Five Firsts!

Thursday, 17 July 2008Thursday, 25 September 2008 / LivE / 19 Comments

What is it about first times that make them so special and memorable?

The first steps a baby takes has parents stumbling in their rush to reach for the camera to record the monumental event. The first grandchild. The first day of school (shiny shoes, new pencils, new bag… whee! nirvana for me and my siblings when we were kids!). The first visit from the tooth fairy. The first Christmas.

Then there’s the unforgettable first love (in nursery? mine was… uh, must I incriminate myself and let the world know that I was a late bloomer? heehee! I had my first crush in Grade 2–and I think I was mesmerized by the thick beard around his face more than anything else. 😆 )

If you stopped right now and asked yourself, what are the latest first’s you’ve experienced lately, would you be able to list them down and answer right away? Or would you have to pause as you traipse down memory lane, brows knotted in deep thought, as you try to recall the events of the last five months?

I was fascinated by the thought of First Anything today… and here are my five of my latest first’s!!! (Okay, you can accuse me of shameless–or shameful?–tooting, but hey, as we chanted in Chicago: we are worth it, right? 😉 )

First Time to Be Featured in a Graphic Design Blog!

What a thrill! What a pleasant surprise! What a COOL thing to discover! This little humble blog porch of mine was featured in two graphic design blogs last June 14th! The post that was featured was Photo Phun!

I almost fell off my chair in utter delight when I saw this:

Graphic Identity Blog Link

And this!

Estetica Design Forum Blog Link

A huge, happy THANK YOU to Estetica Design Forum and Graphic Identity!

First Time to Visit Chicago & New York

Totally awesome places! Loved The Bean at Chicago, eating deep dish pizza at Giordanos, walking and walking and walking around The Loop, dinner at Fultons by the River, and taking the Riverboat tour!

Chicago - Walking Along The Loop

Chicago Buildings from the Riverboat

View from the Riverboat

New York Times Square - the view from our hotel room window

The Ubiquitous NYC Taxis

More photos coming in the future… there are just thousands and thousands of them! 😀

First Time to Hug My Dearest Spraground Sistahs!

In person! What a thrill! This has got to be one of the most memorable and special experiences in my entire life! What a connection!

One of my favorite photos of Jes and me - taken by Susan

Love this photo taken by Jes!

Some of my absolute favorite people in the world! - Photo taken by Lisa

The Spraground Sistahs Take Over Windy City!

The only downside to this is that I end up missing them so much more now, and wish that the oceans were less wide and the lands were more spread out so that we could literally walk over to each other’s houses and give each other hugs in person anyday!

First Time to Do an Actual Hybrid Project

Ah… this one I was totally not sure about… but with a little modge podge, a little advice from my dear friend Lisa J (who won’t admit to being a creative crafter, but she is!), a little help from a carpenter friend who made the wooden box for me according to my specs, and a little help from my two sons who fixed the goodies/doggies inside it when it was done, I was able to play around with hybrid (yeah, so it was an adventure I’d been longing to do!) *and* use my heretofore unused-but-hoarded paper scrapping materials (and thus feel less guilty about the hoarding, haha) *and* come up with a birthday gift for my MIL who loves doggies!

This is what I started out with: a wooden shelf with partitions, made according to my specs, with 4 rows of 6 little box-houses. The entire thing was about 12in x 24in.

Step 1 - Begin with a wooden shelf painted in colors you love (I didn't love the color on this one, hence the decision to decoupage the entire thing! 😀 )

Step 2 - Modge-podge (yes, I've turned it into a verb!) patterned paper onto the sides of the shelf.

Step 3 - Cut patterned paper into vertical strips and modge-podge them onto vertical divisions of the shelf.

Step 4 - Do the same for the horizontal divisions of the shelf.

Step 5 - Cover top of shelf with patterned paper. Wash modge-podge off your hands in between applications in case you happen to be munching on chips. 😉

Step 6 - Cover the back of the shelf with patterned paper to complete the shelf's clothing. 🙂

Step 7 - Attach eyelets to chipboard flowers using the ever-reliable, handy-dandy Cropadile!

Step 8 - Attach other embellishments to the top of the shelf to complete the look.

Step 9 - Make it a family project (and allow yourself to take a break!) - Let kids take care of arranging the doggies on the shelf.

Step 10 - Voila! Stand back and clap your hands as you survey your first hybrid project... because you've finally put some of your paperscrappin' hoard of goodies to use!

Hee! This was fun while I did it… I’ve always loved crafts, and nothing beats the doubled fun of working on projects with kids… but… what can I say? I love digi first and always. 😆

And now… to continue the alliteration started with the Five First’s… let’s talk about First FREEBIES!

And yes, I know, I’ve been giving out freebies for almost as long as this blog porch came into existence, but it’s my…

First Time to Come Up with an Album Template Mini Freebie!

Woohoo! I am so happy about this, and even happier to share these with you!

Here’s how this all ties in with my first First up there and my fifth First down here. Remember the Photo Phun post (the one featured in the graphic design blogs up there)? Well, that all came about because we at the Spraground were having the most fun adventure, led by the awesome Jessica, of coming up with a photo a day for the month of May! And since I’d been wanting to print out those photos and put them in an album instead of keeping them hidden inside a folder in my compy, I decided to create an album for them.

When I make layouts, more often than not, I sketch in my trusty little graph notebook (Moleskine graph notebooks ROCK!) how I want the layout to look. And then I translate that pencil sketch onto my computer with Photoshop! So I made a cover page sketch for the album and a few inside page sketches.

While I was working on moving that sketch onto my compy via Photoshop, I decided… hey, since I’m making a multi-photo page for the month of May (which has 31 days and therefore 31 places for photos), why don’t I make a similar template for 30 days? That way, if any of us decides to resume the Photo A Day adventure on any other month, we’d have a ready template for those months with less than 31 days?

And then, since my brain is known to dive into this sort of territorial waters–haha, I decided to go full-speed ahead and include February as well (both 29 and 28 days), to complete the entire range of possibilities!

So here are the different cover pages I made for my Photo A Day Album… and I’m sharing them with you, as always!

: LivEdesigns Extraordinary Days Cover Page Templates

When you use these templates, just type in the month that applies to your album where the ellipses are (I’ve left the text editable; feel free to change it!). I’ve also included a phrase to show where the journaling can fit in… and below there is an area for you to include a quote if you wish.

These templates come to you in .psd format. Use clipping masks to get your photos and digi paper onto the mats and photo masks. 🙂

Note: If you’re into making regular layout pages that feature months-in-review, I figure these should come in real handy as well!

Click here to get the mini album cover page templates.

ETA: Link removed. See post of September 24 for new link.

Now, I can’t just give you the cover and not give you the inside pages as well, right? 😉

Sooo… I created 3 inside page templates, each one of which is a single-photo template. There are two different portrait-oriented / vertical photo templates for the left and the right side of the album, depending on how your pages turn out; and there’s a single-photo template as well for landscape-oriented / horizontal photos.

I only made three templates because that’s all that I needed… and by using each one of them within the album, you can get an album that’s both pulled-together and unified!

