Christmas 2009

What a lovely week we had this Christmas.  My mother arrived from California on Friday evening.  We spent the weekend doing some shopping and getting ready for the arrival of Nichole, Noah and Adam on Tuesday.  This is the first Christmas we have actually spent together as a family here at home in quite a few years.  Usually we are all together before or after the big day.  But this year we were very blessed to all be together.  Noah was a joy to watch and we only lost one ornament and one Christmas glass.  So all in all Christmas was a success. 

My gifts were several Panodora beads to go onto my second bracelet and an external hard drive.  I know, a hard drive???? But seriously, since I started digital scrapbooking my disk space is filling up quickly.  Matt even got me the special edition piano black with chrome trim.  This will truly come in handy when I take my digital organization class so that I can store all my embellishments, brushes, papers, trims and templates.

Hope your Christmas was a wonderful one as well.

Happy New Year. May you all have a very healthy and prosperous 2010.

Thanksgiving 2009

Who doesn't just love Thanksgiving?  All the wonderful food, family and of course football.  Our Thanksgiving this year was very quiet compared to last year.  Only Meghan, Matt and Jessica were here to celebrate with Mitch and I.  It was so nice to have no pressure to make the meal perfect.  However, the sweet potato casserole was probably the best I've ever made.  The recipe was given to me from a friend back in 1991. I've made it every year since then.  This year I made it the day before and let it sit in the refrigerator until 1/2 hour before cooking it.  Just wonderful.  The topping was so crunchy and really set off those canned sweet potatoes. Even Connie wants the recipe as she said no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without it.

As usual we did join the Schneiders for their annual Thanksgiving dessert gathering.  It is so nice to go visit with friends we don't see often. Not to mention the desserts really rock.  This year I made a wonderful chocolate cake to share with everyone.  It tasted fabulous.  My friend Pam would be so proud of me!

Here are two pictures of our lovely day.

Missing Car

Seriously, you cannot make up the stuff that happens to my family. This morning as I was leaving I didn't see Jessica's car. So I asked Mitch where she was. He said he didn't know.  So I called Jessica to see where she had spent the night. Turns out that Jessica was upstairs sleeping. So then I asked her where her car was. She said that it was parked in the driveway. No little VW bug in the driveway. I totally started to panic. Looked in the neighbor's yard to see if it had rolled down the hill. No car. By this time Jessica had gotten up and she was so panicked that she fell as she was running down the stairs. She swore she drove it home and parked in the driveway.  Finally after the fog of sleep had liften Jessica remembered that she had left it at Brandon's house and he drove her home.   Mitch and I were so ready to call the police.  Convertibles are easy to steal due to the fact that the alarm won't go off if the roof is split.  Thank goodness the car was safe over at Brandon's.

New Header

Well, well, well, I just spent 2 hours making the new blog header.  Again, I can thank Jessica Sprague for helping me to learn some new tricks.  Her video's are so helpful and informative. Her classes are very easy and straightforward.  They are all done via video and you can pause, rewind fast forward and play them over and over again.  The screenshots of Photoshop Elements are very helpful and it's easy to see where you should be making adjustments to the tools and layers etc.

Today on Jessica's blog she mentioned how addicting her classes are.  And honestly to me they have been.  I want to take every single one of them and look forward to the new year and new classes.

Making this new header was really fun.  Being creative is such a good outlet for me and very relaxing. This weekend I'll be diving into a new class that I picked up off of Jessica's web for one dollar.

Rounded Photo Corners

As I was catching up reading some blogs, I came across Pioneer Woman's weekly photo challenge. This week's challenge was creating rounded corners on your photos in PSE or Photoshop. They were pretty easy and since I was feeling creative I added a texture as well. Here is the finished project.

Halloween Project

Last year Scarlet Lime Kit Club offered a cute special project for Halloween. Unfortunately I missed out on picking up one of the kits. But this year I was able to pick up their kit project for Halloween. Using last year's directions and this year's kit ideas I was able to construct my own "Spooky" banner. This project was super fun and I enjoyed just putting all the cute little embellishements onto the banner. I've attached a few (not so good) photos of my completed project.

Been a Long Time

Been a long time, Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely time . . .

These are familiar lyrics from a Led Zepplin song. This song came to mind tonight as I realized I haven't blogged in almost a month. Honestly, I was never really consistent with it, but a month between posts is ridiculous.

The new job is very, very busy and that keeps me tied up most of the day. My new digital scrapbooking hobby is also taking quite a bit of time. I love it and enjoy the time I'm spending creating pages and learning new techniques.

