated from the same high school that Colin Mochrie did.
Thanks Meowza, for that extraordinarily awesome incite into your life here at Aviary
Some of my all time faves......
Try Out Aviary»
Aviary is a powerful suite of browser-based design tools for people who create. Head on over to the Aviary homepage to try the applications out and learn more. It's free to try our tools or sign up!
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