Add a Dash of Color to Your B&W Photos

Everything I've learned from computers was either self taught, or from David, who is a computer genius in my eyes. I've spent a lot of time playing with Photoshop and learning different things I can do with it. I use it mostly for making a blemish here or there disappear. I've never taken classes and in all honesty, I'm not very good, I've just learned some good tricks. One of my favorite tricks, is having a black and white picture, with a hint of color like the photo below.


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I love how it's black and white and the flowers just pop out of the picture! So, with this in mind, and a project I'm doing for the wedding, I thought I'd share with everyone, how to make this happen!

First you start by selecting the photo you want to work with. I'm using a picture my cousin took of Morgan at a family graduation party. After you have the image you want to work with pulled up, go under Image, then Adjustments and select Desaturate. This will remove all the color from your photo.

The Tool you will be working with is the History Brush Tool.

As for the settings on the brush, it really depends on the size of your photo, how large you zoom in and how accurate you want the color to be. If you try a brush that's too big, you can always undo it and change your brush size as needed.

The next setting for the brush is hardness, just make sure this is at 100%

Next, you take your brush and start "painting" the area you want to have the color show through. Your actually not painting a color, the picture color is showing though because you are removing the black and white from the picture. It's almost like your undoing or erasing the desaturation, but in very small sections!

Once you have the area colored that you want, your done!

The final product comes out really neat! This is one of my favorite pictures of her.

I also went in and played with her eyes so you can see that this can be done in multiple areas. That and she has the pretties blue eyes :)

So, there is a method to my madness here. The final product of this particular picture, will be one of our table numbers! We're taking all of our favorite pictures of Morgan, and making them B&W, and adding a hint of color to it! One of the other picuters I will be using was also from this day. Now, in normal circumstances, I wouldn't have thought of using it, it's Morgan, after she has eaten the BLUEST cake ever made. She's laughing in the picture and her face and tonge are covered in blue icing. This is an inside joke between my Aunt and Uncle and I so that will be the picture at their table. I'll be sure to show the final prduct when I'm done because that one will be a fun one! I will probably make them 5x7 so they're not too big, I just have to figure out what frames I will use. I have also been playing with my Cricut Machine, so we may get the actual numbers from there! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

Do you have any good tricks you can do with the computer that you will be incorporating in your wedding projects?

Pucker Up

I signed up for Sephora's email list the moment our mall announced we were getting one. The catchy subject of the most recent email caught my eye. Twilight Venom. I knew this could be one of two things, a very very dark color, almost a deep blue like the night, or a reference to one of my favorite fictional series, Twilight. I pulled up the email and the description reads "Based on the fresh-bitten lips from the Blockbuster movie".

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Now I don't think this would be an appropriate color to wear on my wedding day, and it's hard to tell if that's even glitter in the bottle. I wonder how that would even spread on. It did get me thinking about wearing a classic red lip for the wedding. There is a fantastic picture of my grandparents on their wedding day, and my grandmother looked so classy and she had red lipstick on. I've never been a big lipstick wearer. My lip routine consists of a light pink gloss when I go out, or Soft-Lips in Cherry or Vanilla-YUM.

I don't think I could get away with red lips on a good day so I'm not sure if I can pull it off on my wedding day. Part of me has always been a little bit chicken about wearing red lip stick. I've always had this idea that only certain people can get away with it. I've been thinking about my wedding day make up and when the time comes for my trial, I'll ask for my normal pal pink first and then maybe take the red for a test drive to see how it goes. I'll be sure to post pics so I can get some feed back.

Have you decided to try something out of your comfort zone since it's your wedding day?

His Ring

When we first started looking into wedding bands for David, he said he wanted a heavy metal, like Tungsten or Titanium. We looked around online just to get an idea of the styes that were out there. He favored the light colored metal which is a close match to my white gold set, something like this...

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We read all of the rumors about people having to lose fingers to have them removed ect. Several companies did say however, even though it's not as easy to cut these types of rings off in an emergency, like gold, most ER's do have the equipment to remove them.

Not that long ago, he told me he didn't want to go buy a wedding band. He wanted to take his fathers wedding band, have it sized, and use that as his ring. David's mother passed away about 8 years ago and after she passed way, Davids' father gave him his wedding band. I love the fact that he wanted to do this and I know it means a lot to his dad. I took the picture on our Playstation 3 controller since that's David's favorite gaming console.

*pic by me*

It's a plain gold band, but the meaning behind it makes it priceless. My Uncles childhood friend owns a jewelry store so we'll be taking both his and my rings for sizing since mine are a bit snug. Our reception hall has a vestibule right before you walk in and we're going to do something special for his mother in remembrance of her. I've been digging through pictures trying to find ones with him and his mother when he was younger to use as the picture on the table.

