Feb
04
2014Jessica D won a free 6 Month and 1 Year Session from Quiet Graces Photography
Betsy won the Metallic Pearl Earrings from Amanda Cobb of Noonday Collection.
Sheila won a Thanks a Latte Card Set from Julie of Whimsical Words.
Rosanne won a $25 gift card with Adina of Simple Life Vintage.
Lina won Armenian Folk Music from Mariam Matossian.
Kristin T. won the Bloom Collage from Mandy Mianecki.
Cathy won a snowflake set from Mandyolyn Makes.
Danielle won two life coaching sessions with Justine Register.
Barabara won a Handmade Bracelet from Delonna of Clothed in Love.
Chelsea won a Produce Basket from Barbi Haas of the Noisy Rabbit.
Joanne won her choice of 1 hour of Writing Coaching or Editing with Elise Daly Parker.
Katie won Scrabble themed One- Word Decor from Cathy of Celebrating the Moment.
Hollie won a Glamour Maternity Session with Quiet Graces.
Michelle C won Bring a Friend to Card Making Classes in Greenville, SC with Carrie of Stampin Up.
Mandy M won a Chevron Bow from Lisa of MAD Dazzle Bows.
Elise won a 25% Gift card to Lani of All that Crazy Grace‘s store!
Carey of Cravings: Desiring God in the Midst of Motherhood is giving away 10 Copies of her devotional Cravings!
Jan
23
2014Operating a small business is work well loved but often hard and lonely with little support. So during my “big” birthday month, I’m going to be sharing with you some wonderful businesses and each of them will be giving away one thing to one lucky person. I’m sharing these small businesses because my heart is with the business owner struggling to make it, but really passionate about serving people. Any given day, I may fit that description. 😉 This month I’m offering a Newborn Special coupled with a chance to win free sessions. If you’re expecting a little one, read this post for details.
Here is a link to all of the giveaways I’m hosting this month.
And now let me tell you a little bit about today’s small business owner.
Lani of All this Crazy Grace
Lani makes me smile. Just thinking of her sitting in my car just minutes after I met right next to my potty training two year old using our “porta potty” in the drivers seat will always make me laugh. But really Lani is a beautiful woman. She blogs at All this Crazy Grace and my favorite post is a piece of encouragement called Don’t Take You for Granted.
Lani has six kids and homeschools up in freezing cold Canada and when you ask her how she finds time to blog and sew, she looks at you seriously and replies, “It’s how I keep my sanity.” I totally understand how a creative pursuit makes me a better mommy.
Lani makes these adorable dolls called Button Beauties. They’re whimsical representations of childhood and she can customize them to your child’s preferences. My girls love this one the best because she’s wearing blue (Aeralind’s favorite) and has on pointe shoes (Brownyn’s favorite).
Contest Entry Instructions
Leave a comment below telling me what your little girl would name her doll from Lani’s shop All this Crazy Grace.
Make sure to include a way to reach you if you win. Giveaway Closes on January 31st.
Winner will be chosen through a random number generator and notified on February 3rd.
Jan
15
2014Operating a small business is work well loved but often hard and lonely with little support. So during my “big” birthday month, I’m going to be sharing with you some wonderful businesses and each of them will be giving away one thing to one lucky person.
I’m sharing these small businesses because my heart is with the business owner struggling to make it, but really passionate about serving people. Any given day, I may fit that description. 😉
And now let me tell you a little bit about today’s small business owner.
Elise Parker
Here’s the main things I want you to hear about Elise: she has two super powers. Her laugh fills the whole room with joy and she has the ability to make you instantly feel like you’re the only person in the room. She’s also helped deliver a baby in a car 😉
But aside from those super powers, Elise writes her own blog here: Our Stories God’s Glory. Elise is also a writer and editor for both Circles of Faith and the newly launched God Sized Dreams. She is concerned with equipping and encouraging women to pursue all of what God has for them. And on top of all that she coaches others who are on writing journeys.
One Hour Writing Coaching or Editing
Elise is offering the winner to choose either an hour of writing coaching or an hour of editing with her. I’m almost a little jealous that I can’t enter this contest myself.
Maybe you’re not a blogger or author who is jumping for joy and not even reading this sentence before entering the contest. That’s okay. Let me tell you some other people who would benefit from writing coaching or editing.
- The High School or College Student applying for an exclusive internship or scholarship opportunity or an overseas semester
- For the business owner who can’t understand why their website isn’t drawing in interested customers
- For the Speaker or Bible Study teacher who is passionate about what they’re doing, but sometimes feels a failure to connect to audiences
- For the girl who has always written in a journal and wondered silently if her words were good enough to share.
I’m sure their are other categories who would benefit from Writing Coaching or Editing too!
Contest Entry Instructions
To enter, stop by the newly launched God Sized Dreams website and poke around a little bit. Then comment here and tell me how your God Sized Dream would intersect with writing coaching or editing.
