September, 2011
Monday, September 26th, 2011
It was a busy, busy weekend my friends!
It started on Friday, when my son filmed his first commercial!
He spent four hours basically eating popcorn and trying not to look at the camera. When asked what he thought of the experience, he replied “It was kind of boring, actually.” Ah, stardom. 
The cool part is that it turns out I knew both the director and the camera “guru” from my school days. Crazy small world, isn’t it?
We decided to celebrate the occasion with a family dinner out at Monkeyboy Junior’s choice – Earl’s.
Which started out fine, with us passing the time waiting for our table by chasing the baby around the empty patio…
… taking pics of the various potted plants…
… and patio details…
… but which ended in tears when it was time to go inside and actually sit down. Poor boy had a bit of a cold and just wasn’t dealing with disappointment very well. Plus, he’s two.
On Saturday, I finally started my Daisychain Sampler (via Posy Gets Cozy’s Alicia Paulson).
We snacked on yummy eats on the back deck, in the sun…
Admired the fall colours and enjoyed the warm weather…
And even put up a few autumn decorations to mark equinox.
On Sunday morning we enjoyed some monkeys bouncing (and happily falling) on the big bed…
… followed by quilty-tent burrowing…
… and cuddles. That was my favourite part of all.
The weather was ridiculously nice for the first weekend of fall, and I celebrated by drinking a delicious smoothie in my cutie summer pj’s.
The rest of the day was pretty much the same as Saturday, which was nice and relaxy – especially after a bumpy night of sleep with wee Mr. Sniffles.
And that was our weekend. I hope yours was equally enjoyable. =)
(P.S. For those of you with a keen eye… you may have noticed some NEW effects from Pixlr-o-matic! All sorts of new goodies to try – go check it out.)
Tags: Alicia Paulson, big bed, commercial, cuddles, Daisychain Sampler, decorations, dinner out, Earl's, filming, Monday Mosaic, monkeys jumping, Pixlr-o-matic, pj's, smoothie, tears, weekend, yummy eats
Posted in Family, Photography | 8 Comments »
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
So, this week I’ve been out actively collecting cool letters/signs for a new title page – like the one I made for our trip to California…
While out and about, I’ve snapped a few pics that I wanted to play around with… ones that I thought would lend themselves to “intense” processing. So, uh, here they are, I guess.
It reads “You are never a great man when you have more mind than heart.” – Beauchene
Anyway. Gotta run. Monkeyboy Junior Jr. has a cold and is need of many cuddles today. Hope you have a great weekend, y’all.
Tags: banana peel, Beauchene, intense processing, mural, postal box, street photos
Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
One of the many things I love about the fall is that you don’t have to get up at some insane hour to catch a beautiful sunrise…
It’s even better when you can crawl right back into your cozy bed afterward. Mmm… cozy.
Tags: fall, like, sunrise
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Monday, September 19th, 2011
So, when I first joined August Break in 2010, I discovered that you can actually build a fantastic network of friends on Flickr in three easy ways. 1 -By selecting people as contacts (a lot of time, they will select you right back). 2 – By routinely commenting on photos (show up often enough and they start to recognize you and comment back on yours). And 3 -By joining/submitting photos to groups (look, it’s a captive audience!) When you can’t get out much, it’s really nice to have these cyber-friends to connect with.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to join a group called “These Moments” weekly challenge, and just last week, I was invited to join a group called “The Monday Mosaic”. It’s always kind of thrilling when somebody likes your work enough to ask you to join something. Anyhow, as I’ve been working on photos for my gratitude journal anyway, I though I’d start submitting to these groups – maybe not as regularly as I did with August Break, but still. I’m excited to have another “outlet” for my silly little pics, but without the pressure of daily posting. And so… here are a few snaps from our weekend that I was working on, punched-up in Pixlr-o-matic (in case you couldn’t tell)…
I saw this cool truck while running errands on Friday afternoon.
We went out to “Mucho Burrito” for date night dinner – yum.
