As my luck would have it

I am sick.....BOO.....

We have a party set up for tomorrow night at our house, FINALLY I get to do something for New Years instead of watching the ball drop on TV while sitting on my couch, and I get sick...freaking sick!!

I somehow made it out to my photography meeting last night and even went out to the diner afterward with a few of the members but by the end of the night, I had no voice and my head was pounding. Of course when I walk through the door, I hear my youngest crying in her crib....great. No sleep for me.

I was then up for another hour and a half trying to get her to sleep when Sass cries out. She isn't feeling that well either.

Finally I get them to sleep and I crash into bed, only to wake up all too soon and needing to start the day. I tried relaxing on the couch as much as I could this morning, hoping I will get better before tomorrow night, but with my trying to get well, my house work is suffering and I need to have people over tomorrow...*sigh*

Not that the house is a total disaster, but there are things I need to attend to before guests come. Laundry being a bog contender, and my craft table...gah, what a mess.

I actually have plans on moving my craft table out of its location so that I can set up either a table of food there or the photography background. I have plans of having a place to take photos of everyone. Man, this sickness also blows because I wanted to make me a hair piece to wear too...looks like I may just not have time now.

Well....I will post more later, but I need to get my sick, coughing self up and get some things done....

I have an addiction

and it's name? Cigarettes? No....Alcohol? No....Drugs? Nope....well..sort of. Diet Coke. Yup............and it's getting to be really bad.

I used to drink one a day, then it became two, three...and the other day I drank almost a whole 2 liter in a short time. WOAH!

I have been really tried, run down, my weight is a whole other story, I am run down feeling and I am sitting here tonight, drinking my 4th can of the day and I feel awful. My head hurts, I feel unhealthy and icky and I am like STOP...I need a change.

I was googleling about health and I read some articles about the side effects of Diet Coke and it is me...I suffer from a lot of them.

I have a lot of New Years Resolutions to start and I think I am adding this one to my list. I need to beat my addiction to Diet Coke.

Here are my current resolutions for the New Year, in no particular order

1. Have a healthier lifestyle. Including but not limited to, relationships, body, and mind.

2. Blog more

3. Focus on Photography and grow and learn learn learn.

4. Go through my house, throw out things I dont need and organize and KEEP it that way.

5. Cut out TV during the day.

6. Focus on me, taking care of myself.

7. Work on how I manage stress

8. Complete at least 2 scrap pages a week..at LEAST

9. Print off pictures I have on my computer and put them in albums

10. And this one is a lot into one..I want to do things I dont typically do, go do things, see things more so than I do now and have more experiences in life.

11. Have a closer relationship to God.

With that said....what are your New Year's Resolutions?

Change of plans...

My friend had a photoshoot today and she asked me if I wanted to second shoot. I was excited about the opportunity and agreed! It was a friend of hers and 3 other ladies, we had some pretty cute ideas for the shoot too...but as you see by my title, you probably guessed that that isnt what happened today.

When we arrived, she called her friend to ask where she was and she replies that she is at her friends and thought the shoot was next weekend!

UGH!! I was super excited too, brought all my stuff, drove to a different state (granted it wasn't that far, I just like that it makes it sound worse than it was haaha!) just to hear....we can't do the shoot. Bummer...

But my friend brought her cousin along and I looked at her and said...well..you sure are dressed cute today, wanna be our model? Soooo happy she agreed and we had a great time and I think the pics turned out just nice!! Here is a sneak peek from her session!

My Good/Bad night

I had a great night tonight, it is nice to get out and hang with people other than my loving children. Sometimes a mommy just needs a break too!

I went over to my friend Lori's house and we ate, had hot cocoa, munched on banana bread and talked Photography, editing and just stuff. Time sure does fly because I got there around 7:30pm and didn't leave till a little after 1am (on the 3rd, so as you can tell, I fixed the date for this post).

I am just getting my feet wet into being a portrait photographer and she has been helping me tremendously!! I have improved my technique, editing and other technical aspects in one month.

I took her family's photo the other week and we were going over the pics together and sharing how each of us edits. I learned things from her, and she learned a couple things from me.

Gah..............sorry this post is not pleasant to read, I am sooo exhausted and I can barely think straight...but that is because I only had barely a couple hours (literally) of sleep...why you ask?? Well this is why the title says, "bad night".

I leave Lori's house a couple minutes after 1am. I live in a gated community where the gates close at 8 and you need a card to open the gates. Or you can punch in a code and will go to your phone number and they can hit a number and let you in.

Well, like a dumb butt, since I took a different car to her house, I forgot to grab my gate key. So, with it being so early in the morning on a Friday morning, no one was out for me to follow in, no one was going out for me to go through the out gate either for that matter. So, I sat and waited for a bit....no one came. So I was thinking how I didn't want to wake up hubby, but I have no choice because it's early, I am tired, my baby will be up soon and I need some sleep. So I go to the box and call hubby....got his voice mail. Try again, same thing, try again, same...so then I am thinking, ok, let me call from my phone. So I called...and called...and called...over 25 freaking times getting his voice mail EVERY TIME. See, I know it is right by him and on because he uses it has his alarm (its his cell, we have no house phone). I am so tired at this point and no one in site and him not answering the phone I had 2 options....1. wait indefinitely for someone to come or go through the gate or 2. park and walk home, get the key and walk back.

