Christmas photos

So now that I can emerge from my report writing I finally get to start feeling more festive. Last night a friend and I went into the city to photograph the tree and was inspired to scrap it using a similar style to the fabulous Jana is using for her Daily December album.

Credits here

Sometimes it seems a shame to make photos small on a page. Lucky we still have the originals full size on the computer! Here's the reflection I took of myself in the bauble (just so no-one can ever say I don't take photos of myself!!).

Here's another reflection of me in a bauble - much bigger bauble, much smaller reflection :)

And a panorama (three photos) of the decorations in the front yard of a house on a nearby corner.

Christmas dinner out with friends tonight. The craziness has begun...!

Christmas is on its way!

Suddenly the store is filling with decorations and the talk in all the scrapbooking forums is of Christmas kits and gift ideas and, of course, Days of December. So I thought I'd mention a few bargain digital scrapbooking goodies that you can pick up. Suzanne of Roadside Designs is giving away a free "25 days of Christmas" set of templates on her blog.

 

Like all of Suzanne's templates they are so well designed and beautifully shadowed. I am such a fan of her templates - pages come together so easily. It seems so funny when I look back at my early days of scrapping and thought that using templates was cheating! Now I use them all the time - scrapping is all about the memory keeping, after all!!

Here are a couple of pages I threw together.

Credits: Wondrous Full Kit by Creashens at Catscrap, green paper from Flashback by One Little Bird at Oscraps.

At Designer Digitals there are some absolutely beautiful Christmas kits being released and there are more bargain digital scrapbooking goodies start today with the Days of December promotion which includes a new 99c product each day.

Here's today's beautiful 99c product...

and this most exquisite Christmas kit (one of many!)

So this all leaves one in a quandary. Should a girl get the Christmas shopping done, tidy the house ready for guests in a few weeks' time, go hunting for all these beautiful bargains or scrap the days of December?!! It is such a busy, exciting time of the year!

We have turned 50

My husband and I are only a month apart in age (yes we were high school sweet-hearts!!).
We have celebrated our significant birthdays with a joint party. Our 30th, 40th and 50th celebrations have all been at our current house.
So our 50th was last weekend. It is so special to have all your friends gathered together to celebrate. I only wish the evening could last longer. I gave my camera to one of my daughters during the speeches. She captured this shot. I think it speaks volumes...

(frame and wordart from Album of Memories LTs No1 by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals)

I love this man and the life we've had together. I am a very lucky person!

A Photo A Day project - and the weird responses!

I am continuing with my Photo-A-Day project again this year. Actually it is a "Photo-A-Day (more or less)" project. It is often referred to as a "365 Project" but there is a little conundrum next year as it is a leap year it will become be a "366 Project"!
My daughters have become used to my camera appearing at awkward moments. They explain to their friends that I take a photo every day; making it sound like I have some some incurable disease!
Of course there are also very amusing comments from helpful members of the public...
Yesterday a family of ducks wandered into the school yard. We had to call wildlife rescue. I tried to get in close to capture their cute faces.

A helpful colleague kept suggesting I move away and photograph them from above. Can you imagine this shot taken from above? It would just not be the same!

Today I was in the supermarket whilst there was a torrential downpour outside (1" in a matter of minutes). I emerged to see the most amazing double rainbow. Luckily I always carry my point and shoot camera in my bag. There was a young trolley attendant nearby. He asked whether I could get the whole rainbow with just 10 megapixels. My mind went into spasms wondering how to respond:
a) ask what made him think my camera was 10 megapixels
b) explain that my camera was old and only 5 megapixels
c) explain that I was taking a panorama and would merge it in photoshop, or
d) mention that the field of view was nothing to do with megapixels and all to do with the lens...

I just said "oh yes".

He replied helpfully that there was a 15 megapixel camera on sale for $300 the other day.
That raised another whole series of questions in my mind.

I just said "oh really?"

But it got the better of me and I said
"I have a 19 megapixel camera at home but it's too big to fit in my bag."

He said no more!

More digital water colors :)

I've been playing with this tutorial.
Here are some of my results:

Credits here at Designer Digitals

from a little excursion into the city yesterday

From a trip may years ago!

For the current Pioneer Woman Edit This competition.

Digital watercolors

I have been inspired by beautiful digital watercolors by digital scrapbooker Agnes Granouillac. I don't have the brush skills or patience for such beautiful work so I went off searching for some tutorials that might help me achieve something a bit similar.
I found these: 15 artistic watercolor effects and tried the Easy Watercolor Painting Effect
With a little experimentation I produced this layout:

(full credits here)

I started with this photo of my daughter because of her mona-lisa smile and the plain background. It also is not very sharp so it's not much good on its own:

So I followed through the tutorial.
Here is the image after adding the 'cutout filter' layer with luminosity blend mode (step 6):

After adding the 'dry brush filter' layer with screen blend mode (step 8):

After adding the 'median filter' layer with soft light mode (step 8):

But I wasn't happy with it quite. I wanted some pencil/ink edges. So I added an 'accented edges filter' layer in pin light blend mode as follows:

to get this:

the difference is not clear at this resolution, but the eyes and eyebrows in particular look like they have been inked in.
In retrospect I could have added a sketch layer over the top a bit like this: portrait to sketch
I used these Designer Digitals products to make it look like it was painted on a canvas:

     

I clipped the photo to one of Katie's Watery Photo Masks which were blended to the linen texture paper in multiply mode so the texture showed through.

I added the watery splashes around and painted them with color (click the "lock transparency pixels" icon on the top left of the layers palette and then paint) inspired by this tutorial: brilliant matte dispersion effects in photoshop

(Of course, I'd be mortified if I was that messy with paint in real life!!)
And after adding the frame and background paper it was done :)

I want to try a few more of those 15 artistic watercolor effects tutorials, they look like so much fun!!

And here are a couple of other fun tutorials I'd love to to try:
puzzle
abstract watercolor wallpaper

Do you have any other tutorials that you've enjoyed? I'd love to know!

Remembering

A significant photo of my daughter taken in New York City 20 years ago. Much has changed since then!