Archive for 2007

My Blue Eyed, Blue Armed Girl

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

Here’s the story in a nutshell. My two girls were acting scrappy so I sent them to their shared room for a little quite time on their bunkbeds. All was peaceful and quiet for a while. Mothers know this is usually a sign of trouble.

Just then my oldest DD yells out, “Mom! A. has BLUE on almost her whole body!”
I jump up and run upstairs to their room. Sweet A. was sitting quietly on her bed as instructed, with a blue crayola marker and apparently not enough paper to scribble on. She did this instead:

As you can see, she is devastated at the consequence of coloring her body smurf-blue. Unfortunately, she doesn’t even know what smurfs are . . . so I couldn’t even use that one.

I was faced with a dilemma. Do I scold? Laugh? Cry? Get the camera? I got the camera . . . and told her we needed to take a picture to show her dad what she had done (trying to be stern, but holding in my laughter).

She was striking the poses, I tell you. Admiring her artistic creation. Amazingly enough, she didn’t get ANY marker on her bedding. I don’t know how, as you can see she was pretty thorough with this. She is also a lefty, as you can see her right arm was the more “artistically rendered” one.

Enough admiring. Off to the bath. As she smiled while the blue water filled the tub, I told her, “You’re going to be blue for a really long time.”

“Oh.” She casually replied.

Big sister added, “That’s not going to look very good at church!” (Always thinking ahead!)

Eventually the blue did come off and my darling A. emerged from her brief smurfdom.

The moral of the story: Beware the quiet child, as she is more likely to get into mischief.

Butterfly Princess Brushes~ Givaway?!?

Friday, November 9th, 2007

“More free stuff?” you may ask. Yes, it is true. I do love to share stuff with people, and I thought these brushes may be put to good use. This free download is for personal use. Please email me regarding a commercial use license.

This set of BUTTERFLY PRINCESS brushes are .abr files, and will work for PS & PSE. Place the file into your presets folder (usually a subset within the PS folder inside drive where you have installed PS). To load the brushes open up PS> go to edit> preset manager> load> select the name “butterfly princess” then click “load.” Let me know if you have any troubles with it.

This free brush set expires in seven days or after 100 downloads, whichever comes first. Enjoy!! I’d love to see what you come up with! If you are sharing your creations online, please reference https://www.studiocharm.com/blog . Enjoy!

click here to download

Cowgirl Portraiture

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

Tonight {this morning?} I was feeling creative and apparently was having enough fun to forego sleeping and here are the results . . . my little cowgirl, taken from a photograph of my dd. I created this oil painting via corel painter and my wacom tablet . . . and I think I have just rediscovered a love for oil painting!

Some of you may know that my degree is in art education. I taught junior high art and photography for a few years, and have been a mural artist for the past 10 years. I only took one oil painting class in college and honestly didn’t fall in love with the mess, the long time oils take to dry, the fumes, the clean-up. Needless to say, my murals are all painted with water-based acrylic. My DH enjoys painting once in a while and prefers oil to acrylic, but not me.

Until now. {Here’s a close up of the texture and blending}

So I can’t wait to create my next portrait! I had never installed this program until tonight. As an artist, I am surprised at how intuitive this program is. I really created this image in the same sequence that I would a 3-d painting. It takes quite a bit of time, and many layers are involved. There isn’t a magic button or setting to create a realistic oil painting . . . that is why the process was so rewarding for me. I think I may have this one printed on canvas masonite! I’ll let you know how it works out!

{I kept her face on the smooth side and the background/ bandana pop with a bold texture. Does she pass the test?}

Thanksgiving Card Template Givaway

Monday, November 5th, 2007

This week I decided to offer a givaway to a few more of you (up to 100) . . . it is the Thursday Givaway, but it will last this whole week! Wahoo!!

If you would like to download this lovely 5×7 Thanksgiving card (to be personalized by you . . . as it is a fully-layered .psd file) just click here: studiocharm thanksgiving card. Offer expires in 7 days, or after 100 downloads.

