The 6th Time's the Charm???

Doug bought me the CS3 photoshop series, like, a year or so ago. It was so daunting and seemingly so complicated to me. There is no limit to what this program can do! To me, that's daunting. So much to learn!!!!! And for someone who is not techno saavy, I was really intimidated. I took many tutorials, but nothing seemed to really be working, and I have to admit that I gave up. Then I came across some free actions, and I have to say that actions are so SOOOOOOO nice!!! It takes a lot of the guesswork out of editing. So I gave myself a quick lesson, took some photos I had from when family visited from Arizona a couple of weeks ago, and played around with them. I was practically gleeful when I realized that it actually worked:) So I wanted to share with you some pics of us playing around that night that I tweaked in photoshop. Just cause I'm feeling much less intimidated. (Though I have no idea how to work the 20 or so brushes in the blasted thing!)

Baby steps. Baby steps.

I've been wanting to figure out how to use the sun at dusk, so I had Teaghan pose for me. (She was the closest. My other kids practically run when I pull the camera out:) This is the original. A little dark in the face, but not half bad. It's actually one of the few that did turn out. Ah well. :)



Same photo, just tweaked with a soft/diffused action. I adjusted the opacity level to where I wanted it, and wa-la. You can actually see her face. Who knew?





I think this one is dang cute!! My awesome sis in law took this. I ran a B&W action and it turned out fabulous! I think I'm going to blow this one up really big and hang it on the wall. Great job Coleen!!!



Coleen also took this one of Andon and Britt. I only cropped this one. I loved the look of it.


Doug's like a kid at times. It's so sweet! Or he just wanted a ride home:) Who can say. lol



This was a cool vintage action. Again, just adjusted the opacity cause I wanted a bit more color and less brown. Love how it turned out.



I also figured out how to save and export as well. I'm feeling so proud of myself ;)

Just Stuff

I know it's late, but I'm just getting around to posting Father's Day pics. There's just two, but it's better than nothing:) I've decided that since I print this blog and it's my journal of sorts (cause let's face it, I write here more than I do a journal) so I'd better start posting more of the goings-on of our family. And Father's Day is important! :)

I made a picture montage, of sorts, of the kids for Doug's office. His office doesn't have any adornment other than the proverbial 'ficus.' (sp?) You know what I'm talking about...the big fake tree? I cut out big letters, one for each of my kids to hold, and then painted a board black and modge podged it all on. I thought it turned out pretty darn cute! (I'm so into making things myself lately and using pictures to do it. I have another project I'm wanting to start for my bedroom with 12x12 close ups of my kids. Hopefully I'll get around to it sooner than later:)



I bought a six pack of the Weinhardt's cream soda, SUPER YUMMY stuff. We left three of them full of cream soda, and then drank the other three. Happy Father's Day right? Just kidding. We actually washed and took all the labels off the bottles, modge podged some cute paper on them. The three empty bottles we filled with stuff Doug likes. Brittnee decorated the outside of the carrier. So cute!



Doug wanted hamburgers for dinner and then we spent the day relaxing after conference.

So here's my latest project I just finished yesterday. We had this table sitting around in the garage. It was and old one Collette had, and I thought it would look fantastic if it had a new look. Why buy something when you can just refinish what you already have? I neglected to take a before picture, but it was oak and had a bar running through the bottom, as well as some ornamental wood pieces on the side. I took those out in an attempt to modernize it, sanded it, and painted it black.



Then I distressed the edges so that the orange-y oak-y color came through.



Of course, the moment it's dried and I bring it in, I bump in on the garage door and now it has white nicks in it. Good grief.



Now I just need to dress it up. I think I'm going to take one of my leftover tiles from our floor and put a vinyl saying on it. Cheralyn, I will be calling you:) But since it sits underneath my picture frames, I'm thinking of putting the saying "A smile happens in a Flash...the Memory of it can last a Lifetime." We'll see. Most likely it'll sit blank for a while:)