Fix it Friday 3

Fix-it Friday time!  I'm so close to convincing my husband to pay the little fee so I can have the updated / premium version of Picnik!  Then I can clone items out of the background, lol.  But until then ... I'll just use different techniques to move your eye to where I want it.  Here are my fun edits:


Here is the original picture:

and here are my fun edits:

Happy Friday!

Before and After Duckies

It's time for Pixel Perfect's Before and After blog hop!  This week is going alot better than last week, and I will for sure be around to visit everyone's blog.  This time last week pretty much sucked, but its all good now :-).  Here's my before and after featuring some ducks from the Park in front of Shakespeare Theatre in Montgomery Al.  I edit with Picnik. 

SOCC:

After:

Rain, rain, wash the pollen away

YOU

Supermom is hosting a new photo challenge called Mono Monday.  She has the cutest little button!

There are themes for each week, and for this week (first week) the theme is you!  I'm totally stealing a picture and making it b&w, but it was on my other blog and not very many people say that post.  And its my favorite me picture...because being a mom is me!

Ice Cream Man

I saw this ice cream truck and I just had to take pictures!  We were at a red light (an extremely slow moving one) so I could get fun pictures!  Thank you Nashville for the traffic and my hubby for buying me a cell phone with a good camera on it!

I love how he looks in traffic!  and if you zoom in it says something like 'safety arms violations will be photographed' ... the ice cream man has people pulling guns on him?

Check it out...he accepts Visa and Mastercard!  Man, when I was a kid we sometimes didn't get ice cream b/c we couldn't find enough change fast enough.

And in case you were wondering...you can't hitch a ride with the ice cream man.

Silent Saturday

Fix it Friday 2

I'm playing along with Ihearfaces fix-it Friday.  Here is the original picture:

This week’s photo was submitted by Allie. She wrote that she’d like to “bring out her eyes more and brighten the colors just a bit.”

Here's the first copy I did for Allie:

And the I tried a different crop...I think I like it better:

And because you can do as many edits as you want...I played with these!  I use Picnik to edit.

Blah before and after

I'm in a bit of a blah stressed mood today...so that may be reflected in my edit.  This picture was taken when my hubby and I were dating after we hiked 6 miles!  The memory made me smile...so here's my before and after.

I edit with Picnik because its free :-)
SOCC:

After my blah edit:

See more (better) edits over at Pixel Perfect, and join in if ya wanna!

Old School Photos

I think I have stared at the pictures I have for too long I'm just not inspired by anything I've taken recently.  I think I need to take more everyday, but sometimes its just so hard.  So I've decided to go old school.  I've also figured out how to color in b & w, so I have edited some pictures taken when Andrew and I got married.

My bouquet and our glasses at the hotel:

Our Rings (this one turned out really cool when I colored it):

The first dinner Andrew cooked for me as a married couple:

Visit Lisa at The Long Road to China for more Black and White Wednesdays

Project Life April 11 - 17

This is my first time to post Project Life with Jessica over at The Mom Creative.  The rules are pretty simple.  Take and post your favorite picture form each day of the week before!  So, here's my Project Life Tuesday:





Sunday April 11th:

Sunday we had a fun and lazy afternoon.  Audrey and I played peek-a-boo with her blanket!

Monday April 12th:

We woke up at around 10pm Sunday night to discover that Leah had gotten a hold of the Butt Paste.  She got it all over her clothes, her bed and in her hair.  It took a couple of days to come out!

Tuesday April 13th:

I love this picture because Andrew has that...Leah you're silly...look on his face while Audrey is just chilling!  Pretty much the perfect everyday picture.

Wednesday April 14th:

My parents came up from Birmingham to spend some time with the girls and me on my birthday (next day).  I love this picture of Grandma showing Leah how to blow on the flower.

Thursday April 15th:

It was my birthday!  No, I know..I don't have any good pictures of myself, but this one is pretty cute too, huh?

Friday April 16th:

I took my camera with me on a walk around Vanderbilt at my lunch break.  I love dogwoods and their story around Easter time!  It was my favorite as a child!

Saturday April 17th:

Leah got play-dough from Grandma and Granddaddy and she played with it all day Saturday.  I know she sat at the table and played for two hours straight.  By the end of the day the purple and turquoise merged into one blue color!

Thanks for playing along with my week in photos!  Can't wait to come back next week to update yall again!

Tip for a Tuesday

Thought I'd take some time to share a tip with all you people out there...somewhere....out there....over the rainbow?  Ok, photofreaks (that's my new word!) do you take pictures nonstop?  Kids, pets, hubby, flowers, friends...they all make great and wonderful features for photos, but do you ever feel like your photos are missing that special touch?  Looking for that super cool photo to show to everyone?  Wanna go around saying "ooo, ooo, look at this picture I took?" 

News Flash!  The flower (or macro) setting on your camera can be used for more than just flowers!

So, Leah (my 2-year old) was playing with play-dough the other day.  And by playing I mean pretty much obsessed with it!  I just had to take a picture of her!  Except...she wasn't looking up at me long enough, she wouldn't smile, the flash made her face look shiny, no flash was all blurry, if I shot from the table all I got was her hands, and pretty much I could not get a good shot.  So, just for fun, I turned on the flower (macro) setting on my camera and focused on her playdough.  This is what I got:

I love how it captures her playing in a completely new and unique way!  Oh, and those two colors totally became a new blue by the end of the night!

So, my challenge to you is to think outside the box this week.  Try a new or different setting and see what you get!  You may be suprised! (and there's always the delete button, lol).  If you do play along, leave me a comment and let me know so I can come visit.  Would yall be interested in making this a McLinky thing?  Like have it open all week?  or maybe suggest a new challenge at the begining of every new week and come back a week later and link up?  hmmm...let me know what you're thinking all you photo freaks out there!

On a Walk

I went for a walk at Vanderbilt while on my lunch break.  I took a few pictures.  I didn't take more because people were looking at me oddly and I also wanted the exercise from walking.  Next time, I'll have one destination in mind that I stop and take pictures of.  Maybe I'll even take pictures of the people looking strangely at me.  Here are some sites from my walk!

Car Window

Newton Area Photo hosts a fun meme called Weekend Reflections.  The only rules are to post a picture that has a reflection in it.  So, here's mine taken the other weekend...I love trying to think outside the box and see what happens (that's why they invented the delete button, right?)

Fix it Friday

I couldn't find the Fix-it Friday button, but the iheartfaces one works just as well!  Today is my first time joining in with Fix-it Friday.  I don't have lavish software, well or any software for that matter.  I edit with Picnik and I make the best out of what I have!

This is the original picture.  Here is what was requested:
This week's photo was submitted by Debbie from {50centlove}. This is a photo of her beautiful daughter and she was interested in learning a bit more about how to brighten up the image and how to smooth out the skin.

Here is my edit for Debbie:

I edit using Picnik

Cropped toward the face

Auto-fix

Increased Exposure +20

Increased Contrast +10

Increased Shadows +1

Softned skin with Blemish Fix

Added border with Vinagrette

Focal Soften

And here are a couple more edits because they said I could include as many as I want, and I love to play with pictures and make them a bit vintage looking: