30 April 2010

Garbage Art

(Note: After walking a friend through how to do this, I discovered some errors and omissions - I have tried to remedy that ...)

How do you take this (a photo I took of the sawdust in the garbage can in the garage):

and this:

And make this:

If you care - carry on - if not - you are done!

We start with the sawdust photo and we are going to make a border out of it:


Desaturate it (take out the color):


Set your gradient tool to 'foreground to transparent' with 'Linear Gradient' set. Make sure the foreground color is set to black, and the blending mode (of the gradient tool, not the layer) is set to 'overlay' and draw a linear line through your photo (I started right at the left side and went through about 3/4 of the photo). You should get something like this:
Do it once more to enhance the effect:

Go into Filter - Blur - Motion Blur and put a motion blur on it until it looks like something you like (or not - it all is preparation for the next step ... the Threshold command):

Then you are going to do the Adjustment - Threshold. On the histogram that is active when you select Threshold, slide the slider bar back and forth until you get an 'edge' that you like and hit 'OK'. You will then move it over to the far side to get one side of the border started (this involves free transform - too lengthy to explain ... Photoshop "Help" rocks ...):

Copy it, flip it, move it to the left (again with the free transform ....):


Copy again, rotate 90 degrees and put on the top (with a blending mode of Screen to take out the sharp edges) and do this again for the bottom. VoilĂ  - you have a mask!
But we want borders so we are going to invert it - which I did quickly by just hitting [ctrl] I:

Lay the 'border' file on top of the photo file (you would do this by having both files open in Photoshop and dragging the 'border' file onto the top of the picture you are trying to 'frame'). Resize as necessary using the dreaded 'free transform' so that they are the same size - or frames what you want and then crop off the rest like I did. Change the blending mode to Multiply and this is what you see:


Piece of cake ....

Broken ...


... but not really - he is as solid as a rock, just is an unwilling model for my Photoshop experiments ...

29 April 2010

I've Lost My Mind ...

So ... a while back I lost something ...


... you might remember ...


It was a clamp .... I forget the proper name right now ...


I blogged about it, put a photo on my blog, you know ... if anyone has seen these please call me .... that sort of thing. Looked kinda like this:


But not those, because, well, they were lost so I had to take a photo off the web. But now?

BUT NOW?

Do you realize HOW MANY HOURS I LOOKED FOR THESE? THE HOURS I MULLED IT OVER IN MY MIND - "What did I do last ...", "What were you holding when you went to put them away", those types of questions - OVER, AND OVER AND OVER ...

I had personally decided that they had been thrown away - accidentally - just dumped with a bunch of other junk BECAUSE I HAD LOOKED EVERYWHERE. EVERYWHERE! TWICE. THREE TIMES. SOMETIMES FIVE TIMES ...

I CLEANED OUT 5 CUPBOARDS JUST BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, I HAD STUFFED IT IN THAT PARTICULAR CUPBOARD. FIVE! CUPBOARDS!


Went to get a gift bag today. I have a roll-under-the-bed-thingy that holds gift bags and tissue. GIFT BAGS. AND. TISSUE. That's it - nothing else. NADA.

But when I went to get a bag just now - guess what was just sitting there, all pretty, prissy and smug? Yeah - the CLAMP.

WHO PUTS A CLAMP IN A GIFT BAG CONTAINER? WHO?


If I were paranoid, and maybe I am, I would say Gary hid them there, just to dick with me ... but we needed them too badly for him to do that. And anyway - he doesn't even probably know we have a roll-under-the-bed-gift-bag-thingy anyway.
I have SERIOUSLY lost my mind ....

It's Magic!

OK, so I know that carpet cleaning is really not 'blog worthy' but then, what of my posts are actually 'blog worthy'? Not. Many.

So .... last week Gary was here and suggested that maybe we should get our carpets cleaned. The edges of the carpet were getting grungy and it is white, so being the 'obedient little woman' that I am (that was SO HARD TO WRITE) I scheduled someone to come in and do it for me ...

Today was the day of the invasion:

My biggest complaint - having not noticed that the edges were getting grungy - was an area rug in our great room that has spots on it. Could I have cleaned them? Yes. Probably in a heartbeat. Have I cleaned them before? Yes, but not for some time. So every time I crossed this rug I felt guilty. Guilty at my laziness, lack of enthusiasm for my home to look spic and span, wondering where that woman went - so I would just avert my eyes and move on.

