No Time for Crafting Yesterday

We spent the day yesterday in Northwest Georgia visiting my kids' grandmother. It was a wonderful day for us and we enjoyed the visit very much.  A.G. and N.B.G.'s great grandmother will be celebrating her 86th birthday in another month or two.  She is a retired schoolteacher and always has such wonderful stories of her life to tell.  One of my favorite stories that she told us again yesterday (because I had forgotten details and wanted to hear it again) is the story of her wedding.  She and her sister had a double wedding.  Her sister wore a long white gown worn by two older sisters at their wedding and they took the dress to a seamstress who made an identical dress for her.  So their dresses and headpieces were the same.  There is a photo hanging in her house of the two brides and grooms on a staircase...I'll have to remember to snap a photo of it next time I go up because it is a great photo!  Here are a few photos of Jessie and her granddaughter and great grandchildren:

So...no crafting time yesterday....and now I'm waiting for A.G. to come spend an hour or two with me as his mother takes N.B.G. for her 1 month well baby check.

But I will get to the business of creating later today, I hope!  So hang in there with me!!!

One thing I wanted to share, though, is often times how I keep up with all the blogs I love to read!  When I go to bed at night I grab my iPad and open up the fabulous FLIPBOARD iPad app and go to my GoogleReader and read all of your fabulous blogs! It is so pretty to see in this format!  I love it and you all look so so pretty!  (You look pretty on my laptop, too...but I do like saying goodnight to you all by checking in with you before I go Night-Night!)

So, this is the way I see you...and this photo I took with my iPhone so it's not so great because my room was dark when I took it:



Judy, I think I see your blog there! :)

Now the other thing I wanted to share is this original photo and you can see it's a little darker:

I was reading Scrapbooks, Etc. magazine yesterday (June, 2011 issue) and there was an article on some photo editing.  I use Photoshop Elements 8.0 and am good with that program. I've looked at upgrading to Photoshop CSE but it is just so pricey and for my needs (basic photo editing) I think PSE is enough.

Anyway, I love to edit my photos a bit at times and a new tip I learned yesterday from Scrapbooks, Etc was with lightening a dark photo.  It was so easy...I've done it other ways and gotten similar results but the steps I used to take before reading this were much more involved.  Perhaps you knew this...I didn't.

1.  Open up your photo.

2.  Make a duplicate layer and stay on your duplicate layer and click on your layers palette.

3.  Click on "screen".

4.  It will lighten your photo significantly and then you can adjust the opacity to get the lightening you want.

And that's it!  Love little tips like that that make my life easier! LOL!

Well...A.G. is here and needing my attention!

Happy Crafting!

Baby Photography

As I've mentioned before I love dabbling in photography.  I sure have a lot to learn and lighting seems to be my biggest challenge.  I especially love indoor portraits (well, I like taking portraits outside, too) but inside lighting can create difficult situations in terms of getting something with the right amount of exposure.  I probably should learn to shoot in RAW so I can make adjustments more easily but I'm just a tad to lazy right now to learn that.
Anyway, here are some photos I've taken of NBG (ok...so her name is Taylor)  in the past week and a half:

I love baby feet...so cute and wrinkled!

Our diva in training....

Our little prima dona...

A mother's love...

Held up by her parents' hands...symbolizing the support that she will need need from them...

We have a shot similar to this of her big brother taken in the hospital when he was just a day or two old so my daughter wanted to duplicate it ...

So precious, so innocent, so pure....

*but one day she will be a teenager!

Expression Comes in Different Forms

I've already talked about how I love all kinds of expression here on the "Avenue"...I love art through paper...I love art through fiber....and I love art through photography.
Here are a couple of photos I took today of my little princess...our adorable baby girl who is now 8 days old.



I crocheted the cocoon for her and I think she looks so cute in it.  Here's another one:

And another....

And lastly...I call this one..."Diva in Training"!