I have run into a difficulty with this web page. I put the words decorate Christmas and tree into Google and the first site that came up had a far better version of what I am doing here. But they cheated! They used Java. I only used HTML and the Windows paint program, and they were professionals.

I came up with a second idea, do a nativity scene. I suggested that at the bottom of this page, but they have already done that too.

Reminds me of my failed PhD disertation. I kept coming up with ideas, but this very prominent scientist kept coming up with them first. I was warned, what ever you do do not hire a hit man to kill him, because he will think of it first and do it before you.

There were three ideas in my disertation that it turned out had already been published by Nobel Prize winners. That means I could not take credit for them, but at least I knew I was coming up with similar ideas to Nobel prize winners. So at least the concepts here are similar to the professionals.

By the way my techniques are far more primitive and if you do not know Java you might be able to adapt them to your own project.

Put Ornaments On This Computer Christmas Tree

You, or perhaps your children, might enjoy decorating a Christmas tree like the one below.

To copy the picture for your computer simply go to the children's or adult's blank tree. Once that page comes up press the Print Screen button. It is right next to Scroll Lock, near the upper right hand corner of your key board. It will appear that nothing has happened, but actually your computer has saved a copy of what was on your screen.

Children's Tree

Adult's Tree

Now, open your Windows paint program.

Finding Paint

You will find Paint by going to the start button in the lower left hand corner of your screen, it looks like this . Click on it.

A menu will pop up. Click on "All Programs". It is near the bottom of the menu. A long list of programs pops up.

Near the top of the mostly alphabetical list you will find accessories. Click on accessories. This will give you another more or less alphabetical list, find Paint, and click on it.

Putting the Screen Shot into Paint

Once you have opened Paint, you paste what was saved when you hit print screen into the paint program. There are two ways to do this. You can go to the edit menu and click on paste. Or, you can use the key board short cut, control v. The control keys are at the lower right and left hand corners of the main group of keys on your key board. Hold the control key, marked Ctrl, down and press v. This will enter the image into your paint program.

Now go to upper right hand corner and click on the box made with dashed lines at the top of the menu. You will be using this a lot so here is a picture, an arrow points to the box.

At this point you have the picture in paint, but you have a lot of other stuff, the tool bars for windows, and parts of your desk top.

To get rid of all that stuff you choose the select tool, that is the same dashed box you just clicked on. Move the mouse cursor to the image, left click and drag, a box will appear. Draw a big box around the Christmas tree image and the ornaments. Now copy that using the edit menu or control C. Once again you are copying to an unseen file, the contents of which you will paste into a new paint file.

Open a new paint file, do not save the old one when they prompt you. Now use the edit menu to click on paste or hit the v key while holding down a control key. At this point you will have just what you want in the paint program, but not a lot of other things.

You can save this. Once you have created your work of art you might want to save it under another name, so you can use the image again.

I find the completed image takes less than twenty five kilobytes, so you could save forty pictures in a megabyte. Given the present cost of hard drive space you can probably endulge your kid's desire to save their pictures.

Now the Fun Begins

Now you or your child can decorate the tree.

In the children's version you simply put a select box around the ornament you wish to add to the tree. Click on the select box at the top of tool menu on the left side of the screen. Draw a box around the ornament with your finger on the left mouse button. Let up on the button and then drag the ornament into place. You can see much of this from the picture above.

In the adult version you mark the ornament in the same way but then you make a copy of it by going to the edit menu and clicking on copy, and then paste. A marked copy which can be moved will appear in the upper left hand corner. Alternatively, instead of using the edit menu you can use control c to copy and control v to paste.

The adult version is slightly more complicated, but gives you more control on how many ornaments of each type you want to put on the tree. This probably means that the adult version is more appropriate for kids and the kid's version is more appropriate for adults.

This is a Primative First Effort, Take it to the Next Level

Admitedly what I have done here is not very sophisticated. Art is not one of my strengths, and my mouse does not seem to be working very well. Perhaps someone who is better at art might want to take these concepts and produce something better. One could imagine a nativity scene where the children place Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepards, wise men, and animals in front of a stable. But I am not up to producing those more complex figures.

Is this fun, worthless, will it destroy Western Civilization? Let me know what you think in my Guest Book.

This page last revised November 28, 2005

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