Outstanding Musician

As I mentioned yesterday, Elijah's high school band had their annual Spring Concert last night.  It was a wonderful event filled with beautiful and fun music.  It was also a surprise night for my son who won this year's Outstanding Musician award!  Way to go Elijah!  

Pink flip flops

I had a wonderful birthday!  Thanks so much for all the sweet birthday wishes from family and friends.  Each of you helped make it a truly special day.

The next two weeks will be incredibly busy around the house as Elijah finishes up the school year.  His high school band is having their annual Spring Concert tonight.  The kids work very hard to get ready for this event and I can't wait to hear what they have in store for us this year.  Hopefully I will be able to snag a picture or two to share.

After the hustle and bustle of the school year winds down, I'll be ready to spend some quality time chilling in my new pink flip flops. Summer is definitely calling my name.

41

Well, today I turned 41.  I don't feel any different, but according to my son its all over now....ahhh teenagers...so much fun.  This morning I treated myself to some of the gardenias that grow near my front porch.  I wish I had a scratch and sniff widget so you could smell them too - yummy!  I was in a hurry so I stuck them in a hot pink plastic cup and snapped a quickie picture before I began the day.  I can't wait until the birthday cake tonight...its my very favorite thing about birthdays!

Here's the pic of the gardenias. When I have time, I think I will go back and try to re-crop the photo to see if I can improve the composition.  Anyway, I saw a tutorial on Pugly Pixel to add an ombre effect to a photo and wanted to try it out.  I really love the way this came out.

I took the straight out of the camera shot and tweaked it a bit before adding textures and actions from Florabella.  After that, I converted it to black and white before adding the ombre effect.  

After tweaks and the addition of the Florabella actions and textures

Straight out of the camera

Fake model photograph. Photoshop.

Earlier this week I stumbled across an easy Photoshop tutorial that you can use to create a fake model photograph.  I gave it a whirl and came up with this result:

This is the original, straight out of the camera shot:

As you can see, the original shot was very boring.  This was one of several (boring) photos I shot in the car while driving home to Mauriceville from Orange.

I tried the steps of the tutorial out several times before I got a result I liked.  I preferred brightening and exaggerating the colors before adding the special effect.  

NOTE - After you switch back from Quick Mask, you will need to invert the selection you created using the Gradient tool.  If you do not do this, you will blur the strip in the middle during the next step instead of the outside areas.  I didn't see it mentioned in the tutorial, but maybe I overlooked it.

Here are a few more before and afters.  The first one is from New Orleans, the second and third are from around Mauriceville.

 

 

  

A new direction.

Howdy!  As you've noticed, I've moved the old blog to a new place.  As my followers know, I tend to be pretty fickle blog-wise - I briefly love the blog and then totally abandon it for long periods of time.  Its kind of like a hit and run accident.  I'm using this move to focus on what direction I want to take things blog-wise.  Hopefully this will help work out the kinks in my love-hate relationship with the blog...fingers crossed.

Three of the big loves of my life - my son Elijah, Scooter the cat, and jewelry.  

In case your interested, the Photoshop actions and textures used in the photos are from Florabella.  The layout template is from Pugly Pixel.