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Picture in Picture


Misc Picture-in-Picture Collage by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

I’m cheating tonight. I got on some very long learning tasks and wore myself out, so I’m sharing some of the many picture-in-picture creations I’ve made with Photo Studio Pro by KVADGROUP. This isn’t even a tiny bit with all you can do in the app, but I’m falling asleep, so I hope you enjoy it. I have one more collage of strawberries to share and then it’s sleep time.

A Collage of Picture-in-Picture Strawberries by Crystal A Murray
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.o)
Psalm 118:24 BSB
[24] This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

https://bible.com/bible/3034/psa.118.24.BSB

April 29, 2026 Posted by | Collaged, Creative Image Editing, Nonfiction, Photo Studio Pro app | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Love 🥰 Emojis


Two cute and large emoji smilies animated with legs and arms, and they are juggling a bunch of smaller emojis over their heads. Their mostly enough audience laughs heartily at their performance. Digital image created by Wombo Dream AI.
AI (Wombo) Emojis Juggling by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

What are your favorite emojis?

Ask anyone who gets messages from me. I love emojis! 💝 There’s something about being able to say a lot with a tiny form. A picture speaks a thousand words, right? And when I downloaded Google’s Gboard keyboard and got access to their “emoji kitchen” to create my own, that was the whipped cream and cherry on top.

I’m not sure why “Day One” chose this for their 1921st prompt, because so many emojis only show up as little boxes here on WordPress, but I still love the idea, so I’m experimenting. I’ve downloaded a lot of the mixed ones I created to share in a collage, and they’ll show fine since they’re pictures. Like this set of train emojis from messages I sent to my sister while she was on the train last year.

Emoji “Recipes” in Gboard Emoji Kitchen—Trains Plus

I really love the train that’s slipping on a banana peel. That was from combining a train emoji with a banana emoji. You should be able to tell what was combined to get each image. I highly recommend the Gboard app for the personal dictionary and the Glide Typing abilities as well. I don’t know if it’s available anywhere but the Google Play Store, but if you can get it, I’m relatively certain you’ll have fun with it. Go to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.latin

And here are some new ones I just made tonight. As you can tell, I like combining the cactus with different things. Oh, and sparkles. I love adding sparkles to other emojis.

Emoji “Recipes” in Gboard Emoji Kitchen—Mixed Set

Most of these should be obvious, but the wooden globe may not give away that it’s a combo of the earth and a wooden stump. The frying pan is the combo of a dinner plate and an egg. But I cannot do a train and a cactus, so here’s what you get when you choose to do the two types of cactus 🌵 and 🏜️ (I hope these show) inline with a text…

Emoji “Recipes” in Gboard Emoji Kitchen—Cactus and Desert Cactus

So, yes, I think you can clearly see that I really like using emojis as a communications tool. I hope this inspires someone to have some fun with these great compact emotions.

Now, since April 27th is also “National Tell A Story Day,” I have one more treat for you. It’s a very old story, some sites say a song, that I learned when I was a teenager. I never sang it until I taught it to my nephews and had them sing it like a military marching cadence for their uncle. As I searched, it seemed all the sites had slightly different words, so I’m using the ones I recall from my years of repeating this tongue tangler of backward, inside-out, and upside-down words..

I started with the introduction of...

