Work In Progress Wednesday

Well, once again I have nothing new to report and I don't even have a photo to share with you since nothing has changed other than Mark got 2 more rows done on the floor. Our kids have been really craving some Daddy time and Isaac was taking 2 naps again and since it's a noisy project we decided to just hang out as a family instead of working. With the holiday this weekend we'll be having family time on Sunday again and visiting Mark's Grandma on Saturday and so we won't have anything new again next Wednesday. Hopefully after the holiday though we'll be back to working on the room so Mark can start working in there. We'll probably take some time off of the house too to focus on enjoying our family. And... the search for a new furnace and AC will begin and hopefully we'll start working on the family room so that by next fall we can open up the downstairs.

Since I don't like leaving you w/o pics, I'll point you to some fun free templates made by Traci's girls. Check them out... click on the photo to be directed to the Hawt Mamas blog for the download link.

and here's the page I used to make my contribution.

Enjoy and remember if you download them, be sure to leave some lovin' for the Hawt Mamas thanking them for the awesome templates.

Make It Monday - Scrapbook Mania

WOOT! Saturday night I got to spend some time with some friends and scrap away. I have decided to finish Isaac's 1st year book in digi instead of paper and it was so nice to only pack a laptop and power cord and not have to pack a huge amount of paper, elements, glue, etc... I've decided that from now on we'll be getting a table next to an outlet and I'll be doing my digi pages, because I LOVED it so much!

Wanna see what I did? I was more concerned with quantity than quality so I made sure to load all my templates onto the laptop. I was on a mission to get a good amount done during my 5 hours there. I got 5 out the remaining 10 pages done, this makes me so happy! Hopefully I'll be done with it the next time we do a scrapbook mania, YAY! Here they are along with credits below...

Credits:
Treasured by Heather Roselli
Template by Cindy Schneider
Titlez - For Kids by Studio NeeNee
CK Becky

Credits:

Wally World by Melissa Bennett
Inspired by Rubia templates by Darcy Baldwin
Bad Sewing Machine - Kinda Kleen by Traci Reed
Bad Sewing Machine - Messy Lil Bits by Traci Reed

Credits:
Boyfriend Jeans and 4 Keeps (Boyfriend Jeans add-on) by ScrapKitchen Designs
Bottom Ups: Set 4 by Traci Reed

Credits:

Stealing Prince Charming by Traci Reed
Template by Cindy Schneider
Gimme Space by Lauren Reid and Darcy Baldwin

Credits:

That's My Boy by Zoe Pearn
Inspired by Rubia template by Darcy Baldwin
tweenybopper by Darcy Baldwin

Scrappin' Saturday

I have lots to show you this week! I so thrilled to be creating for such awesome designers and every week I keep thinking it can't get any better than the last and it always does. This week I'm excited to announce that I am creating for another team at Sweet Shoppe Designs. I'm so thrilled to be creating for Melissa Bennett and this week's kit is sooooo CUTE! Of course Traci totally ROCKED the boy kit this week and I totally heart the colors and elements and will definitely be using it tonight at my Girl's Night Out at Archivers tonight. I'm so excited about tonight and have decided to re-do Isaac's 1st year scrapbook in digi. Hopefully, I'll have tons of pages to show you on Monday after tonight, WOOT! I don't think I'll ever go back to paper scrapping, lol.

OK, here's the pages for my CTs this week...

First up with Traci's So What? kit. I had so much fun creating my page w/o a template. It took me all Thursday night to scrap it because I'm so used to using templates, but I LOVE the outcome.
Credits:
So What? by Traci Reed
Bad Sewing Machine XVIII - Kinda Kleen by Traci Reed

and isn't this new one, Bee Happy, from Melissa adorable? I just love the doodled flowers and the little bee and the alpha totally ROCKS. The papers are totally gorgeous too! Such a fun new kit for spring! I used a template by Cindy Schneider, I just LOVE her template designs and I used it out of hopes that she's the new designer over at Sweet Shoppe Designs and SHE IS! I'm so excited to see her templates at my favorite shoppe now!
Credits:
Bee Happy by Melissa Bennett
Black Brad Alpha by Melissa Bennett (2010 click-a-sig freebie)
Tweenybopper by Darcy Baldwin
CK Cursive
Template by Cindy Schneider