Then we hit the mall for a rare shopping-without-children excursion. Here, I made my hubby pose with the Old Navy mannequins. My instructions were “Smile straight ahead and have dead shark eyes”.
Me posing with the frisky little Old Navy dog mannequin.
We stopped to admire the amazing moon rise on our way home.
Me dressing up for my dear friend’s going away party. Le sigh.
Monkeyboy Junior decided to roll down a hill on the way to the car.
Which made Monkeyboy Junior Jr. soooo happy.
Then on Sunday, we spent some time at Chapters. Here I am with a stack of magazines to peruse whilst the kidlets played in the kidlet area.
We finished it off with some amazing scallops, risotto and wine… but I’m afraid I was a little too tipsy to remember to take any photos. Oh, well…
You put it all together in a 3×3 grid and it looks something like this…
(I hope they like it.) And I hope you all had a wonderful weekend too! Next time you see some goofy mannequins, I dare you to take some photos with them!!!
Tags: Chapters, comment, contacts, dead shark eyes, Flickr, friends, gratitude journal, groups, mannequins, mosaic, networking, Old Navy, Pixlr-o-matic, three easy ways, weekend
Posted in Photography | 6 Comments »
Friday, September 16th, 2011
So, last month, whilst I was checking out what my Flickr pals were up to, I stumbled across this…
The owner *loved* their new PoGo, and I got all excited about the prospect of creating instant photos again. As much as I adore my little Spy-Cam, I do miss the fun of playing around with a Polaroid. When I looked into things, however, the Instant Digital Camera (seen below) seemed way cooler than just the Instant Digital Printer (seen above)…
Until I read the reviews (which weren’t all that favourable)… and I also realized that I couldn’t actually edit/process the images until they came off the camera (and I’ve been having so much fun with that lately)… so I decided against the new Polaroids. For now. I already have an awesome printer, and if the PoGo camera doesn’t produce great images (or at least kitschy/unusual/memorable ones), then why bother? If I have a couple of hundred bucks to throw around one day, I might get one to play around with. But not just right now.
However, I was inspired to print photos on a more regular basis. As it is, I don’t usually fire up the printer unless I have a formal project that needs doing. And lately, my scrapbooking has been, well… just not getting done. So, in the spirit of actually practicing gratitude, I picked up a large student agenda this fall. I’ve been recording our daily goings-on in a weekly planner for years, but it’s all just a bunch of writing, and the really good things get lost amidst the mundane things. So now, every night before bed, I write down 5 things that were good/great about my day (and yes, some days this is very challenging). And then, after a week or two, I sit down and print out a page with photos from those days. It reminds me of the Memory Books I first started making, and it helps to remind me of the happy things in my life – especially on those days when I’m having a hard time remembering them…
What about you? Is there some way you mark the days or keep track of your gratitude?
Tags: gratitude journal, instant photography, PoGo, polaroid
Posted in Musings, Photography | 4 Comments »
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
I took Monkeyboy Junior Jr. with me on some shopping errands today, and he managed to snag some boots off a shelf whilst I was looking at some shirts for the boys. He absolutely did not want me to put them back. I thought they were pretty cool, and he gets SO many hand-me-downs as it is that I figured maybe he was due for something new… I gave in and picked them up, and not only does he love to wear them (most other shoes end up removed about 5 minutes after going outside), but every once in a while he will just stop whatever he is doing and ever so quietly “roar”. So. Freaking. Adorable.
Tags: dinosaur boots, hand-me-downs, new shoes, Pixlr-o-matic, roar, shopping with kids
Posted in Family | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
I spent the better part of my “free time” today editing baby photos for my friend. They’re soft and cute and fuzzy (figuratively speaking, that is). But one of them kind of… stuck out, if you will. And I just had to play around a little…
Happily, I am pretty sure the parents will totally appreciate it.
