Another Pine Cone Photo

Remember the photo of a pine cone that I posted a few days ago? (It's here, if you don't remember.) Well, when I was photographing it, I also took some macro shots. Here is my favorite:



I am entering this photo into 3 challenges: LEM - theme is Anything, Macro Friday, and Texture Twist.




And I thought I'd give you a little peek into my "studio" for this shot:



I used my dad's Nikon D80 for this shot, but I use this setup for my Samsung, too. I'm not a professional photographer, so I don't have any reflectors or tripods or shutter remotes or basically any fancy equipment at all. I sit with the window behind me (shades tilted if the sun is too bright) and I use food to keep my camera steady. This time, it was a bag of barley. Sometimes, it's rice or flour... Whatever I can find that is solid but slightly soft, so I can settle the camera into the perfect angle.

It's all about cheap, quick, and easy for me right now. Maybe someday I'll own a DLSR and I'll have a mini-studio set up in a more permanent location. Until then, I'm doing it my way... On the coffee table!

Before and After - Me

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago, specifically planning to convert to black and white. After editing, I completely forgot about it! Earlier today, I found the Little Somethings Photo Challenge, and the theme is black and white, so it's perfect!



I love my long hair. I've been actively growing it out since my sophomore year of college, which was 7 years ago. (Ugh. I'm old.). My plan is to keep it long for my wedding, and chop it all off to donate in between the wedding and the honeymoon.

I also wanted to show off a Before & After of this shot prior to converting to b&w. I used the M4H Newbie (newborn) Fix, which automatically removes red spots from skin. (This is a freebie from her fb page.) I did my usual levels and sharpening before running the action, tweaked the layers, removed the toning to give a softer feel, and also removed more red after the action was finished.

Texture Tuesday - Serendipity

For Kim Klassen's Texture challenge today, she wants us to use her serendipity texture. After looking at the texture, which is gorgeous brown and scratched, I knew I had the perfect photo...



Ta-da!


Here are my texture layers for this photo:

My texture layer was at 65% opacity and it was blended using linear burn. I also duplicated the background layer, switched the blending mode to screen at 18% opacity, and erased it off the background to brighten up the pine cone. Lastly, to soften the texture a smidge, I added a Gaussian Blur layer (not shown) at 3.0 radius and 80% opacity, and erased it off the pine cone.


I really like how this turned out! So much, in fact, that I've added it to my etsy shop. CLICK HERE for the listing.

i heart faces Challenge - Pets

Click on the button to see more entries!

Menu Plan Monday - 4.25.11

I don't have a very exciting menu planned for this week. This was our off-week from grocery shopping, since we only go every other week, so we don't have enough for me to throw together several meals.

Tonight - leftovers
My mom made ham and a turkey last night, and my dad made his famous mashed potatoes, and I made sure to sneak some home in plastic containers. Those, plus some salad, will be dinner tonight.


Tuesday - Jon is fending for himself.
Once a month, we do Family Call Nights at my job and everyone stays late (later than usual). I'll be eating dinner at the office.


Wednesday - Lemon Chicken in the Crockpot
Not my favorite recipe, but it only requires a few ingredients and can cook all day while we're at work.


Thursday - burgers, pasta side, and a veggie
We don't have buns, though, so I hope Jon is okay with using bread.


Friday - pasta
I'm definitely out of meal options at this point, so it's time to dig into my stockpile of pasta and various sauces. Not a problem... We love pasta!



If you want to join in with the weekly menu planning, head over to Org Junkie every Monday!

Color Splash Sunday - Relay For Life Balloon

<center><a href="http://purple-hippie.blogspot.com/p/color-splash-sunday.html"><img src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/colorsplashsunday.jpg"></a></center>
Welcome to Color Splash Sunday!

Color splash photos are those that have been converted to black and white, but one object has been left colored. Sometimes, it's easy to just isolate your colored object and you're done. Other times, more editing is required, such as adjusting color levels/light/shadow/etc.

This is an open themed link-up, so there won't be any specific themes for your photos. Any photo is fine, as long it was taken or setup by you, has selective color, and you haven't posted it before. You can read more about CSS guidelines by clicking here.


Here are my 3 favorites from last week:
(These photos are all copyright of their original photographers.)

Congrats to these talented photographers!
Feel free to snag this button
and display it on your blog!

