20 Week Photography Challenge

Since I've been struggling a bit with my photography (really really really want to take a class or two) and I've been struggling with posts on here, so two birds with one stone: I'm going to join a 20 week photography challenge here online. Woot! I'm actually really excited. I really enjoy the challenges over at Beth's blog so I can see myself really getting into this. It's being hosted by Laura at A Step in the Journey.

This week's challenge is a self-portrait. Ugh. Not my favorite photo subject, but maybe it should be. I have all these wonderful photos of everything else but me. You can definitely tell that I'm always the one behind the camera (the hubby is pretty skilled with a camera too but I rarely let him steal my camera). Here's a couple of shots that I managed to snap rather quickly since there's a couple of people around here that are sick and clingy...



Your standard hold the camera away from you pose



Everyone looks better in black and white, right?

You can find all the information about participating by going HERE. If you do join the challenge, or you're participating in another one, show me! I'd love to see what you've done!

You Capture - Fruit

This weekly challenge is fruit over at Beth's blog. While we have several varieties of fruit at our house and in several forms (frozen, fresh and canned) I have to admit I wasn't too inspired by this week's challenge. Maybe it's because I've been incredibly busy. Don't ask me with what, because it seems like I have very little to show for all my hours of work. Which is pretty disappointing, come to think about it, so I won't think about it. At any rate, here's my single lonely submission of fruit:

Posting up to http://www.ishouldbefoldinglaundry.com/

Top Ten Tuesday - Italy Edition

So as I may have mentioned once or twice (or a thousand) times before, we recently took a vacation to Italy. I don't repeat the awesomeness that was the trip to make you jealous, but to make myself remember how grateful and how very lucky I am. It was an amazing time and I loved spending it with my family. Here's my top ten favorite photos from our trip (in no real particular order).

10. Murano Island off Venice. Beautiful scenery, lovely glassworking shops, and much serenity

9. Drake snuggling on Daddy at the Roman forum in Rome

8. Link giving his big sister a kiss on the gondola ride

7. Pompeii ruins

6. The Pantheon!

5. Big sister attracting some attention from the birds in St. Mark's Square in Venice

4. Link cooling off on a hot Roman day

3. One of the domes in Vatican City

2. The Colosseum, from the third floor

1. Traghetto boats moored up on the Grand Canal

Linking up to Oh Amanda

Vintage Cowgirl Invitation

I've been updating some designs in my store, updating the pricing structure, the wording of my listings and generally just making everything better. As for designs, I've been on a vintage kick lately. One of my favorite designs is a vintage cowgirl invitation in my store:

I've recently added a printable party package in this theme as well. It includes several party staples for one low price, such as the invitation, cupcake toppers, a banner, and more. I think it turned out pretty cute!

I need to get around to making a vintage circus invitation as well as some summer inspired designs, like pool party invitations, but I guess those will have to wait until I manage to find some more spare time! I'm always taking suggestions for designs too. I really love to design.

Friday Musings

While I was doing dishes earlier, I let my mind wander. Doing dishes is terribly boring and tedious and only somewhat enjoyable if you don't think about it. I passed a large part of my time wishing I had magic, you know, like Harry Potter magic. I would definitely be a Mrs. Weasley, waving my wand about to conjure meals, tidy the house, and definitely do the dreaded dishes. (I'll stop right here and admit to the fact that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, both the books and the movies and if you have no clue what I'm talking about, then please kindly exit this website and pick up J.K. Rowling's masterpieces of literature. They are definitely worth a read, no matter what age you are!)

I would alsolove to have one of these magically enhanced clocks!

So, my question to you is: if you had magic what would you do with it?

You Capture

This week's You Capture over at Beth's blog is pretty much anything. She asked her son what the challenge should be and he replied with, "like trees and beautiful plants and little cute babies."

Here's my submissions for this week.

I don't know if this tree is beautiful or not, but it's certainly different.

No idea what it is.

Found it in a park on Murano in Venice, Italy.

Drake cheesing for the camera. I realize he's not a cute little baby anymore, but he'll always be my baby,

plus there's beautiful trees in the background so this totally is sticking with the week's theme.

My little baby giving his big sister a smooch while on a gondola ride in Venice, Italy

It was H-O-T in Venice (in Italy in general, actually).

We stayed cool due largely in part to all the fresh water sources.

Okay, I'm at a loss as to how this photo is "like trees and beautiful plants and little cute babies,"

but I'm going to be a rebel and post it anyway. One of my favorite photos from Venice.

Linking up to Beth's blog.

Photography

Okay, I should preface this with a disclaimer: I am by no means a professional photographer. I don't claim to be in any way, shape or form. I'd like to be and I like to believe that it's something I could be good at, but right now, I'm just an amateur photography enthusiast. /end disclaimer

That being said, ever wonder how people get those gorgeous photos? The ones that look too pretty to be real? In two words: post processing. Even if you think your photo's absolutely perfect straight out of the camera, it can always use some tweaks and adjustments. With the price on Adobe Photoshop Elements hovering near $100 it's never been cheaper to do some photo editing. I use Adobe Photoshop to adjust my images (since it's the same program that I use anyway for my digital designs).

I've put together some side-by-sides of straight out of the camera and edited images to illustrate my points. In this first example a bit of cropping brings out my focus much better (the beautiful tree). I wanted the tree to be the focus, but it being dead center in the image is plain boring. In the end, it's still pretty centered but just slightly less so (if that makes sense). I've also cropped out some unnecessary clutter at the bottom of the photo and gave it a bit of a grounding element with the low brick wall on the right hand side.