Oh, and there’s a bonus inside as well! I created two black glass accents for use on the album pages… one is a black glass swirl and the other is a black glass circle cluster. I’m including them inside the .psd template files, but they are created on transparent backgrounds, so if you wish to use them in your other layouts as separate elements, feel absolutely free to do so (just read my TOU and don’t forget the credits! 😉 ).

I’m presently working on zipping up the inside page templates, but since it feels like forever since I last released a freebie (and I’m uber-excited to share these with you 😀 ) I decided to release these cover pages now and come back and post the inside page templates in a separate download, once I’m done zipping them up! So don’t forget to check back for them!

I’m going to be working on my Photo A Day album in the next 24 hours (after I get the inside pages zipped up and on their way to you!), and when I’ve got my layouts done, I’ll upload them to share with you. If you use these and create pages or even an album of your own, do link me up! I’d looove to see how you use these and I would love even more the chance to marvel at the marvelous creations you come up with!

Alrighty then! Back to the worktable! 🙂

Ready? Set? Action!

Tuesday, 8 July 2008Thursday, 25 September 2008 / LivE / 8 Comments

Ha. Totally corny title, I apologize. 😛

But am totally thrilled… just did my first action, which is really really simple, but which arose out of the necessity of uploading loads of photos from our Chicago Spraguefest onto the gallery which Jessica so kindly created for us on our Spraground! I just finished sorting through almost a hundred plus photos from the *first* day of our Spraguefest, and I was scratching my head, thinking, oh wow… if I have to resize all of these to websized files so I can upload them to the gallery, how long is that going to take me? There must be an easier way to do this!

Yep that’s me. Ever since I can remember, I would always think in terms of “What’s the most efficient way of doing this or that?” I guess it’s the latent problem solver in me (just wish this skill extended to a lot of real-life problems, haha!)

So, I did a bit of googling here and there, a bit of fiddling around here and there, and came up with 2 actions!

The first is called Batch Resize for Web, and what it does is reduce the width of your image to 600 pixels (the height automatically adjusts proportionally based on your original image’s height). It brings down resolution from 300ppi or higher to 72ppi, and it interpolates using bicubic sharper.

The second is called Batch Resize Original2Web, and what it does is just bring down the resolution to 72ppi and interpolates using bicubic sharper, but does not change the pixel size of your photo to a given measure. This would necessarily result in a larger physical photo than the first action, but still give you something that can be uploaded to galleries or emails where you are not constrained by small size limits.

I’ve created the action using CS3, so I’m sorry but I have no idea if it will work in Elements.

I created the action for doing batch resizing, but it can also be used to resize individual images (photos, layouts, etc) one at a time.

To use it to resize individual images, just load the action in your action palette, open your original image, and click on the Play button.

To use it to resize batch photos, just load the action in your action palette, and then:

1. Start by creating two folders anywhere on your compy. Name one folder “Originals” and the other folder “Resized” (or whatever you want to call it, as long as you know which folder the originals are in and which folder you want the resized photos to go into). Dump all the images you want to resize in the Originals Folder. You can also resize them directly from the existing folder that your photos are in, but in case you have chosen only a specific set of files to resize from a folder that contains more images, the Originals folder would be a better option.

2. Go to File > Automate > Batch.

3. In the Batch dialog box, under Play – locate the name of the action in the actions dropdown list.

4. In the Source area, select Folder in the dropdown list and select Choose. Navigate to the place on your hard drive where you placed the Originals folder. Don’t forget to check the two last boxes that allow you to suppress warnings and options.

5. In the Destination area, select Folder in the dropdown list and select Choose (exactly like the previous step). Navigate to the Resized folder that you just created.

6. In the File Naming area, you can input the names of your files, if you wish to change their filenames. What I did was to choose “2-Digit Serial Number” and keep the extension specified (in my case, jpeg).

7. Don’t forget to check all the boxes in the Compatibility area so that everyone, regardless of what platform they’re using, can view the photos.

8. Click OK.

Once you click OK, Photoshop will open each photo you’ve placed in the Originals folder, resize it, and save it to the Resized folder. Sometimes you might get prompts that ask you to select save settings (mine did for some); when this happens, just click OK and the process of saving the image will continue with the next photos in the batch.

I learned how to do this from Wired How To Wiki, a pretty cool place I just discovered. 🙂

So… for my Chicago Spragsistahs and for all of you, my friends, who’ve come to visit and sit with me on my blog porch, here’s my action set. Hope you find some use for it! 🙂 (And thanks so much in advance for the love you leave on my blog! 🙂 )

ETA: If the 4shared link doesn’t work above (as I think some gremlins have been playing with the link), here’s another place where you can get my action set too.

Oh, and here’s a photo of that lovely time we had… more coming soon!

Flatties and Realies by the River

Alrighty! Back to the barracks to do more work! See you soon, my sweeties! 😀

Photo Catch-Up!

Monday, 2 June 2008Thursday, 25 September 2008 / LivE / 3 Comments

Uhhh…. probably more like Photo Avalanche coming up (consider yourself forewarned, my friend). 😛

Our May Photo-a-Day challenge at the Spraground has just ended, and I have to admit, I’m experiencing a bit of withdrawal symptoms… There’s just something magical about the Spraground activities that makes one keep hankering for more. Amazing.

I loved seeing all the photos of my Spragmates come up in the Photo-A-Day gallery… the eyecandy is just so astounding over there! Even greater than that, this gallery is yet another testament of just how much phenomenal talent there is in that special home on the web! (If you happened to stumble onto my porch today and haven’t joined us yet on our Spraground, dooooo come and join us! We’re celebrating our home’s birthday this June 4th, so come a register on that day–it’s free–and join us in all the wonderful celebrating, whooping and yeehaw-ing that we’re surely going to be having for about a week!)

OK, so now you can stop reading if you don’t want to get bombarded by photo phreakishness! 😆 I haven’t uploaded my photos since the last time, so here’s a whole avalanche of them!

May 11 ~ Traffic Lights

I so don’t like traffic, but I do get mesmerized by the red lines made by brake lights on the shiny, rain-kissed roads…

May 12 ~ Beacon

Turned off all the lights in my home except this set of 4 dinner lights that hang over our dining table. I thought the matte silver bars holding them up would show, but ended up with these seemingly-floating lamps instead. They kind of remind me of those biblical virgins with their lamps waiting in a line for the bridegroom… 😛

May 13 ~ Shell Cathedral

Couldn’t help thinking that this looked like a cathedral among the rest of the shell village. 🙂 (PS. i am nowhere near the beach… just had this bunch of shells for the longest time and decided they made a great photo-op, hehe)

May 14 ~ dare to be different

I have always been fascinated by smooth, dark river stones… or, for that matter, stones in general, including glass ones.

CREDIT: Used a texture by Voidix as overlay

May 15 ~ X marks the spot

Ha! Finally found another use for our metal and leather tic-tac-toe set on our coffee table in the living room.

