Mommy Moments: Photo A Day, Flip Flop and The Paper Mama!

Tomorrow is the last day for this fun challenge so I wanted to get my last pictures posted!  I finished the challenge.  Not in order or in a timely mater, mind you, but I did it! Whew!  Now go check out all of the amazing entries. . .

1. Where/What I Spend My Day.  {Umm does Target count?  We are frequent visitors and it looks like Stella's eyeing up a new pair of galoshes.}

5. Just Can't Get Enough {of the time when she is NOT demanding something or torturing her brother.} :)

Also linking this one up to The Paper Mama's awesome Photo Challenge.  This week the theme is pink! Go Check it out and play along!

8.Makes you go Hmmm?/ or Yumm! {Miles enjoying his favorite fruit on a warm spring afternoon.  Definite YUMM!}

12.  Thankful/Blessed {that I'm not doing it alone with these crazy kids.} ;)

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And before I forget, I think you should head on over here (Amy's fun blog, Little Adventures) and try out your editing skills!  It's a fairly new challenge and I'm the guest judge.

For those of you that know me well, you know what a tough time I'm going to have in picking a favorite!  Go play along and make it harder on me! :)

Flip-Flop Photo Edit Challenge

**Updated** 

Thank you so much, Amy!

Another fun editing challenge can be found here.

Stella is napping and I just couldn't reist this lil' cutie.  Here is the original photo by Amy Lillian.  Those little curls are killing me!!

And here is my edit!  I guess I'm having a black and white kind of week!

Took it into lightroom and converted it to a black and white with a preset called Caramel by My Four Hens.  Tweaked the levels by increasing the blacks and decreasing the contrast.  Used the brush tool to sharpen his eyes up.  I did lose a little detail when I cropped in close and straightened, so that sharpening really helped.  Then, I brought into Pickmonkey to resize and add a watermark.

That's it!

Now go check out Amy's cool blog and play along!!

:)

Finagle A Foto

EDITED TO ADD. . .
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I love me some photo challenges and I discovered a new one!  It is sponsored by three awesome blogs Happy Jax, The Artsy Girl Connection and The Foreign Domestic.  I'll wait while you check them out! :)

I thought this photo would fit perfectly for both of the themes this week: RULE OF THIRDS and THE SKY IS THE LIMIT.  This was taken of my gorgeous friend who is expecting her THIRD babe in June.  Good thing I love her.  Otherwise, I would have to hate her for looking so good! ; ) Taken on our Girls Weekend a couple of weekends ago in Minnesota.  In MARCH!!!  I still can't get over our weather lately.

Now go check out the other entries HERE you can like your faves or enter your own!

Edit Me

**Edited To ADD...Yay!  Thank you for choosing my photo, Pam!

I decided to give the fabulous Edit Me Challenge another go this week.  Here is the original photo by Pam Bowers at Kassie's Beach.  Look at the landscape!  And the beautiful kids!  I can't wait to do photographs like this when my kids are a little older and will sit still for 5 minutes.  Absolutely gorgeous!  Here is Pam's SOOC shot!

And here is my edit.

Photo by Pam Bowers

I would say I did about 98% of this in Lightroom.  I did my usual messing around. . .cropped and adjusted contrast, blacks, fill light, exposure, brightness, to taste.  My goal was to brighten up the kids and I initally used a brush to brighten and saturate the background as well, but decided I liked it better faded looking as the children stood out a little more.  I also tried to de-contrast their clothing a bit, because I couldn't see many of the details after I tinkered around too much.  Have I told you how much I love that brush in LR??  It really helps when I feel I have overdone part of a photo.  Finally, I brought into photoshop and ran Soft Sunshine which gives a bit of a warm hazy look.  I always bring the opacity way down so it doesn't look too unnatural, but I always have a bad habit of doing that anyway.  Trying to work on that! :0  My goal was to make it earthy and warm.  I think that's it!

Edit Me

So excited to be in the top 3!!!  Thank you!

I took a couple of weeks off of the Edit Me Challenge so I could finish up some other stuff, but I'm done and decided to jump back on the editing wagon and try to do something with this gorgeous photo by the very talented Stephanie from Behind the Camera and Dreaming and Gray Mornings Photography.  Look at this cutie patootie!!!  He's givin' me a serious case of baby fever.  Oy!

Photo taken by Stephanie from Behind the Camera and Dreaming.

And here was my take this week!

