Edit-me photo challenge

by Kat on January 27, 2012

in Photography, Photoshop

Along my path to increase my photography skills, I came across a wonderful photography website, Ramblings & Photos (thanks to your suggestions!).  This week she is a judge for an “edit-me” challenge.  How can I say ‘no’ to a challenge?

Trick question – I can’t.

I used Photoshop Lightroom and Picnik.

 

Edit Me

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Hi. Did you know that I’m a wicked geek? Well, I am.

Today I wanted to share with you a way to check what pins are generated against your website.

 

Yup.  That’s it.  That’s how simple it is.

In your browser of choice (mine’s Chrome), find the address bar and type in http://pinterest.com/source/[your web address, minus www or http]

And enjoy stalking your pins.

While you’re at it, check out what I’ve been pinning.

 

Food for thoughts – should you pin your own blog/site?  I don’t, but I know bloggers that do.  What’s your take?

 

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This post is about me

by Kat on January 26, 2012

in Other blog shoutouts

The other day I was catching up on my blog reading and saw my friend’s Jennifer’s post about an article that challenges women to spend some time stepping out of the comfort and safety of talking about their children and instead talking about, gasp!, themselves!

Here is the background on the article taken directly out of Jennifer’s post:

This article encouraged you to take 5 uninterrupted minutes and talk about yourself to a friend or your husband, or even if you just journal for those 5 minutes. When talking about yourself you couldn’t mention your children or husband, that was the only rule.

Jennifer – challenge accepted!

First of all, I’m already stepping out of my comfort zone and actually going to attend a Girls Night Out with a meetup.com group.  I am even going to commit to trying to talk about me, not just my adorable baby and super funny, cute husband.

Second, I’m going to tell you guys 10 things about moi.

  1.  I was a Marketing major in college and graduated with a BBA in Marketing.  The funny thing about that is that I started off as a Computer Science major until the middle of my Sophomore year, at which point I decided that it just wasn’t me.  So I applied to the school of Management and declared Marketing as my major.
  2. I am currently a Director of Technology at a small consulting company.  I guess I should have just stayed in my major?
  3. Some of my favorite hobbies are snowboarding and scrapbooking.  I’ve had time for neither for over a year.
  4. I love shoes.  I would eat ramen noodles for months if it meant getting a new pair of shoes.
  5. I’m a saver.  Every single penny that we don’t spend (and there is a budget!), I put away into some sort of a savings account.  This makes #4 pretty difficult, so I don’t have nearly as many shoes as I wish I did.  With that in mind, I still have 2+ closet fulls.  F
  6. I’m dominating Gina on Words with Friends right now.  Okay, okay that’s a wicked exaggeration, but I had one super lucky move that put me ahead.  See? That just doesn’t sound as good.  Update: Gina is now beating me.  That’ll teach me to write posts over 2 days.
  7. I’ve never had a crush on a TV or movie actor.  The idea that they’re acting and aren’t being themselves just doesn’t appeal to me.  I only crush on people that I know and love their personalities.  Good looks help, but at the end of the day, it’s about the personality to me.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t drool all over my keyboard when I see photos of Ryan Gosling or choose a movie because it has Ryan Reynolds in it.  Hey, I’m only human.
  8. I love wine.  All wine – red, white, Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinor Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Zin.  The list goes on.  But my favorite is the ones that taste like red meat, tobacco, and wood.  So what if I like to chew my wine?
  9. I love commercials.  And previews.  I pay almost as much attention to them as I do to the shows and laugh hysterically.  Sometimes I cry.  Must be the Marketing person in me
  10. I have an addiction problem, but not to substances.  No.  To games, TV shows, and books.  Two years ago I spent almost 5 days with barely any sleep playing a new app game on my iPhone.  About 2-3 years back I started reading the Twilight series from a borrowed book.  I didn’t sleep for two nights straight and went out to a store on the third day to buy the last book because I couldn’t stop.  We don’t even need to talk about how many nights I skipped sleep to watch a series I got obsessed with.

I have to confess that it took me over an hour to come up with those items and that I had to delete numerous ones that ended up leading to the baby.  In fact, I just ended up deleting a bullet point and typing up a new one.  Why is this so hard?

You up for the challenge?

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The cupcake photos setup

by Kat on January 25, 2012

in Photography

My bloggy friend Lauren asked me to show you guys what the setup for the cupcake photos was.  And who am I to say “no”?

Let me take you behind the scenes.

Welcome to my dining room.  Our dining room is located on the main floor (well, okay, the only floor) of the house and has a big slider door that spans the entire length (all 8 feet of it).  Usually there is a large, round table here, but I move it all the time (drives Jon nuts).

For the photos, I bought a $10 white linen table cloth and a $5 white flat sheet at Walmart.  I spent about 30 minutes ironing the table cloth so I wouldn’t see any folds in the photos.  I didn’t bother with the flat sheet since I just needed it for reflection.

Our dining room has wainscoting, so I just used the tiny little ledge to clip the table cloth and then let it flow on to the floor.  My chairs held the white sheet.  Our glider has a see-through curtain that I can use to soften the light if it’s coming through too hard.  Obviously, by this point the whole place was kind of a wreck, but you get the point.

Me?  I am usually on my belly in the kitchen, trying to catch the shot.

A few more shots -

the window:

the sheet:

chairs and hallway:

the mess:

 

Do you have some awesome behind the scenes posts?  I’d love to see yours!

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