The clock ticked past 9:00 tonight and I still had no idea what I was going to post about.  It was one of those days when I work on things that are very uninteresting.  I primed the baseboard heaters in my family room and the under side of my kitchen cabinets.  Bo-ring.  I was about ready to get my camera out and snap a “before” picture of my heaters, but that seemed a little silly…even in the blog world.  I have finished three pieces of furniture, but I have to lug them into the house for their “beauty shots” and that just wasn’t going to happen today.  So, here I am…late into the evening and dry on material.  I started looking through my old photographs for some inspiration.  As I scrolled through some I took over a year ago, it hit me.  I knew what I wanted to post about. 

Last week I posted about my camera and lenses and this is the follow-up post about watermarks and actions that I promised.  Let me preface this by saying I am not a PSE (Photoshop Elements) expert and there are a lot of other great programs out there, this is just what I use.  If you use a free program or prefer another software, that’s totally OK.  Just use what works for you.  There are a couple of ways to watermark a photo.  Before my designer made a graphic for me, I just used a text box and added text over the picture.  This is a great homemade solution if you don’t know how to make a graphic (which I didn’t) or don’t have the money to hire someone to make one for you.    Laura made four graphics for me to use for watermarking.  The one above in white is what I

You can find an updated post (written in 2022) HERE about my camera, lenses, and other gear. I get a lot of questions about what camera and lenses I use as well as how I process my pictures.  I received a bunch last week, so I thought it was time to share it all in a post.  Well, a few posts.  This post is about what gear I use. My camera body is a Nikon D7000 digital SLR.  This picture is from Gear Patrol, because it’s hard to take a picture of your own camera when that is the only camera in the house.  I could’ve done the “mirror shot, but I’m not exactly photo-ready today.  So, anyway, there she is… You can whistle at her.  It’s okay. I really love this camera.  The body is around $1200 (without a lens), so it’s definitely expensive if you’re just starting out. 

If you take a poll of new DIY bloggers asking what’s on their Christmas list, probably over half would say a nice digital SLR.  It doesn’t take long for a blogger to realize the importance of photography in the blog world. The above shot is from a recent Cottages and Bungalows photo shoot. The above picture is from my first blog post.  It’s not bad.  I had taken a photography class years ago, so I knew the basic principles.  It’s just not very dynamic and I didn’t have enough faith in myself to use manual mode.  I thought the camera was smarter than I was.  I knew flash was no good, so I would shoot on the portrait setting and just hold the flash down with my finger.  I also didn’t know anything about the wonders of Photoshop. The photo above has been edited in Adobe Photoshop Elements.  I used actions from Florabella

My new lenses finally arrived late Wednesday evening.  It was after 7:00 pm and I was the last stop on the UPS route.  I practically hugged the delivery guy.  “I’ve been waiting for you ALL DAY LONG!!”  He apologized and I grabbed the package, signed for it, dashed to the back of the house and sat on the floor to open the long-awaited package.   It was really dark, which is not good for the kind of pictures I wanted to take.  The lenses were so cold from sitting in the truck since 4 AM, so they fogged from the warmth of my house.  I was not going to get to play with them right away, so I had to wait until morning.  As soon as the sun broke the next day, I was snapping pictures.  (I get to see a lot of sunrises with my 2 1/2 year old…)  Anyway, I thought I would share

There are some cool perks to having a blog.  There are really, really sweet ladies out there who send me things they think I might like or be able to use.  I’ve already shared the overwhelming response from the blog world when I asked for sheet music.  I am going to be set for months, maybe longer.  In the last few weeks, I’ve received some really fun goodies in the mail. Check out these tiles sent to me by Molly Mackey from Molly Coddle.  She’s taken photographs from Italy and France and applied them to tumbled marble to use as art or trivets.   I particularly love the ones with typography on them.   Thanks, Molly! Second, I received sheet music from Cori of Starview Sonnet.  She spotted some “Wild Rose” sheet music and immediately thought of the shop that sells my antiques and creations.  She sent me two copies, so I’m