Reluctantly, I parked my car and started home. I was in a wrap sweater with a sleeveless shirt underneath and flat calf length boots...and it was FREEZING out. So I ran all the way home, its close to a half mile away, so not terribly far, but enough. I go up to the room and check his phone and its on...next to his head, but he was passed out cold....so I grab the keys to my other car, get the card, and head back....uphill this time. By time I got home it has been over an hour since I first arrived at the gate. I get dressed, brush my teeth, lie down, close my eyes and in about a half hour, my daughter wakes up....She was up for good around 6 and so have I.

So needless to say I am exhausted and I am about to go to bed, since I have been up since (as I am writing this early on the 4th). I will catch up on Friday's post later! :)

Slackity McSlackster.....

 That should be my name...I have been doing so much stuff, by the end of the night, I always am too tired or just doing something else and I don't blog. It's a shame really, as I would LOVE to look back on things, funny things my child says, updates on life, yet, I don't take the time to make this a priority. This isnt the first post of this kind, I have said it before....but I am going to try (AGAIN) to keep at this.

So December 1st, last month in 2010, 25 days till Christmas...here it goes!

Today I made cameos of the girls...I decided I want to do the entry way in a black and white vintage looking damask. I have always loved this look but had NO idea where to put it, so the entry way sounds like a great place to start. It is kind of bold, therefore I didn't want it all over the house, but I am excited to take on yet another project.

I have a long wooden shelf I found at the habitat for humanity store (pics to come) that I plan to redo. I finished painting the frames black (they were ugly plain wood) with a matte spray paint to put in those house pictures I took, and I have plans to refinish the old walmart special bookshelf down stairs.

Here is what I made, I plan on putting these in frames and setting them on that shelf OR, hang them with ribbon....I haven't decided yet. I will try them both out and see which I like best.

So, without further rambling, here is what I made...
 


Adorable right?? You are thinking...I need one of those of my kids right?? Well, maybe not...but if you are...it is super easy, and here is what you need and how to do it.

1-cute kids (or anything really, try a vase with a single rose...ooooh I just gave myself an idea....)
2-a contrasting background (I used the black side of my reflector)
3-a camera...point and shoot, dslr, whatever...just something that can take a pic, I used flash to freeze the subject and make nice sharp clean lines.
4-some sort of editing software, I use Photo Shop CS5, but you can use anything that allows you to manipulate the photo. Even free programs can do this!

Ok, so step one...have your subject sit and take a good shot of their profiles..., here is what I got, doesnt have to be pretty, and if you can see the look on my daughter's face....she wasn't thrilled of the idea of mommy taking another picture!

 Thankfully my little sweet sweets cooperated better than her older sister. She still smiles when mommy has the camera.

Step 1-
Open the picture in your photo editing software, now again, I am doing this in CS5, if you have earlier versions of CS, it should look similar, I haven't used Elements, but may be similar to that too...anything else, just look for the equivalent in your program.

Open pic
Convert your image to black and white, if you have color sliders that pop up, make your reds go to the right, that will make the skin of the subject go even lighter, if you dont, shouldn't be a big deal.

Step 2-Now go to the level sliders and make the shadow (far left) triangle go right, and the highlight slider (far right) go left till you get something similar to this.

Step 3-I merged the layers, but you just need to make sure you now select the background layer and clean up anything that needs cleaning. As you can see, her eye is still dark. I grabbed a brush in white and "painted" over to make her head solid white. You can clean up any edge lines at this time to make it the way you want.

 {1. ensure the right layer is selected. 2. Select the white color 3. Select your pain brush  4. Paint on subject}

Step 4-(1) Ensure your background layer is selected if you have more than one layer open.
(2) Select your brush (should be already selected) and change your color to black (the background color).
(3) Create the neck part where you want it cut off, using a hard round brush and fill in the rest of the black, leaving just the head of your subject.

Step 5-Go to your magic selector tool (or laso, or whatever will select the whole head), click on your subject and you should get the "marching ants" around your subject completely.

 

Step 6-RIGHT CLICK your head and click copy ( you can select cut, but I like having a whole background as well as the separate cut out).

Step 7-Select the layer that you just made and make the others invisible. Double click that layer and a menu pops up, select COLOR OVERLAY, that will pop up another window, choose the color you want your head to be, in my case, I made it black.

Step 8-Now you can open a paper background of your choice and place the head on top and you get your beautiful cameo! 

**Make sure if you are going to print it, you make your background paper document, the size you want to print. I made mine an 8x10, then placed the head on it, and resized accordingly.

I hope I didn't confuse anyone and you are able to follow this tutorial to make your own!

This would look sweet in your little girls room in a frame hung up by ribbon, you can do this as a family and put on the wall, you can use inanimate objects like fruit, candle sticks, or anything and create beautiful wall decor! You can print just the shape you made on the printer, cut it out, trace it on canvas and paint to have even more personalized artwork! The possibilities are endless (and I just gave myself more ideas and MORE projects haha).

If you make anything and blog it, I'd love to see!