Give-Away! My Inspirational Wrapped Canvas Prints

Dear Readers:
I’m going to get very real right now.

Momma (me) needs to make some money. Biceps took a huge cut in pay to become a firefighter and our budget is getting tighter every month. If you know anything about me, you know that I am one seriously frugal girl. We operate on a debt-free mindset (no credit cards) and are determined to be completely debt-free (student loans, our rent houses and our house) in six years or less.

I am making every homemade product for myself that I possibly can to save money. I considered selling these, but determined the profit margin wouldn’t be there for me while making it affordable to others.

We drive a paid for, slightly used (hah!) 8 year old van that badly needs new tires. I happily bike all over town so that we don’t have to buy a second car and so that I can burn some extra calories.

That said-I need a job and have been sending out resumes one right after another. This blog pays me diddly squat and being a self-employed writer is either feast or famine. And, as of yet, no one has offered to pay me to sit around looking cute. Dang them.

“The Harvest”
After talking with my mom this morning, she got my creative juices flowing. She reminded me of the prints with scriptures that I made for their bookstore and wondered if it wouldn’t be feasible for me to sell them through Etsy (which she pronounces Es-ty) or something similar.

I instantly thought this was a brilliant idea! I have decided to sell the following prints as wrapped canvas prints.

And, I’m giving one away to a lucky winner! Enter now for your very own FREE inspiration wrapped canvas prints.!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

“His Sheep”
These inspirational wrapped canvas prints are made from original photographs that I have taken around the country as I travel. Each photograph has a significant meaning to me, which I will share with you in a personalized note along with your order.

Now, here’s the lowdown-these wrapped canvas prints are totally customizable with your choice of inspirational saying, scripture, last name-whatever!

The canvas is either .75″ or  1.5″ deep, with the print bleeding all the way to the edges. The best part is-there’s no need to frame this. When you receive the wrapped canvas print, all you need to do is decide on where you want to hang it.

“His Pathway”
These make great gifts for pastors, friends, grandparents-and they look perfect at home or in the office.

“He is my Rock”
If you don’t happen to win this giveaway and still can’t live without one of these, here are a few prices for you to reference (but you can email me if you have a particular size in mind that I haven’t listed):

8 x 10- $49
10 x 14- $59
12 x 16- $64
16 x 20- $75
20 x 36- $169

*These prices include Free Shipping! Please allow 2 weeks for delivery of your item.

“The Light”
Let me know if you have any suggestions or thoughts. I am excited to hear what you, my dear friends, have to say! Don’t forget to enter the give away!

Current Remodel-Past, Present & Blown Up

Yes, two front doors again. We like to confuse people-especially delivery guys.

Our realtor called this house another ‘turd’.
I love our realtor. She is so truthful.

This poor house had been made into a mockery of a home. Something had to be done.

We basically had to tear it down to build it back up. Just like the army. Go Army! Go Greimans!

ONE MOMENT FOR:
A few weird facts about this house….
1.One entire bedroom and bathroom (including the ceiling) had been painted mauve and pepto pink.
2.The electrical panel had two inches of water sitting in it. YIKES!
3.After closing, we found a second secret electrical panel that even the inspector missed. Double YIKES!
4.We pulled up a brick pattern linoleum in the kitchen to find….the exact same brick pattern linoleum underneath it. What the heck?

But what takes the proverbial cake was that this house had FIVE exterior doors. Now, you know my stance on buying houses with at least two front doors. But do we really need five? We removed a couple, just for fun.

This one…

…and this one. Pay no attention to that man. I have no idea who that man is.

Now, a little twist. See this pretty barn? (Stick with me, I promise this has something to do with our current remodel.) My hubby grew up on this farm. His Grandma Greiman grew up here, and so did her father. The farm & the barn were built in the 1800’s. It has seen horse and buggies, flapper dresses, the Great Depression, World War I & II, telephones, airplanes, men on the moon, the Vietnam War, hippies, the internet…

I think you get the idea. It’s been around awhile.

The barn resides on the Greiman farm, which is referred to as a ‘Century Farm’. It’s been in the same family for over 100 years.

This is the haymow of said barn where generations of farmers stored their hay. And did other things in the haymow that maybe you shouldn’t be doin’. Wink, wink.

The barn was built with wooden pegs to hold it together instead of nails. The supporting beams had roman numerals carved into them, allowing the barn raisers to know which beam went where. The barn raisers handiwork survived tornadoes and fires and storms.

But, one summer we had to tear it down. That wasn’t easy for any of us.

Especially for these two: Kayle’s Grandpa and Grandma Greiman. They came by often, since they only lived four miles away, bearing cookies and ice cream and watching our progress.

Although much loved, the barn had become unsafe. This is one of the four corners of the barn. Notice it’s leaning on a little iron peg-and that’s all it’s leaning on.

We were able to recycle and save as much of the barn as possible. The foundational rocks are now in my garden. The haymow floor….

….is the flooring in most of our house. It was a pretty nasty sanding process, releasing 100 year old barn-ness into the air-but totally worth it.

