Nov 6

Today, we went to Appleton for Luka's dedication ceremony at my sister's Unitarian church. She and her husband are the godparents, so they got to choose the venue, and I was so happy with this. Not that I express my religious views on my blog, but if I did, I would explain further that this would be my choice if I lived in the Fox Valley. Anyway, it was a day trip there and back, and my mom lead the caravan of 3 cars. She is an aggressive driver, and that is putting it mildly.


We stopped at a gas station to get coffee, and my grandma got a huge ice cream cone. I guess this is her ritual whenever they drive to the Fox Valley. She is such an interesting lady.

After the ceremony took place, we did this group photo of everyone who attended. From left to right: The minister - Dottie, nephew Oliver, Yusuke and Ailin, Grandma, my mom, Godmother Michele with Luka, Godfather Christian, my dad, Aunt Cindy, my godfather Ray, godmother Rosita & me. My brother had classes that day and couldn't make it.

A Photo a Day - Nov 4

The first morning after we arrived, the two kids were sound asleep until noon. Then, jet lag kicked in that night.

Later that day, we were tricked into going to meet my grandma at her favorite hang-out because she had something important to give us. Little did we know, it was a bar. Well, my whole famiy said that of course I should have known, but I really didn't. Notice the baby in his car seat on the bar. That is OUR baby. How much more WT can you get?

Ailin took no time at all to warm up to her grandparents that she has not seen in over a year. She sees photos, so she was excited about meeting them again, but I wasn't sure until we got here.

November 5 - Now that Ailin has no problem staying home with her grandparents alone, Yusuke and I used the opportunity to steal away and get some shopping done at Antigo's biggest store, Walmart. Again with the WT! The sun was setting just as we were leaving and took this photo with our little bear baby.

October Chrono Album

These are my lay outs for October 2009. All were done digitally this time. I would have liked to do half of them the traditional way (with paper & rhinestones), but since I am leaving for the USA on Nov 3, I knew that I wouldn't have a chance to make any of those pages until I return to Japan in December. I don't like to get that far behind with this album, so I created the pages as throughout the month, either in my classes or on my own. Enjoy!

My first page of each month always showcases "the details" photos, and this month, I decided to represent some photos that I am sure will be the stuff of great memories later in life (like my mom's Sunday dinners and sleeping over at Grandma's house are a couple of my best childhood memories.) Actually, this page was done for a Monthly Challenge on an egroup that I belong to called Scrapbooking in Japan. We were asked to use a song title in our lay out. The template is a freebie from Manda Girl's web site / blog. This is from her Vacation collection. The papers are from Crystal's September 2009 kit and the buttons were also designed by her. That amazing title font is called Ma Sexy.

October had 2 main events, and this was one of them. The Sports Festival at Ailin's daycare, where we showed up, she did her two events (one alone and one with Papa), and then we left. This lay out was actually an assignment for the Up & Running with Photoshop.

Omg, can I just brag here and say that this is one of my all-time favorite pages ever? It is. I used a template designed by LivEdesigns, but I changed it up a bit to accommodate the journaling. The absolutely gorgeous background paper is from Jessica's Windsong kit. In the TW2 class, we were supposed to list 3 things each day that we were grateful for. At the end of two weeks, I had quite a list and I wanted to use it! This is a good way to show my husband how extremely happy I am in our life right now.

This was the final assignment for a class called Up and Running with Photoshop on Jessica Sprague's site. It doesn't really belong in my Chrono album, but I took the photo this in October and thought I would show it here anyway. I have an album where I put lay outs for or about my husband and me, so it will probably go in there for now.

Because I am so extremely proud of all I accomplished in the Oh Shoot! Photography with Candice Stringham class, I just had to do a lay out about. I really want to remember this experience. This is a Jessica Sprague template using all papers from her Festa kit. I love how these papers work together.

First of all, here's to my sister Michele who made this gorgeous quilt in the selective recoloring portion of the photo. How awesome is that? I made this lay out for an assignment in Now We're Rockin' with Photoshop, the 2nd in Jessica's series of Photoshop classes. I just love this lay out with the torn page look. The morning after I made this lay out, my husband comment at the breakfast table how kind & charming looks when he is smiling, and I just had to laugh. "Hey, I just made a lay out about that yesterday. I'll email it to you!"

We had the best Halloween party ever for our Bilingual Kids Club, and I whipped this lay out up that very night. I tried using some of the typography techniques I learned in TW and TW2, and rather than spooky Halloween motifs in orange and black, I chose pink colors to match better with Ailn's costume. This one is called Crystal's Sweet & Scallopy Template. Crystal is a designer who works for Jessica Sprague. The papers are from Jessica's Strawberry Lemonade kit.

