Take Five

Ride 'em cowboy!

 

Last weekend, John and I went to the Loudoun County Fair, where we were treated to quite a few sights. Now I'm not normally a chicken kind of gal (except when it comes to dinner), but lemme tell ya, these guys almost had me changing my "no chickens" rule.

 

We also checked out all sorts of sheep, goats (the kind that look like JarJar Binks, Nubians, I think), cattle, pigs and rabbits. Oh, yes, rabbits. Big rabbits. The kind that would make Bugs Bunny proud. But one in particular really stood out. Maybe it was the eyeliner ...

After our tour, we hit the rodeo. I've never been to one, so I had no idea what to expect. It was pretty dang thrilling seeing it up close and personal. (Though not as thrilling was the man who snaked my spot by wedging himself and his son directly in front me even though there really wasn't room. And then he put his son on his shoulders, as if being in front wasn't enough. I'd like to put him on a bucking bronco ...) 

We didn't stay for the whole show since John had to get up early for work, but we really enjoyed what we saw.

Oh dear ...

Do I even want to look at the date of my last blog post? Probably not. If I did, I know I would feel like a total slacker. Would I have a reason for being this total slacker? Of course! Who wouldn't? There are so many things I could list that have taken up my time of late: work, family, vacations, "True Blood," a slight obsession with a canceled TV show ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"), the desire to get organized, ice cream runs followed by hours of bad television. See? That was easy. What probably would get me blogging more would be finding a quick update button. Right now, I go to my blog, scroll down to the Typepad link, click that, log in and then click "new post." Sheesh! So many clicks! So exhausting! Such a dork! If there's an easier and faster way of doing this, I'm all ears.

I am going to try to get back into the swing of things around here. In the meantime, I'd like to show you a photo that was taken during one of my classes by a professional photographer.  We were asked to bring in some of work so he could photograph it and we could learn how to get wonderful product shots. Oh my! Talk about very cool. I brought in some books I've made and we got to work:

Welcome Fi!

We took delivery of our Mini Clubman! The last time I checked on her, she was still making her way across the pond. Then, suddenly, she had docked and was en-route to the distribution center. I got a call from our dealer and he said we'd be good to go by Monday. Then he called us on Friday and said we were good to go that night. Off we went to sign mountains of paperwork and await the cleaning process. By 8:30, I was driving my new ride home.

Wheeee!

Saturday's plan called for cleaning the basement, but instead we went for a 80-mile drive all along the back roads of Virginia. Lots of fun! Fi sticks to the road like glue, making all those curvy turns a blast.  I have a feeling I'm not going to be as bummed by my long commute as I was before. 

Fun With Photoshop

For the above 12x12 page, I decided to add some pop to the two images of me and my husband. To do so, I did some playing around in Photoshop with layers and a texture. Below, you'll find the step-by-step process of how I came to the final image.

1. Open your image and double click on it to make it its own layer

2. Create a new layer by going to layer ----> new ------> layer in the tool bar or by clicking the new layer icon in the layers palette (it's the icon with the turned-up corner). The keyboard shortcut is apple/control-shift N.

3.  Fill your new layer with light beige. I used f8ebdf. To get this color, double-click on the foreground color in your tool box. That'll pop up your color picker. Type the numbers in the number field and click OK. To fill your new layer with your color, go to edit ---> fill Use Foreground color. Or use the keyboard shortcut alt-delete.

4. Go to your layers palette, and with that layer highlighted, select Multiply from the blending mode pull-down menu, opacity 100 percent.

5. Go to your layer tool bar, click on new adjustment layer ---> photo filter. Select the filter you'd like to use. I wanted a warm color so I selected Warming Filter (85) with a density of 47 percent. The blending mode for this layer is normal at 100 percent.

6. Open up the texture image shown below and drag it onto your canvas. By doing so, you're creating a new layer.

7. Put the blending mode of this layer on color burn at 100 percent.

8. Grab your original image in the layers palette and duplicate it by clicking Layer ---> duplicate layer in the tool bar. Or you can drag it on top of the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette, or you can use the keyboard shortcut Apple/control J.

9. Drag this new layer to the top of your layers palette and select screen for your blending mode. Dial down the opacity to 65 percent.

10. With this layer still active, add a layer mask by clicking on the icon with the white circle. You will see a link and a white box appear next to your layer. Select the white box and turn your foreground color to black by using your D or X keys on your keyboard (this switches the foreground/background colors  in your tool box). When you have your foreground color set to black, that means you're erasing the image, allowing what's below that layer to show through. You can undo any mistakes by simply having white as your foreground color. Black erases, white adds. You can also select the opacity  and blend mode of your brush in the bar directly below the tool bar. (The bar becomes visible when you click on your brush tool.) With that in mind, select a large, soft brush (about 100 pixels) and begin erasing the image with an opacity set to your liking. This will allow the color burn image to show through. 

