Tut: Teeth Whitening in Photoshop and a Card

Posted on | January 31, 2008 | 3 Comments

Don’t tell my husband I used his photo for the video {::LOTS OF LAUGHS}. He’d probably hate me if he ever finds out, ha ha… I love doing this to him {::SMILES} M took this photo. Actually she took a series of photos. I’ll show you later. Quite good. He was making silly faces for her. The white background is actually the clouds. I had the aperture set to low, between 2.8 to 3-ish. I was experimenting.

This is just a really simple method. I know how vain we are and so here you go. Get all them photos, open them up in Elements or Photoshop, find that saturation tool and whiten your teeth. Bet your dentist would think you did an awesome job {::SMILES}

I also have a card. Hope you like. It’s really easy, used my Bug and the paper colors are pretty obvious. The stamp set is Sealed with a Kiss and I titled this card: Winter Love. It’s for my hubby. I’m not going to tell him about the video but my subconscious is telling me that he deserves this card after exposing him to the world the way I did.

Oh, the “Love” in the center of the red is clear embossed but you can’t see it really well in the picture. It looks better in real life. I also paper pierced around it. I used my SU paper cutter to make the hole for the ribbon. The ribbon’s double knotted.

Oh, last week I entered SCS Gina K’s team’s scrapbook challenge. I won some embellishments. Yeah! I’ll photograph them later when I have something to show, a card, with it. But in the package I got some ribbons, rain drop dots, and sparkle buttons. Quite a nice little package. My next post will be my first layout for Manu. She gave me access to a few items that she sells and I’m going to whip something, or two, for her.

I Am The Feb. Guest CT for…

Posted on | January 29, 2008 | 7 Comments

Manu Designs. Yeah!!! I’ll be her February guest creative team.

I have also been selected for two other designers. But I’m not sure if it’s been formally announced or not – or maybe I’m just not sure how this all works – so I won’t say yet. I am though super excited to be selected. I can’t wait to start!

I did apply for four on that same day. My first reply email was a rejection email. So I was bummed and didn’t think I’d get any spot. I mean it was my first try at this kind of thing and even though I was ready for a no since my gallery isn’t so full of digi stuff like some of the other girls I wasn’t really ready for my first return email to be a no. So, yes, despite the first no, I got three yeses {::SMILES}. I did apply for one more. I couldn’t resist. My max is four CTs so I had to try even though I might get a no. She’s quite popular and I’m sure she’s already overwhelmed with many choices. We’ll see.

Tut: Blending in Photoshop

Posted on | January 28, 2008 | 2 Comments

Last Friday I created a layout and I mentioned the blending technique that I used. Well, here’s the video tutorial for it. Have fun and if you do try any of my tuts please post a comment and post your gallery link so that I can check it out. Thanks for looking!

A Few Cards

Posted on | January 27, 2008 | 5 Comments

Just want to show you a card that I made, one that I received from my secret sister, and an art work that my M did — she’s almost 4 and I think quite good.

Here’s the first one, my M’s card. This was created today. She saw me hauling the Bug and so she grabbed a piece of paper and asked me if she can borrow it. She’s pretty good at using it on her own too, sandwiching and all that. So I said sure, told her to pick a template and set it all up. I put the Bug on the table in front of me and she sat on my lap so that we can do it together. She did most of the work, I just helped push here and there. So there’s her background. While she was working on her stuff, I was busy with mine and I wasn’t really paying attention to what she did. She asked me a few times if I love what she did and I said yes, of course. From where I’m at I couldn’t see the details and I went back to work. When all was done, she came over and showed me this masterpiece. She’s been doing a lot of cards and other projects (which I’ll post sometimes) but I think this is the most impressive. She used her Crayola paint over the photo that she cropped herself (punch). She used my sponge to apply the paint. If she keeps it up, I’ll be learning to make cards/scrapbook from her {::SMILES}

Then there’s my secret sister’s card. Again, didn’t she do a great job? I’m glad it’s only a few days until the end of the month. Then I can find out who she is. She did a great embossing job around the butterfly. She also distressed the edges of the two green card stocks and then they were inked to give it an antique look. The whole card was stamped, no designer paper. Something that I have a hard time with. Lovely card!

