Quick Flyer / Business Card

I love doing graphic design stuff... I've never had any formal training but I've learned lots from youtube videos and just playing with Photoshop.  I love every time I get the opportunity to design something.  Yesterday I got to design a flyer for one of my moms friends.  It started with this picture:

She just needed a business card/flyer to promote some metal yard art.  In just about and hour I came out with this:

I've always been very specific about the font that I use for projects.  I think a font can change the whole feel of an item so I take a lot of time trying to find the right one.  I actually downloaded 3 new fonts just to use on this project. I only ended up using 2 but that's where the large portion of my time was spent.  My mom called me a "font snob".  I would agree with her completely and I will gladly accept the title.  My mom is the "bacon snob"... she will not eat bacon unless it the good quality, meaty, thick cut bacon.  We all have our own thing I guess : )

Photoshop Makeover

The kids are in bed... How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the original) is playing on the TV... I've been to the gym and a quick trip to the grocery store today... I'm wearing the remains of makeup from last night and I think to myself lets challenge my photoshop skills.

BEFORE: A photo I took with my web cam using Photo Booth on my Mac. (I personally love the smudge of black under my right eye)

AFTER: Using my trusty photoshop... Tools used: Curves, Clone, Dodge, Burn

Let me share something interesting about the way I think of myself.  In reality I look like the before, but in my mind I think I look like the after.  Not that the before is terrible but I think sometimes my mindset gets me into situations where I should have matched up the outside with the inside a little bit better just to fit an event or such.  Oooo wasn't that a fun look inside my head : ) 

Christmas Tree Extravaganza!

I was experimenting with some pop up Christmas tree cards and I came up with a few fun styles that I thought I'd share.  They aren't fully completed with a backing so normally you wouldn't see the dark area behind the tree.  Here they are....

This one is my favorite it's just a series of straight cuts varying in length. You fold every other one out and that creates the spaces in the branches.

This is how you cut the star... I made it larger so you can see but just size it down to fit your tree.  The fold is on the right side of the photo and you cut along the lines.

Then you fold the star the opposite direction and wha la!

Here is a variation of the same tree... instead of straight lines you cut at an angle. You have to cut the lines up if you want the "branches" going down.

With this tree you cut curvy lines instead of straight ones and you fold all of them out so it's more of a solid tree.  *sorry about the blurry pic

This one is kind of hard to explain but it's fun and different and think it would look great if the backing paper was white so you didn't notice the big cuts in the sides.

This effect was created by one cut slanting down and one cut slanting up and only folding out every other one.  I would like this one better if I wouldn't have colored the pieces I didn't fold out.

Why? You ask are you making pop up Christmas tree cards? My mom babysits 2 boys (8 & 9 years old) in the mornings and they were going to make a bunch of Christmas cards for all of the people at a retirement/hospice home.

All of these trees only took me about 30 min and there were even a few that I attempted new designs that didn't work out.  This is a great simple and quick craft that you can complete in a short amount of time with minimal supplies.

Heaven In A Bag

Today I made a wonderfully yummy, highly addictive batch of Heaven in A Bag... Tomorrow I am taking 90% of it to the gym to give away because I will eat it if I don't. Who better to give it to than a bunch of buff people who can handle a few extra calories : )  Above is my finished product to give away.

This is a close up of the Warning label... I think it's witty and fun not to mention very true.  If you notice the small type at the bottom it says, "REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO: JENS"  Jens is the trainer/owner of the Crossfit gym that I go to.  I like the way it turned out and the whole thing only took me about 30 min to create, print and assemble.

Family and Maternity

These are a few of my favorite pics I've recently done...

I wish this would have been my idea... but the dad pulled up his shirt and smushed up against his wife's belly.

She had the most perfect belly ever. Not a blemish anywhere... amazing!

I just love this one... she is so gorgeous.  I kind of forget she is pregnant in this one.

My sister and her family.  I asked them to give me their best rock star/air guitar moves.  I've never done that one before but I have a feeling I might be using it again.  I love it! **When we left this field our shoes were covered in stickers...my flip flops were so bad I had to throw them away. Note to self: wear tennis shoes for photo shoots**

I love sisters.

This is my Nana and Papa (my mom's parents)... This past saturday we celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. All I gotta say is I'm glad I have their genes and hope I look that good on my 50th anniversary.

I obviously didn't take this one but I used it in a slideshow we put together for their 50th anniversary with over 400 pictures and lots of old school music.  It turned out great. I just love this picture and the style of 1959.

*Great way to preserve your old photos if you don't have a scanner: you can use your digital camera to take a picture of the old photo and just crop out the extra*

Mmmmm Sandwich...

The girls love playing with pretend food. One day as I was looking through a craft blog I saw an idea to make a sandwich out of felt.  So here is my first completed sandwich. One down.. one more to go!  It's not the fastest craft because I hand stitched everything but it's super cute.

Everyone loves a good BLT!

The bread with some mustard... the mustard is removable.

What's a sandwich without some cheese.  By far this was the easiest part.  A few cuts and wha la a piece of swiss cheese!

I think it turned out really cute and I'm excited to see how they like it.  Needless to say I'll be playing with it if they don't and it has zero calories!

Naptime Creation...

I've recently seen a few different blogs on enhancing a boring t-shirt. I had one I had purchased at a yard sale for $0.50 that just didn't fit right so I decided to give it a try.
I apologize for not taking a before picture.
The problem with the shirt was it was too long and fit wierd around my waist... just enhancing all the wrong parts.
I started by cutting off about 4 inches from the bottom.  I used that fabric in folded strips to make the flowers and added some buttons in the middle for some interest.  I then did some small pleating on the sides to give it the wrinkled effect.  I hemmed the bottom of the shirt because it didn't seem to have enough bulk.  And wha la! A shirt that I'm actually going to wear. Not too bad for my first try...

The Pink Flamingo...

On Friday afternoon I realized that my gym was going to have a special Costume workout on Saturday morning... I tried to think of a fun quick costume to wear.  With no luck I googled some inspiration and found a photo of a pink flamingo costume, it was too hilarious to pass up.

So with a few yards of pink fabric, some black jersey fabric, pink tool, batting and a few pieces of card stock I created a hilarious costume.  It took about 4 hours of work to finish but it was lots of fun and not to mention a good laugh.  We did the workout in our costumes which was hysterical. That night I just tightened up the drawstrings and had my daughter wear it for trick-or-treating.

Magical Weight Loss Photoshop Tool

Today I was looking on Youtube for some new photoshop tutorials. I came across one that used a tool called "Liquify". I tried it out and these were my results. I was surprised at how quick and easy it was. It took a bit of practice to choose the right brush size but I made the adjustments you see in just a few min.

I'm excited to use it in the future for my editing. I know being "skinny" isn't the most important thing but I feel like so often people look larger in photos than in person and to be able to use this tool to show people as I see them instead of how the camera sees them makes me happy.