See it. Live it. Doc|u|ment it!

Quick Pic!

Sorry I haven't blogged too much lately! I have been a busy, busy girl! I have a couple projects coming up though...the December Daily album and a Christmas Card Class! I'm also working on some blog posts to submit to QuicKutz. Oh, and there's that Nursing job that takes up part of each day! Ha!

OK, on to the quick pic! My son is taking photography at high school this semester and he had to do an assignment of 4 pics with his teddy bear (that bear has a story behind it too, more of that in a sec!). I thought this one was quite funny so I did a few Jessica Sprague effects to it. I can think of several fun captions for this one!

Now...the teddy bear story. When my dad passed away January 25, 2002 the funeral director suggested Papa Bears for all the grandkids. At the visitation there was a bear like this sitting with him in the coffin and at the funeral he presented an identical bear to each grandkid with the explanation that when they needed a hug from PaPa they could hug the bear instead and he would be hugging the one just like it where he was. The kids all love their bears still to this day. Zakk was 6 when his PaPa (and his best buddy!) left us. Now he's 15 and he still keeps that bear safe on his desk. So I thought it was cool he chose his bear to include in his photography assignment!

What We Do

School's underway. My job hunt is starting. Mike is work, work, working! With football season taking over our evenings and weekends, just thought I'd stop and remind myself what we do for fun when we don't have to be anywhere else!

 

I like to scrapbook, sometimes the traditional paper way, but lately with more hybrid computer-based methods, too! Mike plays Mafia Wars on Facebook (he's probably adding game points instead of financial plans in that snapshot!). Zakk is a texting maniac, plus there's MySpace and XBOX Live when he's not strumming his guitar. Brodie is indoors/outdoors/and all over the place. This summer he learned to ride his bike. He played piano, set up his own YouTube account, and started making mini-movies (mainly enjoyable only be those viewers ages 9 & under though!).

Life's little chores may snag a lot more of our time, but I'm sure this is where we'll all be when free time happens to slip into our schedules!

PS: If you like that little decorative "brush" I used in the photo grid above, you can get it at House of 3!

Sweet 1st Birthdays!

I had to share my little digi creation! We recently went to a special birthday for little Mykel's first birthday. Of course, I hadn't charged my camera battery in several weeks so it didn't last too long. I did get some funny pics before it bit the dust though! And I've been playing with my latest digital purchase: a set of postage frames by Katie P at Designer Digitals. What do you think?

The one person I did NOT get to shoot before my battery died was the daddy! Maybe someone else got a shot so I can include him in the collage. Then I will just have to print this and give it to Mykel's mommy! I didn't do much touching up on the photos except for two. On the far left of Mykel I toned down the overall color (Jessica Sprague style) and added a touch of rosy to her cheeks. Then on the bottom left picture of mom and baby, I did some color burn around the outer edges. Other than that, this is what I got straight out of the camera. If only I could find a class to learn how to move out of automatic settings...

Photoshop Elements & Texturing

Time to share new photos tricks! I'm still lovin' the Frames & Fix-ups class at Jessica Sprague's website. This week I've learned how to add textures, overlays, clipping masks, and text to photos. A lot of the textures are free to download at safe sites. And for a great selection of free fonts, there's a website called dafont.com.

For both of these pics, I started with my photo layer. Next I opened paper bag textures and moved them onto the photos with the move tool. I changed the adjustment layer for the textures to Soft Light and opacity to 60% or so. I joined the texture to the photo by hovering over the line between the two layers in the layers palette at the right of the PSE screen, and then mouse clicking while holding the Alt key. My last layer consisted of my text.

 

 

See...you want to play with Photoshop Element, too, don't you?! Well, you can check out Jessica's site & learn right along with me! Can't wait to print these and add them to my layouts!

PSE Frame-Ups

OK, I have to share some more of my excitement about my digital class! If you have Photoshop Elements or CS version, you need to make sure you are taking full advantage of what it can do! I had a blah picture that really wasn't that photo album worthy, but now it's like a piece of scrapbooking heritage! I recolored the photo with adjustment layers, added 3 textures, and overlayed it with a frame (brush kit I purchased at DesignerDigitals.com). Take a look at the before and after:

 

Notice the gray skies, vehicle in the pic, and tire tracks? Plus, my subjects are far away!

 

Now it has character, the subjects are the focal point, the distractions are gone, and the textures and color changes make it look like it could be from any decade. Can't wait to get this printed and sent off to Grandpa! Just goes to show, maybe you have better photos to work with than you think! With a few minutes of digital playtime you can turn a so-so shot into a masterpiece! There are a few freebie tutorials at Jessica Sprague and DesignerDigitals that should keep you busy enough for a day of play! See what you can do. Post a comment with a link to anything you create and upload (to any online gallery you choose).

My Sweet Sleepyhead!

I'm taking Jessica Sprague's photo editing class right now and I'm so excited! I've used Photoshop Elements for a few years, but never really got into using png files or masks. It's only day 1 and I've learned some new stuff...can't beat that! Today I learned how to drag frames and wordArt onto a picture. For my homework, I altered a picture of my baby (who happens to be 9 years old and weighs over 90 pounds...but still!) by adding a frame and some wordArt. Both png files are from my House of 3 Housewarming digital kit that I purchased a while back. Another effect I did was to blur the area outside of the frame and darken the contrast a bit.

Just a pointer to do the blurring: while my layers were still separate, I selected the layer with the frame. I clicked on Quick Selection Tool, clicked the box at the top for All Layers, then selected the area inside the frame opening. Then I went to Select-> Inverse and it changed my selection to everything but the frame opening. I hid the frame layer and added the blur filter and the reduced contrast.

If you haven't checked out Jessica Sprague's website and you want to know how to use Photoshop Elements or the complete suite, you need to boogie on over there! She is the master!