I thought ya'll might enjoy this quick tutorial for The GIMP on how I make the "glow" around my text in Scripture Wallpapers and/or the Scripture tags. It's a simple little trick and it doesn't require many steps to complete. 
1) Open GIMP & create a 640×480 image.
2) Set your foreground color (foreground is on top, background color is the one behind it) to #4682b4
3) Then click the "Fill Bucket" icon , then click on your image to change the background color of the image to your foreground color.
4) Create your text layer by clicking on the "A" (text) icon, then clicking on your image to create your text. Type in "A Godly Maiden" and set your font size to 44, and set the font to black (#000000) (you can change the text color below where you change the font).
5) Make sure your text layer is selected (Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Layers OR CTRL+L)
6) With the text layer selected, go to Layer > Transparency > Alpha To Selection.
7) Layer > New Layer (name it Glow), don't bother the width & height, but make sure the Layer Fill Type is set to Transparency.
8) Open the Layers Dialog (CTRL+L OR Step 5) and drag the new "Glow" layer below the original text layer.
9) Now go to Select > Grow. Enter about 4 pixels. (This is how big the glow behind the text is going to be).
10) Fill with White, which should already be your background color, but if not, you can set it. (Step 2) Once white is your background color, press CTRL+. (in other words. CTRL + Period)
11) Select > None.
12) Now go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. This is where you customize the blur effect. It helps if the "preview" is on. For this example I'm setting the horizontal and vertical settings to "8.0" without touching the rest of the settings.
13) Click OK. You should now have a blur effect behind your text! And you can still go back and change the color of the text if you'd like! 
Below is a picture of my image turned out by using this.
#1 by Oriana on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 6:49 PM
Very good tutorial Lacy! I always wondered how these were made
Have a Blessed Day,
Oriana
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#2 by Jessica on Saturday, June 20, 2009 - 12:33 PM
Thanks for this post, Lacy! I've just started with The GIMP and really appreciate the tips!
It's a great program and I'm looking forward to working more with it.
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#3 by Jessica on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 4:33 AM
Just wanted to let you know I've put a new header on my blog and followed your steps to make the title glow – it worked well and I like the way it looks!! Thanks again.
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#4 by Sara on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - 8:26 PM
Pretty cool post. I just came across your blog and wanted to say
that I have really liked reading your posts. Anyway
I'll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon!
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#5 by Amanda Read on Saturday, June 27, 2009 - 9:36 PM
Ooh, that's really nice to know! My younger brother is pretty good at using the GIMP, but I'm not quite as familiar with it. I should try using it more. I usually use ArcSoft PhotoImpression to add text to pictures and so forth.
~Amanda~
.-= Amanda Read´s most recent blog entry – Adulterous Diplomacy =-.
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#6 by Shaun on Saturday, October 24, 2009 - 5:51 AM
I have checked out several tutorials on how to follow this task out. But they were very vague, thank you for your in depth tutorial =)
Shaun
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#7 by holly on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 12:53 AM
awesome tutorial easy to follow works great i'm excited to use
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#8 by Matthias on Friday, February 12, 2010 - 8:17 AM
Hi Lacy
Now this is one weird, but very coool page hit. I was just googling for "outward glow in gimp" and up came your site. It is truly inspiring to see how strongly you desire to be righteous – going even so far as to use the Gimp on Linux (if I spotted that correctly on your screenshots).
Your brother in the Lord
Matthias
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