Scrapbooking Sunday

I've decided to start a weekly/fortnightly segment on my blog dedicated to digital scrapbooking. I did have a separate blog for all this... but I'm useless at keeping it updated (I think my last update was 2 years ago!), so I thought if I try and keep it to a particular day of the week, I have half a chance of remembering to write about it...

I really love the creative outlet that digital scrapbooking gives me, I feel it really compliments the photography side of things for me... I've not been hugely active in the scrapping world for the last year or so... Being pregnant and having Catherine come along kind of slowed things down, but I've always tried to make the effort to do a couple of layouts a month. Plus being part of Nina's and Donna's creative teams gives me some motivation and their products make it so easy to whip up a page quickly and easily. Lately, I've picked up the pace a bit though... and well, I've had a pretty awesome last couple of weeks...

This layout using Nina's latest Simple Line Template No. 31, got picked up as a Gallery Standout -

Also this layout using another template from Simple Line Template No. 31 and also Sometimes got picked up as a Gallery Standout at DST and as a Gallery Standout at MeSoScrappy. Me So Scrappy has recently made a change to make their gallery an open one and I've really enjoyed their site and reading their blog... so I highly recommend you head over there and check them out! :)





I also had this LO using Donna's Sweet Soul Music and Templates Vol 2 nominated as a Gallery Standout at Funky Playground Designs





So I've been on somewhat of a roll lately! I don't often get gallery standouts, so to have 4 of them in a few different places in the span of a couple of weeks is pretty cool!

My latest most exciting news is that I've been accepted as a member of the Owl Tree Studio CT! :) I'm so looking forward to being a part this up-and-coming store!!! :)

PAD - February 5 - Natural Confetti

Elizabeth currently has a bit of a fascination with the leopard tree in the backyard... she loves pulling the leaves off and throwing them around like they are confetti...

Also - my latest sewing creation is the cornflower blue skirt she's wearing in the photos... I'm a bit in love with the colour cornflower blue at the moment.. :) The design of the skirt is my own invention and is loosely based on the market skirt... I'm rather pleased with how it turned out... It's funny, 'cos I bought that top she's wearing from Target about 9 months ago and then decided I wanted to make a skirt, bought some fabric to match it... but I've only just gotten around to making it now! Oh well, she'll still get plenty of wear out of it... it's been soooooo hot and humid here lately!

For the photography inclined - these photos taken with my 85mm... still don't use that lens as often as I could...

PAD - Feb 4 - Mister Spotty Beetle

This one is SOOC just for you Thao... :)(except for resizing for web and watermarking)

Found this little guy on one of Elizabeth's marigolds this morning as we were hanging out the laundry...

PAD - February 3 - Lucky (And Oh So Very Very Very Thankful)

I had one hell of a scare this morning that left me rather rattled and oh so thankful.

We were getting ready for Elizabeth's swimming lesson and I had put both girls in the car was just getting ready to leave when I thought I'd run inside to grab something for Elizabeth to eat after swimming (she is always ravenous). I left the car running and the driver's door open, put the handbrake on and had just stepped into the kitchen (which is only a few steps from the garage) when I heard Elizabeth yelling out in alarm.

I ran back to find the car was slowly rolling out of the garage. It was moving slow enough that I managed to run around behind the car to the driver's side and put the brake on to stop the car, but not before the driver's door got caught on the middle wall bit of our double garage door. (It got bent back at a 90 degree angle).

I am oh so thankful that I had left the car door open because having it get caught on the garage door and bend back, slowed the car down enough for me to get in the car and fully stop the car.

I am oh so thankful that Elizabeth is such a safety conscious nut and knew the minute the car started moving that something was wrong and was able to yell out to me to tell me. She was calling out... "Make it stop moving!!!" She is one smart little cookie.

I am oh so thankful that I stopped the car when I did, because had it gone any further it would have been going a lot faster down the slope of the driveway... and I don't want to know what would have happened then...

I have been berating myself for being so silly and stupid... I realised after I had put the handbrake on and thought I had put the car in neutral, but it was actually in reverse. Seriously, how could I be so dumb?! I will always be double checking the car now to make sure that never happens again!!!

So what a way to start the Lunar New Year... I was lucky today... so hopefully that luck continues this year! Happy Vietnamese New Year ... May the year be full of good fortune, prosperity and happiness to you all.

And I shall finish this with a photo of my two precious little people... Just because I am so thankful nothing happened to them today and I love them so much. xo

PAD - Feb 2 - Little Miss Flexi

She decided to pull this manouevre out over breakfast.

Before and After - SOOC 1

Ever wondered what the photos I take look like before I process them? Well, Thao suggested we might post up some SOOC (straight out of the camera) shots next to our processed shots for the month of February.

I thought I might start off the month sharing the last shot I took for January, because I think it's a great example of the illusion that can take place with a bit of photoshopping.

The first photo shows the pullback shot of my "setup"... it's dodgy and makeshift and consists of a single bed sized flannelette sheet draped over two of our dining room chairs.... but hey it does the job. Notice the massive wrinkles in the backdrop... I didn't have the time to iron it (I had only thought of using it on the spur of the moment and had to capitalise on having a happy Catherine on my hands). What this photo doesn't show, is that I had given Catherine a zip lock bag filled with colourful ribbons to play with (one of my bags of misc stuff from the sewing I've been doing) and she had managed to bust it open and had ribbons all over her lap and was playing with them! I took away most of the ribbons, but she still had a couple in her lap to distract her and I had to keep putting them back in the basket in her lap to hide them when I was taking the photo!

You can see in the finished product, I have cropped the photo and really lightened/blown out the background in an attempt to disguise the wrinkles (I did have give the healing tool a bit of a work out, especially across that horizontal crease close to Catherine's head). I would have liked to have been able to keep more of the pink colour in the background, but it was a choice between having a pink backdrop with wrinkles or white with no wrinkles! As for the actual processing... I can't remember exactly, but generally I use curves and levels to brighten up Catherine's skin tone and run one of my own actions across it to boost the colour a little and that's pretty much it.... oh and I may have used Dandelion from Sheye's Eye Candy Actions to warm it up ... and also the sharpen action from the same set too.

PAD - Feb 1 - Nom Nom Noodles

So I've managed to rope a couple of people into continuing photo-a-day for the month of February (Hi Thao and Em!)... with a view to potentially doing Project 365... We're just going to take it a month at a time for the moment though. I feel like I've actually grown and learnt a few things in a photographic sense during January, so while the motivation is high, I thought why not continue in the groove and make the most of it. However, I will now start posting PADs into larger blog entries once or twice a week instead of daily from this point on... As much as I enjoy it... it's rather time consuming blogging every day! However, I thought I would start the month off on a good note and blog the first entry of the month... :)

Here's Miss Catherine eating... or rather playing with some noodles over lunch today. She found them most interesting... I had however forgotten what a pain they are to clean off clothes and little arms and legs... these noodles stick to every thing!!! So it's now unlikely she will be doing this again anytime soon!

For the photography inclined - I thought I would share that I have developed a new level of speedlite love... I have discovered how to use the external flash as a fill flash indoors and to exploit whatever natural light there is to still gain maximum catchlights (which is a particular obsession of mine... I love capturing great catchlights... I think they really give life to a photo)... I actually used the flash a lot in January, which means lower ISO, less noise and great clarity... Feels like I have finally learnt how to use it a bit better after owning it for 3 years! So this photo was taken with the speedlite... :)