Today was a beautiful sunny day in Georgia. Not sure how long it's been since the sun has been out. So we decided to drive up to Dahlonega and visit Matt and his girlfriend Jennifer and go to Gold Rush Days. The festival was nice and it was great to see so many people. Mitch, Meghan and I were able to meet a lot of Matt's friends as they all were enjoying the nice Fall weather too.

The photo of Matt and I was taken on Matt's deck outside his house that he is renting with 3 other guys. They are having a blast and enjoy the house. It sits right above the river and they tube down the river and walk up the deck stairs to their pool. The other photos are the view from the deck up the river and the pool. The house is actually built into the cliff and there are huge rocks along the back side of the deck. It's quite the setup.

Hope you enjoy the photos. Make sure you enjoy the beautiful weather for as long as it's here. It will be winter before we know it.

Happy Fall!

Homecoming 2009

Last weekend (September 19) was Jessica's last high school homecoming dance. They had a group of 47 kids all eat dinner at Jessica's boyfriend Brandon's house. I was on hand to help out with the festivities. The kids all looked so good. The boys were handsome and the girls so grown up and just down right gorgeous.

Jessica went to the hair salon to have her hair done. After the stylist finished her hair she said "Jessica, I just think something is missing." She literally ran next door to the Dollar Store and bought the beautiful silk orchids that matched her dress perfectly.

Dinner was catered by Moe's and I must say it was delicious. The kids all enjoyed themselves and the rain cleared up just before they got there. It was a great evening for all.

Hope you enjoy the photos. Some of them have the Perfect Portrait PSE action downloaded from the CoffeeShop blog. Check them out if you like the effect on the portraits.

Jessica and her boyfriend, Brandon
Brandon, Jessica, Jaime and Tyler
Brandon, Jessica, co-cheer captian Danielle and Clay

Majority of the girls in the group (missing Paige)
Whitney, Taylor, Jessica and Paige

Photoshop Elements Actions

Photoshop Elements has got to be one of the best pieces of photo editing software out there. Many times I've considered upgrading to the full Photoshop version, but just can't justify spending $600 or more on a piece of software. Well today, I've finally decided that I don't need to have the expensive version. My Photoshop Elements User Magazine came in the mail today. On the cover was the title "Action Central". That grabbed my attention right away. Having read about actions on various web sites I was very curious. While I could find free actions on websites the mystery still remained on how to use them, but most of all how to load them. This article solved both those issues.

Check out the photo below using the Orb action downloaded for free from the PSEU website. Additionally, the website provided several links to free actions and tutorials on how to use them. The Texas Chics Blogs and Pics had an awesome tutorial. Click here to access the site with great instructions on loading and using actions. Honestly the orb action took 2 seconds to convert the flower photo into a cool orb.

I'm off to try some more actions. I'm officially hooked.

Butterfly Pictures

In my email inbox the other day I received a newsletter about photographing butterflies. You need to shoot them in jpeg format (not RAW) and use a fast shutter speed. On Saturday Meghan saw this beautiful butterfly while sitting on the deck and told me to get my camera. I was very fortunate that the butterfly hung around and let me take his photo. It gave me an opportunity to put the tips from that email newsletter into practice. Sure hope you enjoy these pics.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."

More digital scrapping

Hi All,

Tonight in my digital class I learned how to apply a hand tint feature to a photo. The photo below is of Noah at Line Creek playing with a rock. He loves rocks and that day he had a pine cone as well. I just loved the softness of the hand tint look.

Since I was on a roll with editing photos I decided to do a search on word art. I found this beautiful beach quote and thought it would look really nice with an ocean photo background. I've also added a digital frame and will print this out and frame it for my photo wall or to put in the guest bedroom. Hope you enjoy my latest creations.

Here it is!

The other night during my digital brushes class, I was perusing the class gallery. I came across this awesome quote by Dr. Suess that someone had done a digital layout to frame and put up in their classroom. Since Nichole will be teaching first grade this year I thought it would be perfect for her to use in her room as well. While I was able to duplicate much of it, I did a different collage of brushes than what the original artist had done. I can't take credit for much of the design, but it sure was fun to do. Can't wait to see it printed and framed.

Digital Elements

Okay, I think I'm officially hooked on digital scrapbooking and PSE. Because I had so much fun with the free Photoshop Elements class I took last week, I decided to sign up for another class. This one was not free, but I figured for $25 it was worth a try. Boy am I obsessed. Every night I rush home from work, get whatever for dinner and then plop myself down in front of my computer for some PSE fun.

This new class is concentrating solely on using the brush tool. This is my favorite Elements tool and I've loved using it. But I was only scratching the surface by "stamping" an image onto my photograph and adjusting the opacity or only applying part of the brush to the image.

