SOY 2008

No call from CK for me, so I am feeling a little disappointed but still excited that I am going to CKU in Aug. and will be there for the announcement of the SOY! Congratulations finalists and Good Luck!

Here is my SOY entry and some of my favorite layouts for your viewing and my sharing pleasure.

Craft Time

Mulheron family crafting fun time! As part of the girls summer education we are having 'Art' class where we are exploring the many homemade goodies we can create! This week we exercised our fingers with FIMO clay and I was inspired to make a fun header for the challenges I want to host on our blog. Hence forth "Mulieberry Challenges"! For our first challenge go make something, anything will do! It would be great if it was something you have never tied before, but not required. Just post a link here or email me and I will pick a random winner to be the recipient of some fun new ribbons the girls and I found at Mikes. Have fun and I can't wait to see your creations!

Here is the silly header to watch out for, for all future Mulieberry giveaway challenges!

A Little Trip and a Little Tip

Lexis Godmother Dee invited us to camp and check out their new property outside of St. George. It was beautiful! Their new filly is so adorable too! While we were so close we took a side trip to Zion ~ which I think is THE most beaUTiful place in the world ~ We had a great time and Edward had a fun time playing during a little photo shoot. He is Handsome as always but the sky turned out looking pretty bad, white instead of the pretty blue it was. In steps my best photo fixing friend PS2!

To fix the sky, I want to brush it with blue. With my magic wand tool set to a tolerance of 50 this is the selection I get. Obviously this looks even worse than the white sky did! If I were to keep my tolerance set at 50 which is what I use most of the time, I would never be able to get all the nooks and crannies between the branches, it would select them too and I wouldn't be able to paint over it without turning the branches blue too!

So without further delay, my little tip is to lower the tolerance to whatever works for your situation, in this case I went down to 15. Once you set your tolerance this low, it would take forever to pick up the whole sky so start by selecting with a higher tolerance, then drop it down and hold the shift key down while clicking on those teeny tiny spaces. For something intricate this can take a little patience, but I use this technique on most projects I use the magic wand tool on which is a lot! :) I zoom in so those intricate details are nice and big, making seeing them (and clicking on the right spots) tons easier! Another thing I like to do when painting a selection is using many hues of the same color in low transparency's, brushing over the same areas with a large brush many times.

On this photo, I did not spend as much time with the colors and so not totally loving the color of the sky but I hope it illustrates the technique pretty well... I did hit the photo up with the burn and dodge tools a little to finish it off.

Design for Dad

Before Christmas we took down all the pictures in our 'gallery' (aka, the hallway) and repainted a fresh new Blue Green, my fav new wall color. Until this last weekend the walls were naked since I wanted to update some of the pic's in the frames before rehanging... last Christmas! Edward was so sick of the bare walls he asked me to get the pictures back up for fathers day, so that's what he got!
How cute is the wall pot I found at Mikes on clearance for $12?! check out the close up to see what it's hiding.

Yep! the thermostat! I detest those U G L Y things! Now if anyone has an idea how to disguise the doorbell box and the fire detector at the other end of the hallway I'm all ears!

Dads & Gostbusters

Another day another dance recital. We finally finished off the dance year! Aunt Sandy is so awesome!! She came to the show AGAIN! You Rock Aunt Sandy! love ya!!

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Edward and I did not feel like taking the 45 min drive out to dad's for fathers day so we celebrated at home for the first time since Edward became a father, 10 years ago! It was pretty sweet to lay low, play board games, watch movies and snack on Delicious prawns, cherries and clams! Love to all the dads out there we wouldn't be here without you! :)

Old is new Again

Golden West Region Conference

What a great time we had here in Las Vegas this year! Donna did a great job as President and Sue went home with 1st place in the speech contest and two 1st place awards for her writing submissions!

(These are the amazing life members)

I had the simple job of signs and only a few minor rolls in the program, so I was able to take a trip over to the spa, had a pedi and was spoiled by two lovely ladies! I never had a two person pedi before but let me tell you, it was Divine! :)

Yesterday was it!

The girls had their last day of school until next year! My baby is now officially in grade school and my first baby is going into fifth and really excited that the year after that she will be in middle school! This is NOT exciting to me! :(
I am happy they are growing up to be nice young ladies (most of the time, that is) but I want my babies back! I feel like very soon we wont have any children at home and I am worried about how quiet the house will be!

Anyhow, check out these cute pic's from the last day of school dress-up activities!
Guess it's pretty obvious Lexi had a 'Hawaiian' theme party.

If Tori looks like she should go back to bed that's because her class had a pajama party and she was so happy she got to wear the cute slippers! If you think Becca is happy it was the last day of school, you might be right! :) She had a 'western' day and they did a little performance for all the mommies. And yes, her skirt is too short but, hey we went with what we had on hand!

Learning Curve

Setting up this blog is a little more challenging than I thought it would be.

I am having that kind of fun that comes from beating your head against the wall...

Lets Try adding a picture to this post!

Looks like it worked! Yay!!