Real Moms Scrapbook!

Hope you had a happy mother's day. This mothers day I am still just as busy. While I could have taken a day off and go to a spa, I decided to cook for my mom (the big grandma for the kids) instead of going out to a restaurant.. The restaurants are crowded and kids don't really like to sit in a restaurant, they crawl under the tables and we spend all our time making sure the kids didn't run into a waiter. While the kids played with their cousins, (after they ate their familiar favorite food - pizza and cupcakes) we were able to sit down and enjoy the gourmet dinner while we conversed. From now on, I am not going to restaurants on mothers day.. Spa.. And hiking sounds like a good idea. My mom said she did not want to be doing dinners, she is 65+ and she wants to go on hiking on mothers day. That is a motivation to me to go workout. She also did not want me to buy the usual roses. So I took her to a nursery where she picked up some plants, so she could plant them in her garden and enjoy the flowers lot longer.

And the most important thing you could do on a mother day could be to scrap some photos (of your child's or yours with them). Here is a traditional layout that I worked on:

credits: My Minds eye papers. They are awesome. I love the papers, patterns. If you seem to be running out of ideas, check their site: http://www.mymindseye.com/. Their collection is split into several small mini kits that include 2 papers, and elements to coordinate like a title tag, rub on, and may be a photo frame. The collections are YUMMY.

Another digital layout. Credits to shabbyprincess, Festival kit.

Digital Scrapbook Layouts

The Beach

Explorers

Sister Moments

Some scrapbooking layouts.. Done in digital in Adobe Photoshop. Some of favorite digital designers are

Jen Wilson www.jenwilsondesigns.com
and shabby princess www.shabbyprincess.com

These layouts are created using kits from the above designers.

digital scrapbooking and collages..

Ok, just taking a break from photography and spending an afternoon scrapbooking.



A storyboard..



Finally got to scrapbook some of the photos took weeks back.

Before and After: Mystical Lighting AutoFX

I have been testing out Mystical Lighting from Auto FX, and here is a before and after. This is a small change but I think makes a big impact.



I started out with this original picture. The exposure is correct to start with, no major problems like highlights blow out, or incorrect WB etc.

The second image is the enhanced version, subtle change, but I think it improved
to get the angelic look I was going after.

First, I slighly bumped up reds 8% since I like skin tones little on the redder side, I think that looks more natural. I used Mystical Lighting for the sparkle effect on the ball. I chose a preset, played with the placement and size, and viola. However, I have to admit that the processing of the plug in was quite slow, so go get yourself a cup of coffee. I am surprised that the plugin did not respond and had to restart occassionally.

Next I added light brush in Mystical ligting so her face is well lit. Applied a little soft effect in Photoshop. I noticed that the background was a little short on the original picture on the left side bottom corner. A quick clone tool fixed that problem. Dodged the edges so the subject grabs the attention. And unmask filter (sharpening) done in the end. A very subtle effect, and but I think it was worth it.

Would I want to be playing with all the lighting effects in Mystical Lighting again?
I do like some of the effects, although I think much can be done in Adobe PS itself and actions or filters in PS seem to be damn fast and reliable than using a plugin, and the plugin even from Auto FX crashed. So if it can be done without Plugin I do like to go that route..

There are some lighting effects, that it is worth a try in Mystical lighting if you don't mind the $199 price tag.

The pictures in a digital creation:

My Valentine ..

busy scrapbooking ..

I am so inconsistent when it comes to blogging! I started to use this primarily to put photos there, but lately I have been caught up on scrapbooking. I took this picture outside our house on a day my daughter stayed home sick.. Oh, it was late in the afternoon, and love how the sun kissed her face.


I love those yummy MME papers. There are so versatile, and you can combine different lines of paper, and still pull them together. The layout is inspired by a sketch from Basic Grey Newsletter.