Hold your breath

Hello Bloggin family!

I have been away, and will be away again after this post.
I am a busy, busy lady without time to blog.

Lemon Peel Photography

Hey! 

I made a photography blog, and I have an official name! 

Check me out!

http://lemonpeelphotography.blogspot.com/

Follow me!

Another day!

Hi again! I have no idea who is out there. Since I changed my blog name I think I lost a ton of my readers...not that I had a ton. Anyways. Today was Archer's first day at "destination Imagination." This is a community ed class that Jonah has been a part of since he was Arch's age. He LOVED it! He totally joined with all the older kids and had a blast. All the moms were so funny. They kept saying that his eyes are too pretty to be a boys...funny and true! I am so happy that he had a good time. He normally doesn't do well in groups in a place that he has never been, but he really enjoyed himself. What is strange about Jonah is that he used to really like the circle time where they read stories and sing songs, but now he wants nothing to do with it. He totally just wants to run around...I guess I should expect that he is a 3 (almost) year old boy. It is funny sometimes I just need to write something for it to make sense to me...hahaha! 

As some of you may know I loooove the movie "Forrest Gump" did you know that?? Anyways I have heard of the resturant "bubba gump," but because I hate seafood I never thought about eating there....Until.....My friend Tricia who is crazy obsessed with and eats there all the time told me they did movie trivia! Long story short we ate there today, and I got almost all the questions right! The waitress had to talk to other waiters to try and stump me...and boy they did...a few times! I had a TON of fun! Thanks Trix!

 I hope you are all well, and happy that you have found my blog! 

Where have I been...Oh yeah

Where have I been? Well I have been really busy reading my other posts from last year. I really like them. It is funny because back then I thought I was just blabbing away...well I guess that is true, but it is kinda fun. So many things that I had forgotten about. I really liked reading stuff that I forgot about my kids. So I am going to write a lot about my kids now.

Jonah's potty training can best be described as a see-saw. Up and down! He will do it for a while, then hate the crap out of it and not want to anymore. This is hard for us. We just want him to be done with all the diapers, and I think he will feel really good about himself once he gets it all the way down. He is so amazing. He will get hooked on talking about one thing for like a week. Most of the time we have no idea what he is talking about, and that is why I think he keeps talking about it. Jonah thinks if he just says it 100 times that we will get it. I never do. Last week he was talking about a bunny. Bunny is sleeping and something about him being scared or something...no idea. Now this week he is talking about birds and lights? Something about birds and how they have lights or something....? I have no clue. He also is mimicking Archer's bad behaviors. I think he sees Arch getting attention when he is bad, and he wants some too! We are trying to break him from this. Jonah seems to like to just hang with Mom and Dad more. He has been such an independent child. Playing on his own A LOT. But now it seems he wants to be on my lap playing or sitting on the bed talking to me while I am doing things on the computer. I love playing with him. It has been really fun now that he talks so much more. He can tell me how he feels and his thoughts! It is really cool. Since he was very little when he would wake up he would just talk (gibberish when he couldn't say words), and we always assumed he was telling us about his dreams. So now that we have given his "dreams" and name..."dream" he is even MORE talkative in the morning...when he is not starving to death for breakfast.

Archer. What to say about that little man. He is our little tornadoe softy...why that name you ask? Well because he is either acting like a tornadoe or a total cuddly softy. When he gets mad he gets even. He loves to bite and hit when he is mad. It is crazy. We of course are trying to break that habit, but Jonah sure doesn't pick on him anymore. Archer is also know as the laugher. He thinks most everything is funny. He laughs everytime Jonah looks at him. They have been playing this funny chasing game with each other lately...they just chase each other and LAUGH really hard. They are so cute.
More later....

Camera

This is an image taken with my brand new camera! I like it!

Hard to read!

Wow! My last post is sooo hard to read! Reason number 1 why I shouldn't blog while parenting...that combo is deadly! Yikes!