Tags: baby photos, playing, PSE9, stick it, to da man, unusual, with character
Posted in PSE | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
As you may recall, a couple of weeks back I took a nice portrait of my friend Jennifer during August Break…
She was wanting to use it on her spa website, but the tan lines were kind of bugging her, so I offered to try and “fix” them in PSE9. After doing a bit of research, I ended up taking a two-step approach. First, I made a duplicate copy as a background layer – which I deleted and replaced many times as I was figuring things out. I used the clone stamp tool with a very large and fuzzy brush to fill in the “white” strap marks, sampling skin from adjacent areas and just “moving them over” really. The tan lines were magically gone, but her neck area was still pretty red in comparison, and stamping over it just made things… bad. So, step two – I added a new blank layer and then sampled some of her shoulder for a pale skintone which I (again with a large and fuzzy brush) essentially spray painted over the red with. A few opacity adjustments, flattening the image, and this is what it looks like now.
Not perfect, I’m sure, but so much better than it was. Woohoo PSE9, and go me! =)
Tags: clone stamp, fix, PSE9, skin, skintone, suntan lines, two-step
Posted in PSE | 2 Comments »
Monday, September 12th, 2011
I don’t know how it happened, but somehow have a amassed giant list of photography “to do’s” – edits, promotional shots, summaries… For other people. For zero money. *le sigh* It’s never quite as much fun as just playing for the sake of playing. Or learning. Ah, well. I needed a little break from the “work” feeling, so I thought I’d post a few photos from our recent trip to the zoo. I didn’t manage to get any really interesting shots of animals, but they just rebuilt the conservatory and it was gorgeous! I especially loved the butterfly room, until Monkeyboy Junior Jr. started having a meltdown that is (I want to go back by myself one day and just enjoy…) Anyhow, a few pretty pictures – for distraction purposes.
Edited in Picnik (until I get a little more proficient in PSE9)…
Tags: butterflies, conservatory, distractions, flowers, online editing, Picnik, pretty pictures, zoo
Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »
Flickr Networking
So, when I first joined August Break in 2010, I discovered that you can actually build a fantastic network of friends on Flickr in three easy ways. 1 -By selecting people as contacts (a lot of time, they will select you right back). 2 – By routinely commenting on photos (show up often enough and they start to recognize you and comment back on yours). And 3 -By joining/submitting photos to groups (look, it’s a captive audience!) When you can’t get out much, it’s really nice to have these cyber-friends to connect with.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to join a group called “These Moments” weekly challenge, and just last week, I was invited to join a group called “The Monday Mosaic”. It’s always kind of thrilling when somebody likes your work enough to ask you to join something.
Anyhow, as I’ve been working on photos for my gratitude journal anyway, I though I’d start submitting to these groups – maybe not as regularly as I did with August Break, but still. I’m excited to have another “outlet” for my silly little pics, but without the pressure of daily posting. And so… here are a few snaps from our weekend that I was working on, punched-up in Pixlr-o-matic (in case you couldn’t tell)…
I saw this cool truck while running errands on Friday afternoon.
We went out to “Mucho Burrito” for date night dinner – yum.
Then we hit the mall for a rare shopping-without-children excursion. Here, I made my hubby pose with the Old Navy mannequins. My instructions were “Smile straight ahead and have dead shark eyes”.
Me posing with the frisky little Old Navy dog mannequin.
We stopped to admire the amazing moon rise on our way home.
Me dressing up for my dear friend’s going away party. Le sigh.
Monkeyboy Junior decided to roll down a hill on the way to the car.
Which made Monkeyboy Junior Jr. soooo happy.
Then on Sunday, we spent some time at Chapters. Here I am with a stack of magazines to peruse whilst the kidlets played in the kidlet area.
We finished it off with some amazing scallops, risotto and wine… but I’m afraid I was a little too tipsy to remember to take any photos. Oh, well…
You put it all together in a 3×3 grid and it looks something like this…
(I hope they like it.) And I hope you all had a wonderful weekend too! Next time you see some goofy mannequins, I dare you to take some photos with them!!!
Tags: Chapters, comment, contacts, dead shark eyes, Flickr, friends, gratitude journal, groups, mannequins, mosaic, networking, Old Navy, Pixlr-o-matic, three easy ways, weekend
Posted in Photography | 6 Comments »