The floors are my favorite part of our home. It’ll be hard to ever leave.

We made a ridiculously huge dining room table out of the barn’s stable wood. We can comfortably seat 10, and squeeze in 12 if need be. I wanted it wide enough for our plates and a huge amount of food in the center. Both sides of the family are big eaters…

This is one of the four legs to our dining room table. Notice the roman numeral carved into it?

But enough about that.
Let’s talk about injuries.

During ‘Insulation Day’, this guy Beau (who blew up another of our houses) decided to get creative. Anytime Beau gets creative, someone is going to get hurt.

He set about making a prop out of scrap wood to hold up the insulation that I was stapling to the ceiling. And sometime during the process….he shot a 16 penny nail through his finger. If you don’t know what a 16 penny nail is, it’s about 2 inches long.

Things I won’t repeat began to creep from Beau’s lips. I thought he was pulling my leg and had taped the nail to the backside of his finger. I told him to quit goofing off and get back to work.

Hubby took Beau to the hospital instead, nail and all. Big oops on my part.

But then, what do you expect from someone that looks like this and who sniffs paint fumes, old dust and fiberglass all day?
You shouldn’t expect much, let me tell you. Just pour her a glass of wine and call it a day.

Snazzy Birdhouses

From country style to mod, my in-laws are uber creative when it comes to birdhouses.
And, because they are founding members of ‘EOBHC’-Equal Opportunity Bird House Creators, they consider the most modest sparrow to the showy crow when building their shelters.

This style is for the rustic bird. Fancy parakeets are strongly discouraged.

Social birds tend to flock to this multi-unit. There are martini mixers and a neighborhood association.

This is a drive-thru feeder. Very important and busy birds fly through here on their way to early morning appointments uptown.

Intended for the sheriff bird and his growing family. He has been employed to keep the naughty blue jays at bay.

And finally, this was made for the modern bird. Both functional and architecturally pleasing, this birdhouse captures the style of today with a bit of a nod to yesterday.
Watch out Trump. My in-laws have cornered the market on bird real estate…

Lighting Effects to Enhance a Photo

This picture was shot the summer we tore down the barn on the Greiman farm.(If you want to know more about that, check out Current Remodel.)
It makes me think heaven is peaking through the holes in the roof of the haymow.

I liked the shot, but it needed a little pizzazz, a little boost.
Presently, I am using Adobe Photoshop CS-the orginal version, since my computer crashed. I have to use what Hubby has on his computer. The program is pretty similar to the newer versions, but not totally up to date.

First things first when using Photoshop:
Always make a background copy of your image. Always. Do this before you do any adjusting and you will not harm your original picture.

You can make a copy by:
On the lower right hand side of the program, you will see a box with the tabs labeled ‘layer’, ‘channels’ and ‘paths’.
Under the tab ‘layer’, you will see your image as a tiny thumbnail labeled ‘background’ with an eyeball to the left of it and a padlock to the right of it.
Place your cursor on the tiny thumbnail and drag it down towards the bottom, landing it on the icon that looks like a tiny page with a dog-eared corner. This icon is labeled ‘create a new layer’ if you allow your cursor to just rest on it.

Now that we’ve made a copy, we can make our adjustments without hurting the original image forever.
Make sure there is a tiny paintbrush to the right of your background copy. The paintbrush means you are making adjustments to the copy and not the original.

Next, I used some lighting effects. The overall shot had a very even light, and I thought it would create some visual interest to vary the point of light a little bit.

Under ‘Filter’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Render’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Lighting Effects’.
I chose the ‘default’ style at the top. I then chose the ‘light type’ as ‘omni’ and increased the diameter of the circle until just the four corners were on the outside of the circle. Make sure the ‘light type’ box has been checked to be in the ‘on’ position. I moved the ‘intensity’ up to a level of 23.
Under ‘properties’ I left the ‘gloss’ at 0, moved the ‘material’ to a level of 69, the exposure to a level of 4, and the ambience to a level of 13.

Notice how the center of the picture is now lighter, leaving the corners a little darker?

I wanted to adjust the contrast a little to
make the details in the wood stand out.

Under ‘Image’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Adjustments’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Brightness and Contrast’.
I left the ‘brightness’ at a level of 0 (because it was already plenty bright), but adjusted the ‘contrast’ to +12.

The wood now pops a little more.

Next, I ‘sharpened’ the photo.

Under ‘Filter’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Sharpen’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Sharpen’.

The light beams are a little more focused now and the wood is more crisp looking.

Lastly, I increased the shadows and the highlights a tiny bit to bring out the depth of the photo.

Under ‘Image’ in the top menu bar, highlight the word ‘Adjustment’ and then move your cursor over to highlight and click on ‘Shadows and Highlights’.
I increased the ‘shadow’ to 15 and the ‘highlight’ to 12.

The dark parts of the photo are a little darker, the bright parts of the photo are a little brighter.

Above is the final version of my barn picture.
And below is the original so you can compare.