There is also a tutorial for using clipping masks/ group with previous layer on our studiocharm website: template tutorial.

I’d love to hear what you think of the template! This template is set up the same way our holiday collection templates. Remember, the template does not include fonts so you will be asked to update your font layers upon opening the file. Your computer will replace with a similar font, or you can highlight the text and select a font. Please don’t share the template- but printing cards made with it is encouraged.

~Amy

Tricks and Treats: Halloween 2007

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

I have many lists in my life. I have “should do’s” “have to’s” “want to’s” and “will do’s.” I decided to endulge in a little “want to” time and sort through a few pictures from yesterday:

{a quick visit to Grandma & Grandpa’s house . . . can you tell who is thrilled to be part of this photo?}

{Grandpa raked up the biggest pile of leaves EVER . . . just for the kids to play in. I even jumped in, and felt like I kid myself. Matthew was delighted with all of the crunchiness of his leafy mound. Our visit was longer than planned because I lost my car keys. After searching through the biggest pile of leaves EVER, we realized the keys were locked inside the car. A little help from AAA and 2 hours later we were finally home to greet Daddy-0 and ready to commence trick-or-treating. Good one, Amy. }

{Cool tree, great candy. My favorite trick-or-treating snap so far.}

{Spooky.}

{A. and the horse . . . actually she is supposed to BE the horse. Confusing but cute costume.}

{Loving interaction between my girls . . . lucky capture!}

{She’s the toughest, sweetist li’l cowgirl around!}

{Watch out! This horse BITES!}

{This is M. in his “Mom got carried away bidding on a Tom Arma limited edition zebra costume on ebay” outfit. Isn’t he the perfect zebra though?}

Now onto November. . . and I will share some photos from the cabin just as soon as I can. Promise.

Givaway Three: The Winner!

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
Congratulations Katie- thanks for playing! Please contact me with your 3 selections: (ie. c-3, d-1, a-2) and an email address and you will receive your prize!
Next week (Thursday) we’ll have some more fun with another drawing!! I promise to add some recent pictures up ASAP . . . as this is my busiest time of year! Happy November 1st!

Thursday Givaway- 3 templates

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

H is for Happy Halloween

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

I’ve been out of town- up in the mountains, actually. Sorry for the lack of posts, but I promise I’ve got plenty to share! Just playing catch up. More to come later today- and our Thursday givaway is still on. I will be posting the prize “up for grabs” a little later today. But for now . . .

And the WINNER is . . .

Thursday, October 25th, 2007
First of all, let me just say that I truly appreciate all of the thoughtful comments you have left in the past couple of days! It inspires me to keep the creative juices flowing and to continue with what I’m doing. As a photographer & designer, I love what I do. One of the biggest complements for me is when someone sees a design or a photo and recognizes it as my work. Thanks everone!
Next Thursday we’ll have some more fun with another givaway. Stay tuned for more details!!
Any of these templates are also available for purchase on my website in the template studio. I also added a tutorial this morning. Little by little, we’re putting it all together for you.
studiocharm templates

Thursday Givaway: 2007 Card Templates

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

As promised, we’re having a special drawing this Thursday!
Enter to win a collection of our 2007 holiday card templates!!

Designed as fully-layered .psd files for use by pro-photographers (and hobbyists for that matter!). The winner’s name will be randomly drawn at noon on Thursday the 25th, so leave a comment here to enter. You will have your choice of one of 5 collections (each collection includes 5 card designs!) These templates will work for photoshop users, and photoshop elements users- using clipping masks. Don’t worry, pretty simple.

IF you are not a photoshop afficionada, an alternate prize would be for me to create your personal card design with you sending me your photo and text and I would send you a flat .jpg file of your design and you could print it.

Here’s a sneak peak of the offerings:

Consolation prize: Templates are also available for purchase on our website-a steal at $5.00 each or $20 for a collection: studiocharm card templates. A link for you to download your order will be emailed to you in about 24 hours from receipt of payment.