11. Once you're done, save your PSD file (the one with the layers) and then flatten (Layer ---> Flatten image) and save your image.

Play around with your layers and blend modes to come up with some cool effects! 

Happy New Year!

But before we say goodbye to '08, let's first wrap up the holiday season with a photo collage. We have one holiday party at the Spy Museum, complete with us in our James Bond poses. (Though no Bond woman would ever have the kind of arms displayed here. Eeek!) That's follow by a trip to the National Gallery of Art, cute kids, Christmas tree hunting, wrapped presents and a visit to the parental units' abode. 

Here's to a fabulous '09!

take five

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Card crazy

This year I ended up with two holiday card designs. The first one, very top, was gakked from 2Peas all because of that deer. Seriously, that deer is CUTE. But his cuteness started to fade as I lopped off his antlers time and time again. If you want to work on your cutting skills, then cut out 50 of these babies. If you want to get your holiday cards done before next year's holiday, switch designs.

Which brings us to card No. 2. No more deer! Hurrah! But sewing with metallic thread was involved. There were a few snags (*sorry*) here and there, but it went pretty fast. And cutting out the trees was a breeze! Getting the embossed dots on the card stock took no time at all since I used the AccuCut at Angela's. Then it was a matter of stamping, embossing and folding. Done! Word of caution, tho. If you plan on using pop dots, know that you'll have to add .20 cents for postage per card.

Next year? All graphic all the time. :)

I hope everyone has wonderful holiday, whatever holiday you may celebrate. 

Merry star book

 

Hi All

 I'll  be teaching this Merry star book class at Scrapbooks Plus on Dec. 20. Come and play with me! Here's the 411:

Capture your holiday memories with this sculptural 6x6 star book. In this six-hour class, you'll create your own star book using the long stitch binding method. You'll also learn how to cover your front and back covers using PVA. Paper from American Crafts Christmas '08 line will serve as the backdrop for your holiday photos. We'll spice up our pages with Flair embellishments, embossing, rub-ons, punches, pom poms, ribbon, fun flock, die cuts using the Cuttlebug and Sizzix dies, Copic markers and holiday overlays. We'll finish the album off with a ribbon closure. 

Bring your basic tool kit along with pop dots, holidays stamps, bone folder, heat gun, clear glue such as Glossy Accents, awl, craft knife, metal ruler, cutting mat, scallop scissors, Crop-a-dile and Wacky Tacky tape. Saturday, Dec. 20, Noon-6. $40.

October work

Wow. Where is the year going? It almost seems like fall's almost over. Did it even start? It's been hotter than usual out here on the East Coast so I'm afraid our fall days will be pretty short. But I did get to celebrate a little with some cool scrappin' paper from design team member  Lisa Hausman. She put together a kit that included Creative Imaginations, Basic Grey and My Mind's Eye. Here's what I came up with:

 

This one's based on Ali Edwards's "A Week in the Life" challenge. Man, what a fun project. The grid was created in Photoshop, printed out and then adhered. I didn't have a chipboard 7 so I made my own. A little bit of glitter finished it off. The pumpkin chipboard came with our kit and I covered it first in StazOn ink and then with Doodlebug glitter. Pull the tabs to reveal hidden journaling, which was creating in InDesign:

I was inspired by a Jackie Bonette's layout over at Two Peas. Loved the owl peeking out from the tree and had to have my own owl doing the same. :) Grid photos were created in Photoshop and printed out on Epson semigloss paper. The journaling was done in InDesign. The big tree's from Maya Road and the little tree was created by shrinking down the big tree in Photoshop and printing out a template.

This was a month of inspiration. I came across a great garland while reading Creating Keepsakes and downloaded the crow template. A little tracing and working with my X-acto knife netted me three crow chipboard shapes, which I covered with various papers from our kit. The Thickers chipboard frames were covered in Doodlebug glitter (using the sticky side). Lots of PVA went into the pinwheel so I'm thinking it ain't going anywhere. And more Doodlebug black glitter was used for the second crow. I'm sure I'll be finding glitter everywhere for months to come.

And some cards. The first one's just a basic fall card. The second one cracks me up because he moves. Hey, it's the small things that bring me pleasure. :) I can make him to do the splits but my husband thinks that's a bit improper. LOL.

Yesterday, that is. It started with checking the weather. Then it was off for a bagel, but not before admiring my self-destructing visor covered in packing tape. Pulling it down pretty much hides it. At least from me. After a little reading and little eating, it was off to the scrapbook store to drop off class receipts and CD of photos. But first I had to admire all the pretty product, including the pens. On the way home, I passed by this spooky dude. Ooooooh. His eyes have red LEDs! Having no fear, I ventured in for some pumpkin-looking and flower inspection. And finally, I caught John inspecting his sauerkraut project.