Friday, November 20, 2009

Fix it Friday 37

Today is Fix it Friday at I ♥ faces! Today I used a layer with overlay blend mode and grayscale to paint brighter her face and the background darker. I then used coffeshop's bold pop action, adjusted brightness layer, flattened image then added skeletalmess's chaotic soul texture in multiply blending mode. at 50% opacity. Done!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

i heart faces Autumn Beauty week


This week's theme at i ♥ faces is "Autumn Beauty." Although I haven't seen any changing colors around here yet, I do have a picture of a little beauty wearing fall colors in October. I used some textures from skeletalmess to make it feel more autumny. If I recall correctly we had news of snow back west in our home state on this same day. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about this autumn is that we can still wear shorts and T-shirts mid-November.

Friday, November 13, 2009

More Zoo


Last time we went to the zoo we didn't dare try any more than the petting zoo, and even that seemed to be a little lackluster for our little princess. Although it's only been about 3 months since then, she has learned enough new stuff to make the zoo a fun place.
This time Bella had been working on her animal sounds, her favorite being the cow. Every time she spotted an animal that day she shouted "MOOOOOOOOOO!" We tried teaching her the correct sounds but discovered that we don't know what most animals say (anyone know what the giraffe says?), and a disproportionate amount of zoo animals say "Raaaaaaaaar!"
Although the animals interested her this time, nothing captivated her like the merry-go-round. we decided it was worth an extra 1.25 to take her a second time. That girl was a load of fun!

Friday Night Date Night


Last week we commenced our Friday Night Date Group. We found two other couples so far (we are still looking for another couple...) and we rotate babysitting every weekend so we can go out every Friday (less the one when we watch all the kids). Bella loved having two girls play with her all night. They thought she was their personal baby doll and passed the time wrapping her up in blankets and carrying her around the apartment. Bella had perma-grin all night.

I Heart Faces Fix it Friday


Today's i ♥ faces challenge was fun. I started by sharpening the photo, then did the Coffeeshop action Bold Pop. I lowered the brightness on brightness/ contrast layer to -6 then flattened the image. I used spot healing for the little boogers near his nose, then graussian blur at .8 pixel radius to fix the ones inside his nostril. I added a new overlay layer with grayscale and used white paint at 70% opacity to brighten the eyes. On the same layer I switched the paint to black and lowered brush radius to 5 to define the eyes. Then I added texture. I used a couple textures from Skeletalmess in his Roughed Up collection. I changed texture blending modes to multiply and added layer masks to remove texture from his face and body (used brush at 10% opacity and repeated until I was satisfied). The textures darkened his skin so I added another layer in overlay blending mode with grayscale and used white paint to brighten his face and skin again (10% opacity brush, repeated until satisfied). Flatten and crop. Viola!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween Princess and FrankenRyan

Bella was Snow White this year, in case you didn't notice, or don't know the Disney princess names (she got called Cinderella a couple times). She was quite the trooper, and just like last week, she wouldn't let go of her candy bucket until we put her in bed. By the end she opted to relax in the stroller while we did the work for her. She wouldn't even lift the bucket to make it easier for people to put the candy in it.
Ryan ended up being a quazi-Frankenstein's Monster for Halloween, but it wasn't planned. He was at baseball practice for a tournament he signed up for at work when he got hit in the eye with a fly ball. I was getting Bella ready for bed when he called and told me he had a big surprise. FYI, you shouldn't call your wife and tell her you have a big surprise unless you are talking about a king size Snickers. I was really excited until he walked through the door with an ice pack on his eye. It took until 10 pm to convince him he should get stitches (thanks Anika and Ryan T.) but he didn't go get his 6 stitches until 10 the following morning. Thanks to my googling skills we figured out how to make a butterfly bandage that held him together until then.
By the time he got to work that day pictures of his accident had already circulated the city hall network in an email titled, "Eye Got it!"