and now she has curtains. sorta.

Another step towards finishing Kat’s room.  Curtain rods!

I had a bit of a hard time finding exactly what I wanted.  It didn’t seem like I was asking for much… white, wooden, double rods, with the main rod having some girth, and finials that were pretty and yet simple (but not too simple!), and still substantial in size (I wanted them to stand out a good bit against the darker paint).  As it turns out, I’m lucky to find double rods at all locally, forget about white wooden ones fit for a little girl’s room.

So I stumbled upon the JCPenney website and found these on sale.  I had some issues with JCP customer service (rude responses, not answering my questions, etc)… but the rods finally arrived, in one piece and they’re perfect.  Yay!  (Still undecided as to whether I’ll shop JCP again.)

The curtains are Pottery Barn Kids chambray curtains that used to hang in Jag’s room a few years ago.  We’ve changed the colors of his room since then and they no longer matched, so I’d packed them away hoping to reuse them.  While they aren’t exactly what I wanted for Kat’s room, they’re close enough that I’m not going to bother spending money on something new.

As you can see, some of the panels are a lot shorter than others.  I bought 4 panels in all originally, but only ended up using 2 in Jag’s room.  I bought the extra long panels because they were on clearance, so I had to shorten them for his room.  So the other 2 panels are still extra long.  I can’t let out the hem on the shorter ones because even with a wide hem, there’s still not enough fabric to reach the floor, so I think I’ve decided to cut the long panels down to match the short ones, then sew a wide white eyelet ruffle to the bottom of all 4 panels so that they reach the floor.  (I recently saw some wide eyelet ruffle sold by the yard at Joann’s - it will match Kat’s crib skirt perfectly!)

I realized after taking this picture, that after I get the curtains hemmed and trimmed, all I’ll have left is to paint the dresser and hang wall art!  Not that those are especially small jobs, but they’re not huge either so I feel like I’m almost done!  Yay!

teacher appreciation week

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, so I’ve put a few things together for Jag’s teachers (both the primary and assistant teachers).  They looked so pretty sitting on the dining room table (my gift/decor holding area - not like we use that room for anything else!), I thought I’d snap a picture.

Today I sent in hand-dipped (by me!) chocolate pretzels, so those aren’t pictured here.  The gift bag in the back is classroom supplies - dry erase markers and eraser.  The yellow and green tin watering cans each have a cactus and gardening gloves (in colors matching the cans).  And up front, my favorite chocolates - Lindt truffles, assorted flavors.  Mmmm!

Jag’s also going to sit down and write each teacher a thank you note to take in this week.

prettying up the house

Is “prettying” a word, and if so, did I spell it correctly?

Anyway.  Speaking of cameras and pictures…

this is what I’ve done in my foyer.  I’ve been collecting a variety of stuff to decorate my house with for a couple of years now, and a lot of those items still haven’t been hung or set out.  Seriously, two posts previous when I said I’m a slacker?  I meant it!

So this is where I finally started.  Right inside my front door.  The mail/postcard rack was a clearance find at Pottery Barn last year.  Frames were purchased during one of Michael’s 50% off sales year before last (hence the old prints in them - I need to update those), antique cameras were gifts from my antique-savvy Mom several years ago (there are a lot more I haven’t put out yet!) and the little red table was actually a recent find, 30% off at World Market (I also got a smaller, matching one that is sitting on the opposite side of the front door but I have nothing on it or over it yet).

A little progress in my Finally Decorate the House project! 

that “green” toy camera i mentioned?

We love it!  All the pieces and parts really move, it’s bigger than I expected and it even smells good!

I highly recommend it!

PS.  Took this with the Canon 35mm f/1.4 L.  I’m renting it just to try it on for size.  I really love it!  I’m thinking I’ll probably be upgrading to a full frame camera this spring or summer, so I’m not ready to buy.  I need to get the feel of full frame first.  But this is the 2nd L prime I’ve tried and fallen in love with.  Seriously thinking of trading in 2 of my 3 L zooms for L primes.

tgif!

Long time no post, eh?  I thought I’d brush the cobwebs off the blog and post a few random things while Kat eats her breakfast.

