portrait challenge

Since some of you were asking about that picture I took of Crew (see May 18th post), I thought I'd go ahead and share all my deep secrets. Kidding. No secrets. SO easy. Have a favorite blanket or even an old sheet? Tape it to a wall or drape it over a chair. I hung this blanket from our countertop in the office and temporarily secured it on top with tape (or you could use a pile of heavy books or something).

Put your subject in front of the blanket, but not right against it. Bring him/her toward you a couple feet (or more, if room allows).



Then zoom in and start shooting.



See? No real secrets. Oh, except natural light is a MUST. The window is behind me, so all that light on Crew is completely natural. You don't want to use a flash for portraits. Here's another favorite blanket. Same concept.





So here's my challenge to you: If it's been a while since you've taken a nice portrait of someone you love - your child, your pet, a friend's kid, a friend, even your husband ... do it! Go for a walk, get outdoors, do some fun & candid shots outside. But give the indoors a try, too. All you need is a backdrop, a camera, a willing subject, and the desire to snap away.

Of course it's a bonus to have Photoshop for a little digital editing with your images when you're done snapping. : )

follow-up to previous posts

In response to the things you're wondering about from my previous posts ...

[ 1 ] The colors for our kids' albums are yellow for Claire, green for Porter, and blue for Crew.



Those red albums are our family books. These are all from We R Memory Keepers. If interested, you could probably do some online research to find the best prices.

[ 2 ] The font I used on the baby shower pictures (and everything lately ... really) is called Gill Sans. In fact, I used it on the baby shower invites, too.



Gill Sans in light, regular, bold, and even italic. Seriously. I use this for everything. The font at the top is CK Becky, my handwriting font (which is available as a free download here). I just used one of the pictures I've taken of baby's feet and added text ... all in Photoshop. Keeping it simple.

(Obviously for this version I'm sharing online, I don't have contact info ... but I still wanted you to be able to see the entire design.)

[ 3 ] For those Kindergarten books, I happened to have a collection of random 6" x 6" albums from various companies in my stash from being in the scrapbooking industry for the past dozen years. So that's what I used.



I don't have any more of those little albums, so if I were to do it again for another class, I'd probably do a spiral binding at the local office supply shop for these books.

Some of you are asking for the template on those Kindergarten pages. There are 2 reasons why that doesn't really work in this case: First of all, it's a Pages document (not Word) and secondly, I designed these monthly pages specifically for Porter's class and so it's unique to what they did and doesn't really apply to another classroom.

It's simple to create this type of page, however. Just create a text box in a Word (or Pages) document. Type your text, however you choose to do it. If you want to add an image for the kids to color, what I did was just do a google image search for various things and I dropped & resized those images right into the text box. That's it. Just printed the pages on cardstock and cut them to size (6" x 6").

day of random topics

Wanted to answer more of the questions you've been asking lately, so I'm going to be all over the place today. : )

[ 365 IDEA ]

First, just sharing another thought on what you're recording/capturing ... whether it's for Project 365 or not. Think about a funny quirk or habit that you or one of your loved ones has right now. Not necessarily a lifetime/long-term thing, but just some little thing that years from now, you'll hear yourself saying "Oh yeah! Remember when so-and-so was totally into ... " (fill in the blank).

Our Claire is obsessed with rollie pollie bugs lately. She goes outside numerous times a day, digging and searching for rollie pollies, and collecting them in a cup until we encourage her to put them back where they can survive.

This was yesterday's potd:



[ SMALLER PICTURES ]

You have a fellow blog reader here who wants to share step-by-step information to those of you who are interested in knowing how to get a couple smaller pictures on one 4" x 6" print. Click on this file below. A huge thank-you to Krista in Ohio!

Collage%20directions.doc

[ SHOE BENCH ]

Regarding the shoe bench in one of my recent pictures of the day ... we found that at IKEA. But I'm not sure that they still have that same one. We got it a few years ago.

[ WHY NIKON? ]

I've gotten a few questions about my DSLR, and why I've chosen the one I am currently using. First of all, for those of you who don't know, my husband David really is the techie in our family. Not me. Between him and my ultra-techie-genius brother Kevin, I completely trust their technical choices.

That said, our current DSLR is the Nikon D90. We have always used Canon. Always. Until this camera came out in last September. We bought it literally the day before Crew was born because it was the first DSLR to offer video capability. We have loved doing video clips on our point & shoot for years (we never use a traditional camcorder anymore) and we wanted to try it with SLR quality. So despite the quirkiness of the feature (we have to manually focus while recording) ... it is awesome video quality. And fantastic picture quality too, of course.

