New Photo w/Skeletal Mess Texture & Graphics Fairy Frame

There are so many good resources out there.  Two of my favorites are The Graphics Fairy for vintage prints and other goodies, and Skeletal Mess AKA Shadowhouse Creations AKA Jerry Jones for absolutely the best textures around--with the bonus that they are free of charge.

It started with a scrolled frame Graphics Fairy posted:  http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/2010/12/vintage-graphic-frame-scrolly-and.html

I spent hours cleaning it up--but it was actually quite soothing to clean off the background and, little by little, have the frame emerge intact.  I then converted it to a Photoshop brush.

That done, I had to play with it, of course, and it so called for a wedding picture.  So I started with a layer of solid red color, then the mask (a previous freebie by Digital Freebies with credits to Atomic Cupcake and Monica Larsen) above that, followed by the picture of my niece exchanging rings at her wedding ceremony, the Scrolly Frame brush, all topped with Jerry Jones' Aged2 texture at Darken 75%.

Don't you love it?

Works Like a Charm

Kim Cameron posted a wonderful charm on her Blue Ridge Meadows website which I promptly downloaded. Here it is after I've popped in a picture and clipped it to the green disk. I love it! Thanks very much, Kim.

Color In Black and White

We've been challenged! Kris Myers at Scrappity-Doo-Dah has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged us to create a black and white photo with color.  More details on the site at the Scrappity-Doo-Dah forum.  I do love playing with photos, and here's what I've come up with:

My husband, Mike, during a day-trip to Santa Barbara, CA

Unfortunately, at this size and resolution, you hardly notice the subtle coloring I've "added" in the eyes as well as the cheeks. But any more would have made the photo clownish, so I'm sticking with this. Believe me, I know how blue his eyes are (hehehehehehe).

Inspirations

I'm so jazzed to have found an exciting new (to me) blog created by Donna (of Tootlebugz), Day (of Day's Digidesign), and Linda (of Mrs. JayBob).

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to DigiInspirations at http://digiinspirations.com/blog/

I've been following Donna for a long time, and love her work. After visiting DigiInspirations, I'm beginning to feel the same way about Day and Linda.

They have some novel ideas, like PageStarters:





And, guess what?  This freebie is still available on their blog!


Check this and all the other cool inspiration at Digiinspiration.  I love great ideas that take us in new directions.  From a purely selfish standpoint, I wish these ladies well.  The rest of us can only benefit from their creativity.

Thanksgiving 2009 in La Jolla, CA

Thanksgiving happens to fall around my older sister's birthday, so we make an effort to spend it together as a family.  After dinner, we walked down to the beach in an effort to mitigate some of the damage from gluttonizing and/or overindulging in every way!  I got some decent shots, despite the fact that I am photographically challenged, both behind and in front of the camera.  So, it's always a pleasant surprise to see something come through that is somewhere within the realm of what I was hoping for.  The picture below was at sunset (duh!) and, after duplicating the photo and changing the copy blend to Multiply, I then added a blue canvas and a caramel texture, both from Skeletal Mess.

This is the original, straight out of the camera:

And, not able to leave well enough alone, I manipulated another copy with the blue texture only above the sand line, and the caramel texture below it.  This is not quite so dark, and has a completely different feel to it.

Ad Pictures for Upcoming Tucson Festival of Books

The Second Annual Tucson Festival of Books is fast approaching (March 13 and 14) and we're already scurrying to prepare and place our ads for our University of Arizona Alumni Authors Tent.  Here are some pictures from the Parade of Characters (from children's literature) featuring my good friend's granddaughter:

 

 

 

 

Aren't they just TOO sweet?!?

Wetfish Designs Winter Pix

Cyndi of Wetfish Designs posted some great photographs she took recently. One just spoke to me and I texturized it with a couple of Skeletal Mess phenomenal textures.