Last is my sweet friend NeeNee's new releases. She released another set of Papercropz. I LOVE Papercropz, they just showcase all the beautiful papers so well.
Credits:
Papercropz vol. 4 by Studio NeeNee
Super You by Shawna Clingerman
Bad Sewing Machine XVIII - Kinda Kleen by Traci Reed
Poppyseed by Darcy Baldwin

Credits:
Papercropz vol 4 by Studio NeeNee
Forever Yours and Delightful Day by Penny Springmann
All Worn Up In You by Penny Springmann and Lauren Grier

and this last one is using the template freebie from NeeNee's newsletter, a continuation of our journey to a healthier and happier mama.
Credits:
Port au Prince by Songbird Ave. (Feb collab)
Titlez - Just One Word by Studio NeeNee
template by Studio NeeNee
CK Cursive
Grown Up Girl font by Darcy Baldwin

Fix It Friday #48

Well, I went a little crazy today, lol. I like playing and I'm not exactly sure why I didn't try out Pioneer Woman's free actions for PSE. After downloading them yesterday I haven't even looked at them yet, EEK! I've been waiting forever for them and then I totally forgot about them this morning. Anyways, the kids are sick today... why is it that every time we go to a museum the kids get sick? So, I didn't have much time to play this morning. This picture is stunning btw, and you should go check out the edits by the contributors on iheartfaces, they are AMAZING! So, since I did something quick I'm not impressed with my edit one bit, but here they are...

Original

First, in LR I used some of the presets to get this result.

Then I went into PSE6 to give it a little something extra using the perfect portrait action by CoffeeShop, I'm not sure I like it any better than the straight from LR photo though, oh well... it's just for fun right?

...back to snuggling with my kiddos... Have a great Friday!

Work In Progress Wednesday

SOOOOOOOOOO CLOSE!

Well, the paint job our friend did is beautiful and the kids had such a blast with his daughter. We had so much fun going for a long walk and playing at the playground. I was super sore the next day from the walk with Isaac on my back and pushing the girls in the stroller, but the weather was fantastic and it was so worth not being able to walk the next day, lol. I made my crockpot chili and they all stayed for dinner and their daughter finally crashed right before Bible study. The girls just absolutely loved being together all day. Mark decided to let the kids "help" put in the floor on Saturday and as you'll see in the photo, we didn't quite get the room done yet, lol. Hopefully this weekend we'll be able to find some time to finish up the floors and Mark can move the desk into the bedroom and set up his "office". YAY! The final part will be to paint our canopy bed so that we can put it together and bring our current bed downstairs so our parents will have a bed when they come to visit! YAY! Now we just need some really consistent warm weather so we can do some outdoor painting. :)

Here's a photo, excuse the grain... the batteries were dead in my flash and I was too lazy to switch them and just bumped up the ISO to the max, lol.

It's so much better than that Colts blue room, right?

Make It Monday

Here are my last pages for Design Your Life class by Cathy Z. Wow, what a fast paced class and I'm so glad I kept up with it the past 12 weeks. It was a wonderful design class but I must be honest in that I'm really looking forward to learning more about Photoshop Elements again. I did receive a class for Christmas from my parents that I'm really excited to start up and thankfully it's self paced and not so fast paced. It's a Jessica Sparague class and it's about brushes. This is something I've been really wanting to learn about since I have a ton of brushes in my brushes folder but not exactly sure how to use them and can't wait to learn!

OK, back to the Design Your Life class... this week we were to take the sketches from previous weeks and make them different by altering or rotating or something like that or just keeping the same just using different photos and papers. Most of all we needed to utilize what we've learned in the 12 weeks of class. I like to work in 12x12 pages so the first one I took a 12x12 layout and just rotated 90 degrees. Here's my original page from Week 1.

Credits:
Sturdy Solids by Shawna Clingerman
The Village Market by ScrapKitchen
Little Miss Can't Be Wrong by Traci Reed
Bad Sewing Machine Lil Bits by Traci Reed
DJB JGEEK by Darcy Baldwin

and my page for this week, which I also entered in this week's DigiDare.