And now ... Canon has the video feature on their SLR now. Go figure.

Oh, and someone wanted to know which lens I use. It's the Nikon 18-105 mm.

[ BACKUP ]

Speaking of technology, what we use for backing up everything on our Mac is Time Capsule (the hard drive) with Time Machine (the program that comes with every new Mac).

[ NEWEST IDEA BOOK ]

For those of you who love staying current with the latest & greatest in scrapbooking, CK has a new source of great ideas. It's called Easier-than-Ever Scrapbooking 2 and you can check it out here. In fact, here is a coupon code you can use between now and May 31 for 15% off your purchase of this special issue: QEYB-5778-ULYB. (Note: It's not valid if combined with any other discount offer.) Feel free to share it with friends!

got my SLR back from the shop

Oh, how I've missed it! Couldn't wait to snap some pictures this morning. I didn't have to look very far for a willing subject. : )



In other news, the school year is wrapping up. Porter and all of his classmates have each completed a little scrapbook to keep. Kindergartners learn so much, so fast. Besides the reading & writing skills, I have been amazed with their handwriting improvement.



So each month of the school year, I went in and took pictures of each child involved in some special activity that month. And each month I brought in some cardstock and other supplies and they created a two-page layout with their handwriting, their coloring, and their picture of that month. Here's a look at a few of Porter's layouts.



I had them sign their name on each layout, each month, so that they could see their own improvement in one little project. The best part was just being in the classroom with those kids on a regular basis, and seeing Porter interact with his friends.

party ideas

Hello, and Happy Day to you ... wherever you are and whatever you're doing. I had a baby shower for a dear friend this past weekend and thought I'd share a couple things from that.

This table was just inside the front door ... a place for guests to sign in ... scrapbook-style.



The sign said:



This was the layout I pulled together using stuff from the Baby Kit, since that's what my friend is using to put together their baby's first year album.



And I left it up to our guests to sign in:



(Woah. I promise that's the same layout. One looks purple and the other looks pink! The pink is more true to the real colors. I've been using various cameras the past couple weeks since my camera's still in the shop.)

Guests were also invited to take a small gift with them. These were sooo easy to put together. My kids even helped with the mass-production. : )



1. Cut strips of patterned paper to fit the notepads (2" tall to wrap around to the back side).
2. Use an all-purpose craft glue to wrap the paper around the top edge.
3. Use the same glue to adhere a flower and then a bit of bling (gemstones like these can be found in craft stores and WalMart)

That's it! Simple. Cute. And practical. Who couldn't use a little notepad next to their computer, in the kitchen, by the phone, or in their bag?



Then ... in the kitchen, these were hanging above all the food so guests could see baby pictures of mom, dad, sister, and brothers ... and maybe even imagine who baby-to-be might look like.





How to:

1. Print 4" x 6" pictures of each family member as a baby ... times two.
2. Use preferred adhesive and apply evenly on the back of each picture. (I used that all-purpose craft glue because this is a craft/decoration project, not meant to be preserved for the scrapbook or anything)
3. Place a short piece of string or ribbon (as long as you want it to be) on that glued-up back side.
4. Place another picture, back-to-back, which will seal the string between the 2 pictures.

These ideas can be adapted for a birthday party, bridal shower, anniversary party, etc. Oh! As for food ... among other yummy dishes, these were a few things we had at the shower: ham & swiss rolls, red velvet cupcakes, and corn & avocado salsa.

meal planning

There are some inquiries about my meal-planning system. What I do works for me. It's not a perfect system. If it were, I'd have a homemade meal on the table for my family every single night. But it works. I've been doing this for years. I just created a document, which has two weeks' worth per page.



Then I print them out every couple weeks (and cut it in half, of course). This little piece of paper stays close to me (by our computer, in my wallet, in the kitchen) most of the time.



This is a look at my current week's sheet. (Happens to be today's picture for Project 365, too.) What you see here is an on-going shopping list so that when I run my errands I'm never wondering, "Now what did I need here?" The list doubles-up as my meal planner for the week. I simply listed the days of the week, with a note of "what's going on" for each day. This helps me map out what the week looks like in the context of dinners. Will we be home to eat as a family? Is David on-call? (If so, I don't cook.) Do we have company for dinner? Will I be busy right before dinner (crock pot day!)? You get the idea.

So first, I map out the week at the bottom. I put an * by the days I know I am planning to make dinner. Then I plug in some meal ideas on those days and build my grocery list from there. Whenever something comes to mind of what I need to get at Costco, Target, or other stores, I add that to the list.

In case this might be helpful to you, click on this file to download the pdf to your computer: meals.pdf