As I was saying in my post earlier today (yep I am making more than one post today LOL) I have been working on improving my photo editing skills. Below is a layout I made using some of Chrissy W's great new stuff go check it out in her store here. If it is of any interest to you... I use PSE6 and here are the steps I took to edit the photo below. I still have lots to learn but I am having fun.

The first thing I did was edit the eyes to sharpen and brighten them - select eyes with lasso & create new layer. Filter>Other>Highpass with a radius of 4 px. Change the blending mode to overlay Merge layers. Copy photo layer and then edit copy to black & white leaving the color photo under it in the layer pallet. Use soft brush eraser on the B&W layer to let eye color show through. Copy B&W photo layer and use a soft brush to paint some pink on the cheeks. Change this layer mode to soft light lower the opacity then merge the layers.

The eye brightening trick I learned at The Daily Digi and you can check out that tutorial in full Here.


I wanted to alert you on some fun times ahead at the Scrap Orchard. I have been asked to oversee the challenges at the Orchard and I look forward to participating in as many of the challenges as I can. Points can be earned for each challenge and you will then receive a coupon code for discount shopping at the Orchard store. I hope you will join us in the fun.
I had told those who attended the Craft Classes that Cheyenne and I put on earlier this month that I would share the link for the way fun colorburst cupcakes that we made on the first day of class. Now let me warn you.... this lady has many other fun and great ideas for food on her site so be prepared for some time lost as you surf around there LOL. My cupcakes weren't quite as picture perfect as this one but they were still lots of fun and YUMMO!
Also in our Craft Class we made a "Box of Fun" and I want to site my source of inspiration as The Daily Digi. Yes.... I love that site and get lots of inspiration there. The list of 100 things to do that we put into our box we made are at THIS LINK and you may find that some of the ideas would make great Activity Days for church callings or whatever. Enjoy!
How was that for a random post? Just had lots of tid-bits that I had saved up and decided to blog them all at one sitting. Have a great weekend.

A Little Photo Shoot

So I took about a half an hour out of my evening last night and took Savannah out on a mini shoot. I was really happy with some of the pictures I took and wanted to share. Isn't she cute? I didn't bother to comb or fix her hair or to change her outfit but just took her as is to capture her everyday look. Now I just need to take a little time and get the other 3 kids out for a little photo action. It has been a while since I went out with my Nikon to really try to get some good shots instead of just auto mode LOL. I almost forgot how fun it is. I have also been practicing my editing and trying to learn a few tricks.

Project 365 Week 28, 29 & 30

Another 3 weeks have flown by! I just can not believe how fast the summer has gone. I really did have grand visions about how the summer would be spent and we have only done a few of the things that I thought we would but hey... seems that is how every summer goes. I was reading an article in Woman's Day that asked if you are a Summer Mom or a Back to School Mom. It was really quite humorous. I guess mostly because I could so see myself in the article. If I get a chance I will post some of the article in a later post. So if you had to guess which one I am.... Which would it be?

Also I want to give a big shout out to all who supported Cheyenne's craft classes. They completely filled and we had a waiting list but no one on the waiting list got in because everyone showed up. She is looking forward to some back to school shopping with her earnings.

Jounaling reads: We attended the Pioneer Day Picnic on Thursday. On Friday Savannah came in dripping blood & said she cut herself on a balloon -now how do you do that? It was a latex glove that had been filled with water and then it popped when she was holding it and it snapped the skin off her inner forearm. We are now harvesting a bit from our garden and made yummy taco salads. Meg didn't play with her new ball as much as I thought she'd do. On Tuesday we went to the Chuckars game. On Wednesday I froze peas.
Credits for both week 30 & 29: Thank You For This Day by LCC by Amy Stoffel, template by Brooklyn Designs, Font - 39Smooth

Journaling reads: Yet another week has come & gone. Savannah swam at a neighbor's until her sunscreen was gone. We had our day of babysitting Meg like usual. I started taking the coupon subscription to the paper to get my deals & ice cream was my major deal this time. I got 36 pints for $4. I spent lots of time with Cheyenne preparing for and teaching some craft classes to get her some back to school shopping money. Clayne spent lots of time fixing the sprinkler system.

Journaling reads: 9 Thurs. Went to the library with Savannah. She is a good little reader this summer. 10 Fri. Went to the drive in movie with Savannah & Carson. Saw Ice Age three. 11 Sat. Clayne built me another food storage shelf & then arranged the food for me. 12 Sun. A weird weather pattern wind blew a big poplar tree down in our back yard and that night was a lightning storm. 13. Mon. A fun day with Meg. 14 Tues. A sprinkler head broke at 2 AM and flooded the boys bedroom. 15. Wed. Finding creative ways to use Cheerios that I bought a while back for next to nothing. Since the kids are too picky to just eat them for breakfast.
Credits: Scrap Orchard July Mystery Mega, Freebie 26 Template by Chrissy W., Font - Adler

Cheerio Treats:
Bring 1 C sugar & 1 C light corn syrup to a slow boil stirring frequently. Remove from heat and stir in 1 C peanut butter. Return to heat and boil 1 min stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour over 6 C cheerios & stir well. Add 1 C mini marshmallows and stir in. Spread in a cake pan and pour 1 C chocolate chips over the top. If the chocolate chips don't melt well enough pop the pan into a preheated 350 degree oven for just a few minutes & then cool completely.

