By Nicki Fitz-Gerald

As the festive period draws near, I like to treat myself to a bit of artistic playtime with some of my favorite apps for creating special effects. I can then send my friends and family some unique handmade festive cards originating from photos I’ve taken with my iPhone.

In this guide, I want to share my top three apps for adding festive effects to my artwork - Percolator, MetaBrush, and iColorama. All three of these apps offer endless possibilities for creativity. Percolator’s gorgeous multi-color, spangly circles are especially suitable for a festive theme. The second app, MetaBrush, provides some expressive brush and painterly options, and I’ll focus on the gorgeous Dilate effect. Finally, iColorama is an app Sweetie Shop with all its dazzling effects, but I’ll focus on just a few of my favorites for this festive theme.

To finish off, I’ll suggest some ways to turn your art into holiday greeting cards to send to family and friends and help get you in the festive mood!

PERCOLATOR APP-POP YOUR PIC WITH UNIQUE PATTERNS!

Percolator is a fantastic app for turning your mobile photos into vibrant, festive art. It transforms images into intricate mosaics, making your holiday scenes pop with color and creativity. The app allows for easy customization of patterns and styles, enabling you to effortlessly create unique, eye-catching holiday designs.

First, you’ll need to import a photo.

CHOOSING A PHOTO

Before you do this, consider what type of photo you might use. Consider the festive theme. Starting with an image that already has a holiday or Christmas vibe will give you a big advantage for the final festive feel, either in terms of color or subject, or both. Photos with a nice contrast of busy and clear empty areas with clear divisions between the two will work the best. Look for images where the subjects stand out against the backgrounds, such as winter trees or snow scenes.

Here are some of the original photos I used in this guide.

To speed up the process of editing several photos in different apps, create a separate album in your photo library and give it a name like “Festive Photos.” Then spend 10 minutes or so finding suitable photographs for processing and putting them in the album.