Did anyone else have jewelry given to them that they will be using?

iRing

I thought the title was appropriate since our Mac's keyboard got into the pic. David and I actually have our rings already. My rings were bought as a matching set. It has a wedding band and an anniversary band. David and I are both hard core gamers so what better way to show off my bling than with my favorite controller!

As you can see, I'm an Xbox girl. I got the pink remote for my birthday! Our engagement wasn't very romantic, and I'm not a very romantic girl so it really didn't bother me that there wasn't a big production made out of it. We were living in Virginia at the time and we had been talking about marriage for awhile. We knew we wanted to get married and I wanted an engagement ring. Getting him to go into any type of jewelry store was like pulling teeth. I got lucky one day when we were walking by a jewelry store and he saw a really nice watch in their window. Well all of a sudden he wanted to go in. He was looking at the watches and I made a bee line for the ring cases. It didn't take very long for me to fall in love with it, and on hold it went. Fast forward a few months later and we're moving back to my home town of Buffalo, NY after I'd lived in Virginia for 6 years. We paid the ring off after we had moved and they shipped it to us in New York. As SOON as the box came, I was running around the house so giddy, but as quiet as I could because little miss Morgan was napping. He knew I wouldn't wait, and he knew I didn't want a big deal made of it, so he opened the box, got down on a knee and officially asked. I jumped up and down like a lunatic, and we were engaged. Next up, his ring......

Anyone else have their future fiancees get cold feet when it was time to look for your ring?


*All pictures take by me*

Our Inspirational Board

We have actually changed our wedding colors since we first started the planning process. At first we were thinking about pink & brown. I even had a beautiful inspirational boarded made for me by the wonderful Carly Wolf who offers her creative board making services on her blog Inspiring Brides. Yum!

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After doing some research on decorations and fabric, I just wasn’t thrilled with the browns I was coming across. Too many shades to choose from just wasn’t working for me. Pink was easy since we’re going with Gerber Daisy’s, and we’re using several shades of pink throughout the wedding. We decided to change the brown to black. Black is easier to find for all types of projects. It’s also going to make life easier on my bridal party since I am allowing them each to find a dress they are comfortable in. My bridesmaids range from 5’11’’ to 5’ and not everyone is going to fie same dress comfortably.

Another color I loved with the pink and black is lime green. Seeing pictures of limes in centerpieces really got me into loving the green. I don’t know if I will have any use for it at this point, but I do keep it on the back burner just incase I find a place for it.

Have you made any changes to your wedding colors?

I love homemade cards!

I love to have any excuse to run into a craft store and purchase something. I doesn't matter what it is, I love buying everything from paper to punches, especially if it's for card making. I'm not very talented by any means, but a lot of factors in my upbringing have helped my become a DIY bride. For example, when there was a project in school to make a famous landmark, yep, I was the kid who brought in the 30 pound Egyptian pyramid made completely out of sugar cubes.

I landed my first job at 16 at a craft store called MJDesigns which is no longer in business. This chain of craft stores was owned by Mike Dupey, the son of the man who brought the world Michael's. I started out doing Christmas help and slowly started doing other things like helping people with the scrap booking needs right when scrapping was just starting to get popular. One of the other things you are required to learn while working at a craft store was how to take a bolt of ribbon and turn it into a bow. Christmas time for us was a mob scene because everyone wanted bows for their trees and packages and wreaths. You name it they wanted it. The tough part would be coming home from a long day at work and every in your family knowing you have this ability and need you to whip up a few dozen for them. Exhausting work and tough on the hands.

Thanks to my past, I will be able to put some things together for our wedding instead of having to spend the money on it. I'll be doing my own pew bows with the help of one of my bridesmaids who also suffered through the making of countless bows along with me at the floral counter. I've also started getting into making cards. My grandmother hasn't bought a card in years and when I moved back to NY from VA, I started learning to make cards. I cannot believe how many cool things you can do with some paper, a few stamps and some scissor that cut paper in the craziest ways. I actually did a Valentines Day swap on one of the wedding websites I follow called Weddingbee.

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Cute aren't they. With this new found ability of mine I've decided to also tackle making my own Save the Dates & wedding invitations. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do, but I've got a few ideas bouncing around in my head.

Did you have any crafting experiences before you started planning for your wedding?

DOC

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Oops, not that DOC, I meant Day of Coordinator. I've always thought about having a DOC for the wedding. I couldn't image assigning my friends and family to make sure all of the chaos of the day was handled. I wanted them to enjoy the day and have as much fun as we will. David wasn't sure this was something we really needed, but I was able to convince him after I really broke down what our tentative schedule that day would entail. He saw there was little room for chaos control so he agreed with me.