What I learned in tonight's class is that you can load a brush into your eraser tool. We used this to create a grunge or sanding effect on our digital element. It is such an awesome technique. Below is the project that I made using the eraser tool after building the element from scratch. It is saved as a png file so that you can put it on a digital scrapbook page or print it out and cut it from paper also. Very versitile and fun. Don't be surprised if you see this again in the next few weeks on one of my family photos.

Ready For More Textures?

As I mentioned a few posts back, one of the best digital scrapbookers, Jessica Sprague recently offered a free digital photo editing class. Lesson 5 was applying textures to photos. In the lesson there were links to several different sites offering many free textures. Some of the textures on the free sites are so awesome. It opens a whole new world in photo editing when you use textures. While I've tried my hand at using one texture on a photo, I've never tried 3 at one time. Shown below is the before and after of a unique tree that was in the water at Lake LBJ when we were there in July. I applied 3 textures and used the blending mode of soft light on each layer. After adding all the layers, I applied a free frame from Jessica Sprague for the finishing touch. Hope you like it.

Textures

Today I decided to try my hand at usung textures in Photoshop Elements 7. Nichole's mother-in-law is an awesome photographer. Recently, Connie took some beautiful photos of sunflowers. She was not happy with the color of the sky since it was an overcast day. Since I had read about textures in the PSE User magazine I decided her photo was the perfect chance to practice some texture techniques. Below is the result.

I've also attached a family photo from the reunion in Austin. This is my entire side of the family minus my brother and nephew, Joe. How about those shirts?

Family Reunion and PSE7

Today's post is about using Photoshop Elements 7 and a picture from the recent Puzio family reunion.

Last week the majority of the Puzio family descended upon Lake LBJ just outside of Austin, Texas. My sister, Shelley owns a lovely lake home right on the lake and we rented a home about 4 doors down for the week. There were 22 of us split between two homes. We had a great time. Fortunately we had the opportunity to take some family photos. As some of you know I worked incredibly hard to tie dye 24 t-shirts just for the photo shoot. The shirts all turned out great and everyone really enjoyed wearing them. The photo attached is of me and my 4 children at the lake wearing our shirts.

The reason the title of this post includes PSE7 is because the frame and word art was added using PSE7. I'm taking a free photo editing class from JessicaSprague.com. She has lots of great video tutorials on using this wonderful photo editing tool. Feel free to check it out. You'll also be seeing more of my family reunion photos enhanced with PSE7 as I learn more skills.

Thanks for visiting.

Beach Fun

Hi Friends,

Checking in while on vacation. We've been having a wonderful time down here in Satellite Beach, Florida. The weather is beautiful and very warm. Our condo looks out over the water and has been very relaxing and enjoyable. Wish we could have a place like this year round. Oh well. . . maybe some day.

This morning we got up at 2:00 since we were hoping to catch the shuttle Endeavor launch. Unfortunately, they scrubbed the launch due to a hydrogen leak. They thought they had it fixed from Saturday's scrubbed launch but apparently not. Fortunately for us we checked the news before leaving to go to the park to watch the launch. This is the second time we've been in the perfect spot to watch the shuttle and it was cancelled.

Meghan and I did get to go horseback riding. It was very hot, but the scenery was lovely. The trail was through the Florida coastal forest and quite unexpected since there really isn't much of it left due to condos and Disney World development. The ride was enjoyable and we had a great time.

As Jimmy Buffet would say "The weather is here, wish you were beautiful." This song has been going through my head all day.

Here are a few photos from the day today.

New Photos

Tuesday on my way home from work I was going to shop. But got sidetracked when I saw this beautiful Magnolia on a tree. It wasn't in anyone's yard or on a company owned piece of property so I drove by twice before stopping to pick it. I brought it home and took a few photographs of it. It's just placed on the lawn as I thought the green grass would add a nice texture and make the flower pop. I'm pretty pleased since I just used my 28 to 300mm all purpose zoom.

This second photo is of the butterfly pictues I made for Jessica's friends for graduation. Jamie Payne created the original design for our Scrap Retreat project. Jessica liked it so much that she thought it would be neat and different to give to her friends for graduation gifts. I made a few modifications like changing the ribbon color and stamping on the tag. But all in all I pretty much left the perfect design in tact. Hope I did your design justice Jamie! Many thanks to Debra and Jamie for helping me gather all the flowers and other items to make these beautiful gifts.

JESSICA YELTON

JESSICA YELTON

Posted using ShareThis

Memorial Day

Posting once a month is just not going to cut it. Not sure how to make updating my blog more manageable, but something has to be done to improve updating my posts.

