I have become addicted to playing along on Fix it Friday at I Heart Faces I have learned so much from the seeing everyone’s work. I hope I will be able to continue once school starts. For this week, the photo was of this adorable little boy:

Isn’t he cute? Reminds me of that scene in Home Alone! Here are my fixes.

First up, I cropped the photo down a bit, then I used the healing tool to get rid of the spot on his nose. I then ran Coffeeshop Rita‘s Perfect Portrait action.

For this one, I also cropped it and used the healing tool, but I used Florabella’s Luxe Sapphire action. It popped his eye color which I just love! For more edits go take a look at Fix it Friday on I heart Faces.

I found this tutorial over at Digital Photography School. I need more practice, but not too bad for my first try.

On July 24, I attended World Wide Photo Walk Day in Bradenton. The gallery about shows some of my favorite images. I edited them in Photoshop Elements 8. Let me know what you think and any suggestions would be appreciated!

This is my entries for I Heart Faces Fix It Friday The original didn’t need much done with it, but I had fun playing with some Florabella presets.

This is the Original. See, it’s lovely as is.

This is Florabella Allure

This uses Florabella Sapphire with Oh the Drama (I can’t remember where this action is from)

And finally, this is my favorite. I used Pioneer Woman’s actions Slighten Sharpen, Slightly Lighten then I added My Four Hens Watermelon Blush Action

For more edits visit I Heart Faces!

July 24 was World Wide Photo Walk Day, and as I never do stuff like this, I stepped out of my comfort zone and met up with about 30 other people and took photos around downtown Bradenton. I haven’t finished editing all of the shots, but here are three I have finished with.

I have never participated in Fix it Friday over at I Heart Faces, but this week, I decided to give it a try. Here is the “before” photo:

Here is my Fix:

I used Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac and I used layers from Kaleidoscope Dream Textures. I used Fiery Sky set on Overlay at 66% opacity and then I added Touch of Sun (Right) on Multiply at 100% opacity. I like how the textures gave it a dreamy quality.  I’m still a novice at Photoshop, but I really liked playing around with the textures. I could get lost playing with photos all day! Happy Friday everyone!

I have been reading I Should Be Folding Laundry for a while now and following along with her You Capture project for a while. Knowing that this week was tagged as Dramatic Black and White, I took the camera out and went to a few places that I hadn’t been before. One of them was the Anna Maria City Pier on Anna Maria Island, Florida. My husband recently got a new camera for work, so I took it for a test drive. I loved how this shot turned out, and when converted to black and white, reminds me of old photos that you would see from what I call ‘Vintage” Florida.  I had a wonderful time driving up the islands this week. My I heart Faces challenge photo was also from this same shoot. You can see it if you scroll down a couple of posts.  If you are in the mood to browse at some great black and white photos, click on this link.

It’sbeen a while since I felt like participating, but this week I took a look at the theme and then looked through shots that I had taken this morning at the beach. I love how the grandpa is looking down intently at the little boy. I don’t know if I have enough ‘face’ in the shot, but I love it just the same. For more awesome shots, click on the I Heart Faces button.

Not quite sure what has gotten into me lately, maybe I needed a fairly quick, painless project, or maybe I needed some inspiration, but  I actually cast on (granted on size 19 needles…like working with baseball bats) and FINISHED something!  I happen to stop A Yarn Outlet and fell in love with some crazy expensive Mango Moon Yarn.  It was recycled something..viscose, maybe…but it had these lovely beads on it. I loved the orange color and it’s a simple triangle shawl/shawlette thing.

You can sort of see the beads  in the last photo. It is a very robust shawl, I think the beads add a bit of weight, but I do love it. I also cast on for another wrap, and it’s from Vogue Knitting Holiday 2003! This was probably one of the oldest knitting magazines that I have, and I fell in love with this eyelet wrap way back then. It’s super simple, but they used cashmere. No way was I going to splurge on that amount of cashmere, but I had some Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in the stash and I thought the cotton would make it a lovely wrap for this time of year in Florida. It can get chilly in restaurants, and I always take something along.

Again, big needles, but I think it’s what I need right now, stuff that is easy and as close to instant gratification as I can get.

You know I can’t have a post without mentioning Amanda. Recently she attended the national TSA Championships and the F1 in Schools National Competition and came away with two national titles! One in fashion design and one in F1 in Schools. For F1 in Schools, she will represent the US at the World Championships in 2011 in either London or South Africa and she and her team has been asked to attend worlds this year in Singapore! I have a more dignified photo of them somewhere, but this is as they got off the plane. This is the F1 team!

Hope everyone is having a great summer! It’s flying by and before I know it, I’ll be back in the classroom.