The sick Amber Rae

Working at Industries Inc. I worked with 75 people everyday. Men and women who every night come home to 2 different work staff each day. All staff who come from a home of 1-6 people. You can imagine how fast a cold, or the flu can spread around. Needless to say my crappy immune system could not fight off every bug that came my way. Actually I didn't fight it off most of the time. I was sick ALL the time. I was a sneezing fool to be honest. I even caught a very bad case of pnemonia and was in the hospital for 10 days...you probably remember reading about it in my earlier posting. I was quite used to it. 

Anyways since working at Carlson Studio in an almost seclusive envirment I haven't been very sick once I have worked there in fact and after one day of rest I felt much better and moved on. Now as I haven't been exposed to a real bug in over 8 months I have become a really crazy sick lady. I have no idea why? I am extremely emotional. As many of you know I am not a "cryer," not at all. For me to cry is kinda a big deal. I also don't really enjoy your typical "cry" movie (ie The Notebook, Titanic, I can't even name any more).  It isn't that I am proud of it. I do wish that I could cry a bit more, but it just isn't me. ANYWAYS....Today I have been crying, and upset, and whiny, and miserable, and completly out of wits. I don't think Matt knows what to do with me har,har,har. I asked him to rent some movies for me, the sweetheart that he is he ran right out and rented me two flicks. The first a adapted version of a Nicolas Sparks book. Wow, stopped me dead in my tracks, or would have. In my current condition I popped it in and cried almost the whole way through. Even while this is going on I realise that this isn't normally me. I would be laughing my tail off. I also have needed Matt right next to me ALL day. Cuddling me, and just sitting next to me. He of course doesn't mind, because he is the sensitive one in this relationship. Another thing I am not super proud of. I am not myself and I hope that this crazy person soon fades away along with all the symptoms that came with it...and Jonah would say "booger nose." 

Nikon D80

Hi there friends!

I have decided to sell my Nikon D80. If anyone out there is needing a fun camera, with more features you will ever need let me know. It is sad to see her go, but I know someone can give her a good home. More than likely the new owner will get more use out of it than I did. I think most of have seen the photos that she has taken, but if you want me to show some I can! Thank you!

Baby Shower invites!

Most of you know my BEST friend Samm is having a BABY! yay! Here are the invites to her baby shower that I made.....I am really critical of my own work so it takes a lot for me to post them. Anyways enjoy!

Caringbridge

They have now set up a caringbridge site for Chris. In less than one day it has had almost 5,000 hits. Make sure you sign his guestbook if you visit! They have been updating it a lot.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/chrisdewey

Please Pray!

http://www.startribune.com/local/39787082.html

This is Matt's cousin Chris. Please pray for him, and his (Dad) Mark, (mother) Poppy, (Brothers) Phillip and Danny.

At this point we are all so shocked, and I don't have much else to say.

AMBER AND THE BOYS

I guess my blog name is so creative! I have (finally) been blog hopping and their are LOTS of ________ and boys. This bums me out. I am going to think of something else...WOW I just thought of it!!!!!

Personal Question...I stink!!!

Question:

If you could "unknow" one thing you know, what would it be?

Ok Kim, I have thought about this for days...in the car, at work, in the shower, before I go to bed, all day pretty much. I have no answer for you, I wanted to sound clever and deep. I got nothing! Sorry to let you down. Try again! Love <3

Strangers Question

Question:
I am just about to buy Photoshop. It is very exciting, but very daunting. Do you have any recommendations for how to get started (books, online tutorials, classes, etc.)? Any other beginners tips would be helpful for me. I know many others already know how to do lots of the basics, but for those of us who are new, anything you want to share is greatly appreciated.


