Yesterday was the first day of spring, and the last day of Spring Break. I took the girls to the zoo, but first we went to a shoot location I scouted a month or two ago. These photos were taken at a cemetery, but I told the girls they were ruins of a castle gate. With ice cream for bribery I got a few good shots.

It is tough getting both of them to pose, smile and keep their eyes open at the same time! I was also very disappointed in my ability to properly expose the photos with my Nikon 1.4 mm lens. I hope the 2Peas 12 weeks to better photos group starts back up because I’m in desperate need of some structured practice!

I have not been blogging much lately because I’ve been setting myself up to do scrapping for hire (S4H). It is mind boggling how much digital scrapbooking art there is out there. But, there is a lot of sub-par product and finding good product that you can also use commercially is like finding a needle in a haystack! After spending a pretty penny at the few widely known online stores I was happy to find a few great artists who have very S4H friendly arrangements.

This double page spread uses two alphabets by Christina Renee; ribbons, butterflies, and floral “frippery” by Tracy Ann; and paper by Ruth Davis.

I just love Tracy Ann’s frippery. It adds such delicate bling and dimension to the page. I made the two large pictures on the left be a slightly colored Sepia as follows:

1. Copy your picture
2. Turn it to grayscale and back to RGB
3. Apply a Sepia photo filter
4. Paste your color picture back on top of the Sepia
5. Scale down the opacity on the color layer to less than 20%
6. Then merge the layers after you get the look you want

In my mind’s eye the the “ribbon frame” and the “frippery” breeze of flowers on the left are blowing color into the page on the right. Maybe if I start scrapping 2009 “digitally” then eventually I’ll get moving on the pictures from 2006-2008!

I enjoyed “meeting” Christina and Tracy via email and look forward to working with you in 2009!

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