So This Wasn't Our Best Week

So early Tuesday morning (2 am) our sons came to our room to tell us that water was POURING into their bedroom downstairs. Turns out one or our sprinkler heads broke and flooded into the window well and they were right... it had leaked under the window and was flowing like a river in there.... ok maybe not a river but at least a stream. We quickly removed everything from the floors and threw the boys mattresses out in the living room downstairs so they could try to get more sleep while we moved out the rest of the furniture and cleaned up the room. BUMMER is that it was the last room in the basement that we finished... not even 2 years ago. The carpet is completely ruined as is the pad and we now have had the restoration crew here to cut the sheet rock under the window out so that the wet insulation could be removed and fans were placed in the room for 3 days to dry it out. Needless to say that the week has already been VERY long. We got the boys settled into the spare room (luckily we have one) and now we are waiting to get going on the repair work. This is SO not our best week!! Oh well... guess it could have been worse - it could have happened while we were on vacation last week and then it would have ruined more than one room. Thanks for listening... just had to vent a bit. I don't even want to think how much $$ this will be since the homeowners won't cover it since the water came from outside of the house.

Oh and remember that weird weather we had last weekend? The strong winds and lightening? Well the wind blew over one of our big poplar trees in our back yard. Again... trying to see the bright side - if it had waited to fall in a year or two it may have been big enough to hit the house but right now it wasn't quite that big - probably 5 feet short of it. This week is bound to be better!

Paper Craft Classes

So I told Cheyenne she would receive the same amount of money for her back to school clothes shopping as the boys get and she started to realize that her taste in clothing would exceed the budget I give her. She asked me to help her find a way to make some extra money. I designed craft projects for three classes and she will then be assembling the supplies and teaching the projects in some craft classes next week. The classes will be for girls ages 6 - 12 and will be held at our house (in the garage) on Tues. July 21, Wed. July 22, and Thurs. July 23 from 1:00 - 2:30. The cost is $5 each class or if you want to take all three the cost will be $12. There will be a limit of 10 students in each class so if you are interested call ASAP. If by chance you do not have our phone number leave me a comment here on the blog. I am posting the projects below so you can get a better idea of what we are offering. Excuse the poor photography... I have a million things to do today. Don't hesitate to call with questions either.
Tues. July 21 Box Of Fun This box will contain 100 slips of paper - each with a fun suggestion of an activity that your child & family can enjoy doing together. This will go a long way in helping when the kids say that familiar, "I'm bored."
Wed. July 22 About Me Book In our class we will complete 12 pages and place them in a cute binder as shown. There will be little areas for your child to fill in some text as well as to insert some photos (they will add text and photos at home). It would be fun to let your child use a digital camera to take their own photos to add to the pages when they get home. If you would rather, they could just draw pictures in the photo spaces. The binder does allow for up to 40 pages so there will be room to add more pages at a later date if you desire.
Thurs. July 23 Note Card Set In this class your child will make a set of 6 note cards as well as a decorative box to place them in. This card set can then be used by your child, or they could give it as a gift to a grandparent or teacher.

Oh You Poor Neglected Blog

I kept thinking I'd get a chance to blog but a whole month went by and I didn't find the time. Now I suppose I'll just bombard my blog with my 4 weeks of Project 365 layouts. We just returned home on Wednesday from a week at our Bodily Family Reunion in St. Anthony, Idaho. We had a great time with all the cousins. All but one of Clayne's sisters was able to make it. We hope that maybe next year we'll have 100% attendance. His sister Kami had a set of twins this past year and the travel would have been long and difficult. We attended the fireworks in Rexburg for Independence Day and I was greatly disappointed. Idaho Falls just has such a spectacular show that this one was not even close to being what I am used to. Oh well... next year. Now I am just trying to get things back in order after being gone so much. We had only been home for less than a week from our Utah trip - see below.

Credits for project 365 layout week 27: Scrap Orchard July Mystery Mega, A Photo A Day Templates Set 2 by Chrissy W., Fonts - Do I Like Stripes, Adler

The latter end of week 25 and beginning of week 26 were spent on a Utah trip. Clayne needed to work and so I loaded up the kids and took a trip down. I took them to our Condo up Ogden canyon and then from there we made two day trips on Tuesday and Wednesday to Lagoon. We took advantage of the bounce back deal they do to make it a little more economical and I used some coupons from Deseret Book for the first day. It still was pricey enough - I used to go to Lagoon as a girl when I was growing up in North Salt Lake and of course it was lots cheaper then lol. The kids had a great time and we only lost Carson once. I thought I did pretty good keeping track of 4 kids in an amusement park by myself. After we had our Lagoon days we traveled further south and went to Clayne's brother's house near Richfield where we dropped Cheyenne off for the week. They brought her back when they came up for the reunion. It was good for Cheyenne and I to have a break from each other. Since she became a teen - sometimes there is just too much estrogen in our house LOL.

If you like the templates I used on my layouts for the past 3 weeks you can pick them up on sale right now at Elemental Scraps where Chrissy is the Featured designer for the week and has a great sale going on. You will find a link in the credits.


Credits for project 365 layouts weeks 25 and 26: Lucky by Amanda Heimann Designs, A Photo A Day Templates Set 2 by Chrissy W., Fonts - Soopafresh, CookieNookie

For credits on my project 365 week 24 layout see previous post.