I am assuming since you have used the word "daunting" to describe your photoshop feelings you must be purchasing Photoshop CS4??
There is a program I recommend you buy along with Photoshop and that is the Ron Nickels Pallate (google search: RNDS retouching). This is a VERY easy program that can show ANY one how to use photoshop. For instance let's say you wanted to brighten someones eyes...all you do is go over to "brighten eyes" on the palate and it pick the perfect brush and opacity to "brighten eyes." It's amazing. Every tool has a video instruction that explains (VERY WELL) how to use it. It's amazing. Other than that I have watched a lot of tutorials on Youtube, and that has been really helpful to me, but I am a visual learner. I think there is a photoshop for dummies if you are the kinda person who needs to learn from a text book. Did that help?

What are you using photoshop for?

Kurt Cobain was my best friend last night.

I had this crazy dream that I was shopping for oil paints, and around the corner came Kurt Cobain. I was totally confused because I kinda thought he was dead. Anyways he walked up to me and was like, "how about these Amber?" I was thinking to myself how in the world does he know my name. Of course I was like yeah those are great (anything would have been...it's Kurt Cobain!!). Then he started saying things like..."remember that really sweet painting we did together for such and such art show??, " and "You better call your mom back, she told me you have been avoiding her." I played along even though I knew nothing more about him than I do right now! Then while walking to the parking lot we solved a murder mystery. I love my brain...Oh yeah and he really like my glasses.

This is me with glasses

ANY question!

You don't just have to ask me photoshop questions, you can also ask me personal questions. So go ahead...ask! 

More Questions!

Ask me more photoshop questions! I have answered them all!

Glasses

Tomorrow is the big day! I am going to pick up my specs! Wait did I not tell you folks the story>? Well I guess I will have to start from the very...well....start I guess. 

When I was 9 I completely failed half of my school wide eye exam. Only half is right. The right half.  My folks took me to the eye doctor and discovered I am almost blind in my right eye, and that my left eye had taken over....way over. I have you see what they call a stigmitisim....or something spelled similar to that. Among many other goofy things. (I bet you never knew that about me huh?). 

   From the age nine until 12 I wore glasses all the time, but they never really helped me see any better so I decided to stop wearing them. I take that back I did wear them quiet a bit in 11th grade because I thought maybe they would help me sit still in school (they didn't..and I am not sure why I thought that?). 

   NOW I sit in front of the computer ALL day long, and that does a real number on my eyes. It has been really hard, because my eyes start to hurt. So now once again, I have decided to get my eyes checked out. Having no insurance I needed to do this cheap..real cheap. Americans Best won the cheap battle. I was somewhat nervous that they wouldn't do a good job, but they actually explained to me what was going on with my eye better than any other eye doc has. He explained that My glasses probably won't make me see any better (than whats the point right>>??), but that I am straining my eyes all the time. I guess that is really bad for my eyes, and the glasses will make me relax my eyes and they should stop hurting! YAY! Plus I might get a little more depth perception which is always a good thing. So I will post a photo as soon as I get back with the glasses! 

A song for Madeline on Valentine's day!

My husband is the best man that I know. 

He is so helpful all day everyday. He has been gone for 3 days and I am going crazy. You never know what you have until it's gone. Those words are so true. I guess I have overlooked my wonderful man a time or two. And today I decided to make a LOVE list for him. 

I LOVE- that he is goofy. 

I LOVE- his sense of humor.

I LOVE- his values.

I LOVE- that he teaches me how to be a better person just by being himself.

I LOVE- His name.

I LOVE- watching him with the boys. They have such an amazing relationship. If you have ever seen him with our boys you would know what I am talking about. He just connects with them.

I LOVE- that he loves babies. 

I LOVE- that he doesn't pretend to be macho.

I LOVE- how he smells.

I LOVE- in the morning when he just lays looking around with out moving or making a sound. It is the best 5 minute start to a day. I just sit and talk, and talk, and talk...and he listens. I don't know why I love that so much, but it's really cute. 

I LOVE- Watching tv shows with him.....Curb your enthusiasum (mind the spelling), Arrested Development, LOst, The Office......