Credit: Used a texture by Ghostbones as overlay

May 16 ~ El Burrito

Meet Burrito, one of the many donkeys in my home. 😀 I’ve always loved donkeys, mostly because there’s something so moving about the most lowly, most humble animal carrying the greatest King on his back… 🙂

May 17 ~ Mug Shot

Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun. Love my stainless steel coffee cups but not as much as i love what’s inside them. hahaha!

May 18 ~ Seek and you shall find.

My son has been very “into” Pink Panther lately, and decided to be Inspector Clouseau for the day. Totally funny. 😛

May 19 ~ Seek the light.

Could not help marvel at how this little plant remains verdant, fresh, and alive despite the bramble of thorns and darkness that surround it. I think it’s another one of Nature’s silent lessons to us: that in the depth of all the tribulations we may face at one point or another, we need to just keep our faces turned up to Heaven and things will work out…

May 20 ~ His & Hers

He has his marbles; I have my pearls. 😀 (The “he” is my 5 year old son, and the pearls are from the South China Sea, which happens to be very nicely located near the islands I call home 🙂 )

May 21 ~ Small Beginnings, Great Things

A very ordinary photo, but a testament to my belief that there is an artist in every child, and a child in every artist… here’s to the children in us! 🙂

May 22 ~ Ideal

I have ducks in almost every room of my house. They’re a good reminder of what I strive for: to be like a duck–calm on the surface but paddling like the dickens underneath (Michael Caine quote). 😀

May 23 ~ Haven
Is there any place more comforting, more safe, more serene, than the embrace of a mother? There is an indescribable warmth in her arms that we will always run to (or remember fondly, when she’s gone), whether we’re 6 or 60… I am always amazed by the softness and gentleness of the Madonna & Child, even when represented in hard brass sculpture. (This is one of the works in our home done by a Filipino artist called Michael Cacnio).

May 24 ~ For Sale

My 6yr-old son spent the entire morning of the 24th making this, and then declared that he was going to put up a toy shop and sell his creations “so we can have enough money to spend (when we go on our vacation).” ROFL. I thought it was incredibly cute and certainly a moment to remember so I can remind him about it when he’s older.

May 25 ~ Nurture the sillies.

I think a sense of humor is definitely one of the essentials needed to get through Life, don’t you? 🙂

May 26 ~ Ssssshhhh…oes!

Promise you won’t tell anyone about this sssshhhoe secret? I really do not have many obsessions in life besides shoes (uh, there’s digiscrapping, and hard drives, and photography stuff, and… hehehe). Oh… and don’t tell my hubby: he hasn’t opened my shoe cabinet since we got married. hehehe.

May 27 ~ Serious Business

Sssh. This is a really important earth-changing board meeting going on; maintain silence and no comments from the peanut gallery. LOL! I am so amused by how serious these two look, when in reality their conversation revolved around what each had drawn on their own papers. Gotta love kids! 😀

May 28 ~ Simple Pleasures Ahhh… once in a while you taste wine so delicious, you just have to sing… it’s just one of those simple things that make life a joy to live. 😀

May 29 ~ Succor

We all have those days, when darkness falls and we grope our way through, hoping for a hand to hold onto… it always helps to know that there’s a warm and safe place to run to, where we can count on a friend waiting there for us with a ready embrace. My light, my home, my arms are open to every single one of you both here on my blog porch and in my Spraground family. 🙂

PS. I wish the front door of my real home were as romantic as this; however, this is the back door of a restaurant where hubby and I had dinner. 😛

May 30 ~ Order in Chaos

This is the plant that I see when I look out of one of my dining-room windows… Today I was amazed that as the wind blew the soft stems of the plant every which way, the individual leaves nevertheless looked calm and in place… Again, Mother Nature gives us an amazing lesson: no matter how confused and confusing everything is around us, if we hold on steadily to our principles and values, we will get through the chaos with our serenity and certainty intact. 🙂

May 31 ~ Believe in magic.

I think that one of our greatest challenges in this journey called Life is the struggle to see the world with the freshness, the innocence, the purity of the eyes of a child. My children have taught me a very important lesson: that no matter where one looks, if one believes in magic, there will be miracles to be witnessed in the most ordinary of places. Here’s to the miracle of our friendships, our Spraground, and our lives!

Phew! Wake up! The show is done! 😆

Am presently working on freebies; will be back with them soon!

Have a happy day!

Photo Phun!

Friday, 23 May 2008Thursday, 25 September 2008 / LivE / 15 Comments

Wow! Thanks to everyone who left such great love in my blog and on my 4shared site; I am sooo glad that you liked the template (more of those coming soon!).

I just realized that I am sooo behind in posting my May Photo-A-Day exploits, so why don’t we sit on this porch swing, grab a cold drink, and just let the breeze play with our hair as we sit back and have a most relaxing chat? Sounds good? 🙂

Oh, and while we’re at it, maybe let’s add some music… my dear friend Linda just introduced me to this guy (who doesn’t even know she and I exist, hehe), and I looked him up on youtube and totally fell in love with this song.

A bit of an aside: since my 2 older teen sons are into music (who of their age isn’t? 😛 ), I asked them if they’d heard of Jason Mraz, thinking “Wow! They’re going to find me so cool, that I know contemporary music!”

The response? “Oh yeah mom, that song has been around for some time.”

So much for being cool. 😆

So… here we go! Maestro, play your music! (And you, dear friend, press that play button). hehehe

And now for some Photo Phun 😀

May05 ~ Do Flowers Have Faces?

I couldn’t help but think Madame Florabell when I saw this on a walk around our garden grounds… Is it just me who sees the eyes and the green nose and the tuft of yellow-fuschia hair, and her ruffly collar? heehee. Sometimes nature can have such a sense of humor!

(PS. I am utterly hopeless at identifying flowers by name! All I know is that these ones are so common around here, they even grew by the side of our childhood home… and when we were kids, we’d pick them all the time! 😀 )

May06 ~ A Very Casual Love Affair

What can I say? I’m a jeans-and-sneakers kind of girl, true and through! Gotta love them (try running after 5 sons in skirts and heels and you’ll understand why I live in jeans and sneakers~ROFL!)

Intermission:

Here’s a layout I did with the extra takes of the day. 😆

Could these shoes count me in as a hybrid scrapper? 😆

CREDITS:

MeredithFenwick-WildSide-DarkGrey paper (combined with KatiePertiet’s BlackBlack-Paper); AntiquePaperSwirls; AntiqueBits Postcard / Pieces of Me Sentimental Kit – Staple, Transparent Tape
JenWilson-ExtraSmudges
NancieRoweJanitz-ChalkedOverlay1
AmberClegg-PostageStamps
FONTS: SxTalk69; Mom’sTypewriter

The storyboard was created using Jessica’s Photoshop Friday Tutorial. Very easy, very fun to use!

May07 ~ Urban Tears

Urban tears = rain in the city. Ever since I was a little kid, I always thought raindrops looked like teardrops. Shot this from inside my car on my way home from another one of the daily trips I had been making to the hospital for my kids. We were on top of the bridge as I shot this, so the background is actually the tops of the buildings as we passed.

