A little Christmas Cheer

I have been obsessed this holiday season to get good pictures of my tree. I found many great tutorials online but decided to go with the one from Kevin and Amanda. They not only showed a great way to get my lights to pop, but they added a fun little addition I had to try. She used an 85mm 1.8, but you could easily use a 50mm 1.8, or 35mm 1.8. For my photos I used my 50mm 1.8 lens.

Nikon 50mm 1.8
Manual Mode
f/1.8
1/30 sec
3200 ISO

Nikon 50mm 1.8

f/1.8

1/30 sec

3200 ISO

For this shot I used my manual focus and simply turned it until it was out of focus. You will see the light go from small to big circles.



Nikon 50mm 1.8

f/1.8

1/30 sec

2500 ISO

This is where I used the tutorial from Kevin and Amanda. It also made it seem like I used a fish eye lens.

Nikon 50mm 1.8
f/1.8
1/30 sec
3200 ISO

Here is Elfis getting in on the fun.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I hope everyone has a great Holiday season.

Holiday and Pinterest fun!

I have been such a bad girl lately with not updating my blog the way I should. I have been so busy with trying to get my photography business off the ground that I have not had much time for sewing and crafting. I'm sure to get more done now that colder temps are on the way. I have several sewing ideas that I plan on sharing with you all very soon. Especially now that my mother in law has let me take care of her serger while she does not have a place for it. I'm super excited about it even though I have no idea how it works.

While I was working on my photography business I stumbled upon a new adventure. I have found a love for digital scrapbooking and digital card making. It could be blamed on my sister in law. She was nice enough to let me take newborn photos of my nephew and I decided to try my hand at making his birth announcements. Surprisingly they turned out great and a new obsession was born. I have designed a couple of cards and put them on my new Etsy store LRP Design. I am working on more and will be adding them as I have them. Right now it's only holiday cards, but I will be adding other kinds soon. Here are a couple of examples.

I also thought I would share something that I learned today. While checking one of my favorite blogs, I am momma hear me roar, I learned how to see what people are pinning from your blog to Pinterest. Copy and paste this link

http://pinterest.com/source/twininspiration.blogspot.com/

Be sure to change to your blog address. I think it is so much fun to see what people like about your blog. If you are interested in what I'm pinning you can find my page here.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Making a Silhouette with Photoshop Elements {Tutorial}

I hope everyone is having a wonderful beginning to Summer. We have been so busy around here with swimming trips, outside play time, yard sales, two year old tantrums, etc. I wanted to take a little break from that and share a little project I did. I have plans on changing some things up in my kitchen, like painting, and some new decor. I'm really excited about it. My kitchen has not had any updates in seven years, so it's time. While blog stalking the other day I saw the post by Jessica at Happy Together. It was an awesome chalkboard wall, but while scrolling down she posted a few other Pinterest finds. I loved the wall of silhouette's by Laura Winslow Photography. I have just the place for it in my kitchen. I have made these in the past the old fashion way. I just printed a profile picture and traced it onto black paper. That worked fine, but was a lot of work for more that one silhouette. I decided to use my Photoshop Elements to make things a little quicker.

I will warn you that this post may be a little long with several screen shots, but I always do better with tutorials with lots of explanation and photos. If you are not real familiar with your Photoshop program this my be a good way to learn a little more about it. I have yet to grasp everything this program is capable of. If the screen shots are not big enough you should be able to double click on them to see them bigger.

First choose a profile picture. If you are making one of a girl/woman you may want to have the hair up. It makes the silhouette better in the end. Open the photo in your program. Go to your full edit workspace. Next your will want to make a duplicate of your background photo. You can do this by right clicking on the little photo on the right of your screen, and chose duplicate image.

Now, under the drop down arrow right above your duplicate image, you want to choose "vivid light".

At this point the coloring in your photo should have changed a little. Don't freak out, this is how it's supposed to happen. You can now flatten your duplicate image by right clicking on it, and choosing flatten. 

Now choose your magnetic lasso tool to trace around the head and neck of the photo. When you are finished double click and you should see marching ants where you traced.

It's time to fill the image by right clicking where your have traced and have the marching ants. You will choose "fill selection". Under contents choose black.

Now you should feel like your getting somewhere. Next, click "select" and then "inverse". You should now see marching ants around the frame of your photo.

Lastly, you go to "edit" and select "delete". You should now be left with your silhouette.

How fun and long was that! It seems like it takes a while at first, but after a couple it takes no time at all. Thanks so much for checking out my blog. Let me know it you have any questions. I will try my best to help.

Fun Photo Session!

I took my first photography class back in August, and I've mostly been taking pictures of my hubby, and kiddos. After all, that was the whole reason I wanted to take the classes in the first place. After some practice with the camera and the editing programs, it has quickly become an obsession. I now see things driving down the road that would make a good photo, that I would have never noticed a few years ago. When my sister asked me to take some fall photos of her and her husband I jumped at the chance. We went to a small town that is a 20 minute drive from where we live. It's was a beautiful day, and a small town with lots of history. It made for great pictures. Of course, my sister is super cute, so my part was easy.

I mentioned above, the old town that we took the photos in. When we decided to take a quick ice cream break, we walked into the cutest little ice cream parlor. I felt like I walked back in time. Honestly, I have been to this town many time, but it's usually for a craft fair, so I have never really been into the little stores. I took some quick photos of the store. They are not the greatest, because of the size of the store, and the amount of people that was in there. I still thought they captured the charm of the old ice cream parlor. I definitely plan to go back to enjoy what the little town has to offer.

I had no idea that there were that many different kinds of Moon Pies. I guess that's what you can expect from a town that hosts a Moon Pie festival every year.

I loved this sign. It was posted on the door of the cafe. I'm sure you would only see this in the South.

Fall Fun Photography!

It has been a great weekend for outside photography where we live. Living in the South has it's perks this time of year. It has been high of 85 degrees all weekend. Just beautiful for letting the kids play outside and catching a few cute shots.



I couldn't resist taking pictures of all of my moms cute harvest decorations. Everything had such great colors.






It looks like I only take pictures of my son, but my daughter always runs from the camera. My son always runs towards me saying "cheese". Those are my daughters hands in the last picture. I got by with that one. I'm trying to wait patiently for it to get cooler, to take some family shots for Christmas cards. I don't really want to wear shorts and tank tops in my Christmas card photos. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I love followers and comments, so feel free to leave one.

Adventures in Photography {Take 1}

My husband bought me a DSLR for my birthday 4 months ago. I loved it, but was very intimidated. I tried reading the manual, but it confused me more. When someone told me about The Pioneer Woman, I immediately started reading her tutorials. She laid out the basics in plain English, which was more than I can say for my manual. From that moment I was hooked and determined to learn more. I was so excited when I found a local studio that taught affordable beginner classes. I wanted to share some photos from my past lesson, and I'm proud to say the instructor didn't find to much to pick on. I still have another class to go, but now I'm dying to take the advanced class. No one told me photography classes would be so addictive.