Adding Soft Focus

I was surfing around on the jessicasprague website and I found a free tutorial about adding a soft focus to photos. I have seen this done on pictures and love the subtle effect, but never knew how to do it. Like most things I have found on photoshop, it seems hard to do until you learn how to do it. Funny how that works :)

I'm still experimenting with it, but I think this will be something that I will use a lot!

And another...

This time I tried adding a brush to a storyboard...I love it! I can not wait to see how this looks in a frame :)

Summer Fun

Even though Christopher is not in school (therefore can not completely appreciate the joy of summer break) he is still doing some fun stuff this summer. I am so glad that he is old enough to participate in some things, but it makes me a little sad to think that he is growing up so incredibly fast. He just finished the summer reading program at the library. He had to do activities and read books to complete levels. After he finished, he got to pick out a free book!

This past Saturday he attended our church's VBS. It was just one morning, so that was good for him, and it gave us parentals a chance to get some stuff done around the house.

Here is a picture of him wearing his visor and getting ready to go in. I know he hates it when I make him stop to take silly pictures, but I will forget this memory by next week!

Before I snuck out, I had to snap a picture of him singing along to "If you're happy and you know it"! He loves going to church!

Can't Stop Myself!

I am in love with these 9 photo grids!!!

I made this one to frame and hang in Christopher's room. However, Chris just informed me that these pictures are only of my side of the family..true. He thinks I should make another one with his family included and hang them both up. Would that look strange?

Did I Seriously Just Create This?

I'm ready to start my photography company!

Just kidding ;) But I do feel like a bit of a pro after making this beauty...

{Well, I am talking about the photo grid, but also the adorable baby!}

I'm not completely satisfied with it, but when am I ever? I am so excited that I know how to make these...eeeek!!!! {That's me being giddy with excitement}

More Adventures in Photo Land

I have been looking forward to 7:00 every night when I can put the boys to bed and start working on photoshop stuff. These online tutorials are so amazing! I am learning techniques that I thought would be incredibly difficult...but they aren't at all! The trick is just learning the way photoshop works...with the different layers and such.

I wanted to post some more pictures that I have done this week for critiques. Although I am excited about what I am learning, these pictures are just a first attempt and I will be improving from here. I am a bit of a perfectionist, so it is hard for me to show my finished products unless they are perfect.

This is a storyboard with text added. I can't wait to make more of these and frame them up around the house!

I burnt the edges of this one and then added the grunge clipping mask
I finally learned how to do selective coloring! This was probably my most anticipated technique. I am so excited to do more of this!

Here I used some textures, added the rounded corner clipping mask, added the overlay and text

I also added textures, grunge clipping mask, and text to this one

Hope you like! Feel free to leave your opinion :)

Photo Edits

Well I have spent the last two nights on my computer messing around with Photoshop and learning about how to use it from these great tutorials at www.jessicasprague.com. I thought I would show off a few of my finished photos. They aren't award winning, but I'm starting to get used to this program-and it's endless possibilities.

I used a "brush" on this photo to add the word "special"

This is also a brush, but acts like a frame. See how you can do so many things!

I'm pretty proud of this one. I took the color out to make it B&W then adjusted the contrast levels and added a clipping mask to give the edges this grunge look.

On this picture, I adjusted the color (tried to make it more vintage...did it work?), added a black frame (which you can't really see), then added some more sparkle to the pupils of his eyes (using a brush), and then added the clipart word.

On this one I used 3 different textures and blended them with the picture. Neat, but odd effect.

So, what do you think? Be honest..I could use feedback since I don't really have a clue what I'm doing ;)

Experimenting in Photoshop

I have been wanting to learn about editing pictures in photoshop for some time now...but I was just too intimidated by the program to start doing it...until now. A friend of mine, Jen, took this online class and shared her info with me so I can learn how to do all sorts of things with my photos to make them look better. Today I learned how to add a frame and word art...what do ya think? It's so simple to do and I think, when used in the right way, it can make a photo look so neat! I can't wait to see what else I can learn :)



Jen-your example looked so cute (and it went great with this pic) ...hope you don't mind that I copied it :)

Celebrating America's Birthday

The 4th really snuck up on us this year since we got back from our vacation at 4:30am on friday. We didn't have plans, other than unpacking and settling back into routines. We still managed to have a few friends over for some grillin' and fireworks fun.

Honestly, I'm kindof a firworks scrooge. Ever since my dad had a bad accident with them about 7 years ago I haven't been a big fan. I don't like them around kids and I think that something happens to a guy's brain when they get a stick of explosives in their hands. I managed to deal with the small amount of fireworks that our friends brought over, and even let Christopher throw the popper things on the ground...baby steps!

