All my problems aside, it was fun to see these videos from almost 18 years ago! Wow, time flies! Gotta say too when I showed the initial “rough draft” to Scott and Claire last night, we were all a total MESS – pretty much bawling our eyes out – haha! Very bittersweet.

Anyway, I plan to do at least 2 more songs, so this is just the first portion. Song credit goes to the band Lonestar – “Let Them Be Little”.

If anyone is interested in the process…I first had to buy a VHS to DVD converter – I bought THIS ONE. Works pretty well, but what they don’t tell you is you need a VCR to use it – all you get are cables, a little converter box and software. So I dug out an old VCR and luckily it still worked!

Then I thought I needed some video editing software, so I bought the top-rated consumer-recommended one – ugh – it SUCKS!!! I probably can’t say the name here, but I’m trying to get my $$ back! ugh! It kept locking up my computer and it was NOT very user-friendly. So I tried making my slideshow on my old fav ProShow Gold, well, that kept locking up too and I couldn’t easily clip the video segments. I tried Roxio Easy Media Creator – which I use all the time to burn CDs/DVDs and that kept locking up too – and it took like 10 minutes to even open the video program. I think our computer’s processor needs to be upgraded or something. So I ended up just doing it all on Windows Movie Maker. Good enough. I seriously wasted so much time trying to do this! But hopefully it will be worth it in the end!

The middle photo though was a pic of our Christmas tree – taken with my current very favorite lens – the 35mm f/1.4G – on manual mode to make the lights blurry like that.  :-)Next we have our New Year’s Eve photos! We were getting ready to go across the street to our friend/neighbor’s house for a party, so I barely had any time to take these. uggh! (Scott rushed me out the door…) But I got what I could. Nikon D300, Tamron 17-55mm f/2.8 lens (at like ap of 16, iso 160, shutter 1/160), Alien Bee ring flash. I brought all these photos into Toy Camera Analog Color with the polaroid border and Process type 5.So yay!  I got the first two pages of our 2012 Memory book done!  :-)

While I was at it, I took some ipod touch photos of some of my fav images I took in 2011 of Jacob & Elle. Used “Nashville” and “Early Bird” filters from Instagram here.And tried something completely new on this image – hmm…not sure what I think, but I know Elle is beautiful no matter how I edit the photo!  :-) Have a great week! I start my 10 days in a row again at work tomorrow…boo hoo! Feel sorry for me?

So that set our color scheme of lilac, black & white. We took two of the tables in her room and painted them black (pain in the butt – but they look great!). We also painted her letter “C” silver (which sucked cuz it was an oil-based paint – uggh! Thanks to Scott for cleaning that up!) It took us two days and lots of sweat, but we got it done! She is thrilled and LOVES it!Lamp, bed skirt, zebra body pillow case & drapes from Target, zebra sheets from Kohl’s, coat rack from amazon.com, frame from Home Goods.  Purple Christmas tree I bought last year (along w/ pink & blue) from Wal-Mart.com (sorry Rhiana if you see this – she decided to keep it! )

“BEFORE” – photos taken February 2010. We also decluttered a LOT and we took a lot of her little girlish things and put them in a tote. We’re calling it our time capsule. Didn’t throw them away, but just put them out of sight and out of mind for now.  “AFTER”. Claire said, “It’s FINALLY a COLOR!!” I said Hey! Tan is a color! She disagreed. Hasn’t she changed a TON in two years?!! My baby is growing up – sniff sniff! Once again, Buddy would not leave us alone when we were trying to take pictures! Seriously – we kept taking him off the bed, told the boys to call him, etc. Oh well, he’s so cute! Claire got this picture a while back at TJ Maxx and I love it! Inspiring!!That’s our room make-over! Claire spent $200 of her own on it (Christmas money) and I told her it has to last at least FOUR years – until she’s 17. I just hope she can keep it as clean as it is now!

btw….does anyone want to buy a gallon of lilac paint? I bought two but only ended up using one! Only $15 o.b.o! I’ll also be selling her old bedding on Craig’s List.

I followed all her steps for the most part, but I used an existing photo I had of sky/clouds instead of using a brush.  And then some of the other instructions I changed up a bit too. Here’s how to do it!

1)  Open the photo that you want to add a sky to.

2)  Open a sky/cloud image and use the “move” tool to position it on top of your photograph. (p.s. I have gone outside and taken 10+ photos of skies.  If you are interested in having them, let me know by leaving a comment and I can e-mail them to you….)

3)  Turn OFF the sky/cloud image by clicking on the little eyeball to the left of it in the layers palette.

4)  With the image layer selected, go into “channels” and click on the blue channel layer.  Duplicate it by dragging the layer down to the “create new channel” icon to the left of the garbage can icon.

5)  Working with the blue channel copy layer, go “ctrl-M” to get into curves. Slide over as instructed on the video (or see my image example below) and click OK.

6)  This is where my instructions change from the tutorial:  With the blue channel copy layer selected (which is now totally black and white), take the magic wand tool and click on the white sky.  There will now be “marching ants” around your white sky selection.

7)  Click back on your layers and click the sky/cloud image layer and click the “eyeball” so it’s visible.

8 )  Create a layer mask by clicking on the layer mask icon (the little icon to the right of “fx”).

9)  Un-link the sky/cloud image and the layer mask – then you’ll be able to move it around and re-size it in step 12.

10)  Don’t worry if it looks like crap right now – you are going to fix that.  :-) With a soft BLACK brush (50% opacity, 50% flow), paint on the “horizon” or where the sky/clouds and the horizon/subject meet.  Paint, paint until you think it looks pretty good.  Don’t worry if you removed too much – if you did, simply select the white brush and paint where you’d like to ADD more sky/clouds.  Remember that black CONCEALS, white REVEALS.

