Saturday, October 31, 2009

I am hopelessly in love …

with the new man in my life. He was born on October 21, 2009, at 9:28 a.m., weighing 8 pounds 10 ounces and 21 inches long.Our Prince Noah WEB

I’m recuperating well from my scheduled c-section. I’m a little tired from sitting at the computer today. So I’ll update more next time!

Credits: Quick page I seriously don’t know. And can’t find it right now, LOL! Title: Felicia Staulters; Journaling lines: The Daily Digi Snap and Scrap kit; Font: Toxica (a typewriter font).

Saturday, October 17, 2009

My Growing Family

My growing family layout WEB

I am scheduled for a c-section on Wednesday, October 21, 2009. We are very excited about our growing family!

Monday, October 12, 2009

I ♥ Faces: I’m so excited!

Well, I guess she is excited, LOL. She got to go through the single rider line and ride Test Track all by herself at Disney World last March. I’m not sure if she was more excited about getting to ride Test Track or riding by herself! This is usually one of my favorite rides, but when you’re three months pregnant, that’s a big “no.” I’ll just have to wait for the next trip and then I can be excited, too!

Ariana Single Rider Test Track 2 web

I waited with her in the line, put her on the ride and was waiting for her when she got off. So I didn’t sent her in there alone! Bonus: We only waited about 20 minutes during the busiest part of the day. Can’t beat that at Disney World!

Now it’s your turn. Do you have a favorite photo full of excitement? Post it and enter it over at I ♥ Faces. Or just go check out all the other excited people!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

I ♥ Faces: Fix it Friday #31

First I want to thank everyone for the wonderful response to my fantasy tutorial over on the I ♥ Faces blog. I had a question about what to do for boys. Fortunately this week’s Fix it Friday picture is of a little boy. Now he needed a 2nd shoulder and a piece of ear, so I copied his left shoulder, pasted it to a new layer, moved it around and did some cloning. For  the ear, it’s actually my ear, LOL. I found a picture of me at the right angle and just copied the ear to a new layer. I burned, dodged, cloned and erased until it looked like a whole ear. Web size you can’t really tell. On a full resolution and with access to all the pictures from this shoot, I would clone his ear and hot mine, LOL.

So here’s a straight color edit with a crop:

3994151621_b0b9988785_b edit2 WEB

And a b/w conversion (simple gradient map with a bump in curves).

3994151621_b0b9988785_b edit2 WEB bw

Then the fantasy picture:

Fix it Friday #31 WEB

All the supplies here are from a digital scrapbooking kit called Steampunk. You can find it here: ScrapbookGraphics. I also used the Golden Vintage action by CoffeeShop and the sandstone texture in PSE5. This was a lot of fun to work on. I hope it inspires you to do fantasy projects for little boys, too.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

I ♥ Faces: It’s official!

If you want to know how to do this:

Ariana Flower Fairy2 WEB

head on over to I ♥ Faces to see my new tutorial. If you give it a try, please let me know! I’d love to see your work.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

I ♥ Faces: Constructive Feedback Friday

That is more playing with other people’s pictures. I love it. Here are some pictures and links. The McLinky thing is closed. It maxed out at 40, but you can still check out all the great advice and edits right here: I ♥ Faces. In each set the first picture is a “straight out of camera shot and the others are my edits. Thanks for looking!

Mamarazzi Chronicles:

Nilde:

Soucy:

I Love Pictures:

IMG_4875Love picture IMG_4875 

Miller Family:

Lori:

Allieart:

I’ve had way too much fun the last couple of days playing with pictures. Thank you to I ♥ Faces for being such a wonderful resource!

Monday, September 28, 2009

I ♥ Faces: Blue

The absolute worst place to take pictures in all of Walt Disney World is the throne room in Cinderella’s Castle. To do it right I’d need a hot-shoe flash with some type of diffuser at the very least. That room is like a cave. And unfortunately 90% of the shooting I do doesn’t require any type of extra lighting. So I can’t justify the money it would cost to purchase the needed supplies to get this shot SOOC.

Fortunately for me I like to play in Photoshop :). Here is my entry for this week’s I ♥ Faces contest. I lightened it considerably, fixed the red eye (gracious day!) and the color balance issues, ran noiseware (I think twice) and then ran a watercolor action to make it look like a painting. I’ve actually printed this one and it looks divine. I’m very happy considering the way it started out.

Cinderella Watercolor edit WEB

Just for fun, here’s a link to the SOOC if you want to see it. It’s really sad! Cinderella SOOC.

Now it’s your turn! Head on over to I ♥ Faces to see more blue photos or enter your own!