I can't believe I am posting a photo of how dirty it was, and I did ENHANCE it in Photoshop so you could see it, but still, doesn't it just scream SLOB?


Charlie was unceremoniously dumped in the backyard - not very happy about it:


And they went to work:


And ... OH. MY. GOSH. Wonders of Wonders. Miracles of Miracles. I HAVE A BRAND NEW AREA RUG. And Gary didn't think I was even going to clean it - maybe he thought it odd, I don't know, but when he called while they were here I told them they were going to clean it and I got a 'oh' in response - I guess I really don't know what that means ...

Charlie got a little miffed about being outside, but has settled, or resigned herself to the fact that she is going to be tied to a chair for a few hours - at least until it gets a wee bit dryer in here ...


Don't know why she is blue in the photo ...
Who knew carpet cleaning could make my day? And so early in the day too!

28 April 2010

I've Got Nothin'

So .... my brain is completely empty of spurious things to blog about. Odd. I know.

Played with some Photoshop techniques ... not really sure about some of them ...

Here is a 'sketch' of Gary and Aggie's 'GQ' pose (OK 'Dreamy Pose'):



Then I wanted to play with an object rather than a warm body so I plucked my favorite barn out of the mix. Was going for something here:

And just got, well ... creepy.


*****



BUT! I like this effect (which takes seriously painting over the entire photo so a Royal Pain In The Butt) but the Comic Book effect I'm happy with (oh, and I did a crappy job at the edges - that painting thing - so don't look too close ...):




Was reading a magazine that said that if you were going to put your photos out on the web, you really, really should watermark them so it is difficult for someone to walk off with them and call them their own (why ANYONE would do that with one of my photos is beyond me, but the magazine says ....).

So I played with coming up with a watermark.

Too much?




A little more subtle (and now that I am typing, realizing that it is black and is going to be on a brown background so y'all won't be able to see it ... oh - I will pull it in in white after)







Hmmmm? No? I think the watermark thing just might not be for me ...

26 April 2010

Sleeping with Dogs ....

*** Note ***

Gary tells me I got some of the facts wrong - mixing up my boxers - ooops!

So I have made a few changes here at 3:00am ....

***********

Literally ...

Sleeping. With. DOGS...

I like dogs ... OK, more a 'tolerate' dogs. Well, that and they are big furry balls of nothing but love. There's that.

Gary mentioned on Friday night as we were fighting with Charlie up on the bed between us that he sees Charlie as a playmate (true) whereas I see Charlie as a therapist ... not sure about that one - she's a good listener and all, but I don't think she is helping all that much with the crazy ...

So - WHO invited them onto our bed. WHO decided it was OK to sleep with them? Me? No. The floor seems a very nice place for a dog to lie their head at night. No, it was that man I live with, who upon getting in bed at night pats the bed softly and calls out to the dog to come on up.

SERIOUSLY - WHO DOES THAT?!?

Chance: I will call him our first dog - because he really was - we had a dog earlier but had found out that it had a lethal heart defect (runs in our family ...) and had to be put down the first week we had him (Clyde) so Chance. He was my brothers dog and couldn't keep him so we took him in. He was an outside dog and every time you went outside he accosted you jumping and all excited and was a total pain. The first time Gary was gone to Australia, I believe, for about a month, I decided that having a big brute for a dog INSIDE was a good idea - so I invited him in. He immediately calmed down and was wonderful.

I am sure the first thing Gary did upon coming home was invite him onto our bed. As you can see in this photo, he KNOWS hes not supposed to be up there:


Kidding - Chance could look guilty just breathing ...

It was generally a dogpile on the bed:

Chance was the most marvelous dog we had. When a tornado hit our house (the other one in Texas) and a policeman was going door to door checking for injuries - I was on the phone cancelling Jessie's doctors appointment since there was a tree blocking my car and a boat in the road ... he opened the door without me opening the door first. Big mistake! Chance lunged for his throat and got a slammed door in his face for the effort. By the time I ran downstairs and looked out the window, the portly officer was booking it down the road at a speedy pace! He came back and told me I had a very good dog. I never worried about intruders after that.

Chance was a good dog ....

*****

Logan was our second boxer and I don't have any photos of her on our bed. She was purchased as a playmate for Chance, but Chance would not let her play with her toys so she ... improvised. She ate a wall, not a corner of a wall, but dug a hole out of a flat piece of wall, for no reason whatsoever other than Chance stole her squeaky toy ...