Credits:
Imagine That - Robin Carlton and Misty Cato (retired)
Reddy Or Not Alpha by Libby Weifenbach (2010 SSD click a sig freebie)
(white paper) Breathe In The Rain by Lauren Grier and Shawna Clingerman
Arial font
template by CathyZ

The second one I altered from a 8.5x11 page to a 12x12 page and chose to use paper instead of photos for the bottom two blocks. Here is the original from Week 10.

Credits:
A New Day by Sweet Shoppe Designs, papers, elements and font (retired freebie)
flamboyant black alpha by Julie Billingsley

and my altered one

credits:
Limited Edition: Relax, Renew, Refresh Petit 4 by Heather Roselli, Lauren Reid, lliella designs, Penny Springmann
custom print font by Darcy Baldwin
template by CathyZ

and this last one was the Real World Color challenge and we were supposed to pick an element that we wanted to use and build our color scheme off of that... I decided not to use the sketch provided by Cathy but to alter a previous sketch from Week 5 because I wanted to play around with splitting a photo over several photos. Normally, I'd rather scrap a page about my kids but decided since I really wanted to use this winter themed kit in my unused folder this was the only photo that would work with it and was perfect for splitting up. Here's my page, aren't the papers GORGEOUS?

Credits:
Snow Dust by Melissa Bennett (2009 Sweet Shoppe Designs quarterly assortment vol 4)
Everybody Wins Alpha by Libby Weifenbach (coming Saturday to Sweet Shoppe Designs)
DJB Tweenybopper by Darcy Baldwin

Week 12 - "Focusing On Angles" photo challenge

Here's my entry for this week's photo challenge on iheartfaces.

Scrappin' Saturday

Here's a bunch of new fun stuff from Traci and NeeNee this week...

First up is the absolutely super fun girly girl kit from Traci Reed and Meghan Mullens... LOVE this kit even though I'm not a girly girl but my sweet girl totally is. I had so much fun with this one.

Credits:
Girl's Day Out by Traci Reed and Meghan Mullens
Scalloped by Traci Reed
DJB Poppyseed by Darcy Baldwin

Traci's Bad Sewing machine went in for a little "kleening" and I LOVE the results! Traci's stitches always ROCK and these definitely don't disappoint even though they're not so "bad".

Credits:
Dude by Fee Jardine
Bad Sewing Machine 18 - Kinda Kleen by Traci Reed
Bad Sewing Machine 4 - Don't Be Square by Traci Reed
Spookified Alpha by Traci Reed
Wonky Templates 4 by Lauren Reid
DJB Gimme Space by Lauren Reid and Darcy Baldwin
Clip Stripz by Studio NeeNee
3/19 SSD Featured Scrapper template inspired by Kellie

... and a couple pages from NeeNee's new templatez pack, LOVE them!

Credits:
Templatez Vol 5 by Studio NeeNee
Birds and Bees by Krystal Hartley (part of The Daily Digi this month)

Credits:
Templatez vol 5 by Studio NeeNee
Bloom and Grow by Zoe Pearn

Work In Progress Wednesday on Thursday...

Not a whole lot to report... we've been enjoying the weather before it snows again this weekend so instead of painting the bedroom/office we've been outside. Our good friend is coming over tomorrow to paint the bedroom for us while I watch his daughter. Moriah can't wait to have her come over to play and Isaac can't wait to teach her how to get into trouble, lol. Hopefully, what this means is that we'll be able to put the flooring in over the weekend and be mostly done with the room, YAY!

...and since I don't like to post w/o any pictures, I'll post a photo of best friends dancin' at the Arboretum earlier this week.

Heading to the Arboretum

...the camera battery is charged the diaper bag is packed, the lunches are packed and the double jogging stroller is in the back of the van... we're headed to the Arboretum today, our first time this year! I can't tell you how excited I am to get out and spend the day there. It's our family's favorite place to explore and hang out with friends. Now if my kids would eat their breakfast so that they can get dressed and we can head out the door that would be great!