Project 365 is coming along. I'm behind, but then so is Becky Higgins. While she is not that far behind it was nice to know that she is not perfect either. She is however, quite the inspiration. Her blog post on Friday got me motivated to work on updating my Project 365 and trying to catch up.

Yesterday we worked in the yard and managed to plant 4 Hydrangea's, 3 Knock Out rosebushes and several of the pots on the deck. Now if only the rain would stop.

Since today is Memorial Day, I would like to thank all veterans and those four men in my family that have sacrificed many hours (and their lives) to serve our great country. Mitch's father, Rebel, was a career Naval officer and was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombed on Dec. 7th, 1941. My father, Fred, was a career Air Force officer and served in Viet Nam. Mitch, a career Naval officer like his father was blessed by not having to fight in any wars. My brother -in-law, Ron is still serving in the Air Force and is currently the Air Defense Attache' in Brazil. He also did a tour for the 2nd Gulf War. To these wonderful selfless men I give my whole hearted thanks to serving your country and helping to perserve our peace and way of life.

Prom and Birthday

Gee, it sure has been awhile since I posted. My apologies. But I am back with news of prom and my birthday. Both were on Saturday the 25th. The weather was fabulous and very warm. Perfect day to have the girls out in their gowns on the grounds of a lovely historical home site complete with arbors, Gypsy horses, pillars and sunshine.

Prom was held at The Foundry at Puritan Mill. You can check out their website by clicking here. The pre prom meal was at Luckie's Diner which is Brandon Hannon's aunt's restaurant. Tara had the entire upstairs patio reserved for the kids and they had bar tenders, waiters and a DJ for the time they were there. They had a blast.

The picture of the iris are from a bouquet that Matt gave me as a birthday present. They are one of my favorite flowers and proved to be perfect subjects for my Project 365 photo for today, Monday the 27th.

Keith Urban

As many of you know, I'm a huge Keith Urban fan. Imagine my excitement when I opened my email today with a link to ilike and all the new tracks from Keith's new album, Defying Gravity. The new album will be released on March 31st, but you can listen to all the tracks here.




Thanks Keith for the new songs. They sound great.

Weekend in Texas

Meghan and I just returned from a nice long weekend in Texas. We had a wonderful time with Nichole, Adam, Noah and my sister Shelley and her family. Wednesday we visited Waxahatchi and ate lunch at an awesome little tea room. Thursday we took a 3 hour drive to Austin and ate lunch at the best ever Mexican restaurant, Chuey's. We then drove up to Lake LBJ for a great weekend at my sister's lake house. Shelley and Bob recently remodeled their lake house and it's beautiful and so comfortable. The weather was fabulous, low 80's and sunny. If the water had been warmer it would have been perfect. In spite of the cold water we still got in some jet skiing, inner tubing and boating. It was nice to see the kids having fun and getting along together. Noah actually made it through the weekend without falling in the lake. That is an accomplishment.

Here are some photos that I took while on the trip that will go into the Project 365 scrapbook.

Project 365 Photos

As an update to my Project 365, I thought I would show you two of my most recent photos. These both were taken this week. In fact one was taken just tonight. Hope you enjoy them.

The moon photo was done Tuesday night after we went to Jessica's concert. I had the tripod set up in the middle of the street. It was fun.

The sunset was taken tonight. I drove all around town trying to find a good place to take a shot of the sunset. Guess I did okay, but would have liked it better if there were no power lines in the way. Maybe since it's so colorful you won't notice.

Have a great Friday.

Snow, Birthday and Toilet Paper

Huh? The last 3 days in our house have been very busy and interesting. Sunday we had about 3 inches of snow here in the middle of Georgia. The snowflakes were huge and came down fast. Snow is not something you see very often here in Georgia, much less large snowflakes. It was really beautiful. Mitch and I took the dog out on the golf cart and had a nice drive around the golf course. We threw a few snowballs and took some photos.

Monday was Jessica's 17th birthday. She is growing into such a lovely young woman. Before I know it she'll be off to college and we'll only have Meghan at home to keep us company. Jessica's boyfriend Brandon came over for dinner and we had a nice evening complete with Jessica's favorite meal of London Broil, baked potatoes and Delicious Salad (that's the actual recipe name). The cake was chocolate, complete with raspberry sauce. Yummy.

This morning dawned sunny and bright but with a big surprise. Some of the seniors from McIntosh had decided to toilet paper our house. I must say, they did a great job. They used at lease 12 rolls of toilet paper and stuck plastic forks in the grass. The driveway was covered with dog food and lots of words written with shaving cream. Fortunately, they did not get any on Jessica's car roof or paint. Shaving cream will eat away the paint on your car in no time. Some things you just know from experience. At least the little antics provided some good laughs this morning. Enjoy the photos.