I began by cropping and adding some more to the right side of the photo.  I did this with the cloning tool in Picnik.  The rest I completed in lightroom.  Increased fill light, exposure, and increased the blacks slightly.  Messed with sautration (increasing in some areas, decreasing in others), tinkered with hues, sharpened and smoothed out with some noise reduction.  I'm probably missing something.  I used the brush to brighten and sharpen up the eyes--they look so blue/green!!

And a black and white for fun. . .

Thanks for looking!! :)  Now go check out all of the other cool edits here.

Edit Me. Week 6

Thank you, Selena!!

Check out this gorgeous SOOC shot from Selena at Stoneyville  and  Selena Stoney Photography.  Gorgeous couple, gorgeous lighting--so fun to edit!

Okay, my plan was to go for a warm, vintage look. And since the shot was pretty awesome SOOC, I just decided to have fun with it.  Here are the steps that I took.  And if I missed one (I probably did), I apologize.  I loved the composition of this photo so I just cropped a tiny bit off of the right side (making sure not to cut off that pretty flare--Oh I heart flare) and added just a tiny bit more to the left so that the couple was directly in line for rule of thirds.  I pinked and yellowed up my photo using the white balance sliders in lightroom.  I also played with fill light, contrast, shadows, lights, darks and ran a preset called Trusty (from M4H) and brought into photoshop and ran sunshine and a pastel pink haze over the photo adjusting the opacity to about 30% for each. Also after all of my edits the shadow between her blades started to look really muddy so I smoothed that out in picnick using a cloning tool and airbrush.  (So sad picnik is closing;().

And just for MORE fun, I did a couple of black and white conversions trying to keep that old school look. . .

Thanks for looking! :)

Paper Mama "Favorite Photo" Challenge

Updated:

Paper Mama Top 5.

 Eeeek!  So excited.  :)

For this challenge, you enter your favorite photo from January at The Paper Mama (very fun photo/diy/motherhood/beauty/pretty much everything blog).  This was one of my 365 photos last week. Man, I adore this lil' crusty face.

  Sass and all. :)

Sorry I couldn't get the button to work!  Here's the THE PAPER MAMA!  Go check out her awesome blog and enter YOUR favorite photo from January!

Thanks for looking!! :)

Edit Me

Practing my editing skills over at the Edit Me Challenge again. What a great way to learn different techniques and find fun, new blogs. Here is the original photo from Artsy Girl Connection.  It was taken at the Disney Animal Kingdom.  How cool is that?  

And here is my edit.  Okay, it might be bit much, but I decided to have fun with it and make it feel like this scene was from a children's story book.

Here are the steps I took in editing this photo:
Opened up in Picnik.  Cropped and cloned out umbrella and people in corner.  Also cloned out some folliage in right lower hand corner.
Then I opened up in Lightroom and ran a fun and free preset called Toy Camera.  That is what gave it the frame and the slightly hazy/whimsical feel.  I will try and find the link.  I know I found it on Ashley Sisk's awesome blog.
I adjusted exporsure slightly and sharpened, as well.
Finally, I opened up in Photoshop and ran Florabella's Soft Sunshine.

Thanks for looking! :)

Tootin' My Horn

for my first button ever on anything!  I made it into the top 3 for the Edit Me Challenge this week and I'm going to have no shame and tell y'all about it.  Especially because there were so many awesome edits which I loved.  And because the judge is such an awesome photographer.  And because it will probably never ever happen again.  This might be MY MOMENT and I'm not going to pass it up! ;)
The winner even gave the little bear his hand back--how cool is that?  Man, I need to learn how to do that.

First 'Edit Me' Challenge

I thought I would jump in and try this challenge called "Edit Me" on this awesome blog.  Someone submits a photo and everyone edits it how they choose.  I need a lot of work in the editing department (in every department, really) so I thought I would give this challenge a try for some practice.

Here is the original (ADORABLE) photo which was taken by the very talented Tara.

And here are my edits.  Due to the fact that this was my first time, I didn't write down all my steps as I was doing them so these are just from memory.  I will do a better job of documenting my moves next time.  I swear.

Cropped photo.

Cloned the corner with the window.

lightened and brightened (in photoshop)

Did a slight air brush (in picnick)

Ran Blue Ginger and lowered opacity some (Florabella Action) for the color version.

Converted to black and white for the second photo and brighted up a bit more.

And for my final edit that I'm entering into the challenge I cropped in a little differently.  I'm always drawn to photos with negative space so I thought I'd try it on this one.  Not sure if it works.  Obvisouly had to clone a larger area.  

And I added a little Soft Sunshine (Florabella) to my original color edit.

Thanks for looking!!