May08 ~ Iron Man Rules!

I was going to use the photo untouched, but my two older teen sons saw me playing around with it using the WOW Watercolor and Linework Filter, and begged me to upload this instead. They said it fits the theme… and because *sometimes* my sons rule me, I let them have their way this time. hehe. (Guess the Comic Generation knows whereof they speak! LOL).

May09 ~ Ma, Look!

Took this photo of my son’s hand pointing to a wooden thingie on our home grounds while he was on his (most probably) hundredth “Ma, look!”… I don’t remember seeing whatever it was he saw there (an ant?) but when the photo came out, I decided to play a bit with it, and added a little sprite! 😉 Totally played with this! 😀

And okay, so the photo is real but I added the lights and the glow, and used Stephanie Baker-Thomas’ faery figure. 🙂

May10 ~ aaaH2Ooooh

Pure relief, and the best refreshing drink on a hot and humid day; and possibly the best elixir to take when you’re about to climb the walls because your internet router is dead and you can’t get to your favorite Spraground in the world. heh. 😛

Took this glass of water in my dining room… switched off all the lights except the corner lights and one on the right side. 🙂

And okay, so there are more photos to upload, but before you doze off to sleep, I’m going to save you some energy and upload those at another time! hehehe 😆

Photo Phun Means Phreebie Phun!

And since you’ve been such wonderful friends, patiently looking at my photo exploits, here’s a little something for you! 😀

My sister, who has just completed the previous Up & Running course of Jessica a couple of months ago (and promptly GOT HOOKED, mwahahahaha), wanted to create a layout but only had 2 photos to use on it. What a dilemma, huh? I normally like using photos in groups of odd numbers (say 1 focal photo and 3 little ones)… I don’t think I’ve ever used just 2 photos on a layout.

But her dilemma got me thinking: What IF there were truly just two photos snapped? Then what?

Make a template for 2 photos! 😆

So I made her a template with two choices for the title area: One with a straight honest-to-goodness regular title, and another with a curved title path that leads into one of the photo masks.

And here’s the layout she came up with (I am so proud of this work of hers! So wonderful!)

CREDITS:

AAspnes’ Web Challenge Brushes 18May, MZimmermann’s Breeze of Elegance Paper, MZ’s Timeless Journey Paper (recolored), MFenwick’s Warm Heart Paper 6 (journal spot), MZ’s Lifetime Moments Lock & Tag and Bundled Lock & Key Elements, JBolton’s Pastiche Screw, MFenwick’s Fall Fiesta Rhinestone Circle. Fonts: Lucida Blockletter and Century Gothic.

And here is what the templates look like:

You can get this template, which has a straight, no-nonsense title 😛 by clicking on the template preview. 😉

And if you prefer a curved title path, you can get this template here (also by clicking on the preview) 😉

Both templates are psd files with clipping masks included. All you have to do is clip your photos and papers on to them, add whatever accents you want to, and voila!

Happy Scrapping, my dear friends! Oh, and thanks for the love you leave in my blog!

And… have a LOVELY day! I’ll see you again soon!

Come on feel the noise…

Monday, 5 May 2008Thursday, 25 September 2008 / LivE / 5 Comments

…girls, rock your boys… we’re going wild, wild, wild… wild, wild, wild…!!!! 😆

I totally went wild over the weekend at the digiscrapping shoppes; did you, too??? OMG. The joy, the absolute joy, of finally being able to grab those items you’d been longing for, at the best prices too! YAY for (Inter)National Scrapbooking Day!!!

I went crazy at three places: ScrapbookGraphics (where one of my absolute favorite designers, Meredith Fenwick, has her shoppe), DesignerDigitals (yeah, DD rocks!!!), and ScrapArtist. Where did you go, and how crazy did you get? 😉

Now I’m totally stoked to begin working on my backlogged work for the Digi:In Deep course that we just finished last week at the Spraground. I still owe 3 templates and 3 layouts… and I also owe 4 layouts for our Spraground challenges. And I’m dying to create new stuff for you too!!! So look out for that this coming week! 😀

May Photo-A-Day

The fun never ends on our Spraground. Jessica is soooo awesome at keeping us all entertained!

If you haven’t yet checked out her blog, you should run there right now, believe me! Her latest Photoshop Friday tutorial is wonderful! (And if you haven’t signed up for her blog newsletter yet, carpe diem!!! 😀 )

Jes has also begun a challenge for May, for everyone! Called Photo-a-Day in May, we just take a photo a day –uhm, you absolutely guessed that, didn’t you? heehee–for each day in May. Then we post our photos on the special gallery that Jes created just for this challenge… and everyone comes to look at your photos and leave love on them! It’s a great Spraground we play in! (So if you’re just stumbling upon my little blog porch today and you’re interested in joining, please do feel most welcome!!! You need to be registered on the Spraground in order to post your photo on our special Photo-A-Day gallery, but no worries!–registration is free! And if you just want to look around… well, you’re welcome too! You’ll be awed my the masterpieces my Spraground sistahs have been hanging on the walls of the Photo-a-Day gallery… and in all the other galleries, too, for that matter! )

So here are my photos that I took for the first four days of May.

01 May – Breakfast Sunshine

Description: Took a photo of my breakfast to bring a taste (pun!) of my country to our galleries, haha! This is called suman sa latik. Suman is glutinous rice cake, wrapped and steamed in banana leaves, and latik is a kind of sweet sauce made from freshly squeezed coconut milk and sugar. Taken with sweet, juicy mangoes, this is virtual breakfast heaven!

02 May – Poetry in Bloom

Description: went walking around our homegrounds with 2 of my sons, looking for some photo-ops, and saw this beautiful flower (one among many) gently moving in the breeze… sometimes little things like this make you stop and catch your breath and remind you that God writes poetry with his Creation. Sigh. What beauty and perfection. 🙂

03May – Symphony in Ebony & Ivory

This is a pretty straightforward photo, but one that carries meaning for me. I grew up in a home where the piano played a great big role: I still remember my mom playing for us, and even much later on, when our mom had gone, my brothers and sisters and i would continue to spend many nights gathered round the piano singing and bonding with each other. I knew I would only find my home complete if I had a piano in it; so when dh and I moved to our present home, I spent all my life-savings-as-a-single-woman on this beloved piano (with additional help from dh 😛 ). Hubby and I both grew up with pianos in our homes, so it amuses and delights me to know our sons cannot imagine a home without a piano as well. (And yes, we do play music on it all the time!)

04May – That Look

Bright eyes shining with purity and innocence, an expression brimming over with earnestness and trust: this is the look I see on my son’s face each time he talks with me (which is like, uhm, the entire day 🙂 ). The eyes of a child: what a precious thing to behold!

CREDITS: I used Mike Brewer’s Frame Action to frame my photos. I take my photos in RAW format, so I definitely do some tweaking to them, most specifically in terms of White Balance and Curves. Other than that, the photos I take are pretty much how they are at the click of the shutter. 🙂

PS. I’m also attaching the gallery descriptions for the photos.