Here are some sweet pictures of the boys waving their American flags.

And Teresa!

Nothin' says summer time like a slice of watermellon!

After we ate and played for a while, we put the kids to bed and got the lawn chairs out for a personal fireworks display. There were actually 4 shows going on right in our front yard-one of the "perks" of living outside of city limits. The best part of the night was when it started raining and we all sat in the rain and ate watermellon. I love sitting in a nice midnight shower!

Hope you all had a fun and safe birthday party for our country!

More Wisconsin-Illinois Trip Pictures

While in Wisconsin we had to go visit our new cousin Evrette. He was born about a week before we got up there, so we had a fresh out of the oven baby to hold! Christopher was surprisingly sweet to him. He asked if he could hold him and he kept giving him kisses and soft touches on his head...I guess he did learn something from his brother's earlier days.

Christopher was especially excited about seeing Grampa's farm and all the tractors and cows. My grampa has been retired for almost 10 years, but he still tends to 6 beef cattle and lots of crops! He took Christopher out to the barn and started small with the little mower.

When he traded Christopher for Gabriel on the mower I got a little nervous, but he did really good. Gabe didn't even get scared of the loud noise. This is the same mower that grampa used to hook to a wagon and give all us cousins rides around the house. Oh, the memories! I'm glad I have pictures of my boys getting rides from grampa on it.

After the mower, he took Christopher on the front loader. His smile just kept getting bigger and bigger!

After they parked the loader, Christopher points to the BIG field tractor and says, "grampa, me ride that big tractor!". Who can say no to that?

So off they went on the big one!

After we finished playing with the big boy toys we went inside to have cookies and play with puzzles with Gramma. I had to get a new picture of the boys with their Great Grandparents.

Grampa looks like he's telling a story!

Before we left town, we had to make a stop at CedarCrest! They make the best ice cream around and where else can you eat ice cream under a massive cow?

Monday evening we headed down to Aunt Katy's in Illinois. We had such a good time relaxing with them and spending time with more cousins! Here is an adorable picture of Christopher, Aunt Katy, and cousin Mason swinging on the hammock.

Tuesday we spent some more time with Aunt Katy and that gang, then after naptime we drove over to Gurnee and got checked in to the hotel.

We spent some time with Chris' family: Uncle Dave, Aunt Jen, Cooper, Maia, and Grampa Larry. We didn't get many pictures of our time in Illinois because we were so busy having fun. We spent all day Wednesday at the water park in our hotel with all the cousins. It was quite fun and exhausting! We celebrated Chris' birthday on Thursday and headed home that evening. It was a LONG 8 hour trip, but the boys slept and we made it home in the wee hours of the morning. It was so nice to have the whole weekend to regroup, unpack, and get ready for the new week.

Wisconsin Wedding

We we are back from our whirlwind trip to Wisconsin and Illinois. We were gone for a week but it seemed like only a few days! It was SO good to see family and watch the boys with their cousins. I grew up with lots of cousins who were all close and it is so exciting to see that our kids will have that also!

We left Friday morning for Wisconsin-which took us 11 hours! The boys slept a little in the car, but not much. My brother rode up with us, I drove, and Chris sat in the back to entertain the boys. Gabriel had his first twizzler and Christopher got to watch Goonies on the computer. We have totally different ideas on entertainment! :) The day after we got there was the wedding. That was great because we were able to see ALL the aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, neices, & nephews at one time.

Here is a picture of my cousin, Kate's, kids with the boys. From left is: Emma, Christopher, Jack, Gabriel, and Hannah. They are all so stinkin' cute!

Hannah is such a big girl now! I could probably keep Gabriel with her for a few hours with no worries. She's a little momma and helps her mom with everything!
Christopher plopped down on the ground and started telling Emma a story. I think he fell in love with Emma while we were there!

Here is Uncle Brian and Papa Mark giving Gabriel a fo-hawk.

Christopher and Emma...two peas in a pod!

Our family after the ceremony...gotta get a family shot! It's so hard to get one with everyone looking and smiling. We did our best ;)

Uncle Brian is the coolest! Christopher and Jack both wanted him to hold them...he can't say no!

Momma and G Man

Christopher with his Great Grampa Shorty. Stay tuned for adorable pictures of tractor rides!

I tried to get as many people as possible together for a pic. Here we have Great Gramma Sauer, Gramma & Grampa Wallander, Papa Mark, Great Aunt Ann, Great Uncle Andy, and the Chiarinos.

I will post more pictures of Wisconsin fun soon.