I LOVE- when he cries at movie. 

I LOVE- how he looks. His face is so interesting. Big pouty lips, soft brown eyes, his CUUTE freckles!!

I LOVE- that he suprises me a lot. 

I love- when he picks me wild flowers. 

I LOVE- how he comforts me when I am in pain or sick. 

I LOVE- that is seems like he always thinks about me.

I LOVE- that he can make me laugh (when i am not taking myself to seriously). 

I LOVE- that he stays home with the boys. 

I LOVE- the way he supports me.

I LOVE- when he encourages me.

I LOVE- listening to him pray.

I LOVE- when he draws. 

I LOVE- his hair...it's so think and curly.

I LOVE- that he knows everything about most things....except manly things like cars and how to fix stuff. 

I LOVE- How he shows love. 

I LOVE- that he cherished my purity, before we got married. 

I LOVE- that he loves JESUS! 

I LOVE- him, him, him!!!!

I fell!

I fell flat on my butt twice this past week, and boy oh boy am I hurting! 

I am totally stiff, and in SOO much pain. In fact I didn't even go to work today! Please pray for me! 

The first time I fell I was running back to work to pick up my laptop around 8pm. I was in a HUGE hurry because the boys were in the car crying wanting to go to sleep. I locked the door turned around and starting to walk through what I thought was a puddle. Actually it was completely CLEAR ice. I slipped and fell very hard. So hard that two people pulled over and ran across the street to help. Meanwhile Matt is still in the car oblivious to what is going on. Finally I screamed his name and he rushed out to help, along with the two other strangers. 

The next time I fell I was with my boss Steve in the cities for a photography convention. During the ride down I was talking to him about my car accident and how I have to be really careful not to fall or get hurt, literally 5 minutes later I was on my butt again. Man did I feel dumb. He thought I was trying to play some weird joke. 

So now here I am laying in bed SORE, sore, sore. Please pray for me, it is kinda hard to chase boys around when I am in this much pain. Thank you! 

Melissa's brush question!

Loading brushes into photoshop is similar to loading actions, but there is one less step. By the way Melissa did my tutorial help you with that?? Ok so here is the play by play on brushes.

1. Download the brushes onto your desktop.
2. Extract all files (right click on the folder and hit extract all). When you extract you will see a bunch of normal looking files and then you will see one that is a blue and white square and it will have the name of the brush on it....remember that.
3. Go to my computer...and double click on your harddrive....it will be named like (s) or (c) or something like that.
4. Double click on programs
5. Double click on Adobe
6. Double Click on adobe photoshop (cs3 or cs4 whatever you have)!
7. Double click on Presets.
8. Double click on brushes....are you sick of double clicking yet>>>??
9. Now you want to drag that blue and white icon into this folder.
10. Your done! Now you have to close photoshop and open it again for the brushes to show up!

Yay!! You are your way to a beautiful brush love affair!
Hope that helped! PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS if I didn't explain this well!

Jess's Question....!

Disclaimer: There are many ways to do EVERYTHING in photoshop and I am going to show you the easiest way to do them.



how do you adjust the background color and not screw up the colors in the main subject...aka documenting art pieces. i always have too dark of photos so when i adjust the exposure in photoshop i lose all the detail and wash out the drawings. help!


Hey Jess, very good question. This is an issue many people have. Using a mask will solve your problem. Here is the step by step.

1. Open your image and make a copy layer of your background.
2. Now adjust the exposure to whatever you want your background to look like, it won't matter what your subject looks like.
3. Then create a mask. Look at Kim's question if you are not sure how to do that.
4. Just like in Kim's Q you grab a soft brush and paint back the background layer using black at 100% opacity.

You should be set to go! Please let me know if you have anymore questions! Love you Jess!!!

Brushes!!

http://www.brusheezy.com/brushes

I really like the brushes on this website. I will explain tomorrow how to load them into photoshop!

