A little of this and a little of that....plus some photo tricks

Well that was a nice long weekend, I didn't do much but clean the house and well....clean the house. Now that I think about it, it really wasn't that much fun for me LOL

Saturday was wonderful though, I'm dying to go back to the Renaissance Festival and if you've never been to one, you really should go. If you're wondering if there's one in your area, I've got a list for you, so no excuses not to go mingle with the 16th century crowd.

We had lots of rain over the weekend and still have cloudy skies with supposedly more rain on the way, it's funny because I have this thing....I love the rain but only if it's at night and when the whole family is home, no need to go out and do anything. If it rains during the day then I get a little annoyed LOL

I've had a lot of questions on my templates and some of my photo tricks etc....so I thought I would share some of that with you today, but before I do so, I want you to go over to two blogs for me, they're by some friends of ours, he's a retired Air Force Veteran and we met back in Idaho when we were stationed at Mountain Home. We've stayed in touch throughout the years and consider them good friends....we also share a love for Idaho and often talk about returning and buying a house there in a few years. They're both really good writers too and often share their poems on their blogs.

The Corner of Insanity and Chaos - This is Sam's blog, she's married to Kelly and a good friend, so please go on over and say hi.

Musings of a Sand Dollar Philosopher - This is Kelly's blog, he is a really good writer and like I said above, a retired Air Force Veteran, so go on over and spread some love hahahah

Often times I get asked how I did a certain photo, how I changed the color or made it so bright or black and white with just a pop of color, which is my favorite thing to do, but when I tell you how it's done you're going to smack yourself in the head because it's SO easy.

I use PaintShop Pro 9, I've had it for years and even though the new ones have come out, this is what I feel comfortable with and what I'm good at so why change???

So let's start.....we're going to take this photo


and turn it into this...See how it's black and white but only some things are color??? The trick to doing this is to open up your original photo in your graphics program. Then you're going to duplicate that layer....


Right click on the layer in your layer menu on the right and click duplicate. Now you have two layers. Make sure you have the duplicate selected and go to Adjust/Hue and Saturation/Colorize, then make sure your Saturation is set to "0" which will make the photo grey.


There are a lot of ways to do this, but I figured out that this is by far the easiest and quickest way.

Now that our photo is in black and white, we are going to start coloring it. All you need to do is make sure you have the duplicate layer selected and then grab your eraser tool and start erasing the areas you want to have color in. Like for mine I wanted the two knights and the king area, so I erased around there and the bottom color starts coming through.

What you'll be left with is this:

Here's some more examples of other photos I've used this trick on.





So go for it, and if you do try it out come back and let me know so that I can see your results :)

I've been feeling kinda off since sunday, my nose is congested and I feel lightheaded, my stomach hurts and I'm also a little nauseous. I don't know what's going on, is it a cold? Is it a stomach bug? What the heck is it? Whatever it is though, I can't afford to have it right now, not when I'm so close to moving again, that would be awful.

Speaking of moving, we're waiting on Housing to calls us and let us know when the house is ready, then it's just a matter of Curt's work giving him time off and we can move into the new place. Right now we're counting on leaving this weekend but the way things are going, it may be not happen until the 1st.

As you may know from our relocation to Arizona, I'm not the most patient person in the world....I don't like being told I'm going somewhere and then having to wait around for weeks or months, I like getting things done right then and there. Boy have I had to learn patience though, I think God is constantly reminding me that things are not done on MY time but His, and you would have thought after all these years I would get the message.

I hope you all have remembered to watch the Jane Austen Masterpiece Theatre every sunday, this week was the first part of Pride and Prejudice, one of my FAVORITE Jane Austen works. I can't wait for next week.


I also started a new book yesterday, The Boleyn Inheritance by Phillipa Gregory. Loving it so far, if you want to read Chapter 1 of this book just click here. I guess I should also read The Other Boleyn Girl right? Trust me to read things out of order LOL

I think I've babbled enough for today, I have laundry to finish and then I'm making some English Scones. I'll have the recipe on my food blog later for you all.


Dinner tonight is my Fish Cakes and some Tomato and Spinach Rice. Believe it or not, it's one of my kids favorite meals.