Okay! I guess that’s all for today, folks! Need to get some backlogged layouts done… Will be back again soon, so I hope to sit with you in a couple of days! Have a great day, my friends! (((hugs))))

Oh. My. Goodness!!!

Saturday, 26 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 19 Comments

You will never believe what came in the mail today.

I got a package, I got a package, I got a package, woohoo!!!

I received a notice from the post office this morning, telling me that I had a package waiting for me. I hoped against hope that it would be from my dear friend, Kari (I just received a couple of weeks back a beautiful Christmas card from our mutual friend, Laurie, that totally made my day too!!!). So I immediately had the package picked up, and while I was chatting with some friends over at our playground, the package came.

I know I was probably a blabbering fool at the chat–I was so excited!!! I don’t even remember what I said; I just know it involved a lot of woohoo’s and jumping up and down and running around in circles and dancing like crazy. 😆

A little aside: when I got the box, it had been opened. And hastily put back together again. See, that’s the thing I don’t get about the post office in this country. Why do they do that? Doesn’t that constitute some deprivation of one’s right to privacy? (Not that there was anything private in there, but it IS nice to be the one who tears open the tape of your own package instead of having someone get there and do it before you. And my friend Kari did such a great job of putting the box and the gift inside together so nicely… 😦 ) I suspect they open it because they want to check if there are $$ inside the package. After all, if it were to check the safety of what’s inside, there are Xray machines to do that, right? hmmmm. Very strange, Watson, very strange.

Here’s what it looked like when I got it:

The Best Surprise of the Year

BUTTTT!!! Even so, that didn’t dampen my excitement!

And here’s where it gets even MORE exciting!!! I opened the box and discovered a Christmas card from Kari 8) , and another card with a note, a long note, on it! WOOHOO BIG TIME!!! 😀

I love receiving letters!!! 😀

And wait. It gets even better. As I was happily freaking about the package with my girlfriends on the chat, it dawned on me that they knew about the package and its contents! Apparently they were all in on it, they all had something to do with getting the package to me… now how TERRIFICALLY COOL is that???? I looooooove my girlfriends at the playground, they are soooo sweet! Now THAT is what totally touched my heart!!! I have seen this book through the making but to have the real thing in my hands: wow. And to know that it got to me flying over the oceans on the wings of my sweet girlfriends’ love… that’s an infinitely bigger WOW!!!

I guess here is where I have to explain why this book is so special: this is a book that we, rockers at Jessica’s playground, came up with as a surprise for Jes (if you look at her blog and scroll to the end of December, you’ll find photos there of the same book). It was a collaborative effort of all the wonderful girls on our playground. Laurie came up with the idea seed, Kari pushed and pulled and took over the reigns (Kari’s da boss! 😆 ), Tori came up with the mosaic cover, and I came up with the dedication page and the two final pages at the end of the book. Every wonderful girlfriend on the book contributed her own masterpiece (without their pages, the book would be nothing) AND contributed time, effort, even finances, to get this book off the Shutterfly site and into Jessica’s hands! WOW! This is working together at its very best!

I guess I also have to explain that I could not, for one reason or another, upload any of my page files to Shutterfly (thank you Veevs and Project Posse for doing the uploading for me; where would I be without you?) So that meant that I also would not be able to order my own copy of the book! So that is why I am just sooooo awed by the book in my hands today. I can stare at it all day long, know what I mean? Rub my eyes, stare. Shake my head in quiet pleasure. Repeat: rub my eyes, stare…

😀

Kari, you are amazing. Thank you, my dear friend, for organizing this whole thing!!! (Even if you did it behind my back. hahaha!!!) Tori and Laurie, you too! PP rocks! And everyone on my playground, THANK YOU!

I feel totally privileged, honored, and blessed to count ALL MY GIRLFRIENDS on our playground among my dearest, dearest friends. Actually, no, they’re more than just girlfriends and best friends. They’re SISTAHS in every sense of the word and more! (My ties of affection to you are so strong that they can build a bridge across the oceans and we won’t even need visas to visit each other! Ha!)

There are no words that can accurately express or even come close to my gratitude and overflowing affection for you, my sweeties, so here’s a “card” I made (they say a picture paints a thousand words… so here are my thousand words, and more–uh… keep your eyes on my message more than on my funny face, okay? 😆 )

Me and the Surprise

Thank you. Seriously. For making this the best day of the year ever. I can’t say it enough.

Oh and PS? My son will attest to the fact that since I got the book and the card, I have not let it out of my sight and reach for a single minute. WOOHOO!!! 😀

Oh, and of course, I had to take photos of the masterpiece that Jessica’s rockin’ girls put together for her, right? 😀 (And kari’s lovely handmade card too!)

Jes’ Book

And here’s my friend who put it all together:

Kari’s Page

I wish I could put the photos of all the pages of my darling friends’ pages over here… but that would mean that I would be putting the ENTIRE book on my blog! 🙂

Girls… I love ya! You know I do!

Almost Caught Up

Almost. Not quite, but I’m getting there.

Did three layouts yesterday in an attempt to get caught up with the LOAD requirements I had failed to post on time. I’m not giving up the goal though… I’m still working towards finishing 31 layouts by the 31st of January.

Here are the three I did:

10 More

Journaling reads:

wheeeee! only ten more days till christmas!!!

CREDITS:

Jessica’s fab DD template, Michelle Coleman’s topper, Katie Pertiet’s grid brush AND Papers by Leora Sanford, Lisa Warren, and Heidi Larsen(slightly recolored); Emily Merritt’s button; Christina Renee’s doodled circles overlay
Brrrrr…

Journaling reads:

brrrr… ….break out the blankets and the jackets! we may live by the equator but that doesn’t stop jack frost from nipping at our noses and toesies!

CREDITS:

Jessica’s fab Daily December template; Michelle Coleman’s Topper; Katie Pertiet’s Grid Brush AND Angela Shetzer’s papers &, holly stamp from her Downhome Christmas kit; John’s Photoblast EZActions

Little Santa

Journaling reads:

more than the games, more than the chance to have your photo taken with santa, more than the yummy food laid out on the tables, what you loved most of all was giving your classmates christmas gifts. so wonderfully generous. so typically you.

CREDITS:

Jessica’s fab Daily December template; Michelle Coleman’s Topper; Katie Pertiet’s Grid Brush & doodled Christmas title AND Michelle Coleman’s MerryLittleXmas papers; MiriamLima’s flower; EvaKipler’s Artistic-Flourish sequins; Anna Aspnes’ quote; ScrappyPony’s Holiday Grunge Overlay

Balancing in White

Our lesson at 2peas for this week had to do with White Balance. Which is a big word for just making sure that your photos’ colors are “calibrated” according to the light source that you’re shooting in. So if you’re shooting indoors with incandescent lighting, you can get a better-looking photo by tinkering around with your camera’s WB, instead of coming up with a photo that looks like everyone ate much too much mangoes and papayas and therefore turned orange. 😆

Our challenge for this week was to take 3 or more indoor photos: one using the automatic white balance setting of the camera, one with the “tungsten” setting (or its equivalent), and another with White Balance set manually.

