Our Halloween

I am so late in posting about our Halloween, ack! But this year was the best yet! The only bummer was that Daddy was in India and missed all the fun. In year's past, Anna sometimes wanted to trick-or-treat and sometimes not. She used to find the holiday too scary and unpredictable to enjoy so she would stay with my mom while I took Dominic out. This year, she wanted to trick-or-treat right from the start and she even knew what she wanted to be... a butterfly! Dominic wanted to be a vampire and we even found some plastic fangs for him to wear. Jenny came home from college for the weekend and she dressed up as a cat while her boyfriend, Chris, dressed up as a princess. Ha! We had so much fun!!! It was really nice that the time change hadn't happened yet, so we had more light. I still had trouble with my shutter speed being too low, so I tried using the Speedlite on my camera, but I need to read some tutorials on how to use it. Anyway, here are a few snapshots of the kids on Halloween. Enjoy!





























Thanks for looking!

Charlie

So we got this dog last summer... a Labradoodle puppy from Cheyenne Valley Labradoodles. We named him Charlie. The breeder donated him to our family because of Anna's special needs. I was hoping he would bond with her and I was planning on taking him all the way through delta training to be a service dog for her. But he bonded with me more intensely and he also ended up much bigger than we anticipated, so he's really turned into my dog. Last week, I upgraded my camera from a Nikon D40 to a Nikon D300 and the very first picture I took for that day's photo-of-the-day for my P365 project was this one of Charlie:



Pioneer Woman, aka Ree Drummond, regularly hosts photography contests on her blog and last week she started one for four-legged creatures. So of course, I submitted this shot of Charlie. She gets thousands of entries and I've been submitting photos for months and months for all of her previous contests. This time, my photo made her blog! Check it out here: Group One. My photo is last in the group. I was so tickled that I danced all weekend! :)

Thanks for indulging my woot!

i heart faces ~ orange

This week's photo challenge at i heart faces is orange. The photo entry should include a human face and the color orange! I had such a hard time choosing which photo to submit this week because I have several of Dominic wearing orange that are pretty good. Ultimately, I decided to go with him in his Boy Scouts uniform. The color orange here is so vibrant and really represents childhood at so many different levels.

Image is clickable to see it larger.



Thanks for looking! And go check out all of the other fabulous entries at i heart faces this week!

New Release from By Becca today!

By Becca is celebrating National Scrapbooking Day this weekend with a new release today at 9th & Bloom. A gorgeous kit filled with rich colors and textured elements, Love Grows Here is perfect for scrapping those warm, cozy moments at home with family. This is a truly stunning kit!

Love Grows Here

My Layout

Thanks for looking!

Battle of the Creative Teams, Week 3

I am participating in the Battle of the Creative Teams, representing By Becca. For this week's challenge, we were supposed to have a monochromatic palette and use photos of ourselves. Becca was sweet enough to recolor elements in the brown family and the kit turned out so well that she's releasing it in her store! The new kit is called Champagne & Chocolate and it's now available for sale. We didn't place in the top three last week and our team really made some stunning layouts this week... please help us by voting!!! Here are our BOTCT challenge layouts:

By Becca... Becca's Creative Goddesses

Please take a moment to vote for us! By Becca is listed about mid-way down this week.
VOTE

Here is my layout and the new kit!

Champagne & Chocolate

Thanks for your support!

Fix-it Friday #76 at i heart faces

This Fix-it Friday photo was submitted by Susan Keller, an IHF contributor. Here is the original photo:




And here is my edit (image is clickable to see it larger):




I love shots of kids at the beach. This little boy is a cutie-pie! Evaluating this image, I wanted to focus more on the boy's face. I was distracted by the dark patch of sand near his nose and chin. I also wanted to give the photo a beachy tone with a bit of haze. First I opened the photo in ACR to lower the contrast and cool the white balance. Then I opened the image in CS5.