Ladies and gentlemen, hobos and tramps,
Cross-eyed mosquitos and bowlegged ants.
I stand before you, not behind you,
To address you, not undress you.
Admission is free, pay at the door.
Pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
I come to this end, not to this out,
To tell you a story--I know nothing about.

~~~~~~~~and then the story~~~~~~~~

One bright day in the middle of the night
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other
Pulled out their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise
And came to kill the two dead boys.
If you don't believe my story is true,
Ask the blind man... He saw it too!

One day, I’ll tell you the story of Petey the Snake. But it’s best to hear it, so I’ll need to get over myself and be willing to record it. But wait, there’s more. I just had to make my juggling emojis with the knit filter. Too cute!

AI (Wombo) Knitted Juggling Emojis by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

April 27, 2026 Posted by | About Writing, AI Image Creations, by Day One, Collaged, Creative Writing, Creativity, Current Events, Humor, Photo Studio Pro app, Prompts, special days, Wombo Dream | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My Own Creative Muse


A photo of magenta azaleas in full bloom. This photo gets close up to the petals to show off the detailed design and color. It was taken by a Google Pixel 9 Pro, and then cropped and edited in the Photo Studio Pro app for Android. In the edits, a glittery pink frame surrounds the floral beauty.
Framed Image of Azaleas in my Yard by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Like the character Cameo in yesterday’s story, I feel like I have the voice of a “muse” in my mind that drives me to create. Unlike Cameo, I haven’t turned away from that voice completely, though I’ve gone through dry spells. Maybe that’s why the story came to me and made me examine the relationship between our thought lives and our real lives. And if you ever battle with the still, small voice like Elijah, maybe Cameo’s journey will be enjoyable for you as well.

Though it’s not time to share more of her story yet, I want to share just a little from recent creative endeavors. The above photo is a close-up from the first good blooms on an azalea plant hubby got for me a few years ago. He did the research to find out what would make it grow, and it paid off well. I’m thrilled with the plant and with the pictures. I added a sparkly frame on this one because I knew how it would affect the images I got from Wombo Dream AI. Get ready for a barrage of pink and full instructions for any why might want to try designing images in Wombo.

So my first stop was to their browser page because they recently updated it with a new “edit” button. You can upload an image, and then tell it how you want it edited. Maybe you want the flowers in purple or the sky in green. Put your thoughts in the prompt box, and let it go to work. I told it I wanted the image in stained glass. The outputs were the same in the app as in the browser, so here are some from the app before I added the frame…

A collection of azaleas turned into digital stained glass pictures by Wombo Dream AI and then made into a collage with the Photo Studio Pro app for Android.
A Collection of Stained Glass Azaleas from Wombo Dream AI by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

You can visit the website without downloading the app, so you can make your own fun edits at https://dream.ai/ and click on the “Start Creating” button. On the creation page, you can use my prompt (below) if you like, or create your own. When you add a prompt, you’ll notice a button that says enhance. That button will add some fancy extra prompts that are well trained into the AI. Once you have the prompt you want, it’s time to select a filter. Anything that doesn’t say “Premium” is okay to use. The latest filters are V4, and the V3 filters also work well. Once your filter is selected, you can choose generate to make your picture. It will download with a watermark if you don’t have premium, but it’s not bad and may be able to be cropped out in another program if it really bothers you. Here’s the prompt…

Turn these beautiful magenta azaleas into a stained glass window.

This is just the beginning of what you can do. You’ll notice you have image sizes to choose from in case you want to make a phone wallpaper size or a Facebook header size. And then you can look toward the bottom for the browse button where you can upload your own image. Or mine if you’ve downloaded it. That’s why I make most of my images Creative Commons. At some point, the page may ask you to create an account in order to download your images. I’m not sure if the gallery to store your images comes with every account, or only on the app, but having lost a number of gallery photos when they crashed last year, I recommend actually saving your favorites to a permanent location. 

Now, because I’m a fan of abstract creations, there is a V2 filter I go to often. I’ll share the collage and prompt for that, and I hope to hear from readers that you’ve tried this for yourself and had as much fun with it as I do. The prompt (for use with the image at the top and with their enhanced additions) is…

Turn this into a beautiful stained glass window with the original magenta pink azalea and pink glitter frame colors intact. Intricate lead lines separating vibrant glass pieces, sunlight streaming through to cast colorful reflections, delicate floral motifs surrounding the azalea, subtle gradients blending pinks and purples, the window set against a softly illuminated stone wall, enhanced by shimmering highlights on the glitter frame that catch the light at different angles.

And here are the images…

A collection of azaleas turned into digital stained glass pictures by Wombo Dream AI. These images use the newer V4 filters like “Botanical” that adds liquid gold on the flowers and leaves. Multiple images from a variety of filters were then made into a collage with the Photo Studio Pro app for Android.
From Azalea Photo to Stained Glass Art in Wombo Dream AI by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Using v4 Filters
A collection of azaleas turned into abstract digital pictures by Wombo Dream AI and then made into a collage with the Photo Studio Pro app for Android.
My Favorite V2 Filter called Abstract Fluid in Wombo Dream AI, still using the original photo and prompts, by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

April 16, 2026 Posted by | AI, AI Image Creations, Collaged, Creativity, Gemini (by Google), Nonfiction, Photo Studio Pro app, Photography, Thoughts and/or Instructions, Wombo Dream | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

🎵Photo Walking


What’s the most fun way to exercise?

Daily Prompt by Day One

If I can get myself out the door with a camera around my neck, I tend to enjoy the steps I get a little more. A trip–back in 2022–to Azalea Path in Indiana is my favorite of all time. I’ve been there more than once, but that year, we just seemed to arrive during the best color display I’ve seen there. Here’s a collage of some of the captures from that day, all straight out of the camera (SOOC). It was cloudy, so I used a higher color setting, but I was very happy with a few of the shots out of 1200+ I captured. I especially love the ones with waterfalls.

Collage of Flowers from Azalea Path by Crystal A Murray
© 2022-2026 (All Rights Reserved)

And even though these are not lilies, this reminder from the words of YahShua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ The Messiah) are a fitting comfort that goes well with such an array of colors.

Luke 12:27-28 BSB
[27] Consider how the lilies grow: They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. [28] If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith!

https://bible.com/bible/3034/luk.12.27-28.BSB

And since I used that verse, well, I might as well share the beautiful song with the same words, right?

Consider the Lilies by Bible Lance at YouTube (with lyrics)

April 8, 2026 Posted by | by Day One, Collaged, Creativity, Nonfiction, Photography, Prompts | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

   

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