<center><a href="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/csstop3.jpg"><img src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/csstop3.jpg"></a></center>


I wanted to share a post from Ashley Sisk with you all. She recently used selective coloring for her Shoot and Edit tutorials (which occur once a week, I highly recommend you check them out if you haven't yet). CLICK HERE for her mini-lesson on selective coloring.


And here is my photo for this week:



Your turn to link up!

CSS 4-24-11

1.	THe Boys Mama
2.	Linda Makiej
3.	Jenn
4.	Sweepy
5.	Captured By L.A.

(Cannot add links: Registration/trial expired)

SOOC Saturday & Texture Twist

SOOC:
Resized for web and watermark





I used the Black Magick 10 texture (soft light at 100% opacity) from Shadowhouse Creations on both version of this photo. For the color version, I increased the saturation of the blue tones and then burned the edges on the left side.



For the B&W version, I decreased the brightness and increased the contrast, and ended with a soft vignette on linear burn at 40% opacity.



I think the texture works better on the black and white version, so that's what I am submitting into Kristy's Texture Twist this weekend.

No Texture Twist this weekend because Kristy flew home to be with her family. So you all get to look at my pretty pictures just for fun!

Things I Love on Thursday - 4.21.11

I always want to share things with my fellow bloggers, so I try to mix them in with my regular posts. But I get so disorganized, and I can never remember what I have (or haven't) posted. So I am going to do what some other bloggers do and post it once a week. It'll be
Things I Love on Thursday.



First up is music. This is an older song, but I've always loved Muse.



Last week, I focused on my favorite female characters from my current favorite shows. Now, I will show you the male characters that I love! From NCIS, I really like all of the male characters. But Gibbs takes the cake. An older man that doesn't really seem old, intuitive and tactful, honest but not rude... Plus, he's great with kids!



From Big Bang Theory, it has to be Leonard. He's such a sweetheart! From L&W: SVU, the psychologist, Dr. Huang. And from The Office, Jim. Duh.



I really love fun fonts, so kevinandamanda.com is a site that I truly love! They have so many different fonts, from cute to elegant to fun to plain and simple. I also use dafont.com. Here are 3 that I've recently downloaded and love:


And my last love for today is about my job. I work for a Catholic college, so we celebrate Good Friday and Easter Monday... Meaning I am off from work tomorrow and Monday! Gotta love long weekends, especially because I am using some of my leftover vacation days to give myself long weekends next month. I definitely need the extra hours to keep the condo clean while I am planning the wedding, and I don't want to lose all of the days that I have accumulated. Does that mean more blogging? We'll see!

That's all for today. Have a lovely Thursday!

Texture Tuesday - Sweet Treat & Silence

For Kim Klassen's Texture challenge today, we had to use 2 of her textures - sweet treat and silence. I used a photo that I quickly shot of these 2 birds that visited my porch the other day. I think they are turtle doves.



I desaturated the sweet treat texture. Here are my layers:





And here is a Blue photo for Shutter Love:



I am also entering the above photo into the M4H Challenge, because the theme is Inspire. Blue skies inspire me to be creative, whether it is with photography, photo editing, writing, painting, etc. I just love blue skies!



Here's another one just for fun:



Sunflare is courtesy of my point and shoot camera, cool fabric texture is courtesy of Shadowhouse Creations.

My first Menu Plan Monday!

Yay! I am so happy to finally be able to participate in this meme. I have seen these posts by many of my bloggy friends, and my stomach would rumble. When I lived at my parents' house, I was able to give my input on meals, but I wasn't the decison-maker. Now that Jon and I are responsible for feeding ourselves, I've been dutifully planning out meals and collecting recipes.

However, with Jon's crazy, always-changing work schedule (which we never knew until 3 days ahead of time), menu planning was spotty and our meals together were very rare, maybe twice a week if we were lucky.

GREAT NEWS! Jon landed a sweet new job with a new company, one that he had interviewed with a few months ago. We went out over the weekend and bought him a small wardrobe of dress clothes (since he wore a uniform for his last job). Today is his first day on the job with a set schedule, regular work hours, extra pay on holidays, no overnight shifts, and so many more factors that we are hoping will make our lives a smidge better/easier.

Now that our work hours coincide 92% of the time, rather than the 12% that it used to be, I was able to plan an entire week's worth of meals for this week:

Today: grilled chicken with salad and couscous
We have a George Foreman grill that we use constantly, so that's how we do our chicken.

Tuesday: Crockpot pasta pizza casserole
This is a meal that Jon absolutely loves, and can really be adjusted to your own taste. I'll have to post the recipe one day. And I love that I can throw together some ingredients in the morning, go to work, and come home to a fully-cooked meal that is ready to eat.