• I logged into WordPress today to see that it looks completely different!  I wanted to update the look of the blog, I think it’ll have to wait a couple of days while I click through and explore.
• floor update - it’s taken longer than we thought.  Jason cut his thumb on a coping saw and it slowed him down considerably.  We’re in the home stretch though, only the laundry room left!
• after the laundry room floor is done, we’re going to take a break (a forced break, actually - Jason has business out of town and then we have family coming into town for Kat’s birthday), but then we’ll move on to tiling the bathrooms.
• speaking of Kat’s birthday, because we took on the flooring projects, her bedroom won’t be done by her birthday.  I feel terribly guilty about that.
• I got Jag a little fish tank for his room; he’s loving it so far!  He picked out all the decor… red gravel, a skull for the fish to swim through/hide in and a few little plants.  He’s got a reddish purplish male betta and 3 rasboras in there now, and we’re thinking of maybe adding a couple of cory cats soon.  He’s been good about feeding them everyday without me asking.
• I’ve been feeling yucky for a long time now, and finally found out this week it’s vertigo.  Not fun.
• Kat’s had a verbal explosion lately.  She’s singing, counting to 10 and pretty much saying everything she needs or wants to say.  It’s funny to finally understand what’s going on in that little mind of hers - she’s quite a character!
• I’m in a photography slump, one of those where I don’t feel like taking pictures, and the few pictures that I do take, I’m really unhappy with.  I know this is pretty typical for all photographers (this isn’t the first time I’ve been through it), but it’s always so painful for me.  I’m ready to get back into the swing of things and feel good about my work again!  I’m thinking of updating my version of Photoshop and investing in Lightroom in hopes of a fresh start.
• I’m addicted to the Packrat application on Facebook.  I’m too embarrassed to say how much time I’ve wasted playing at night after the kids are in bed.
• I bought this as part of Kat’s birthday gift, and it is just sooooo cute.  Seriously.  I almost hope she doesn’t like it so I can keep it for myself.  (also, I bought it from that very site and the transaction was flawless)

That’s all I’ve got for now - it took me over an hour to type just that with all the interruptions.  More later!  (and email replies as well, I’m WEEKS behind - I’m so sorry!)

valentines for kids

  

Season wrote up a little thing over at Photojojo Uncut about the Valentine’s Day card I made for Jag’s class last year.  Making the cards is super easy, and I promise you will get a ton of compliments from the teachers and other parents!  She gives a good explanation, but if you have any questions specifically about how I did mine, feel free to drop me a line.  (I’ve included a copy of the back of the card above as well - he went through a stage of loving knock-knock jokes, so it made perfect sense to include one.)

holga fun

I’ve had a couple of Holga cameras for years now, but I’ve never had anyplace locally to get the film developed.  I miss the toy camera look, so I picked myself up some Holganizer actions for Photoshop this week.  I know, I know… not the same thing.  I really do know.  But they’re fun and they keep me satisfied.  For now. 

I need to dig the ‘ole Lomo Supersampler out…

shutterbudd

Honestly?  I need another photography/social networking site like I need a hole in the head.  But this one seemed kinda cool, so I signed up.  You can set up a virtual camera bag with the gear you have, make a list of gear you want, share pictures and label them with the camera/lens you used and also do some good ‘ole shop talking.  All that and I’ve only just barely dug into the site!

BTW, here’s where you can find me over there.

tennies and tutus

I skipped the copyright text on the image, but I’m gonna put it here.  © St3fani Gr33ne.  All rights reserved.  This photo is not free for the taking.  If you’re interested in using any of my work, please contact me for written permission.

black and whites

It’s time I shut my trap about kid and family stuff, and yammer on a bit about photography stuff!

My long-standing struggle has been black and whites.  I’ve tried the in-camera settings (bleh), pre-made (by others) Photoshop actions, gradient map, channel mixer… all with different formulas and tweaks.  I’m still left feeling unsatisfied and searching for just the right way to get a final look that I’m happy with.

I’d love to hear from any readers/photographers what your favorite method(s) are.  I’ll share one I took yesterday and share what I did.  I’m afraid I’m going to upload it and it’s going to look muddy, but here goes…

(sorry for the copyright - I’m paranoid and feel the need to make it absolutely.completely.withoutadoubt.clear that my photos are not free for the taking)

I shoot in raw, so I did my raw processing (purposely over-exposed a bit) and converted to jpeg.  For this particular shot, I used gradient map, and then used a curves layer to brighten the brights and darken the darks.  That’s it.  Resized, copyright stamped and done.  It’s looking muddy, isn’t it?  Any tips for that?

Edit:

Okay for the sake of comparison, here’s the same shot, processed in raw the same way, but I converted to b&w using the channel mixer and a curves layer.  Slightly better?  It might be the magenta cast I’m seeing that bugs me, not sure if that’s a calibration issue on my end or a result of my AdobeRGB -> sRGB conversion, or something else altogether.