Freebie Holiday Class over at Jessica Sprague's

Photonerd

Yusuke was calling me an otaku (a geek) for about 6 weeks because I was carrying my camera every where with me. Not just my camera, but a also a bag for my camera, a little tripod & notes about white balance, lighting, etc.

I took the much-coveted Photography for Beginners with Candice Stringham course. A little on the expensive side, hard to get into as class size is limited, but so well-worth the price and effort!

With my new Canon Powershot G10, I learned how to use it on manual mode. This camera is in between a point 'n' shoot and a DSLR - you could potentially add change the lens, but the reviews are not so positive about the lenses. I didn't bother with that, but I did learn a lot about my camera settings, what all those difficult words mean, and most importantly how to get blurry backgrounds.

Here are some of my photos that I took for class assignments. I think you have seen some of these photos in my recent lay outs.

Week One: Shutter Speed

Fast shutter speed allows you to take photos of objects in motion. The object itself will appear clear in the photograph because it was frozen in time.

 

Slow shutter speed allows you to take photos of objects in motion as well, but you will get a lag...sometimes you want that effect. Most of time, you would prefer the fast shutter speed, esp when photographing toddlers or sporting events.

See what I mean about toddlers?

  

Aperture priority mode relates to the depth of field. This is how you can achieve the blurry backgrounds in photos. I really like this style, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. The photos I turned in for my assignment (above), you could barely see the difference.

Then, I went out and practiced a lot...for a whole day in Tokyo with Ailin. This turned out to be one of my favorite photos of her.

Week Three meant manual mode! I got this shot of Max and his incredible ears deep in thought at the park. This is where we put shutter speed and aperture together (along with a couple other minor things) to do a manual shot.

Then, I practiced some more on Ailin. She was dancing at the park with her friend Yako. I love this photo also.

Week 4: Focal Point was a little challenging for me, partly because I don't have a DSLR, but I think I did a fine job with this photo.

  

Week 5  was focusing on lighting, particularly indoor light because we often have to take photos indoors. I learned a lot in this lesson and it was so helpful. These photos were taken with no flash...simply by messing with other settings on your camera, you will not need a flash.

Week 6: Putting it all together. What can I say? I love this shot. It has all the elements I wanted to achieve, and Ailin's personality shines through. Can anyone guess what she was doing when I took this photo?

Creative Assignments

Each weekend, Candice gave us a creative assignment that we could shoot in any mode we felt like. I only did 2 of the 6 assignments as I was just so busy at that time.

Creative #1 - we were supposed to go out for a walk in the neighborhood and take photos of things from various angles. This is one of 5 photos I took.

I have shown this one before. It is my infamous "White is the color of stress" shot.

Announcement over at Jessica Sprague's web site! FREE class!

Click on the title to go directly to her site, or read below! Take this class...I implore you!
Now, never fear, if you don't have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you can download a free trial version and use it for 30 days. After that, you can decide if you want to keep it and pay the money or not. Elements is about $70 and Photoshop CS is about $700. Big difference, but CS is geared towards professionals. I have Elements and do just fine. Jessica shows how to do stuff in both versions via video.

Here is her announcement:
Thank you to everyone who joined in our discussion at TheMotherhood.com! Or tried (hehe, we tend to crash servers wherever we go, don't we, my friends?)

As promised, here is the announcement for the final class of 2009, and best of all, it's FREE! This is one that I really hope you'll invite friends and family to come participate in!

My last class of the year will be a FREE one, and EVERYONE who has a story to tell is invited. That is everyone. Hehe. ;)
New class:
December Delight: Capturing Holiday Hopes, Memories & Wonderment
November 16-23
Registration begins Monday, November 2 at JessicaSprague.com
Cost: FREE!
All are welcome! - Registration is unlimited!

More graphics, details, and so forth are coming! Mark your calendar, my lovelies!

TW Part 5

Poetry? Yuck.

That was my first reaction when we were told we had to write a poem. The theme was supposed to be "Things I know for certain." I have done similarly themed lay outs in the past, so it's never hard to come up with "advice" for others who are younger, but still! A poem!

Our instructor, Liv, talked a lot about flow, versus, descriptive language, etc. I hadn't written a poem since high school, but once I got going, I found my rhythm and was able to produce something.

The template is cool because it it versatile. Those squares could be use for photos instead and you could have 8 photos with one journaling block, or 9 photos with a little journaling or quote on a side. I love this template and plan to use it again soon!

Since this was the 2nd to last assignment, Jessica gave very little video instruction. She gave a list of what to do and then said to use the skills we had honed from previous lessons and go with it. The gallery showed so many great lay outs with great "poetry". Who knew that we could all write poems so well?

What is one thing you know for sure? Write it in the comments.

Oh, and my very favorite lay out in the gallery was about someone's dog! What her dog knows for sure. I loved it! Great idea for a Max lay out someday.