I also enhanced the colors and tweaked the levels to make it more a vintage feel. The browns now really stand out and give it that "aged" look I was after.

For this second illustration, I was okay with the cropping of the image but I really wanted to show that vintage, rich brown color palette. Don't get me wrong, I think the original photo is just fine but I really wanted the texture and age of the Colosseum to come through. I think the second photo does a better job of this.

A third and final illustration for the day: adding textures. For the ambitious only, adding texture to a photo can make or break it in my opinion.

On the left, my straight out of the camera (SOOC) shot. On the right, the adjusted image, with a texture added (among other various adjustments). Adding the texture really makes the photo much more interesting, giving it some depth. Textures can be tricky so they aren't for the faint of heart, but the good news is that you can always undo it (don't you wish life had an undo button?!).

I always recommend saving your alterations as different files, rather than replacing your original. If you save over the original there's no getting it back. Plus, it provides a neat way to compare what you've done post-processing compared to the original.

There's several places out there that sell or even give away photoshop actions (a way of doing a quick one button photo edit) for those that are in a hurry or too timid to try editing completely manually. Let me know if you have any questions on where to find these or if you have any suggestions yourself on where to find them. I'd love to see your before and after shots if you have any!

Back from our Italian Vacation

So as the post title says, we're baaack! Our vacation was amazing. We saw some really great things (Pompeii, the Colosseum, Venice) in Italy and it was absolutely wonderful. I find that now I'm way behind on orders placed while I was away. I love graphic design, but right now I'm swimming in orders. So until I can play a bit of catch up, I had better leave this post sweet and simple. I'll leave you with some photos of our trip. Have a great week everyone!

No Bake Mini Cheesecakes

It seems like I do a lot of baking around here, but I finally found a no-bake cheesecake recipe that I love. Hope you enjoy it too!

Easy, No Bake Mini Cheesecakes

What You'll Need:
8 oz. cream cheese package (at room temperature)
4 oz. cool whip
4 oz. sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
6 graham cracker mini pie crusts
Your choice of toppings: I used fresh blueberries and raspberries but you can also use canned pie fillings

What You Do:
Blend together cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla until creamy. You don't want any lumps and this is easiest if the cream cheese is at room temperature. Add cool whip and blend well. Pour mixture into a storage container and refrigerate until ready to eat.

When you're ready to serve your mini cheesecakes, pour the refrigerated cream cheese mixture into the mini pie crusts. Top with your choice of syrups, fruits, or whatever you'd like. I used fresh raspberries and blueberries for mine. Enjoy!

Friday Photo Bliss

I'm posting one photo taken this week that really makes me happy. I'm inspired by Soule Mama. Her words:
{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Vacation time!

If you don't hear from me for a few days, it's because I'm soaking up the sights, sounds and culture of Venice and Rome. Starting tonight / early tomorrow we're on our way to Italy. We're enjoying a week there, focused primarily on Venice and Rome. I can't wait! It's going to be an amazing time. In the meanwhile, enjoy the beautiful photography by Laura Evans. She did an amazing job with our family portraits. I can't wait to order some prints.

Do you have any vacation plans? I'd love to hear about them and see photos!

Easiest Sopapillas Ever

Recently we had Mexican night at our house for dinner, so in that spirit I created sopapillas for dessert. They were so yummy and easy that I thought I'd share the recipe. The recipe is adapted from here.

Easy Sopapillas

What You'll Need:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tbsp of cinnamon sugar mixture (optional)
      tortillas (one per person)
1    tbsp honey
1    tbsp powdered sugar (optional)
1    tbsp raspberry sauce (optional)
1    oz. vegetable oil

What You Do:
Heat the oil in a medium skillet (just enough oil to thinly cover the entire bottom surface of the skillet) over medium heat. Meanwhile, in another medium skillet melt the butter and stir in the cinnamon sugar.  Once the oil is warm, fry one tortilla until the bottom is golden brown, then flip and fry the other side until it's golden brown as well. Remove the tortilla from the heat, patting dry with some paper towels if necessary to remove excess oil. Move the fried tortilla into the skillet with the butter, dipping each side into the butter mixture. Plate the tortilla and garnish with extra cinnamon sugar, honey, powdered sugar or raspberry sauce to taste. Serve warm.

That's it! Incredibly easy and quick. They were a huge hit around here. My husband loved his with extra powdered sugar and raspberry sauce. I figure the raspberry sauce isn't a traditional sopapilla topping but it worked out really well. I've already gotten requests to make it again!

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July! We spent some quality family time at a fair nearby. Funnel cakes, ferris wheels, and live bands...who could ask for more? Hope you had a great 4th too!

Fourth of July Free Printable

In honor of America's independence day, I will be serving cupcakes with some cute embellishments. I figured I might as well share the printable cupcake toppers in case anyone else wants a quick, cheap Fourth of July decoration. You can download the file HERE.

These fit twelve to a sheet of standard US paper. I recommend printing them out on heavy cardstock and setting your printer to borderless printing or the margins as near to zero as possible. They're incredibly easy to punch out with a 2" scrapbook punch (available at crafts stores) or you can do it the old fashioned way and trim them out with scissors. Enjoy!

Close-up of one of the designs

Happy Fourth of July!

Linking up to: It's a HodgePodge Life