Altered Art Pages and Blogger Storage Dilemmas

I am having a problem with blogger telling me I was out of storage space on Picasa web. I did some research and apparently I have used 1.6 GB of my 1 GB storage space on Picasa. It is my principle never to pay for anything, if I can find a way around it so I am trying to find a way around this problem.

 Apparently when you use Blogger to upload pictures from your computer, Picasa stores the pictures and there is a limit to how much free storage you can have. I have never worried about the size of my pictures on my blog and I should have been doing so. The 1 GB limit is a lifetime limit and I am way past it since I have been blogging since 2007 and always use loads of pictures. 

Supposedly if you use Google Plus, it should allow you to upload unlimited pictures if they are below 2048 pixels on their longest edge and under 800 MB. Most of my pictures seem to be that but others aren't. I have no idea how to go about resizing those that are already online without expending huge amounts of time.

Does anyone have any tips on doing that for me? I believe there may be a glitch for some people who are getting this message but not sure what is going on in my case as I am indeed over the limit. 

My thinking is that if I resize the pictures to be under 800 pixels, since I am using Google Plus (which should be resizing them automatically anyway) I should not be having problems but I am.

Right now I am using Photobucket to upload and  store my pictures which is a huge PITA because each link then has to be added to the blogger post by copying and pasting each one into the pop up window. A very painful experience, I assure you because I always tend to add so many pictures to my postings. 

Something that might be useful knowledge for others in the future is that you can resize batches of images using Picasa and Photoshop, as well as a variety of other free online tools so if you are on blogger check it out to make sure you stay below the limit and have no problems in the future. I just wish they would let those of with the humongous pictures, already online, know what is the easiest way to resize them.

This is a set of 6*6  pages create for a swap on Yahoo Altered Books Group. I used cereal boxes, bits of corrugated cardboard boxes, 

vintage millinery berries:

old sheet music from a tiny vintage book of Christmas carols. The bird image is from a Christmas napkin.

This graphic is from the cover of the old hymnal. I tore it apart so decided to make use of the pretty cover. Added a plastic branch.

I used tons of silver and clear glass glitter. The blue is also a Christmas napkin.

The snow girl is a graphic from the Graphics Fairy Blog: I used her in a variety of sizes and also reversed the image for some pages.

The corrugated cardboard was removed from the box, soaked in water to separate the layers then cut and painted and inked with Tim Holtz inks.

Heres is the stack of pages showing the plastic snowflakes I reglittered to use.

On this one I added another page from the book of carols, a piece of mini plastic garland, a tiny sugared bell and a tiny piece of plastic branch with a red glittered berry from Joanns.

Again the bird image is from the Graphics Fairy.

I love the texture on this piece. I used Walnut inks to age, dried it and painted over with gesso, I think.

This picture shows the stack of six pages at the corrugated ends: 

The Santa image is a sticker.

The clock image is from the Graphic Fairy:

And now for something completely different -- The cutest trinket box I have EVER seen :))

Have a wonderful day with lots of Vintage style.

Deborah