Wednesday: grilled steak with a veggie and leftover couscous
Again, GF grill. I don't know which veggie I'll make; we always buy a stock of frozen veggies when they are on sale.

Thursday: breakfast - french toast, eggs, bacon
I love having breakfast for dinner, and cinnamon swirl bread was on sale this past weekend. Plus, we have lots of bacon from when that was on sale a couple weeks ago.

Friday: pasta with veggie sauce
I had made veggie pasta sauce in the Crockpot a few weeks ago and frozen some of it for later on. Jon and I observe the "No meat on Friday's" rule during Lent, even though most people don't anymore. It's a small sacrifice that we are willing to make, considering the sacrifice that was made for us, the reason for the season.


Jon and I do our grocery shopping every other weekend, and we pick out the meats that are on sale and freeze them to use later on. Actually, we really only buy the items that are on sale, and I make meals around those things. We don't generally go for fancy or elaborate meals, as it's only the 2 of us and we are not that picky. Also, I'm not afraid to admit that I use frozen vegetables. Gardening isn't my thing, and besides, we are not allowed to have gardens in our condo complex.

On weekends, we head over to either his parents or my parents for dinner (or both). His parents will be away visiting his brother and SIL this weekend, so we'll have Easter dinner at my parents' house.

If you want to join in with the weekly menu planning, head over to Org Junkie every Monday!

Color Splash Sunday - Relay For Life

<center><a href="http://purple-hippie.blogspot.com/p/color-splash-sunday.html"><img src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/colorsplashsunday.jpg"></a></center>
Welcome to Color Splash Sunday!

Color splash photos are those that have been converted to black and white, but one object has been left colored. Sometimes, it's easy to just isolate your colored object and you're done. Other times, more editing is required, such as adjusting color levels/light/shadow/etc.

This is an open themed link-up, so there won't be any specific themes for your photos. Any photo is fine, as long it was taken or setup by you, has selective color, and you haven't posted it before. You can read more about CSS guidelines by clicking here.


Here are my 3 favorites from last week:
(These photos are all copyright of their original photographers.)

Congrats to these talented photographers!
Feel free to snag this button
and display it on your blog!

<center><a href="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/csstop3.jpg"><img src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/csstop3.jpg"></a></center>

And here is my photo for this week:

The Relay for Life on our campus. They raised over $26,000 for the American Cancer Society!

Your turn to link up:

CSS 4-17-11

1.	Blue Eyez
2.	Sweepy
3.	Captured By L.A.
4.	Jenn
5.	Newbie Heidi
6.	Halie

(Cannot add links: Registration/trial expired)

Things I Love on Thursday - 4.14.11

I always want to share things with my fellow bloggers, so I try to mix them in with my regular posts. But I get so disorganized, and I can never remember what I have (or haven't) posted. So I am going to do what some other bloggers do and post it once a week. It'll be
Things I Love on Thursday.



First up is music. I really love the song Rolling In The Deep by Adele. She's truly gorgeous, and so is her voice! The video is kinda cool, if you have a few minutes to watch. Otherwise, click play below and read on.



A blog that I have been reading for a few months that I really love is Coffee Rings Everywhere. I know the author though HPANA, and she is a powerful writer. Saying that doesn't give her enough credit. Go read some of her drabbles and you'll see what I mean.

I got my wedding invite proof and I love how it looks! I resized it to fit here, so it looks a little hinky, but you get the idea, right?



I covered up my family's last name, my future FIL's first name, my middle name, Jon's middle name, and the location of our reception, for privacy's sake. I did not put the location of our ceremony on the invite because there is a 90% chance that it will be at one spot, and the 10% chance that it will be elsewhere. I am going to make my own inserts for the location of the ceremony. There isn't going to be a reception insert, just the RSVP card and the little envelope to mail it back.

And yea, one of the theme colors for our wedding is red. It's going to look so freakin' awesome!

I do love the website where I found our invites - www.exclusivelyweddings.com*. They have countless options for invites, with so many different colors and themes and designs. I went with something clean and simple, but they have the elaborate designs, too. We also picked out gifts for bridal party people on this site, and they have free personalization for many gifts, which any bride on a budget will definitely love!