There were bonus points for trying out the different settings for white balance. WB settings vary from camera to camera. On my D40 I have an entire list: Auto, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Direct Sunlight, Cloudy, Shade, and Manuel. I tried them all with exactly the same item and without fiddling around with the fine-tuning knob (According to ken rockwell, this is something unique to Nikon, which Canon doesn’t have: the white balance settings on Nikon allow us to further refine the white balance settings, even if they’re “set,” so that we can come up with the best possible color calibration when we take a photo).

Here are the results of the experiment:

{ Click on images for larger views}

Incandescent WB setting looks a little greenish, don’t you think?

I think the Shade setting looks too orange… Ken Rockwell says that this setting is best for shooting in the shade, which produces colors which are normally bluish (hence the orange balances the blue). It also works, he says, for shooting on cloudy days when light from the clouds casts a bluish tint, or when you have a subject that’s backlit. Nice to know, right? 😉

Cloudy WB casts a warm tone and is better, Ken says, for outdoor shots in direct sunlight. The fluorescent WB setting I know I do not like. 😛

CREDITS: Jason Gaylor’s brushes, Papers by Petit Moineux

I find that when I set white balance manually, it was closest to the auto setting, which brings me to something that I learned:

Nikon’s Auto White Balance totally rocks. 😀 I think I’ll keep my white balance setting on Auto, though it’s terrific knowing how to manipulate the different manual settings, just in case I find myself in a situation that requires it.

Alright! All for now! Must get working on the next freebie for you, my sweeties!

Catch you later! 😉

In Love with Cameran

Friday, 18 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 9 Comments

For those who are wondering who Cameran is, that would be my camera (camera + Nikon = Cameran 😆 )

I am totally loving the manual mode now (though I think I’ll shift back to the aperture priority mode for regular daily shots. Just nice to know that I can tweak the way my camera works according to the effect I want to get). Am totally loving the tripod that hubby so generously bequeathed to me, too! (Am I blessed having him or am I blessed having him? 😀 )

So I played around with Part 2 of Week 2’s lesson of the 2peas Photography course. If you’ve been reading the past posts, the 1st week had to do with aperture (lens opening) priority, and this week had to do with shutter speed. Part 2 (you get to advance if you’re a diligent student, 😆 ) is setting the camera to Manual mode (why is this such a dreaded setting, I wonder?) and applying what you know about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to tweak your shooting according to what you want to come up with.

We were actually supposed to choose one priority to tweak in the manual mode: either aperture or shutter speed (because once you set your ISO and one of the two other items, then the camera will adjust the 3rd item for you. Nice, right? 😉 )

I decided I wanted to try both! So I played.

Here are my shots in manual mode with the following settings: f/4.5 ~ focal length: 52mm ~ ISO: 800

{Click on images for larger views}

Manual Mode with Aperture set at f/4.5, focused on book in front:

Manual Mode with Aperture set at f/4.5, focused on books at the back:

Note: I’ve recently begun my goodreads (didn’t really get much up, unless you count my setting up an account and one book review, hahaha!) so I wanted a shot that I could use for my profile photo over there. I took 2 shots: in the first, I focused on the front part; in the second I focused on the back part. (In the second photo you can catch a sneak preview of the books that will appear on my to-read list. Come to think of it, these same ones will be featured in my to-cover-with-plastic-first list. 😆 )

Here is my one and only shot taken in manual mode, prioritizing shutter speed.

Shutter Speed at 6 seconds.

I set the shutter speed at 6 seconds with the same ISO of 800 and a 32mm focal length. I used a tripod because of the ultra-low speed I wanted. (Had I held it in my hands, simply breathing out of my nose would have blurred everything in my photo. hahaha!) I placed it at a very slow speed because I wanted to blur the lights coming from Buzz Lightyear.

Considering that it took soooo long to set up and just a few seconds to take the shot, I was pretty pleased with the results (if I may say so ever so humbly). It was so funny because I had to tie Buzz Lightyear’s legs together with rubber band to keep the on-button activated. Then I had to figure out how to make Buzz stand on his legs at an angle (had to tie him with gold cords, which you’ll see in the background behind him) so that I could get the full effect of the lights. Of course all the other Buzzes and Woody and Zorb had to lean or sit at varying angles just so Buzz the LIGHTyear guy could really light up the place.

This is soooo fun! Play along with me, why don’t you? Then link me up to your photos so I can ooh and aah at them too! 😉

LOAD Day 17

Okay, I missed upload cutoff time by 2 seconds again. I’ve got to stop playing long enough to upload way before the last minute, don’t you think? 😆

So here’s my 17th layout for January and my 12th Daily December layout. Woohoo!!! In 14 days I’ll have a theme album completed, all thanks to LOAD’s kick in my butt! Thank you, Laine!!!

Gingerbread Gone

Journaling reads:

five minutes tops. and then they were gone. those gingerbread boys never stood a chance with you, my dear hungry boys.

CREDITS:

Jessica’s fab Daily December template, Katie Pertiet’s grid frame, Michelle Coleman’s topper, Emily Merritt’s and Heidi Larsen’s papers, Karel’s gingerbread bowl, Anna Aspnes’ ribbon (recolored), and Bren Taylor-Boone’s alpha.

Reality TV, anyone?

Did any one of you catch American Idol yesterday?

We had a ball of a time watching Reynaldo Lapuz. What a guy! He happens to be Filipino. Actually, from the very first moment when dh, my kids and I caught the teaser of the show on TV, we KNEW that this guy happened to be Filipino. We were rolling on the floor with laughter. What a great guy. How can anyone help not liking him, simple as he is?

Paula, too, cracked us up with her interpretative hand signals and her bopping along. Amazing.

Dh checked Youtube minutes after the show ended and, true enough, there he was! on Youtube. Within minutes! So funny.

Here, in case you missed it. (And if you didn’t, watch it again. It gets better each time).

What were your favorite parts? These were mine:

“Simon, you are a great person. (sniffle, sniffle, voice breaking, tears threatening to fall) You give chance to everyone to sing to the whole world. I’m thank you.”

“You are heaven’s chosen to give chance to any talent for free of charge!”

“Even they throw you negative words but there are many people who really like you, who really admire you. One of them is meeeeh. You are a great person, Sssssaaaahmon.”

“You’re my glory, Ssssssssaaaahmon.”

Seriously, though, laughter aside, you know what I really, really like about this guy? (Aside from the fact that he’s sooo Pinoy!) He is just so guileless, so good-natured, so happy. So Filipino, actually.

You know that part where Simon tells him no? He just goes and hugs Simon. I mean, how gooooood can a person’s heart be? Whereas 90-95% would walk out and say bad words and curse, here’s this guy, just so thankful and so appreciative of the chance to sing. Amazing.

On a deeper level, I guess it teaches us how to be grateful. In a world where we often forget that it’s the simplest things that matter.

Like I said, what a guy, huh?

