Love Letter to Kitty Paw

{Hendrix has extra toes.. thus the five toes on her pawprint.}
{And I edited this picture after I posted this to add the dots. It was too plain for me once I really looked at it. I hope this won't disqualify me.}

There are SO many cute and funny entries for this contest at Ashley's blog, Ramblings & Photos. You can check them all out HERE, and enter your own creation to win one of many fabulous prizes!! 

I really love these contests because the more creative things I do, the more I'm finding those little pieces of myself again that I seem to have lost on this journey of unexpected mommyhood. :)

Scavenger Hunt Sunday!

It's my first Scavenger Hunt Sunday! Just for fun... and because there was a jukebox emergency and Hubby had to go fix it or there'd be no music in the bars today. So... I can blog guilt-free until he's home! Haha!! :) Okay. So this week the items for which I'm hunting are...

Red ~ Homespace ~ Fence ~ Rock ~ Sharp

red ~ the new indoor/outdoor carpet i got from target. on sale.

homespace ~ generally what ours looks like!

fence ~ our fence. and my favorite birdhouse.

rocks ~ my daughters' rock collection on our front window.

sharp ~ i was going for the sharp corner of this old radio cabinet.

Go on your own scavenger hunt for these things! Share your photos at Ramblings & Photos Scavenger Hunt Sunday!

In A Yellow House ~ Work & Play

The In A Yellow House Photo Challenges are still being hosted by Ashley over at Ramblings & Photos. I loved this challenge because it really did "challenge" me. I really had to think about this one. So what did I end up with? This:

It's the wall in my kitchen, right next to my fridge, where my daughters lovingly scrawled in crayon. They did this months ago... possibly a year ago! I love it for so many reasons. Creative, I thought, of them to use the wall for a canvas. Creative, I thought, of them to 'match' the abstracts I have hanging in our kitchen. (I hung all my old college paintings in our kitchen.) I love the childness of it, the use of colors on the bright green background, the fact that someone randomly & miraculously drew a cursive L towards the bottom (do you see that too?). Of course, we had to discipline them when it happened - but now it serves as a reminder to them that drawing on Mommy's wall is a "No-No". And they tell me that often! :)

So how does this tie into this week's theme?? Work & Play??

Work for Mommy*. Play for Kids.

(*Well, I guess it would be work if I ever tried cleaning it up!!*)

Share your Work & Play pictures with the rest of us over at Ramblings & Photos!

Landscape Edits with Brent Riggs

Ashley, author of one of the blogs I follow (Ramblings and Photos), is participating in a photo challenge of sorts with Brent Riggs. Here's the deal****:

1.Download this original landscape photo he took by clicking here…

2.Do your own version of improving, enhancing and otherwise putting “wow” into this image.

3.Put up a post on your blog displaying your enhanced photo, and explaining what you did.

4.Come back to this post, and enter your photo and blog post on the Thumbnail Linky.

5.Then, Brent Riggs will do a private online demonstration of what he does to get his outdoor photography to come alive, and send a link to every person who participated by following these instructions and entered the Thumbnail Linky list.

(****instructions courtesy http://www.ashleysisk.blogspot.com/~ Thank you Ashley for letting me use your words!!!**** )

Sounds like fun, right? And on top of it, I'll get some pointers on photography from someone who knows more than me. Can't beat that! So, here goes! :)

Here is the original image:

Here is what my final edit looks like:

I rather like it!

Here is what I did to get this edit. I don't have any fancy schmancy photo editing software. I just use what came on our computer, Windows Live Photo Gallery, so my editing instructions might make no sense at all. :)

First, I straightened the photo out a bit, just a smidgen to the left (to make the photo turn to the right...)

Then I lowered the brightness and took the contrast to the ceiling (um, so moved the brightness about 10 degrees lower than 50 and moved the contrast all the way to 100).

(Unless otherwise noted, all edits are being moved from a 50% position.)

I moved the shadows up to about 75%.

I took the highlights down to about 40%.

And then I made the color temp a little warmer. I like what this did for the photo.

Then I messed with the tint a bit and settled for about a 45% tint.

Following the tint, I increased the saturation by about 10%.

My favorite part of editing? Sharpening and reducing noise. I don't know why, I just like it. So I sharpened to about 85% and reduced the noise (which brought the noise level pretty much smack dab in the middle at about 50%).

There you have it! If you'd like to join in, I think there is still some time left today! Enter your photos here.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone! :)