On a side note, did any NCIS fans notice my use of the word "hinky" earlier? Jon and I love NCIS! We love watching TV on DVD, and we've gone through both Big Bang Theory and The Office twice, so we started in on NCIS, and we're about halfway through season 3. DVD's can get pretty pricey, especially when you're buying whole seasons of TV shows, so our netflix instant queue (watching online and on our wii) is pretty much chock-full of various TV shows. Bonus LOVE: we save boatloads of cash by only paying $14 a month for basic cable.


(Source)

On my list of favorite TV characters, Abby from NCIS ranks just as high as Olivia Benson from Law & Order: SVU and Pam from The Office. And she's definitely higher than Penny from Big Bang Theory, mainly because Abby's uber-smart and Penny's kinda dumb sometimes.



And I love Ziva from NCIS, too, but mainly just because Cote de Pablo is hot.



Okay, that's enough of the things I love for today. I have good news to share with everyone next week, so stay tuned!


*This website has no idea who I am or how much I love their stuff (and their prices!). I did not receive any compensation for stating my opinion.

Black and White Wednesday - Bicycles

Black and White Wednesday is run by Lisa over at
The Long Road to China.

I haven't linked up to B&WW in a few weeks, so I decided to pair it with Shutter Love for this week. The theme is Bicycles. I have this photo from Hopeville State Park in Griswold, CT.
(Click here for my original post on Hopeville State Park.)



I have a bicycle at my parents' house that I bought a few years ago. I love riding, but I haven't done any in quite a long time. I'm considering filling the tires up and bringing it to the condo so I can go riding, now that the weather is getting warmer. It'd be a great way to shape up a little before the wedding.

Texture Tuesday - Your FAVE

For this week's Texture Tuesday (run by Kim Klassen), there is no specific challenge. She wants us, instead, to post our FAVORITE textured photos.

I have 2 favorites that stand out. The first one is an oldie that I posted on May 29 of last year for Macro Friday. However, this was not a Kim Klassen texture... It was Heartless by Shadowhouse Creations.

See that old watermark I was using? Uuuuuuuuuuglyyyyyyyyyyy!

And the second one is one that I had posted less than a month ago for a texture-themed Happy Monday challenge.

I don't remember which texture I used for this one. Oops!

It's quite obvious that dried flowers are one of my favorite things to photograph. And they take on textures so beautifully!

Color Splash Sunday - A cookie... and a change.

<center><a href="http://purple-hippie.blogspot.com/p/color-splash-sunday.html"><img src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/colorsplashsunday.jpg"></a></center>
Welcome to Color Splash Sunday!

Color splash photos are those that have been converted to black and white, but one object has been left colored. Sometimes, it's easy to just isolate your colored object and you're done. Other times, more editing is required, such as adjusting color levels/light/shadow/etc.

This is an open themed link-up, so there won't be any specific themes for your photos. Any photo is fine, as long it was taken or setup by you, has selective color, and you haven't posted it before. You can read more about CSS guidelines by clicking here.



A few days ago, I took the Kind-Hearted Blogger Pledge. (Read more HERE.) One of the values that kind-hearted bloggers uphold is to "create, inspire, and admire rather than compete with fellow bloggers." I realized that, by picking 1 winner each week, I was inadvertently causing you all to compete against each other. I don't want that! I don't want anyone to feel like their selective color photos (or any of their photos, for that matter) are 'not as good' as the others. The reason I still blog is because I love being able to admire other people's creative skills and be inspired by their work, NOT because I am trying to be the best.

However, at the same time, I want to see everyone improving their techniques at both photographing AND post-processing. Selective color is considered an artistic edit, which should be done AFTER adjusting levels and contrast. Other things to take into consideration as you are editing: rule of thirds, presence of light and shadows, distracting backgrounds, focus/depth of field, hue & saturation, etc.

In order to encourage you all to improve your techniques, I am going to continue to feature my 3 favorites each week. I'm going to specifically look for everything I said above when I pick my favorites.

So, here are my 3 favorites from last week:

(These photos are all copyright of their original photographers.)

Congrats to these talented photographers!
Feel free to snag this button
and display it on your blog!

<center><a href="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/csstop3.jpg"><img src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/prin367cess/csstop3.jpg"></a></center>

Here is my photo for today, the one I used to make that spiffy new button:



And now, finally, it's your turn to link up!

CSS 4-10-11

1.	Halie
2.	Captured By L.A.
3.	Elise/One Woman, Reinvented
4.	Pauliina
5.	Jennifer
6.	Sweepy

(Cannot add links: Registration/trial expired)