I headed on over to Craig's list and found Pam who is just starting her business. She wanted to meet at Starbucks and since I am a Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino addict, I immediately liked her. I met with her and she really gave me that piece of mind I was looking. She's going to take care of all of the little things and put out fires on our special day that I won't have to even know about. I've read on several blogs from people who have used DOC, they really did benefit from having one and I've even heard from other people who wished they'd used one. If your not using a DOC, how will you deal with any unexpected issues that come up?

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

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I'm not a big fan of cake and Dave eats sweets on a very rare occasion. I went to several bridal shows last year when we were planning our 2009 non-nuptials, and I did try some of the cake samples that were there. I always wanted to have a wedding cake, and it had to be one that I really liked. I'm not a huge chocolate fan so white cake and white frosting were the two factors I was looking for. At one of the shows I met Diane Serra who owns Caramici's Dessert Bar & Bakery. Her cake was incredible. It was fantastic and it didn't fell too heavy. She was so nice and we also found out her shop is literally right across the street from my church! I'd always known I wanted to have her make our cake when the time came and had every intention of setting up a sit down with her.

Fast Forward to June 2009 when I get a call from bridesmaid T who tells me a friend of hers is looking for budget savvy bride to write an article on for the Money Maters section of the newspaper. She called me up and asked me questions about the postponement, how my vendors reacted and if I'd noticed how the shift in the economy had impacted the companies who provide services for weddings. She asked me if I'd booked anything else besides my reception hall and I told her we had not but I was planning on calling Diane about my cake. The next day she called me again and told me they wanted a photo to go along with the story and wanted to know if we had done an E-session. I told we had not done anything like that and didn't have any recent pictures. She thought it would be a good idea to go down to Caramici's & do my consultation there with the owner whole one of the papers photographers snapped some photos. We had a great time and I got to eat some more of her yummy cake! at the end, after the photographer left, she drew up y contract and I was set, our cake was booked!

I had a lot of fun doing that and you can actually still see the article on the Buffalo News' web site here. Has anyone else gotten any local media attention even if it was inadvertently?

Something Blue

I've always been a tom-boy, so it's a little hard for me to go all out girly girl. I have probably put on a dress 10 or 11 times in my entire life. I've tried on wedding dresses a few times in the past, but I always feel a little silly. Thinking along the lines of tradition, I do want to incorporate something old, new, barrowed, & blue. I knew my something blue would be hidden in some way, so what better hiding spot than under my dress for my garter. I've been looking at garters and there are SO many to choose from in just blue alone!!! I started to scout around a bit, and then I found Garters By Kristi on Etsy! She had some of the most beautiful garters!

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One more reason for me to add lime!!

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If your future Hubby is into Superman, this is perfect.

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I kept looking around and didn't find anything that matched my personality, Until I found this:

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I am a DIE hard bills fan! I was so excited when I saw this!!! Dave isn't that much into football but he does watch it. I feel like it's a little selfish picking out something for me when I guess technically it's supposed to be for him, but like myself, Dave's a pretty laid back guy.

Are you incorporating anything personal into your garter and is it more for you or your future hubby?

Our Wedding Version 2.0

It's finally happened. We have officially set a new wedding date. Calling off our wedding last year was one of the hardest things David and I have ever had to do. With the economy down the drain & him being unemployed, we just had to do what was going to be best for us and our family. We are so glad that we can start the ball rolling again so we can get hitched!

We were very fortunate when it came to dealing with our vendors with this postponement. When we made the decision to hold off for a year, we had not booked any vendors with the exception of our reception hall. We'd already put down our deposit and signed the contracts and I cannot even tell you how long I held my breath waiting for Dave to get off the phone and tell me what they had said. Luck for us, they were very understanding and were happy to help by honoring our deposit as long as we used it within 12 months of the original date which was June 12, 2009.

Actually choosing the new date was the tough part. I was originally trying to set the new date to April 9, 2010 which would be the week after Easter. Since we're having our wedding in the Catholic church I was baptized in, I knew that the Easter lilies would still be all over the church and wanted to take advantage of how beautiful the church looks. It also wouldn't have hurt to have flowers every where that we wouldn't have had to provide but, my Priest was having his 50th birthday and was not going to be in town. After a few calls back and forth to him and the Holiday Inn where the reception is going to be held, we were able to set the date and start figuring out our budget.


Has anyone else had to make major changes to their wedding plans because of the economy and how did you overcome the obstacles?