(And mark my words, this guy is going to be a greater hit than William Hung ever was. 😆 )

Here’s another Pinay (slang for Filipina… for men the equivalent is Pinoy) who made it big on Ellen Degeneres’ show. What’s funny about it is that it shocks people that she has a good voice. Wasn’t shocked that she could sing well, actually, because there are tons of people in my homeland who can sing well (and there are tons who can’t either. But Filipinos in general love entertainment and performing). People on the street sing well. The man in the bus can break out in song and he’ll be in tune. Let a band play on the streets, and passersby will bob their heads and move their bodies in perfect rhythm. I guess what shocked me more was that she was actually discovered on youtube, and Ellen was able to give to her an opportunity that Charice Pempengco probably never even dared to dream of.

Me? I am in awe of her, simply because she can do what I can’t. 🙂

You absolutely hafta, gotta take this GREAT TEST!!!

for photographers, Photoshoppers, and generally anyone addicted to digital stuff (that would be you, and me, and you, and you too, and you … 😆 )

The objective of the test, called Fake or Foto, is for you to determine which of the photos in a set of 10 is computer generated and which is an actual photograph. Try it. You’ll be amazed.

And what’s great about the test is you can be very visual about it if you’re feeling tired and just need some entertainment. Or, if you’re intense, you may want to summon everything you know about photography, lighting, shadows, effects, and Photoshop to help you get a higher score. Either way, it’s fun.

Find the Fake or Foto test here.

Click on the link, take the test, then come back and post in the comments what your score was. I’d love to know!!!

Alrighty. Need to have dinner and then I’ll be back in a bit to post the link for Set 3 of Pasteleria.

Catch you later, alligator! 😉

Photography Phun!

Wednesday, 16 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 6 Comments

Yeah, that’s what Laine’s 12-Week Photography course at 2peas has been! Totally fun!

We’re into our 2nd week, and the lesson for this week is even more fun than it was last week! I guess I have to admit that while I am far from being a great photographer, I’m not a newbie at it either… but I’ve never participated in any photography course, ever, so this kind of learning-road is pretty new to me (adventure, yeah! the word for the month), and I’m having a load of fun with it! I love that there’s always a challenge with an exercise to do (must be echoes of the school-age kid in me 😀 ).

This week is all about shutter priority (and then getting to love the manual mode on your camera).

The challenge for this week was to take a photo of water from your kitchen sink flowing at a slow shutter speed and then at a high shutter speed. The idea is to see how a higher shutter speed freezes movement–sort of like we used to do when we were kids and we played “statue-dancing” (you know, where you dance like crazy and then freeze when the music stops. All those who move get taken out of the running. Bless the poor child who just has to sneeze at that point! 😆 ).

So to create that splashing of water, we had to have some object of our choice that would get in the way of the flowing water, enough for the water to splash about. I used an overturned carafe and, for some excitement and color (because my kitchen happens to be almost all black granite and stainless steel… very nice but very boring for photos 🙂 ), I added some glass pebbles. And I used my tripod (because if you take at a slow shutter speed and you move slightly, you’re going to get a lot of blurring… so even if my lens is VR-equipped, I didn’t want to take any chances. haha).

I got soooo excited with the challenge that I… uhm… didn’t read the instructions too well. 😳 We were supposed to set our ISO between 1000 and 1600, and I foolishly just shot away at the ISO my camera was set at when I last took a photo (400. Waaaay below the required minimum. Geez.)

One more proof that I make a bad student: we were supposed to take 1 photo at a slow shutter speed and then 1 photo at a high shutter speed, right. 1 + 1 = 2. I took three photos at different shutter speeds. Hmmmm. Maybe my school-age kids shouldn’t ever see my blog lest they get any ideas about not following Teacher to the letter. 😆

So here’s what I came up with:

{ Click on the images to get a clearer, amazing view of the differences! 😉 )

Journaling below:

Water drops change: from an indistinguishable blur to “comet-like” drops with tails to distinct droplets floating in air. Wow!

Here’s another view that will show you the differences, even more amazing than the first one above. This shows you the difference in the water coming from the faucet:

And here are the individual photos:

With a shutter speed of 1/20 (this is the slowest shutter speed I used):

Shutter Speed 1/20

Shutter speed of 1/80 (this was the slowest speed that Laine had required at an ISO of 1000-1600):

Shutter Speed 1/80

Shutter speed of 1/200:

Shutter Speed of 1/200

Cool, huh? Try it and have fun!!!

My LOAD for Day 15

Yeah! Halfway through! Fifteen days into the new year with fifteen layouts to show for it!!! Woohoo!!! 8)

Santa’s Elves

Journaling reads:

you have got to be the most adorable santa’s elves i’ve ever seen in my entire life! how did i get to be so lucky?

CREDITS: Jessica’s fab DD template, Michelle Coleman’s topper, Katie Pertiet’s grid brush, Emily Merritt’s papers, Lisa Warren’s cardinal

Alright then! On to working on the next set of Pasteleria. I’ll be back in a few! 😉

Yippee!!! (First Freebie for 2008!)

Tuesday, 15 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 8 Comments

Woohoo, turning cartwheels here! I finally have something to share with you, my sweeties!

I am both excited and a bit uncertain about this kit that I’m doing, because it’s a bit of a departure from the colors I normally play with.

I have to admit: I am not much of a pastel person. Way back in the 80s (yeah, that time of mullet hairstyles, eek!), there was this curious book that supposedly would tell you which colors best suited you, based on your skin color. Does anyone recall that?

They divided the fashion color palette into seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. If I remember right (caveat: I don’t always remember right 😆 ), the Winter color scheme was supposed to be best for those with very fair skin and blonde hair, blue eyes, that sort of thing; and the colors were icy blue, icy green, shimmery sorts of colors. I remember Winter because one of my sisters qualified as that. She was born with blonde hair, and she recalls worrying–when she was little–that she was adopted, because the rest of us were all born with dark brown hair… that is, until my brother was born 4 years after and he was blonde too. 😆

Oh… they’ve lost the blond and are now dark haired like the rest of us. Go figure. 😯

Anyway, I remember being a Fall, and that suited me just fine as I’ve always been partial to oranges, browns, beiges, creams, neutrals (except for that brief phase in university when I wore nothing but black and white… thankfully, that was brief. >teehee< ).

This whole off-tangent story of mine is meant to explain why I am not really a pastel person. I like seeing them; they look absolutely fresh and soft, but I don’t feel like I know them, know what I mean? (Okay, I’m strange: I’m talking like colors were people. 😀 )

Buuuuut. It’s nice to stretch one’s wings and discover new horizons. After all, my word for January is ADVENTURE. (Have you thought of your word for the month / year yet?) And this certainly qualifies as an adventure for me!

Let me know what you think about this freeb, please? (Be honest. But be nice. 😆 )

So here’s the first set of the first freebie for 2008! (ha! alliteration there!)

{Click on image for larger view}

I’ve called the set Pasteleria, which is Spanish for a bakeshop or a place where you get pastries and sweet stuff (pastel + sweet = pasteleria in my twisted little mind, hahaha!) You can snag Set 1 here!