Here's a few pages I've worked on for my Book of Me for this month, I still have one more page to do but haven't figured out which prompt I want to do for my 3rd page...
First is 10 photos of me doing different things... I used 10 Things by Traci Reed and Meghan Mullens, Edgy by Traci and Bad Sewing Machine LooptyLoo by Traci... the extra alphas are Teeny Type Alpha by Zoe Pearn and Shabby Shimmers by Libby Weifenbach... the font is Tweenybooper by Darcy Baldwin. This is actually 2-8.5x11 pages since my BOM is using 8.5x11 pages and I knew I couldn't fit 10 photos on one page, lol.
This second one was to scrap something that makes us laugh, well that would be my family. I used assorted papers by MandaBean, ScrapKitchen Designs and Shawna Clingerman, the alpha is Reddy or Not by Libby Weifenbach and the font is Tweenybopper by Darcy Baldwin... the template I used and modified to fit the page was from Inspired by Rubia by Darcy Baldwin.

This next page is not part of my BOM but a part of a journey that was started by NeeNee. She is going through a journey equaling 13 weeks and if you're subscribed to her newsletter you'll get a freebie template for every page she does during this journey. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to go through a journey myself... A few weeks ago you'll remember I had my little indentity crisis and I think this will be the perfect chance for me to document this journey of finding myself again. Here's my first page: I used A Jeans and a T-Shirt Kind of Girl by Libby Weifenbach, Border Basics stitching by Libby Weifenbach, Shabby Shimmer's Alpha by Libby Weifenbach, Paper Clips: Rounded Corner Templates by Libby, Chocolate Drop Alpha by Darcy Baldwin, Teeny Type Alpha by Zoe Pearn, Black & White & Red All Over Alpha by Darcy Baldwin, and the font is JenniferK by Darcy Baldwin. The template is the newsletter freebie by Studio NeeNee. You can get future templates by signing up for her newsletter on the right side of her blog.

Make It Monday

Well, we're in our 11th week of the Design Your Life class, which means only one more week! I can't believe how fast those 12 weeks have gone. This week's lesson was on type and here are my pages. I did learn something that I'm working really really hard to change. I was taught in typewriter 101 to always use two spaces between sentences but that design-wise you should only use one space. It looks better and the period or punctuation shows the end of the sentence. So many years of typing 2 spaces is proving really hard for me to change but I'm working on it and I do see that my pages look cleaner with only one space. WOW, it's so hard though to make that kind of change and to have to think about my typing again.

OK, here's my pages:
This first page was to use the sans serif font as the title for the journaling. I didn't have Helvetica so I used Arial which was close.

credits:
His Playroom and His Playroom add-on by Traci Reed

This next one was to use an alpha instead of a font, I used the word art that was in the kit and then I used my personal custom print font for the journaling.

credits:
Sweetie by Krystal Hartley (2009 quarterly assortment vol 4)
photo action by CoffeeShop

and the last one was the Real World Color page, and the color scheme was an orange, orangey yellow and blue/gray...

Credits:
Titlez - childhood by Studio NeeNee
4 sho add on by Penny Springmann (2010 quarterly assortment vol 1)
Rock On Alpha (1) by Fee Jardine

Scrappin' Saturday

WOOT! I've been quite busy this week doing pages for my creative teams, so many fun things this week! Since there are so many I'm just going to post the page with the credits below... seriously some super fun stuff this week, I LOVED it all!

Bit O' Green by Traci Reed

additional credits:
Take Out Tuesday block template by Traci Reed (SSD blog freebie)
Heather G (custom print font) by Darcy Baldwin

Bottom Ups 6 by Traci Reed

additional credits:
4 Better by Traci Reed (2010 quarterly assortment vol 1)
4 Worse by Libby Weifenbach (2010 quarterly assortment vol 1)
DJB Poppyseed by Darcy Baldwin
Say It (Lauren Reid blog freebie) by Lauren Grier
Stitcherific 1 - Grids by Julie Billingsley
Frivolous alpha by Julie Billingsley
Black Brad alpha (2010 click a sig freebie) by Melissa Bennett

Titlez - Childhood by Studio NeeNee

additional credits:
Boyfriend Jeans by ScrapKitchen Designs
Wordart (Take Out Tuesday template SSD blog freebie) by Libby Weifenbach
Action: Doodle Alpha by Krystal Hartley and Wendyzine Scraps
Edgy by Traci Reed
Tweenybopper by Darcy
Flick's templates by Studio NeeNee

Titlez - School by Studio NeeNee
(this page made Gallery Standout on Thursday!)

