2010 Me and My Girls

I don't know that I've ever gotten a page scrapped the day after taking a photo, but I'm determined to get more pages done and more than that I'm determined to get myself in more photos with the girls...even if I don't look the way I wish I did.

On this day the girls decided they would lay down on top of me on the couch, which in itself is not that big of a deal, but they will be 5 soon and its not something that will be part of our lives much longer.

I'm usually not one for converting to B&W, or clustering items, it doesn't come naturally to me, but I really like Natali's designs and got this kit and was determined to use it.



Kit - Ordinary by Natali Design (DigiShopTalk March Gold Kit)
Fonts - CK Ali's Writing and Times New Roman

I ♥ Faces │ Fix it Friday

Couldn't pass up trying the Fix-it Friday this week.



The photo was pretty underexposed so I did open it in Camera Raw and adjusted exposure. This revealed a bit of noise, so I ran the photo thru my community Noiseware (free for PC users) version just to clean it up a bit.

In CS3
* I cropped the photo, tilting it a bit and bringing it in tighter.


* I added a new layer and cloned the skin under her eyes to brighten the dark circles


* I did 3 different level adjustment layers with masks to correct the exposure on the little girl 1)her overall 2)around her forehead and eyes 3)and her arms


* I did 3 different hue/saturation layers and 1)masked her shirt popping the pinks a bit, 2) masked her lips, just giving them a hint of more color and 3)masked only a portion of the pinball game so we could more easily see what she was studying


* Then I did an overall color balance layer to warm the photo


* Then I masked just her face and did a curves adjustment to warm her up a bit more by dropping the cyans and raising the yellows just a little.


*then I did one final curves adjustment to lighten the overall photo, masking back the background to minimize its distraction.

I find it so amazing that its hard to see the little changes in each step, but the overall effect is such a big difference from the original.

This is always good practice for snapshots I sometimes get to include in my photo card work.

off to check out other fix-its and how some of the contributor's achieved their fixes - you can see more here

2009 I Hope You Dance

This looks SO straightforward...I wish I could say I whipped this out in a matter of minutes, but oh no, it took me several hours. But it's done and it's done in one day which is so important to me right now. I actually ran an action on the photos which is something I rarely do, but felt it went with the theme and the soft colors of the paper.



Papers from Sweety Spring by Miss Vivi
Flowers from Kayleigh's Kalediscope by Flergs
Action - Colorized by Pioneer Woman (some layers were disabled, opacity changed)
Font - 1942 Report

1/2 of rework of Little Baby to Little Lady

This layout was one of the first ones I did digitally, only I did it in powerpoint intending to do hybrid (years ago for me) so I had to start over in PS to get a printable version. I just love having this much information about the girls and I know they will really treasure it when they have their own children.

There will be a facing page that takes them from 2 years thru 10 years - right up to a little lady.

This is also a great example of how much they have looked alike & different over time.



Background papers from Wild Sorbet by Michelle Coleman
Title Alpha - Bohemian Summer by Michelle Coleman
Stitched flowers from Bad Sewing Machine XIV - Flueriffic by Traci Reed
fonts - Jayne Print, 2 peas Old Type, 2 peas chatter, old typewriter