I heart Faces - Fix It Friday's 10-7-11

Well, it's Friday again ALREADY!

This week's FIF showcased a picture from one of my current most admired photographers. She is a newbie that has really made HUGE progress in only a year. I've never met her but follow her fan page on FB and enjoy her blog tremendously! She's such an amazing inspiration for someone looking to improve upon their photography skills! You can check out Liz's site HERE. Her daughter is her muse, (like my boys) and I've seen her sweet face often! So when I saw the pic this week I was excited to try my hand at the image!

One of my recent desires in editing is to learn how to even out and correct skin tones. I (along with many others) have "Asked Liz" on her Q/A section of her blog. I'm excitedly awaiting her tutorial post! In the meantime, I searched online and found a remarkable action from Rita at The Coffeeshop Blog. It's called Perfect Portrait 3.  It walks you through step by step how to even out skin tones, adjust the sharpness of the eyes, as well as whiten whites! ALL in ONE! It's by FAR my most favorite clean edit action to date!

The above image was edited using the Perfect Portrait 3 action with a few tweaks to adjust to my liking. I also cropped the image to make it vertical and avoid the crack in the concrete.

This process is so EXCITING and FUN! I have a feeling I'll be looking forward to Fridays from here on out! =)

I heart Faces - Fix It Friday's 9-30-11

Today I joined the online community of Photographers and Momtographers looking to sharpen their photography and editing skills. I've been following a few of my fave photographers online and one of them recently recommended the Fix it Friday's to improve editing. So, without further adieu...

Here's my attempt at THIS challenge...

I can't remember all the steps I took to edit this, but here are the basics.
I started off by using the healing brush on a few specks on her face. Then I did a Gaussian blur on the face to soften it. I enhanced the saturation on her shirt, sharpened the diamond on her necklace, and adjusted the shadows and saturation on the background. I'm sure I did a few other things but since I'm learning as I go I was more concerned with making it look the way I wanted and forgot to write down the steps... BUMMER. Here's to playing around! =) Such a pretty girl!

Master Bedroom on a budget!

This is sadly the state of our master bedroom most days....{Embarrassing I must admit!}

My husband and I are fortunate enough to have build our own home. We've lived here for just over 4 years now and STILL haven't really decorated our house with any sense of style or coziness. We've been busy living life and the room has just served as a dumping ground for extra stuff and a place to sleep. There's good news though! With baby # 3 on the way I can't help but wonder if the nesting instinct is kicking in early....I can't get the idea out of my head to actually decorate our room! It's sort of becoming my obsession! 

So... with money being tight and my other new obsession of Pinterest...I'm inspired to take the challenge head on! 

My goal is to have it completed no later than October 1st, and for $150 or less. I'm going to use stuff I've been hoarding...(another obsession - geeesh), found items, or re-purposed items. I'm generally pretty handy and like the challenge of a DIY project. I've got quite the plan in mind and look forward to seeing if I can pull it off. Anything will be better than nothing! And it may help to clear some goodies I've been stashing out of the garage and put them to good use!

Generally I wouldn't blog about such a thing but I figure it might add a bit of pressure knowing I put my goals in writing and online. I work well under pressure. =) Also, the net is awesome for inspiration and maybe I can inspire someone else to make something beautiful with less!

Here are a few of my inspirations... 

Please feel free to check out the rest of my inspiration and the sources of these images on Pinterest!

That's it for this post! 

Wish me luck....