Three more scrapbook pages and learning to crochet

What a wonderfully blustery, wild and windy day complete with leaves dancing around in the wind, torrents of dramatic rainfall and rainbows!


I definitely needed stirring up today because I am getting bogged down and starting to feel the pressure from school because my lesson tomorrow with year 10 is being observed by the head master *eek*. I have to get at least "good" for the lesson in order to avoid another observation. I only got satisfactory last time so the pressure is really on. Wish me luck!
To take my mind off things I thought I would share some things with you, firstly a few more pages from my wedding scrapbook. I will finish it eventually (yes I did get married over a year ago!) but I am pretty new to scrapbooking so I am agonising over every page.  These three are about our visit to the venue that we chose:

In other news I am learning to crochet!!  It seems as I get older I find it more and more difficult to learn new things so it is taking an absolute age.  Luckily I have had lovely teacher from work teaching me, and went round to her house last week for a little lesson, and she showed me a few basic stitches.  Unfortunately due to lack of time I have not done very much, but it is a start at least.  What I really want is to be able to crochet actual things as opposed to just squares or tubes!  I am trying for flowers so I can make little brooches.

Gosh , it was so dark when I took these photos the depth of field is tiny!  I am amazed  I didn't need a tripod:

I have been feeling a bit peculiar recently, a little bit lost and feeling sorry for myself.  We had a staff training session at school about helping pupils to cope with anxiety and I though "who is there to help the teachers with their anxiety?".  It also got me thinking about when I was at school and about how much time I spent absolutely terrified of doing the wrong thing.  I am not entirely sure what I thought would happen if I did the wrong thing but I was extremely anxious about it.  I feel like the little child that is still in me needs a cuddle for the stress she went through as a girl, I feel like I need to nurture myself, take more care of my soul, guard my heart a little more.  I am sick of other people dictating to me what should be important in my life.  I mean I like my job and everything, but I like me more.  I think I need to make some art about this....



Things I need in my life

The hubby and I have, for the last couple of weekends been trapesing around department stores trying to find things to spend our wedding vouchers on (yes we did get married pver a year ago!), an easy task you might think but in actual fact we seem to have vouchers for places where we find nothing we like, and seem to see lots of things we like in the stores that we don't have vourchers for!  It's a frustrating job.  Here are a few of the things we have come across that we cannot afford to buy!  I am not a huge fan of advertising for multi-nationals but some of these quite literally made me breathless, so I had to share them with you.    I am utterly convinced that I would be completely fulfilled if they were in my life!!

Anything from the Lisa Stickley range at Debenhams:

This fab bedding, appropriately named "happy":

How could anyone not love this Nigella Lawson range at John Lewis?

I am def getting one of these radios, just need to decide what colour:

This clock is awsome, sadly it's a mantel clock, what I need is a wall mounted version:

I am pretty much in love with this Dandelion bedding:

There is more, but I might just cry if I have to think about them for a moment longer!!

Hope you are all having a fab weekend.

xxx



Photoshop Tutorial

I have had a few people ask me about photographing their craft items for sale and I have promised I would do a little tutorial to show how I adjust my photos.  it is by no means a definitive tutorial and how you like your photos is a lot down to taste, but I think this tutorial would give you a photo that is acceptable for showing off your work, it looks professional and might just give you that extra edge when selling your items.  To see the image larger just click on it.  Hopefully I have made it fairly simple, please do leave a comment and let me know what you think.  Useful?

Step 1:
Open your photo in Photoshop:

Step 2:

Next lighten your image by clicking on image - adjustments - curves,

Step 3:

A box will appear with a diagonal line across it, click and drag the line at the top and bottom to suit your taste for the photo, I like to create a smooth S shape with my curve.

Step 4:

Next I like to slightly adjust the colours, my camera tends to take the photos with a slightly blue tone even when adjusting the white balance so I click on image - adjustments - colour balance.

Step 5:

Adjust the colours to suit your taste by dragging the little scroll bars, I select +10 red, -10 magenta and -25 yellow.  This gives the image a nice warm glow. 

Step 6:

Crop the image by highlighting the area you want with the marquee tool. The choose image - crop.

Step 8:

Next I like to lighten specific areas of the photo.  To do this I choose the dodge tool from the menu on the left hand side, (it's the one that looks like a magnifying glass coloured in black).  I then choose the size I want to be able to lighten a fairly large area at one time.  I also select a soft edged brush.

Change the options for the dodge tool to "shadows" and an exposure of about 8%. This means it won't lighten too much at once, and gives you more control.

And here is your final image:

Check out before and after!

Hope everyone is having a great week, don't forget, I really love your comments!



Etsy favorites

Hi all,

Thought it was about time to share some of my favorite items from Etsy today because I haven't done it for a while and there are so many lovely things in need of sharing!

MontclairMade

designlab443

TheFigLeaf

cathycullis

ing00te

InnerWild

SavoyFaire

deepfired

Hoping to do a tutorial in the next few days so keep posted.

ttfn

Update

I really don't know what is going on this month, I am wondering if I am using up every day of sick all in one go and maybe will be well for the rest of the year. I ahve caught a stomach bug and been ill for the last two days :(

In other news, I have signed up to a monthly scrapbooking kit which I am realyl excited about, roll on 20th October when the kit comes out.

Parents evening tomorrow *sigh*

Hope fully do a proper blog post in a couple of days, have either been too busy or sick to do anything in the last few days.

TTFN
hels

Things to do in October

Found this really fun card generator at blyberg, gnna try and do one every month.  Here is October:

What do you have planned for October?

Looking for 1940's/1950's clothes

After visiting Winston Churchill's old gaff  "Chartwell"  today I have been fantasising about wearing more 1940's/1950's clothes.  I really like the style, it is simple and feminine. 
At a recent friend's wedding I bought a 1940's inspired dress from a charity shop and teamed it with seamer tights and a faux flower which I wore behind my ear:

My poor old sister had a time taking any photo of me that was half decent because at this point I had had two glasses of Pimms and thus was feeling a little silly!  But I think you get the gist.

So now I am inspired to buy more 1940's style clothes and have been scouring the internet to see what I can find.

Found this website vivienofholloway which has some pretty cool stuff, but it is a bit pricey:

 

Then of course there is ebay which has come up with some pretty cool finds:

But the Ebay is always a risk I feel, especially with clothes and not knowing the size and whether it can be returned.   Anyone have any ideas for good places to buy 1940's style clothes?  I think if I am really to pull of the 1940's style I will need to lose some weight...