additional credits:
Rhyme Thyme by Traci Reed and Meghan Mullens (retired)
Action Doodle Alpha by Krystal Hartley and Wendyzine Scraps
Gimme Space by Lauren Reid and Darcy Baldwin
Impressions of Simplicity template by Studio NeeNee

The following 4 pages are with
Papercropz vol 3 by Studio NeeNee

(this page also made Gallery Standout on Thursday)

additional credits:
Whimsy Wonderland by Christy Lyle
Spookified (question mark) by Traci Reed
gems (2010 click a sig freebie) by Lliella Designs
DJB Grownup Girl by Darcy Baldwin

additional credits:

A New Day by Sweet Shoppe Designs (expired freebie)
Scalloped by Traci Reed
Doodles & Damask by Penny Springmann

additional credits:
Rock Chick by Fee Jardine
Rock On Alpha by Fee Jardine

additional credits:
Boy Yer Crazy by Lauren Grier and Simply Scraps
Layered Up In You Brackets by Lauren Grier
Color My Mood frame by Lauren Grier and Shawna Clingerman (retired)
DJB Heather G (custom print font) by Darcy Baldwin

Fix It Friday #47

This week's fix at iHeartFaces was a bit more difficult than usual, but what a sweet little girl. First in LR2 I used the auto tone preset to fix the exposure a bit. I then used the brush adjustment tool to increase the exposure around the eyes and her face. Then I opened that up in PSE6 and it was pretty grainy so I decided to have some fun with actions and textures. I used CoffeeShop Butterscotch Vintage, flattened and then used CoffeeShop Attic Vintage using the scratchy vintage texture that they suggest on their website. I used the brush tool at 50% and a not so solid brush to hide some of the texture on the girl's skin. I decided to go even further with the vintage look and used an awesome template by Penny Springmann from her All Worn Out Photograph and Paper Overlays 2.

Original

Final edit

Tutorial Time...

I'm posting a tutorial I wrote up for www.mygreatretreat.com today. On my agenda is to write up a new tutorial every few weeks about photography and photo editing. Come join in the fun and participate in the assignments, we'd love to have you there.

OK, on with the tutorial...
focus: 5 a : a center of activity, attraction, or attention b : a point of concentration... Merriam Webster dictionary

Today I want to talk to you little about focus. When I'm taking a picture I ask this question often... where's your focus? Usually, I'm taking portraits of my kids and so I want my focus to be on their face and more specifically on their eyes. Since people are generally who we want to focus on in our photos that's usually where we want our focus to be but sometimes we want it elsewhere to draw our attention to the story behind the photo..

Every camera is different and therefore your settings are different but in general every camera has a focus point which is normally in the center for p&s cameras or you can have from 3 to several focus points in higher end p&s camears and dSLRs. Your goal is to use that point to get the most tack sharp focus exactly where you want your focus to be... Many cameras allow you to pinpoint your focus area, press the button down halfway and then you can move the camera around to get the composition you want before pressing all the way down to take the shot and your focus will stay on the object or person that you had locked in the focus on.

In my photos I want to bring your attention to something... so most of my photos will focus on a child's face and more specifically the face... but sometimes I want to tell a story with my photo so I'll focus on that storytelling part of the photo... take this photo for instance... I want people to see how messy my sweet boy is... I have the focus on his messy hands after eating but you can still see that it's him who is being the messy boy. So, I set my focus point to focus on his hand and I set my aperture pretty wide so that the rest of him is blurry but you can still tell it's him.
Here's another example, again of my sweet boy... this time focusing on the fact that he bent the drill bit, so I took a picture of his hands playing with the drill and my focus is on the hands not his face or even his whole body or the whole scene... can you tell he's my little trouble maker?
Normally, this is what my photos look like... a picture of my child with the focus on their face and more specifically on their eyes, although in this photo, I could have told the story by focusing on the ASL "I Love You" sign but chose to focus more on my sweet girl by focusing on her eyes showing how happy she is
and here is another one not focusing on the face but focusing on something on his face to show the story... my child has a snotty nose and he's reaching for kleenex... is that what you see with this photo? Is your attention drawn to the snotty nose?
OK, here's your assignment... take a picture that tells a story, drawing our attention to something or some place using the focus point(s) on your camera. Post the photo here in this thread for us all to see.