After she ate and entire couch ... I called my sister in frustration and asked her if she wanted a dog ... (she said yes). Logan would snuggle with you - like a human and fall fast asleep - softly snoring. She was OUT! When I we wanted to get her off the bed, we would grab her by the collar and drag her off the bed ... splat! Right on the floor and she never, ever woke up just kept snoring softly .... Now that is sound sleeping!

Seriously don't know what was up with her but she did have a personality ...

*****

Now Agatha Wishbone Hurst - or Aggie - was our last boxer and a snuggler:


This is Gary's GQ pose (actually I startled him awake taking photos - it is is sleepy, dreamy look!):


But, today I started to get photos digitized at Sam's - got about 600 done and found this one:


Seriously - how many times did they snuggle on the couch together? And that pile of crap on the corner table concerns me - a Norwegian Troll, a SKELETON, and some Wooden Shoes from Holland - intermingled with crap and flowers - a lovely arrangement?

Aggie, to my horror would burrow under the covers at our FEET! I was always worried she was losing brain cells due to lack of oxygen - PROBABLY lost brain cells due to lack of oxygen. Even after she went to live with others - (see below) she continued this practice - first with Garys mom and then with my sister ... One word: Oddball.

******

And then there is Charlie:

The funnest part of Charlie and her sleeping was when we got her in Norway (we did not take Aggie since she would have been in quarantine for 3 months - Norway is a rabies free country and they take immigrants seriously ... - my sister graciously took Aggie and she is living with her today ...).

So Charlie - she was a puppy and somehow Gary must have made it clear to the smartest dog we have owned that she was invited on the bed ... if she could get up there. She would get a running start, you would hear a thump, see a couple of paws clawing their way up, but slowly losing ground as they slipped down past the corner and you heard her fall on the floor. Over and over - but funny as hell! It was so fun, we decided not to help her - it was quite the day she made it.

Her favourite place to sleep? UNDER the bed. Which was fine with me and where she ended up for the night after a little shameless snuggling with Gary. Until that day she couldn't get back out ...

Had to give up under the bed sleeping until now! When she goes to my friends house when I am in Australia - that is where she sleeps. Apparently she has them wrapped around her little paw pad. She sneaks in there right before they go to bed sans a trip outside and a final potty break. She (I just found out) IS COAXED OUT WITH A COOKIE ... every night! She then goes outside and does her thing, then back under the bed until morning. I find this little tidbit of info hilarious! They are so kind to watch her - I really feel I owe them some cookies (and butter, and cookie dough, and cookies ... apparently Charlie has a knack of stealing things off the kitchen counter ...).

So - we have moved past the inviting your dog in out of the rain - to inviting them on to the bed to sleep with us.

It is probably too late to stop this behaviour (maybe a rolled up newspaper? Nah, Gary would get mad if I hit him on his nose with a newspaper). But man, what would it be like to have the dog on the floor and not nuzzling into my ear every morning?

Of course, Gary has a fall back, back out position to all this. At the snap of his fingers, Chance, Aggie and Charlie would / will immediately vacate the bed and take up thier rightful position on the floor, Logan on the other hand would lay there softly snoring, still posed in any position you last posed her in - until you dumped her on the floor. The clincher here? I can't snap my fingers. Oh you heard me ... yeah - I missed the class, something - I just can't do it - so this is strictly a Gary command, blasted man - could have come up with something else to tell them to get off.

So - I just have to yell, push and shove to get the dogs to do anything. They know who is in charge in our house ...

25 April 2010

One More Round


Round and round and round we go ...




... when we stop ....





.... nobody knows ....




My turn in 10 days ....

24 April 2010

A Day With The Girls...


It started out with snacks - since Jessie, constantly shrinking, but at our house only thinks about food (which is why it is good she no longer lives here ...):

Then on to "The Princess and The Frog" movie:


A little chair dancing with a doggie in your lap is nothing for Gary - he always has the doggie in his lap ...

Then off for a walk ... a little exercise for both girls:


Well, one girl more than the other:





Gary and Charlie had a little disagreement of who was 'fetching' and who was not:






Jessie decided to get into the fun (she throws better than her mother):





As you can see - one of the girls took a swim - thus needed a bath when we got home. I was busy working on photo's when Jessie came in and told me that 'Dad needed me' and when I went out, found a dog completely CHOCKED FULL of BURRS! ICK!! It took quite a while with two of us working to get them all out.

We are now onto our second session of "The Princess and The Frog" and then dinner. Then it will be time to say goodbye to Jessie ...





... until next Saturday!