Then there’s mine. I went for the whimsical look and M helped me with the last bit — the butterfly. I need to get more of this blue paper. I really like it. It’s this year’s SU color cardstock. The stamps I used are Time Well Spent and Celebrate Everything. I used the Stamp-a-Majig to help me stamp straight and the piercing too to pierce above celebrate and below friendship. The flowers, the red was stamped with white craft ink and the yellow with real red. The butterfly was stamped with blank ink on astro bright green paper (from the bold bright SU series) and colored with Copic Sketch markers. For the flowers and butterfly, I used a lot of pop dots. The stems, I just freehand it — chocolate chip paper. That’s it. This is the card that I will be sent off to my secret sister this Tuesday to reveal myself. Oooh, I should add some sparkles to the butterfly wing! {::SMILES}

Hope you had a great weekend! I’ll pop back in later and thanks for all the comments! Really appreciate it.

My House was Almost on Fire

Posted on | January 26, 2008 | 12 Comments

I went to a crop at M’s school. Quite fun. Got two stamp sets too, Made from scratch and Say It Simply. I hope to play with at least one before the weekend’s over. They’re past hostess sets. I’m thinking of doing M’s V-day cards from scratch. Nineteen plus five, kids and teachers.

At the crop I did two pages. I didn’t feel like hauling all my stuff so I did two digi layouts. Actually I think I’m only going to paper scrap at home or if I crop at an LSS. I like being surrounded by products and have the ability to just grab whatever I need. It sounds expensive (dangerous you’d think) but it’s actually cheaper for me because I don’t come home to something I later find out don’t need and my pages turn out the way I want them… and 100% complete.

Here’s my digi page detail. The first I used Annie Manning’s new kit. I really love this kit. So, so cute. I don’t usually layer this much but she made it quite easy and addicting. I had to tell myself to stop before I lost M’s picture in the elements.

The next one is another M page. I can’t get enough of doing an M page! I thought or had the intention of doing a page for the hubby but noooo… the M was more fun. So here it is. I used paper, staples, and buttons from Dani B (she retired from designing), Jovia’s new Not So Serious flowers and I {heart} u and Ephemerals II, Shabby Princess metal and buttons, Annie Manning’s tape measure, ribbon, and whatever that sparkly thing is behind the flowers. If you pay really close attention to the staples, they’re not quite centered. They’re way to the left, more stapling the paper than the picture. Well, I did that on purpose because when I do paper scrapping, I could never staple straight, so why make it perfect in this digi scrap, right? {::SMILES}. Also, as I was finishing this, M and dad came by and she helped me put the final touches. Some items she personally picked are: The horse and that sparkly thing — what is that thing? After the two final touches, she said, “That’s pretty. I love it, mommy.” She’s naturally sweet, I promise. Every sitter dream child to watch!

My house. I almost didn’t have one. We live in the country, on some acreage and our neighbor decided to burn his trash. He put the fire out but not good enough. Hubby smelled smoke, looked out, and saw the neighbor’s back yard in flames (about 300 feet away from us — I’m really bad with this but we’re a good distance). He ran over there, told M to stay in the house, and got the neighbor. Another neighbor saw the fire too and he came over to help. So hubby told me all this over the phone. When I got home, the grass that was just about 30 meters away… hmmm… how many feet is this… 100-ish feet… was burnt. Although not super close it was pretty close to be scary. I’m glad hubby was home AND noticed the fire early (I wouldn’t know what to do if something happened to them). He had plan on taking my car in to the shop — I had a flat tire yesterday — and we might have been homeless if hubby and M went out since our neighbor really thought he put the fire out and was relaxing on his computer when hubby got there — he actually thought hubby was joking. I’m glad it wasn’t meant to be that way and I can still blog in my office with my two dogs breathing next to me. We have no grass on one side of our property but hey, it’ll be nice and green again sometimes this spring.

That’s our weekend story. Besides the incident, all is great and I got pages done. Laters, Miss M wants to play.