Vintage Feel using Lightroom

I love to be creative with my frugality.
I bought a ream of gray paper for $15 and employ its simplicity when making my own personalized stationary.
I print off photos that I have taken to decorate the front of the cards, adding my own weirdo slogan to suit the recipient.

This shot was taken in a bowling alley one evening whilst I played amongst the friends.
I have been reading King James a lot lately. Forgive me.

I used the ‘Cold Tone’ preset in Lightroom to give this photo its vintage edge. I decreased the exposure in order to see the floor and increased the contrast in order to make out the chair pedestals.
I love how worn out and soft the print now appears.

I ended up going with the ‘Aged Photo’ preset. I decreased the exposure a little, but liked how washed out the floor appeared with this preset.
Simple. Cute.
That’s what I’m into and Lightroom is the answer on these occasions. Don’t get me wrong, I love Photoshop. But sometimes, you just want to quickly edit and be done with it.
This was such an occasion and it worked perfectly.

Peace, Love and Woodstock

The hippies are still there. According to the locals, they always have been.
As far back as the 1920’s, artist and musician types would secretly meet in the nearby forest, throw off their clothes and dance around a gigantic fire. Amongst other things. I submit that if they had left their clothes on, a fire would have been unnecessary, saving precious firewood. But, that’s just the practical side of me.

Just outside of Woodstock, the Bearsville Theater rests among the trees. A meandering stream flits by, whispering secrets of flower children, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan.

However, the whispering stream might have been my imagination fueled by ancient pot that still lingers in the air. No one knows for sure. It’s a real bummer, man.

Two beautiful wooden staircases in the lobby caught my eye. I asked a runner (a person who takes you to the hotel, shopping, etc) if one of the staircases was the ‘up’ and one was the ‘down’. Then I laughed at my obvious wit. The runner, however, just stared blankly back at me.

As we waited to see if our runner would be the one with the breathalyzer installed in her car or the one with two dogs who would ride along ‘just for fun’ with us, I checked out the rest of the theater.
And said a little prayer for our safety.

We were eventually paired up with the ‘breathalyzer’ runner who turned out to be a very lovely girl. Although she had to tend to her breathalyzer every ten minutes during the drive. It was a bit unsettling…but at least we knew she was sober. Woodstock, thank you for showing us a very unique time like only you could.

Weird Christmas Cards Photos

It all started when I met Kayle.

He seemed normal enough. In fact, he seemed much cooler than me. He played in a band, owned a house, had tattoos and rode a motorcycle.

As we all know, first impressions can be deceiving. After a few months of dating this cool guy, I began to get to know the real him. Here are a couple of weird things about my seemingly perfect man:

I found out he toots during ab workouts.
And he cannot be interrupted when eating cereal.
He has no ‘favorites’; as in favorite movies, candy, or food.
He folds down his socks when he wants to be ‘casual’.
Often, he gets distracted during conversation and begins to count the number of letters in the words you are saying. For example, his favorite word(s) to count is Family Restaurant. ‘Why’, you may ask? Because there are 16 letters in this phrase and that makes 4 beats of 4. Get it? Neither do I….

At any rate, all these eccentricities pointed to the fact that he was indeed weirder than me. But it is still a close race on who reigns in the weirdness department.

And when two weirdos join forces, this is what happens.

Christmas 2001. 

A little funny, but not overboard. We started off innocently enough. Also, we made the firm decision that everyone we know gets a card and a picture, no exceptions. This includes but is not limited to: our friends, relatives, accountants, pastors, boss’, etc.

Sometimes, I regret this decision.
Like pretty much every year.

And then, Christmas 2002.

We were in Boston on tour with Hubby’s band. We had to make do with what we had, and this is what we chose. It’s pretty cute, I think.
Man, I loved those mittens.

Christmas 2003.

By far our most normal picture to date. We took this at the Flea Market in Tulsa where we get our ornament for the year. Subsequently, I broke this ornament in 2009. Geesh….I am such a clutz sometimes.

However….Life really can take some twists and turns, can’t it?

Christmas 2004 was a tough one. No card or picture was sent out that we can recall. We were more concerned with the small explosion that happened at the end of 2004.

To commemorate the explosion, we sent this picture out for Christmas 2005.  As you can see, our house blew up. It was a miracle not a soul was hurt, but that is a whole other story.
And we knew our lives and the expectations on our Christmas card pictures would never be the same.

Christmas 2006. 

A missions moment with the Greiman’s.

Christmas 2007. 
How do I explain why we decided to do this? I can’t and won’t.

Bananas in hammocks for Christmas 2008. 
I wouldn’t recommend trying to drive around in one of these costumes.

Christmas 2009.
Merry Poop-mas. My pastor didn’t say a word about receiving his card this year.

Christmas 2010.I have never felt more beautiful in all my life…And crazy.

Christmas 2011. We explored our Germanic roots.

What’s better than giving Satan a wedgie? Nothing, that’s what. Christmas 2012-full of heavenly humor.

2013 Christmas Card Photo. The year of the dork.
 

Snazzy Zipper Necklace

I delight in making Christmas gifts for family and friends.
Of course, there’s the stress out part when I’ve hot glued my knuckle for the tenth time and the present still isn’t finished. But, when the stars align and my present comes off without a hitch with no skin burned in the process-that’s when I can say, ‘Merry Christmas’!

It was difficult to wrap up this Fancy Zipper Necklace and place it underneath the tree.
But since it was so easy to do, I might just have to make one for myself.

Here’s what you’ll need to make this simple necklace:
Metal zippers-3-4 colors
Iron & Ironing board
24” ribbon
Hot glue gun
Scissors
Invisible Thread and needle (not pictured, because it’s invisible…)

Cut the stops from the ends of your zipper and remove the slider.

Iron the tape (fabric) on your zipper flat. Don’t iron the teeth-it scratches your iron and makes an awful sound. Not that I would know.

Make a loop around your pointer finger and place a 1-2” bead of hot glue on the end of the zipper tape (fabric). Begin rolling the tape in a circle, adding hot glue with each new loop.
Also, don’t lotion your hands for several days and then take close-up shots of them.

Your loop should look like this when finished-the teeth stair-stepping down as the loop grows.

Do this with each new color of zipper and choose how the zippers will be arranged on the necklace. I chose to make different sized zipper circles to add ‘visual variety’.
I just made ‘visual variety’ up. You have my permission to use it.

Add a bead of hot glue to attach one circle to the next.

Continue glueing until each circle is sufficiently attached to the next.

Here’s an optional step. My necklace recipient is a mother of many children, and I knew the necklace would be yanked on and possibly disrespected. Tsk, tsk. I sewed each circle to the next one using the invisible thread, just for added strength and kid-proofing.

After I had sufficiently reinforced the necklace, I chose the location where the ribbon would connect.

After cutting the ribbon in half, I used the invisible thread to attach it to the underside of my chosen zipper circles.

I implore you to try it on to make sure it looks cute.

My Snazzy Zipper Necklace did not disappoint me one bit. I hope the recipient likes it just as much. And if not, I may hint that I will take it off her hands. Heh heh.