How to load an action....explained by someone much better at explaining! Heehe!

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/actions-tutorials/photoshop-actions-for-photographers.html

This is a really good tutorial I found about loading actions. What is great about the internet is that you can find anything for free. You just google free photoshop actions and you have just about every choice of action you can think of.

Kim's Question

For a clean magazine/model-like-perfect-soft focus look......I have always used smart blur. (after selecting the eyes and then inverse-ing to select everything else). Is that right? And how much? I am always afraid I am using too little or too much. Is there a different route I should take?

This is a very good question and will very a tad with every photo. The more complicated way to go about this is to use the channel system (I am not sure if you are familiar with that), but really it does almost the same effect just doing it the plain and simple way.

Here is what I do.....

1. I open my image.

2. I duplicate the background layer, and name it Blur.

3. Go to filter....scroll to blur and I usually use Gaussian Blur. So hit that. I would bring it to about 20, but in preview you can decide what is best for the photo you are using.

4. Then on your Blur layer create a mask....it's on the bottom of the layer box...kinda by the adjustments. This mask will show up right next to the little photo on the blur layer and it will be white. Click on it.

5. Then grab a soft brush, and change your opacity to 100%.

6. Select the color black to paint with.

7. Then go over the eyes, lips, eyebrows and nostrils.

This is VERY fast once you get the hang of it, and I find it works almost exactly the same as the WAY more complicated methods. It is very important to paint back the eyes, lips, teeth, eyebrows and nostrils. Your photo will look strange to the untrained eye.

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Alicia's Questions!!

Thanks Alicia for your awesome compliment. It really means tons to me!

So your questions....

The prayer cards that I made for my cousin Sammy came from a template that my co-worker had made in Digital Image Pro (DIP). DIP is a super user friendly program geared for graphic design. If you are not already used to photoshop and don't want to invest in it that is the program you should use.

My header was made in photoshop and I will try to break it down into steps the best that I can...with lots of side notes! :)

1. I used a photograph for my background image. So once you decide on the photo you would like to use open it with photoshop. When you open the image it will automatically make this your background layer.

2. Next you need to duplicate this layer. So highlight the background layer and right click (on pc) and hit the option "duplicate layer."

3. Oops...first you need to download some brushes (the flowers in my photo). But I will just explain it like you have the brushes and at the end will tell you how to get them.

4. Now that you have duplicated the layer you can start to brush on your flowers (or whatever brush you want to use). Really the brushed should be called stamps because that is more like how they really work. So select the brush tool...(on the left bar going down). Then on the top of that screen you will see the word brush with a little dot next to it and a number below it click on that the "master diameter" will change the size of your brush. Then just to the right will be a little arrow you need to click on that to select what brush (stamp) you want to use.

5. Next you want to change the opacity which is just to the right of the mode bar. The opacity will determine the density of your brush and really that is up to you.

6. Now make sure you are on your duplicated layer...and select whatever color you would like your brush to be and start to stamp.

To add text:

VERY easy...just hit the text box and click where ever you want the text to be and write. I think you can figure that part out but if not let me know.

To add another image:

1. Open the other image you want to use.

2. Click the minimise box so you can see both images at the same time.

3. Grap the curser tool (the first tool on the left bar).

4. Then grap the image you want to be smaller and drag it to your background image.

5. Now this image will be sitting on top of what you have already done.

6. MAKE SURE YOU HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY>>>and just like you would make a web box smaller you would go the corner and drag. Drag it down to whatever size you want the image to be and place it where ever. If you don't hold down the shift key while doing this it will warp your image.

Once you have your text, photo and stamping done you want to flatten your image. You can either just hit "save as" and saved as a jpeg (which will automatically flatten your image), or you can go to layer on the top bar and hit flatten and then save.

AHH>>>>Did that answer your question. It is probably better to teach this in conversation so you can ask question. BUT PLEASE ASK me questions if you have any!

