Baby Blues

This post has nothing to do with decorating, cooking, or baking. BUT, it does have to do with Christmas. I am making Christmas presents for everyone this year.

For family, it's all scrapbooking type gifts. I love making them and I know they love receiving them as well. In fact, my sister-in-law, Stephanie told me at Thanksgiving that that's all she wants from me for gifts from now on for her birthday, Christmas whatever, is scrapbook pages from me. That was so sweet. :0) Here's one of the pages I've done featuring her adorable little girl, Danica,that I did for Danica's birthday. I presented the finished pages in a pretty 12 x 12 album with lots of room for me to give more pages that can be added to it...

At Thanksgiving I took this shot of Danica right after she fell asleep in her stroller after lunch. I just HAD to get a shot of these gorgeous eyelashes. Now I have to think of a clever/adorable title for this (any ideas?)... I also haven't decided if I'll feature the photo like this or upside down. I actually took this shot from above her, but I flipped it to add it to my blog. I'm not sure which way looks best, this way or upside down. What do you think?

Next, are two pictures I edited today in Paint Shop Pro. They are of Dylan (blue eyes) and Ian (blue jeans). I call them my nephews, but they are actually my husband's cousin's boys. But, we like having them as nephews so that's what they ARE to us. I took the original photo and copied and pasted an additional grey scale layer on top and then erased just the area of the grey scale that I wanted to show through in color. ie, for Ian his blue eyes, -which by the way I did not enhance any of the color that's just how beautifully blue they really are!, and then I did the same for Ian's picture except I showed the blue of his blue jeans. I haven't decided on how I'll do the pages for these yet, but I love how the photos turned out.

I can't wait to give my scrapbooking gifts to everyone this year. I'll share some of my sister's girls soon. I have some great shots of them, too.

If you get a chance, leave me a comment and help me out with some of these questions, ok?

Maybe you're not a scrapbooker or you don't feel you could make gifts with photos for others. Have you seen the gift books you can make through photo services such as Target -which uses Kodak and Shutterfly, and Snapfish etc.? You can upload your photos, store them, use their online service to edit your photos and build your pages with their templates that will be made in to a hardcover book with glossy pages to give as gifts. No editing, publishing, photography experience necessary! Check that out if it sounds like something you might be interested in trying! You can even make them up and store them until you are ready to order them. These services are free until you order a book. They are all offering specials for Christmas right now.

Be Inspired! -Karol :0)