Shutterfly Contest Winner!

Congratulations to Sara - she is our winner of the $50 Shutterfly gift! Get something amazing, Sara!

Vintage Printables

I just wanted to share a site I found recently while browsing the vast interweb. It's VintagePrintable.com - and it features a ton of FREE public domain/out-of-copyright images that are PERFECT for DIY projects.

Here are a few I found that are great for Halloween/Fall/Thanksgiving:

 

 



Happy crafting! I've got a few holiday-themed DIY craft projects coming up and a new ON THE MENU cupcake edition, so stay tuned.

GIVEAWAY: $50 Shutterfly Gift

It's that time of year again when everyone starts thinking about what to do for their annual Holiday Cards. Personally, I always turn to Shutterfly. They always have a great selection, and they're always running great deals and promos, making their cards and photo books affordable. Check out some of their SPECIAL OFFERS - you're sure to find something good!

This year you're in luck, because Shutterfly is helping me give away a whopping $50 OFF YOUR TOTAL ORDER, excluding shipping. That should be more than enough to make a dent in your holiday card order! Scroll to the end for CONTEST DETAILS.

A lot of people set up their family portrait shots around the card design they've picked out, and there are some great new ones for 2012. I always like to give my mom a hard time because she is DESPERATE every year to get a good family shot. She insisted we all wear scarves around the fireplace one year during a hot October. You know I love you, mom :)

You can see I mocked up a few above of some of my favorites. But of course I can't show which ones I've actually picked out - that would ruin the surprise for friends and family!

I love this little way to highlight the best parts of your year (instead of the traditional letter):

 

You can even feature your fur baby on your holiday card with some of their creative pet-themed holiday cards:

 

 

Whatever we choose, I'd like to do one large, bold image as opposed to past years where we've done several images on one card. And I do know it will be featuring a certain new addition to the family.

 

CONTEST DETAILS:

Prize: $50 off your total order at Shutterfly.com - excludes shipping and cannot be combined with other offers or promotions.

Deadline to enter: October 29, 2012 - plenty of time for the holidays

To enter: Leave a comment on this post telling me what design you would choose if you one.

For an extra entry: Become a follower of this blog and leave a comment letting me know you did so.

How the winner will be chosen: Random number generator.

GOOD LUCK!

 

This post was sponsored by Shutterfly.

Guess what...?

What?

Judah's head is just fine. Hooray! We were finally able to meet with the craniofacial surgeon at Children's Mercy today to go over his CT scan results in depth. And while he has no soft spot anymore, he is perfectly healthy. We do have to go back every six months until he's two just to be sure that no pressure develops on his brain to be on the safe side. But other than that - we can put this drama to bed. Goodnight. We appreciate everyone's prayers, thoughts, and well wishes!

Our Baby Is a Genius

I love it when people say, "My baby is soooo smart and sooo advanced." And I'm like, "Yeah, well can your baby do this?"

UPDATE: I feel the need to clarify that this image is photoshopped. Genius baby cannot stand yet.

TUTORIAL: Using Photoshop To Touch Up Photos

I've seen a lot of posts on Pinterest lately for Photoshop Tips and Tricks and I thought to myself, "Hey! I use Photoshop 40 hours a week at my job! I'm sure there's a few things I know that would help people out." A lot of people commented on Judah's six month photo on Facebook and asked if we'd had shots professionally taken. Ha! No. I use a $100 digital camera from about 8 or 9 years ago. Definitely no fancy equipment for me - other than Photoshop. So here are a few quick tips for touching up your photos using Photoshop.

NOTE: This tutorial assumes a basic knowledge of Photoshop: how to create a new file, how layers work, etc. It is however, for beginners. Every designer works differently and has their general interface set up in just the way they like. This is by no means a professional way of going about each step - it's just one way to get things done, but there are several different ways to do several things in a program like Photoshop.

If you have a specific question about editing using Photoshop, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. I work in Photoshop CS4 at work, but have CS6 at home. I'm also on a PC at work and a MAC at home. These instructions are for PC users (The basics are the same except for keyboard shortcuts, etc.) Click on each photo in the tutorial to make it larger to see details. Here's my original photo:



 

 

You can see I labeled a few things I wanted to touch up on. Start by cropping your image to make the composition more dynamic. I don't like how everything is so centered in this photo, and I'm not a huge fan of the way I cut off my husbands head at the bottom of his beard (sorry, honey). It just looks weird to me. So locate your crop tool (the fifth down) on your tools menu and adjust your composition:

 

 

After cropping the photo, I started with the overall lighting. I wouldn't ever recommend using the "Brightness/Contrast" adjustment to brighten your photos. Instead, choose Image → Adjustments → Levels:

 

                          

 

The right slider controls the highlights, the middle controls the midtones, and the left slider controls the shadows. You can get a much more precise adjustment with this function. Play around with the sliders and see what it does to your image. When you settle on the brightness and contrast you like, go ahead and save your file with a new name. That way, in case you hate whatever you've done, you can always go back to your original image.