Anything you want to know.

So my friend Melissa who is an amazing photographer is answering whatever question anyone want to know about photography on her blog. While photography is her area of expert photoshop is mine. I am opening up my brain for you to pick!
I will answer any question about photoshop (that is if I know it).

So go ahead ask away......



Here is her blog:
http://billmissandbrood.blogspot.com/

Header

I don't have any idea what I did to my header....Oh well! Do you like it??

Update Request

Now that my Mac book is up and running again it will be much easier for me to blog. I just need to get back on the wagon. Where to start?

Ok, well this weekend the family and I are suppose to go up north with some other couples. We just started a FBC bible study and I think most of the couples are from other small groups. Anyways we need to get tons of stuff done before we go, and what have we done??? Not one thing. No packing, no laundry, no time. That is the story of my life right now...no time.

I haven't done any of my own work, only studio work. Ahh....

I have however colored my hair, and I LOVE it. For some reason it makes my hair look really thick (to me). No matter what color I try to dye my hair it always ends up a little red. Which is really weird because my hair isn't red at all. So it is dark brown/red. Lots of random-ness going on in this tired brain of mine. I just want to spend a day learning how to crochet and listen to music! Can someone make that happen for me?? 

I have to really focus today at work, why am I blogging?

Well I have a lot to order but our Java server is not responding...ALL day!
By the way I love Kanye West, and I am a lazy blogger.

Hair

I need to do something with my hair.
I hate it.
It is boring.
So I made an appointment today at hair mania.
I'm not sure what I am going to do with my hair.

I really want to get a perm, but I am afraid my hair is too short and I will end up with another really bad perm. Also I had a problem with hair loss this past year, and I am really worried that my hair won't handle a perm.

Color I guess is always an option, but it requires so much maintenance. I am not sure I am ready for that commitment.

P.s. I have used photoshop many times to see what my hair could look like! Oops!

My husband reminder

I sometimes get a little self involved and forget to think constantly of the greatest things in my life. This week has been more than crazy and the thought that runs fluid through my brain and heart is "I could never do this with out my husband." Honestly, I take him for granted more times than I give him credit. Every weakness I have seems to be his area of strength, and I praise God for his wonderful creation. When I try to comprehend how great God is, I think of his perfect control in all life situations. When I trust God and put my heart in his hands everything works in complete harmony. I suppose there is a huge book somewhere with well over a hundred testimonies on that statement, but I guess I hardly apply them enough. Basically when I trust God in my marriage I see all the blessings it has, including all the awesome strengths my husband has.We can home from the hospital Tuesday afternoon. I had no clue where to start, what to do, or how anything was going to work. We have a huge juggling act over here at the Dewey family, and Matt his the leader of the act. In my mind I think school, work, 18 month old son, and newborn baby, sleep, food, breathing....this all over-whelms me and I am not even responsible for all of it. Matt jumps right in and leads the pack. Making dinner, doing dishes, getting me water, playing with Jonah, burping Archer, encouraging me, cleaning up the house, changing diapers, rubbing my feet, doing school work, making beds, and all without being asked. He just does it, with patients and grace. How? I have no clue, maybe because he is just the greatest. God has made the most wonderful dad, and husband. It is kind of incredible to think that God has made each of us, and we all just fit together. Gods creativity is so amazing.Basically thank you God so much for my husband and my beautiful boys. I praise your name always.


I wrote this on my facebook account a few days after I had baby Archer.
I needed a reminder.

Kanye West

Have I told you lately that I love you??

Extension from the last post.

Um..this last year I learned a lot.
I like it that way.
A year is worn on me, then shined up on gold.

Should I be blog rapping?

A new year, the same me.

Here I come brand new year.
One that only happens once.
This year is mine.
And yours too.



After something really stressful, I am relieved and remember that
everything always works out. This year I want that feeling before
the stressful whatever is over.