Workflow in PS CS5:
~Cropped
~Patched sand area near face
~Desaturated orange cast from shirt on chin
~Ran Pandora action (from the Florabella Luxe collection), reduced opacity 90%
~Ran My4Hens Dusy Haze action, turned on Cyan at 40% opacity
~Reduced contrast
~Added texture, 50% opacity set to soft light, masked 50% on face
~Tweaked color balance, added a bit of yellow and cyan
~Added vignette at 20% opacity
~Sharpened

Thanks for looking and come check out the other edits at i heart faces!

i heart faces ~ pink

This week's photo challenge at i heart faces is pink. From their website: "This week’s theme is in celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Your photo entry should include a human face and the color pink! We know many of us have been touched by this disease, so sharing your stories with your photo would be wonderful. Let’s remind everyone what month it is and encourage women to get a mammogram."

I've got the cutest shot of Anna, my sweet little girl, who was wearing a pink shirt on the day this photo was taken. We were at the endocrinologist's office in the midst of a series of specialist appointments during a very stressful time. She was being so good and sweet and I'm happy I got this shot of her before some big changes happened in her life.

Image is clickable to see it larger.





Thanks for looking! And go check out all of the other fabulous entries at i heart faces this week!

Battle of the Creative Teams, Week 2... and free quickpage!!!

I am participating in the Battle of the Creative Teams, representing By Becca. For this week's challenge, we were supposed to scraplift two of our team members' layouts and use either "Yesterday," "Today," or "Tomorrow" in our title. We didn't place in the top three last week and I would love to change that this week. Here are our BOTCT challenge layouts:

By Becca... Becca's Creative Goddesses

Please take a moment to vote for us! By Becca is listed second from the top this week.

VOTE

Here is my layout which I've turned into a full-size quickpage for you!

The quickpage is sized 12x12 at 300ppi and is pre-shadowed. There is space for two photos; all you have to do drop your photos in and print!

DOWNLOAD

Thanks for your support and enjoy the freebie!

Fix-it Friday #75 at i heart faces

This Fix-it Friday photo was submitted by Angie Arthur, an IHF contributor. Here is the original photo:



And here is my edit (image is clickable to see it larger and the original size edit is available in my Flickr photostream):



What a gorgeous, amazing photo. The bokeh is divine and I love the movement of the little boy. We were lucky enough to get the RAW file for this photo. First I opened the photo in ACR to correct the exposure and white balance. Then I opened the image in Photoshop CS5.

Workflow in PS CS5:
~I first cropped to the rule-of-thirds to focus in a little closer on the little boy.
~Levels layer to make a few adjustments to the midtones.
~Ran Noiseware at low opacity.
~I ran Flora Bella's Luxe action called "Gypsy" and loved the effect and made a few tweaks on the individual layers but kept the opacity at 100%.
~Saved for web and sharpened.

Thanks for looking!

Thanks for looking and come check out the other edits at i heart faces!

"Crisp Days of Fall" new today by AnnaBV Designs

AnnaBV Designs has an adorable new kit out today at ScrapOrchard called Crisp Days of Fall. With fun colors and elements, it is very versatile for all kinds of layouts. There is a coordinating alpha, wordart, as well as a bundle to save even more. Anna has also created a template pack to make designing your layouts even easier.

Apples Templates

Crisp Days of Fall

Crisp Days of Fall Alpha

Chilly Fall Wordart

Crisp Days of Fall Bundle

My Layout made with Apple Template #4.

Thanks for looking!

i heart faces ~ orchard

This week's photo challenge at i heart faces is In the Orchard. From their website: "Orchards are a wonderful location to have portrait sessions. This week’s photo should include a human face and should be taken in an orchard of some kind. (If you absolutely can’t make it to an orchard though, please feel free to use a photo that includes a human face and some type of orchard fruit – anything from a tree or bush would be fine.) We can’t wait to see what you come up with!"

We don't have any orchards around here, so I had Dominic grab his favorite type of apple (Gala!) and pose for a photo. He held it out to me and I love the shallow DOF that I achieved. I took it a step further and added a texture to the photo to really focus on the apple. I hope that they will take this submission but since his face is blurred, I'm not sure.

Image is clickable to see it larger.



Thanks for looking! And go check out all of the other fabulous entries at i heart faces this week!