 

And now we move on to the easiest fix in the history of fixes: red eye. Ready for it? Locate the red eye button, it should be the 7th button down. Tip: If you hold down a tool button, you can see the hidden button behind it. For example, the red eye button also hides the healing brush tool, patch tool, etc.

 

Now with your red eye tool selected,  zoom in on your photo (keyboard shortcut: hold down Ctrl and the "+" plus button to zoom in, Ctrl and the "-" minus to zoom out. Ctrl + 0 (zero) enters a full screen), and drag a square over the red eye you need to fix. Voila! Easy as that.

Now we move on to blemishes. There are only a couple on this photo and they aren't too noticeable. One is a little spot on my husband's shirt and a tiny scratch on Judah's forhead, because I'm a terrible mother who only clips his nails when they become demon-like.

 

 

Select the clone stamp tool, make your brush approximately the same size as the blemish and set the hardness of the brush to "0". Now, select an area similar in color to the blemish (I usually just pick an area right next to the mark I want to remove). Now hold down the Alt button while clicking your mouse once. This will set the area to "clone." Now move the clone tool over the blemish and click once with your mouse. This should remove the mark if you blemish is the same size as the brush.

 

Now I'm going to move on to the background. The flash from my camera tends to flatten images and make really harsh shadows behind the subjects of the photo. This is also because our house has zero amount of natural light. Whenever you can use natural light and get away with not using the flash, the results will always be better. But I digress...

 

 

Go ahead and double click the lock icon on your layer and give your layer a name. I just named mine "Main Layer." Click the new layer button at the bottom of the layer panel and name it something like, "background." You can fill the new layer with white if that makes it easier for you to see.

 

I'm going to use the Pen Tool to select the background areas I want to delete. Here's a great tutorial for using the pen tool if you're not familiar with it. You want to make sure the pen is set to "paths" mode and not "shape layers." With the pen, draw around the areas you want to eliminate. You may need to zoom in to get all the little details.

 

 

With the pen tool still selected, and your main layer activated, right click with your mouse near your path you just created and choose "Make Selection." Make sure the feather radius is set to "0."

 

 

Now you have several options with what to do with this background. You can choose to just delete it, which will look like this:

 

 

You can paint over it in a new layer. You can add a separate texture or color in the layer beneath your main layer. Or you can do what I'm going to do and add a gradient layer as a new background for your image. Select the gradient tool, and use the eyedropper to select the colors for your gradient:

 

 

 

With your selection still active, create a new layer, and drag the gradient in the direction you want it to go.

 

 

You can de-select by holding Ctrl + D. I'm about done, and it's getting to where I want it. However, I notice Scott's shirt looks a little dingy. So I brighten it up a little with the Dodge Tool:

 

 

Much better. For the finishing touch, I like a rounded corner. I'm sure there are several ways to go about doing this, but this is how I do it. Select your rounded rectangle shape from the tool box. It should be in a hidden layer behind the line tool. Duplicate your main layer and gradient layer and merge them together. Hide the original layers.

 

 

 

1. Make sure you have "paths" selected instead of "shape layers."

2. The radius will change the size of the rounded corner. The higher the number, the more rounded the corner will be. My radius is set at 35 pixels.

3. Draw your rounded corner rectangle over your image. Right click and choose "Make Selection." Now hold down Ctrl+Shift+I - this will invert your selection. Now hit DELETE. This will trim off any excess image outside the rounded rectangle area.

 

And the final product is:

 

Is it perfect? Definitely not. But I think it's better than the original.

So, I realize that was kind of long, but hopefully you learned a few tips for working with your photos in Photoshop. Like I mentioned earlier. If there's something specific you'd like to learn how to do, let me know and I'll put together a tutorial!

 

DIY Craft - Chalkboard Countdown Sign

First of all, thanks for the sweet comments and emails from the last post. As of today we're STILL waiting to hear from the specialist and it is especially frustrating.

On a lighter note, I was able to finish a little craft project this weekend, which is something I haven't done in a LONG time! I saw the idea for this cute little countdown sign on Pinterest, although I didn't think to look for the actual source, but it seems to be from THIS SITE.

We had a leftover piece of MDF from our built-in bookcase project, so I decided it would be perfect for this project since it was already about the size I wanted - 1" x 3" x 20". Here's how I did this simple project

• I coated each side of the board with 3-4 coats of chalkboard paint.
• Then when it was dry, I sanded the edges and corners for a little bit of a rustic look.
• I printed off the text for my "Days Until" to scale and used a pencil to trace transfer the image.
• Then I painted inside the lines with white acrylic paint (2-3 coats) so that the "days until" text is the only permanent part of the sign.
• Now I have a cute little sign I can leave up all year and use it to countdown to Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, etc.

I plan on decorating for fall next weekend as Sept. 22nd is the OFFICIAL first day of fall. So excited!