What you’ll be downloading is three papers, all slightly textured: LimeLight has a scrolly thing on its corners, Baby’s Breath has scratchy wisps of white on its edges, and Lullaby has stars and a moon surrounding it. There’s also a ribbon with a heart charm, which you can resize as you wish. Thanks to atomic cupcake, CindyDoerksen, and scrapNtag for some commercial-use items I used to make this!

By the way, pastels were supposed to be Spring (on the 80s fashion palette). If I remember right. 😉

Thank you in advance for the love you leave and please do take the time to let me know what you think (so that I know if I should quit this pastel adventure and go a different route or not… hahaha!)

And it’s back to the DDs, folks!

After a brief and very wonderful playtime spent making a layout that belongs in my generic album (which I call Viewpoint… I’ll try to get a photo of it and upload it here), I’m back to making Daily December layouts with Jessica’s fab template!

Here’s my Daily December No. 9 (“The Gift of Christmas”) and LOAD Day 14.

Journaling reads:

One night centuries ago, a Child was born, God’s most precious Gift to the world. Thirty-three years later, that Child would give His life so that we could share in His forever. I hope that this inspires you, my dearest son, to keep giving and sharing, especially with those who have less than you, whether you are 5 or 33 or 105 years old.

CREDITS:

Jessica Sprague’s fab Daily December template *You won’t believe how many people love this template!* plus Katie Pertiet’s grid brush, Michelle Coleman’s Topper & Christmas papers from her Merry Little Christmas kit (recolored); Nancie Rowe Janitz’s stamps (from her contribution to the Stand Up & Scrap Mega Kit (recolored all to fit Christmas theme); Angela Barton’s postage stamp, also from her contribution to the Stand Up & Scrap Mega Kit; and the world embellie, I made using these items: Michelle Coleman’s painted heart, Shabby Miss Jenn’s knotted ribbon (recolored), and Lisa Warren’s mini globe (Lisa’s and SMJenn’s items were also from the SU&S mega kit). Also used John’s Photoblast actions on the the photo of the children below and the one of my son with his two friends. (John has the most fab, user-friendly actions; if you use Photoshop full version or Elements and you don’t have these yet, you should check them out here! 😀 )

I was so glad that the preschool that my son attends arranged a get-together last December with a large group of less privileged children, and in so doing, they were able to give my son and his schoolmates the opportunity to really know the joy of giving and sharing time, laughter, and gifts. This joy which comes from a spirit of generosity is one which I hope my son will always know, no matter how old he becomes.

Other stuff I’ve been up to

Have you signed up for the 12-Week Photography lesson at 2peas yet? It’s so much fun to play, whether you already know the basics or not. (ha! I love any excuse to play. My mental age is probably 7. 😆 )

This week’s lesson lets you play around with the shutter priority mode in your camera. If you’re using a point-and-shoot type of camera, the equivalent would be playing around with the different auto modes, sports setting plus whatever else you want to play around with to see the differences.

And it’s a two-part lesson (not supposed to peek at Part 2 without doing Part 1), how fun is that! 😀 If you haven’t checked out the 2peas course yet, do! It’s really fun. (And you’re welcome, Jeanne. Love ya).

I’m going to check the kitchen sink photos I took and, if they’re not too embarrassing, I’m going to be back in a bit to post them here!

More adventure stories later! (((hugs)))

Missed the train…

Sunday, 13 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 3 Comments

by about 3 seconds. THREE. seconds.

So my LOAD layout didn’t quite make it to Day 12. 😳

But that’s okay. Today is a Sunday in my part of the world. And Sundays have always been family days. I normally work on my LOAD submissions in the last 6 hours before submission deadline (hehe… procrastination habits die hard), but this morning I couldn’t, because there was Mass to attend and then we had lunch out, and then a couple of other must-do stuff that we postponed (like getting photos taken for our passports and visas… ya hear me, GFs??? This is for you-know-what happening on you-know-where in June!!! 😛 )

Bottom-line is… Sundays are family days. And so I had to make a choice between uploading my LO for the contest or putting family first. That was a no-brainer. (Not that I didn’t wince and kick myself for not working on the LOAD Day 12 sooner, but there were no second-thoughts as to which I would give up today).

So anyway, here’s my LOAD for Day 12. And another one should be coming up soon for Day 13. ha. Two LOADS in one day. That should be a good way to repair my not meeting the Day 12 deadline.

Christmas in our Home

Journaling reads:

(Subheading in white): our home is decked with boughs of holly, falalalala lalala la

(Text): i love the extra warmth and coziness our home exudes at christmastime

CREDITS:

Jessica Sprague’s Daily December template, Katie Pertiet’s Grid Brush, Michelle Coleman’s Topper plus Miriam Lima’s papers, Lisa Warren’s cardinal (recolored and applied atomic cupcake actions on this one), Leora Sanford’s star border, Emily Merritt’s buttons (some recolored), Atomic Cupcake actions

More Playing Around with Photos

Okay, I was tickled pink by the feeling of doing “assignments”for the 2Peas 12-Week Photography Effect (throwback to my grade school days when I loved homework… didn’t I say I was an alien? 😆 ), so I did another take on the Aperture challenge.

Some things I did differently this time:

1. I didn’t attach my SB800 external flash (if you’re playing around with aperture settings and you want to create the bokeh effect, the flash really minimizes the effect a lot. Which just means that you’ll see a lot less difference when playing around with your aperture settings in a flash-lit setup). Ergo, best to shoot in a setup that uses available light.

2. I also greatly decreased the distance between my lens and the subject I was taking (in this case a small vase of flowers): again, the bokeh effect is greatly enhanced by this simple act of moving closer. You also end up with a much wider range of f/stop values (but of course, you’re limited to the end-limits that your particular lens allows).

3. Knowing that I would not print out these photos, I changed my ISO setting to 800 (normally I set mine at 200 or, in darker conditions where I want to use available light, at 400). What this simply means is that there is much less blurring that can occur with a higher ISO setting because it allows you to get the same exposure setting with a much faster shutter speed. (Shooting at low aperture values slows down shutter speed; that is why there is a greater chance for blurring to occur… unless you prop your camera on a tripod, which I –of course– failed to use this time. 😛 ) Higher ISO’s, though, also mean more chance of your photos showing up as grainy if you’re printing them out. For viewing on the web, thankfully, the graininess is practically nil.

Things I kept the same:

Simple: My Nikon D40x and my Nikkor 18-200mm AF-S lens.

Here are the shots I took today (if you look at the wooden slats and the trees, you’ll see a more pronounced difference, compared to my shots of the bikers yesterday):

1. At f/4.6

Flowers in a Vase f/4.6

2. At f/8

Flowers in a Vase f/8

3. At f/32

Flowers in a Vase f/32

Cool, right? Aperture setting is a wonderful thing! (It’s the setting that I keep my camera on all the time, actually. That’s how much I love it!)

Okay, that’s enough playing around on my blog for today! I really need to get to work on my freebs for you, or I’ll be breaking one of my New Year’s resolutions too early in the game. 🙂

Freebs coming soon! (Give me 24 hours). Hang tight! 😀