Make sure to include a way to reach you if you win.
Giveaway Closes on January 31st.
Winner will be chosen through a random number generator and notified on February 3rd.
Jan
14
2014Alright, faithful few in this class, this is it! The last in the series. Woohoo! I’m making this short on words and high on pictures. Remember there are 100 ways to do a clean edit or any editing at all. This is the quick stuff I apply to an edit of my own family. Here’s my SOOC (straight out of the camera) RAW file saved as a JPEG so I can post it here. I try to remember to turn my camera back to JPEG to shoot my kiddos in between sessions, but more often than not I forget :-p
Lightroom Manual Edit
- I did not white balance this image in camera in my blue bedroom with mixed lighting: daylight from the window and florescent from the bulb. (bad Melissa! :-p) So the first think I want to do is use White balance tool on the white in her strap on the left side. You can also use this tool with a grey or black. This is the white balance tool in LR.
- Decide it’s still too cool and move the Kelvin slider to 4976 to warm it up to where I like it.
- Bring Exposure and Contrast up to these numbers.
- Play with the Tone curve until I like it
- This image was super noisy (ISO 6400), so I adjusted the details to the following settings to sharpen a bit and reduce noise.
- Cropped
- Here is a the Manual Edit Before/After
- Then for fun I applied Erin Tole’s Nova Preset (my favorite). Here’s that after.
PSE Manual Edit
- Opened in the RAW editor and made the following adjustments. This is really pretty similar to what I did in Lightroom 😉 If I had shot JPEG, I would have had less control over the noise and I would have done the white balance adjustment in a Levels Layer. I probably needed to do some more noise reduction here than I did because it’s really noisy here compared to the Lightroom edit.
- Opened a levels Layer and Bumped the Midtones
- Still didn’t think this looked warm enough so I added a Photo Filter using the following settings
- Cropped
- Here it is after a Clean Edit.
- Then For Fun I ran Pure’s Golden Sunset Action.
Usually I would do a diptych in PSE to compare images, but I just transferred to a new computer (WOOOOHOOOOOO! I can actually run PSE and LR at the same time!!!!!!! ahem….) and don’t have everything set up to do that yet.
So here is the LR Edit on the Left and the PSE Edit on the Right. There’s really not a whole ton of difference, it just takes a few more steps in PSE 😉
Dec
31
2013
Last year I was invited to join at team of 99 women on Holley Gerth’s God Sized Dreams Team. I had written a SMART goal on my application to simply “Photograph 13 paid sessions in 2013.” I didn’t know what to expect on Holley’s Team and amid a sea of mostly writers, I really didn’t feel like I belonged in the group for at least a month.
I wrote this quiet post about the beginning of it all.
But these women on that team are precious to me now. The dream has grown and changed and been empowered by them.
Did I photograph 13 paid sessions? By some startling miracle of grace: yes. But it was the walking with this team that really changed me and my dream and molded my heart to be more like God’s.
Honestly, I’m having a hard time putting into words all the ways this journey has changed me. So to avoid the worlds longest post let me just whisper a quick bullet point list.
- I’ve realized that the writing I do is part of the dream. I’m not quite sure how they fit together, but I know they’re part of the same calling. So I’ll keep writing in this space.
- I’ve learned the difference between getting paid and being profitable enough to pay myself. Running a business is costly and if I’m not paying myself instead of funneling money back into the business then I’m not doing anything more then fueling an expensive hobby. That’s not fair to my family.
- God taught me the difference that praying others through their dream as I pray for theirs really makes. It’s been incredible to know that at my weakest I’m supported by these ladies on the God Sized Dream Team in prayer. And hearing about the answers to our prayers is just stunning miracles of grace.
- That my people pleasing tendencies get in the way of real relationship. Ahem… I can’t believe I typed that. But that was why I was called to attend Allume and meet so many of these dreamers. So that God could shake that message into me.
- God is the provider and, more importantly, the definer of success. I am only responsible for obeying the call: not defining or achieving success or failure. This has completely changed perspective so many different times (especially on this day where I’m announcing one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. Active Marketing on more fronts than just this giveaway series.)
- Having a community of dreamers who believe in you and the desire God has placed in you is worth more than anything else on your dream journey.
Yesterday a small group of the God-Sized Dream Team led by Christine, launched a God-Sized Dreams website. This THE place for you to enter into the community you’ll need to be supported in your dreams. So if you feel that old familiar fear welling up in you, preach the gospel to your self with me “I’m only in charge of obedience: God defines and provides success….I’m only in charge of obedience: God defines and provides success….I’m only in charge of obedience: God defines and provides success….I’m only in charge of obedience: God defines and provides success….”
Take a deep breath and click over to the God-Sized Dreams site and dream with me.
