My cup almost runneth over

Did you know that fingernail polish remover will only remove the fingernail polish if you don’t rub it? If you accidentally get it on your nails and avoid all friction thereon until it dries, it will not harm your perfectly done nail job. Amazing.

Soooo…let’s update. Last week found me with the revelation that my husband just might be right and I need to start getting to bed early to make my life less of a living hell (see this post for the full explanation). Now ask me how well I have done putting this theory into practice.

Do you even have to ask?

Let’s just say that Monday night I was up until a little after 1:30. L NOT good. Needless to say, when my alarm went off for me to get up early so that I could get to work early to make up for the torture chamber visit yesterday…I turned it off subconsciously instead of snooze. And this would be the one night that I forgot to ask Spencer if he had remembered to set the alarm.

Do you know that they say firemen are more likely to die early from heart problems? This is because they are in a state of rest, or sometimes sleep, when the fire alarm rings and then it jolts them awake and causes their heart to jump (not literally…at least I don’t think) and this is detrimental to their heart.

6:15 a.m. scenario at my house. Spencer sits bolt upright in bed and looks out the window. “What time is it? Oh shit! What time is it?” (side note: my husband never cusses so he was definitely panicked)

I immediately jump out of bed, wide awake, cursing the whole time.

I feel sorry for firemen.

But I must share with you the fruits of my labors. I have within the past few weeks, and even more so this weekend, learned more about Adobe Photoshop than I have the whole time since I have been introduced to it. I don’t know how I ever survived without it. Once I begin working on it, I am totally addicted and entranced. Even more exciting for me is the discovery of this website. This woman is absolutely amazing and hee-hi-ho-larious to boot. She has this kick butt tips on how to use photoshop and a whole new world has been opened up for me. My cup was about ready to spill over because I finally see what my photos have been missing to where they don't quite "POP" like other peoples. Only thing that would have made my joy complete is if I could afford the printer I so desperately need...want. SO let me share some of the fun I was having with it.

This is an image of my absolutely gorgeous friend Leslie from Cali. Good shot, I love it so that is why I decided to play with it.

Now, you probably can't tell as much until you make the image bigger but I used a few newly learned tricks to make create more blur while still keeping her features sharp. This way her skin looks creamy and dreamy...ok that didn't sound so good, but you know what I mean.

Now, THIS is more dramatic. I call this my "movie star" shot. I was able to accomplish this by using the altered photo you saw above and adding a cool new action that I downloaded from the pioneer woman's website.

In the middle is the original shot and surrounding are my alterations.

Unfortunately, the way blogger works, when I create a diptych, they do not upload so very big but hopefully you can click on this to make it bigger to get a better idea of what I was talking about. :D I'm having so much FUN!

So much so that I continued playing with the same technique mentioned above on my favortie shot of a bride from the last wedding I shot OVER A YEAR AGO....sheesh I am out of practice.
Cool huh? And here I selected the eyes and then desaturated the rest of the shot to give it an old timey feel. I'm really digging it.

So, I'll have to show you guys the pictures I worked on of this adorable little boy in our congregation next time. I think I have inundated you with enough pictures for today.