So much scrapping news

  I swear, I have the best intentions for this blog. I think all I-can't-seem-to-post-regularly bloggers say that. I really don't want to ONLY post when I have scrapping stuff to share, but that seems to be what I'm doing. I'll really try to get back into some personal stuff on here, too. Because I love reading personal blog and some of you prolly like hearing personal stuff from me, too. Like about how my "baby" brother (who's 6'5") graduated high school yesterday and I cried my eyes out. And how, at that same graduation, I had to walk about a mile (because of parking issues) in heels and the result was 3 blisters on my feet, one of which has my whole ankle swollen (bleh!). Or how we're so inundated with Cicadas right now that I have a permanent drone in my ear, that I've finally been able to just ignore. And about how my little girl starts Gymnastics this Wednesday night and I am so excited for her, not to mention that she starts Preschool, at a REAL school, in 2 months and I just may die over that fact. So this is the kind of stuff I'm gonna try to post more often, even if it's just a little post.

Now, onto scrapping stuff, because I have the biggest news of my scrapping "career." When I started scrapping, I loved the creative outlet it gave me and I loved showcasing the pictures of my family and whatnot. Then I got accepted on my first CTs and those brought so much inspiration, motivation and scrapping mojo for me. Once I got more familiar with CT world, there were a couple of CTs that I wanted so bad, that it became my goal to be on them. I could feel in my bones how badly I wanted to be on these CTs. I loved the shoppe and/or designer SO MUCH, and for me, being on a CT is sharing my love for the designer/shoppe that I CT for. I want EVERYONE to see how awesome this stuff is. So the 2 CTs I wanted....I got on them!!! I could not be more ecstatic!

Even before I was on CTs, waaaaaaay before, actually, I was a fan of Misty Cato Designs. Her tutorials on her blog helped me when I was a fledgling newbie (still kinda am LOL), and her scrapper's tools and designs are A-MAHHH-ZING. And guess what. SHE. ACCEPTED. ME. ON. HER. CT. Unbelievable! I've never been so excited in my life, I don't think (ok, when I found out I was pregnant, that was better, but that's a bit different LOL). Just check out some of her kits:

Sing A Rainbow

Blending Masks

Friendship In Bloom

Quiet Reflection

Can you believe the gorgeousness????? My heart is sighing... And there's SO MUCH more at her shop at Sweet Shoppe Designs. (Oh, and pssst! She gives freebies, AWESOME freebies, out on her blog pretty regularly!)

And that's not all....ooooh, no, that's not all!! If you've read my blog in the past at all, you've heard my gush about my digi-home Polkadotplum. I even did a LO about how much I love it there:

Sweet Little Claire by Polkadotplum Designs
Journal mats: Animal Crackers by Digilicious
Title alpha (friends) - Sunshine and Happiness by Shiloh Designs
Title alpha (home) - Hodgepodge by Miss Tiina
Title font: Firefly Castle
Journal font: Daun Penh
Date Word Art: Date Stamps by Misty Cato

I got on the store CT there! I'm a Sugar Plum! I get to promote my love of PDP all over digi-land now! They have wonderful designers at PDP and they're having 2 guest designers every month for the rest of the year! Joining the amazing PDP designers this month as guests are Mye De Leon, who has gorgeous kits and Scrapping with Liz, who makes amazing templates!

Morning Hush

Chopped Paper Templates

So celebrate with me! I could not be happier! w00t!

Thanks for stopping by, loves!

Face Swap

   I've been editing photos almost as much as I've been scrapping lately. I love photography, but don't know very much about it. So since I'm not the greatest photographer, I have to edit my photos to bring out the best in them quite often. I'm getting much better at this. You can see one of my edited photos here, that I entered into the I Heart Faces challenge last week. I didn't win, but a lot of my wonderful friends voted for me. Thank you if you did! You're all the sweetest!

   A photographer friend of mine, Valerie, is always talking about her photo edits and how she swaps faces. The thought intrigued me and I knew just the photos I wanted to try it on. I have this set of photos I took when I was up in Washington for my sister's wedding. There was one with us all together, but one of my sisters didn't have the best look on her face, so I wanted to try to put her face from another picture in that picture. Thus, the "face swap." (You can click on any photos to make them larger.)

Here's the photo of all of us:

                                                                                       ^ (not the best look)

Here's the photo that I borrowed my sister's face from (LOL)

BTW, I love this photo so much. I wanted to try to put myself in this one instead of doing the face swap, but that was TOO HARD!!

OK, so here's the face swap with more edits needed, but you get the idea.

Another problem I was running into was glasses glare. My mother, me and all both my sisters wear glasses, and as you can see, the glare from the flash is pretty bad, especially on the face swap. So I took the time to edit the glasses glare. To be honest, this took longer than the face swap.

So here's the finished product, with face swapped and glasses glare fixed. Hot dog!!

 

It might not look like a very dramatic change, but I promise, if you look at them original size and sequentially, there's quite a difference.


Here's the page I scrapped with my hot dang newly edited photo:
                                (apologies to my brother-in-law Jon, whom I unmercifully cut from the photo)

Credits:

Template from Shabby Princess Template Challenge #9
Kits: Sun Porch and Plentiful by Shabby Princess
Word art: So Thankful by Miss Tiina

   I was so please with how the photo edit came out, and like the LO as well. Sometimes when you try something new, it's a relief to get it right, just to make the next time not so intimidating, you know?

   Thanks for stopping by today!