{free} Mother's Day Card to you from Emme & Me

Just wanted to pop in and say hello and give you a Mother's Day card I've created just for you.  Simply print, cut it out and voila!  I hope you enjoy your card.  See you soon....

You can download your {free} Mother's Day Card at Media Fire or simply clicking on the image above.

IHF {Fix It Friday} #136

Here is my {first} attempt at editing a picture for I Heart Faces Fix It Friday #136.


Here is the original photo:

And here are my edits:

First I opened the picture in Lightroom, cropped in so I could emphasize his beautiful eyes!  Next I changed the white balance and raised the exposure, highlights and blacks just a bit.  Next I used a brush from Pretty Presets to lighten up his face, slight smooth on his face and eye sparkle.  Next I used a dodge brush to outline his iris and lash line on each eye.  Finally I did sharpen and slight noise reduction, sized for web and saved for wed.  Voila!   

Here I am!

I'm here!  I haven't left you!  Life just sometimes gets in my way and family business seems to take priority.  I'm sure you know how that goes {{wink}}{{wink}}


Something that I recently finished got me in the mood to {finally} send out a post.  One of my girlfriends, Trina ~ I'm sure you remember me talking about her in my post {sun flare} Photos ~ well, she asked me to help her create a Senior Yearbook Page for her daughter Audriana.  Audriana has been such a great help to me and my family (what a GREAT babysitter!) that I jumped at the chance to be part of her own special page!  Let me know what you think, ok?  I'd love your comments!

By the way, if you haven't taken a peek at her blog, it's one of my daily reads!  

You'll love it!

You can find her at:

They All Call Me Mom

And I promise.....I won't leave you for that long again! =)

{App} Cupcakes and Katelyn

Over the weekend, well the last several weekends, my niece and I have been working on some cupcakes that she wanted to bring to her friends at school on Halloween.  She's in middle school so she assured me that it was ok to bring sweets to school {I know, gullible Aunty!}  Anyway, she had an idea to make "app" cupcakes, cupcakes with "app" boxes on the top made out of fondant {like something you might find on an iPhone 4s}.  


Although it took several days, I am so proud of her and how she carried her vision through to completion!  She truly is my god daughter {ok, so the artistic side might, just maybe, come from her Dad...shhh but I'm claiming her all for my own!} 

Oh, and just as a side note, I've hit over 650 downloads on my Media Fire account and have created another custom order birthday banner! Woo-hoo!  I'm login' it.  I've always been interested in graphic design and am thinking about taking an Adobe Illustrator class.  I'll keep you posted on my future endeavors!

Until next time, 

Kristy

{photo} editing & Christmas Cards

This past weekend my hubby & I had such a great time at our friend Martha & Joemax's baby shower!  Blessed with a sweet, handsome & charming little boy, they're due with a little girl!  I'm over the moon excited for Martha!  Nothing is sweeter than a little baby girl!  


We had such a great time catching up with friends and dancing the night away!  Thanks guys for such a great time!  While at the party one of my girlfriends asked me if I could edit a photo for her, one she got on a photo shoot with a "professional."  I was immediately up for the challenge and since I had never really gotten to look at a professional's SOOC shots, I was excited to get to seen what shots a "professional" would get. 


Ok.  So, I got the photos.   Thank goodness this family is the most {adorable} family E-V-E-R and I don't think you could make them look bad if we put them in matching hotdog-on-a-stick uniforms!  Let's just say, the pictures I got made me feel like I'm done taking classes and my photography skills are way above par if this is what I have to compare them to.   Anyway, I wanted to share with you the before and after and what I did with the photo to get there.  




So...this is the {BEFORE}

The first thing I did was open the original file in LightRoom3.  Then I cropped in just a bit to take out some of the blacktop in front of their toes.  Next I took the head of the little girl and swapped it with another picture.  (The Mommy though her eyes were just a tad bit more open)  Then I ran a LightRoom preset from Willette called Kelly's Preset D3 {love, love her presets by the way}.  Next I whitened their teeth, smoothed skin tone, brightened their eyes...all in Lightroom3.  I'm so hooked on my new program.  If you don't have it, you can download it for a {free} 30 day trial here.  {Kelly's presets are a freebie too ~ joy!}  








Here's the final photo:  

Here's a sample of the Christmas Card I thought they would love:

Am I the only one who hasn't even begun to think of Christmas/Holiday Cards yet?  How about you?