11)  Then this is the COOL part – change the opacity of the sky/cloud image down to like 45% or where you think it looks good.  You can also CLICK ON THE SKY/CLOUD IMAGE directly (NOT the image mask) and go “image”, “adjustments”, “hue/saturation” and slide your color, saturation, and lightness around until you are content.  You can also try changing the blending modes of your sky/cloud image – try multiply, darken, lighten, overlay, etc. at varying opacities to get the look you want.  I just used “normal” though.

12)  You can also click “Ctrl-T” to “transform” your sky/cloud image (remember to click on THAT, NOT your image mask) and you can resize it!  (hold the shift key down and resize from a CORNER – very important so your image doesn’t warp).

13)  Once you are all done, flatten your image (“layer”, “flatten image”), save as a jpeg and you are ready to print!

Here’s some example photos.  Follow along and try it yourself! I’d love to see your results!

left = before/ right = aftersame photo, different sky & clouds.  :-)  Plus changed the hue/saturation. For my next tutorial, I’ll show you how to add rainbows and rainbow flare to a photo.  :-)

btw I used the 8mm app on my ipod touch for the video!!  I used it on “70′s” and LOVE the dimension it adds to the slideshow.  I definitely want to do a lot more of that in the future!

The kids (well, mostly Jacob) found some milkweed with caterpillar eggs on it and they raised four caterpillars! On Friday 7/1, the first butterfly came out. The transformation is truly a miracle!  wow!I thought it would hang around for a while since it was “newborn” and all, but it flew away super fast! In fact, I was using my Nikon 60mm macro (on manual focus, manual settings) so I quick had to switch into auto-focus and aperture priority! By the time I did that, it was already flying over the empty lot next to us! geesh! Here’s one of the ones that wasn’t “born” yet – you can see it inside! Pretty cool!
This morning two MORE butterflies were born! I was up late last night (past midnight) and they weren’t out when I checked. When I came downstairs a little after 7am, they were “born”! The wings were still wet so they weren’t flapping around. The kids let them go when I was at work – bummer! But at least I got a few shots before I went to work.

There’s ONE more left yet to hatch!Then yesterday before work, Amber looked so cute sunning herself in a patch of light. Of course by the time I got the camera out, she moved! Brat!  I was trying to get her attention and Mr. Jealous (Buddy) had to snoop and see why I was paying so much attention to her!
What about MEEEEEE!!!  I’M the cutest!!  :-)I have been thinking…………..what should be my new obsession once I’m done with photography? I’d love for one of those “hobbies” to be decorating! So I’m *trying* to get better at putting together little “collections” here and there around the house (much to the DISLIKE of my hubby!)

I got the mustard yellow “H” and the black sign with all the words/sayings from the General Store in Minnetonka (totally inspired by Shelley! LOVE her decorating style!!), and the number “4″ and shelf from the Front Porch in Anoka. The camera I got from Craig’s List (as part of a HUGE buy – like 10 cameras – a couple years ago) and the little “yesterday, today and forever” is from TJ Maxx. The frame is from Pottery Barn (old again – I’m trying to re-use and shuffle around stuff to make it seem “fresh” and new!). Family photo by the wonderfully talented Melissa!I got this COOL little picture collage from Target!  $19.99!! The window from an antique store, and the candle stick & frame from TJ Maxx (a LONG time ago though). The camera was my grandpa’s! The saying I got from an antique store in Anoka.I couldn’t decide between the COOL pictures at Target, so I got this one too for the laundry room. The other little laundry sign I got at the General Store in Minnetonka. The four 4×4 frames Scott got from work (they were throwing them away!) Photos from www.melissalouise.com.  :-) nighty night!

We did go out of town for a couple days for my sister-in-law Kristy’s 40th birthday party (more to come on that!) and we stayed with my parents on their little farm.  Here’s Sugar!  My dad said that he and Sugar were having a talk the other week and she was saying how much she’d like to have a boyfriend.  So he put an ad on Craig’s List asking for a boyfriend for her and in no time at all, they had Willie over for a “date”!  It was apparently successful and Sugar should be a mama in about a year from now.  My dad doesn’t like keeping boy donkeys around (they try to ‘get with’ almost everything that is female and has four legs), so Willie was out of there as soon as he served his purpose.  ;-)Then Shadow had a talk with my dad and said that it wasn’t fair that Sugar got a boyfriend, but he didn’t get a girlfriend!?!  So they went and bought a girlfriend for him (also from Craig’s List!) Meet “Sunshine!”  She’s soooo adorable!  She looks like a mini palamino!So in about 11 months or so, these two will most likely be parents!  :-)btw….this was Shadow almost three years ago when they first got him – he had been so badly neglected/abused.  He’s changed so much!  Lost all his fuzz too!

So my dad’s “hobby” is the animals and taking care of them….that and fixing up old cars, etc. So what does my mom do when he’s busy with that?  She’s a Master Gardener and bee keeper of course!  Here are some of her beautiful flowers that happened to be in bloom (or almost in bloom!) when we were there.

{her current FAV!} btw….all the animal photos were taken with my 24-70 f/2.8.  The flower ones/mom were with my 60mm f/2.8 macro – all on manual focus.  :-)

It’s actually my parent’s 45th Wedding Anniversary today so Happy Anniversary mom & dad! I love you both very much!

Thank you to all the men and women that have fought and are still fighting for our freedom! We remember you today and always!