Lovely Day for a Picnik

While making my recent paper portraits, I stumbled across a lovely site - picnik.com. It's like a junior version of Photoshop but free and super easy to use. You don't even have to register if you just want to play around with one or two photos. 


Remember my post on Mickey & Minnie Cake Pops? Thank you Polaroid feature on Picnik! In about a minute I took this...

and made THIS!

Spend some time playing around with it - I think you'll fall in love with this great little online site. They have premium features for $24.95 a year but don't worry, there's plenty of bells and whistles to keep you editing for quite sometime even if you only use the free ones! Happy Blogging!

Paper makes it possible

Recently, I've gone on a blog following-rampage of sorts (don't worry, not violent in the least). In my quest to discover all the awesome that's out there in the home decorating, baking, and crafting universe, I discovered Paul Overton's DudeCraft. It's a very entertaining read and includes lots of tutorials, including one for Paper Portraits. I loved what Paul created and decided- yes, this will be a great present for Gus!


The above paper portrait (2nd photo) I created as a tester for the one I did for Gus. I made it for a friend of mine at work who worships Angelina Jolie. The original photo came from a snapshot of her looking at a photograph at the MOMA in LA.

The process for doing paper portraits is fairly simple and straightforward - just make sure you have a great x-acto knife and re-positionable spray mount. I encourage you to check out Paul's blog and tutorial linked here to make your own magic with paper. As you'll see from the one I did for Gus, the cutting can become complex if you use a complex photo - so be careful when choosing your first subject.


Without further adieu, may I present the actual present for my Gus Gus on his 24th birthday - a salute to our song, "You've Got a Friend in Me."

ORIGINAL PHOTO

POSTERIZED PHOTO (thanks Picnik)

BEAUTIFULLY AWESOME PAPER PORTRAIT 

Framed in a 12" by 12" Record Album Frame

Yay paper portraits!

Linking up to

Thinking of You - Puzzle Photo Postcards

During the holidays this year, I’ve realized how tough it is to be away from family and friends. Currently, I’m living thousands of miles away from many people I love and this year is the first that I won’t be home for Christmas with them.

Even though I’m far away, I still want them to know I’m thinking about them. This got me thinking about a great project to share with all of you that I did in college when my friend Chrissy studied abroad in Scotland for a semester.

This is a wonderful, creative way to share some love across the miles (and oceans) if you are separated from anyone. Heck, it’s a pretty fun idea even if you live down the street from the person.

“Thinking of You” Puzzle Photo Postcards

Send your friend or family member a secret message, spelled out only when they’ve received all the postcards you’ve sent.

Supplies:

1)   Friend who is of some distance away from you

2)  3 additional friends who are somewhat flexible and have some time on their hands

3)  A camera (preferably digital)

4)  A way to print photographs

5)  4x6” cut piece of white cardstock (enough for every letter of your message)

6)  White glue or your preferred method of durable adhesive

7)  Appropriate amount of postage

Directions:

1)   You will be forming letters out your and your friends’ bodies to form the entire alphabet (now you see why I said flexible!). We used three people to make letters. You’ll also need an additional person to stand from a high elevation (like a 2^nd story of a building) to take photos of each letter as you form them.

2)  Carefully pose as each letter of the alphabet, making sure you have all 26. If you are daring, make a few punctuation marks. We made an exclamation mark and quotations. This process is extremely fun, btw.

3)  Choose what message you would like to send via postcards – we did, “We love you Chrissy!” Therefore, we had to print three 4x6” photos of the “O”, one of the “W,” etc. so we had enough to spell the message. You can print via your preferred method- we used Target.

4)  Using glue, attach each photo to a 4x6” piece of white cardstock.

5)  Draw a line on the white cardstock to indicate the space for your postcard message vis-à-vis the address you are sending it to/area for postage.

6)  Divide up the postcards between your group of friends or fill them all out yourself. Some of us wrote funny song lyrics, etc. – anything to let your recipient know you are thinking of them.

7)  Stagger when you mail out your postcards and make sure through the post office that you are using the right amount of postage. You may want to send your recipient one postcard first that explains you are sending a secret message and how many postcards to expect!

You can find a whole post on other DIY Photo Gifts here.

By the way, I'm entering this post in Today's Creative Blog Give-away...

Taking the time to take photos

Hey look, my hair got straighter in four years!

By my first year of college, I was already that artsy girl who would would give out handmade gifts, hand-monogrammed gloves, and personalized shot class sets. I was a little like that girl Melissa Joan Hart plays in Can't Hardly Wait that was crazed about getting her yearbook signed. I knew that every photo I was in or was taking would be important to me and to my friends down the line.


With that in mind, by the end of freshman year, I'd concocted the following project for me and my best friends at Duke. Every year, let's take the same photo- by the time we graduate (hopefully in four years, right?) we'd have a photographic keepsake to last us a lifetime and a time capsule of how hot we looked in college. Double the awesome, essentially.


We set out for Duke Chapel - the most incredible chapel of all the universities I've ever attended, by far. We had planned to take one picture. We ended up doing a photo shoot for over two hours all around the campus and in the beautiful Sarah P. Duke Gardens. So was born a tradition we continued for all four years of college, through countless exams, one wedding, several med school, dental school, and pharmacology school acceptances, and not nearly enough trips to the Dillo for nachos.

As you can see from above, having these photos and the ones I've included below captured a lot of special moments for us and is a great way to look back at how we've changed. We're now living in LA and working for Disney, going to Med School in Cleveland, married and in Dental School in Chapel Hill, just been promoted in DC, and getting a PhD/owning her first HOUSE in Nashville! 

Who knows what the next set of pictures will have in store? There's no telling, but I'm really glad we took those few hours every year to document our time together.

Hepburn for the Home

udrey Hepburn. Actress, Fashionista, Activist, and Icon. She exuded class and elegance like no other figure I could think of. She’s left us a great legacy of classic fashion and beautiful movies like Charade and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.


Because she’s a personal favorite of mine and her style is one I like to emulate, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at all the home décor that features Audrey. Some of it is charming, some is mass-produced – all of it is pretty sure to add a touch of class if you’re looking to add some to your home or apartment.


Since you’ve all are probably uber familiar (read: uber tired) of that black and white of her eating “breakfast” at Tiffany’s – I’ve taken the time to round up some of the more unique Audrey art available.

Ikea is in on the awesome – check out PJÄTTERYD for $79.99, a 35.5” by 35.5” canvas for your home.

Elloh, aka Ellen Lohse, is an artist on Etsy whose prints are inspired by wonderful movies and television shows. She’s done a whole series inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany’s that you can see below. Each print is extremely reasonable at $35.00 each and they are all signed by the artist. I personally own the kissing in the rain print and it’s fantastic. (Never heard of Etsy? I’ll feature it in an upcoming post.)

Poking around for this article, I also found another great Etsy artist, Miss Brigette, with a slightly different spin on Ms. Hepburn, just as thrifty for $25.00.

 These next pieces of art are actually premium photographic prints by photographer Allan Grant – premium because of the price tag (starting at $99.99 for an 18x24”) and frankly, the quality of the photo itself. These are both from the 28th Academy Awards and feature Audrey and Grace Kelly interacting in the dressing rooms backstage during the ceremony. Simply gorgeous. (Source, Allposters.com - Click each photo for links to each poster for purchase)

 

If you’re not feeling using an Audrey likeness in your home, you could always work in a quote via wall decal. Check out this gorgeous use of a wonderful quote of hers here – 

And so ends another fun and classy look round the net for excellent home decor.