The GrooveChick knits!

It's been a busy week, and I don't expect it to not get any less busy around here for awhile.

But I did do something...

I knitted!

Ok, so not a texture, tutorial, or even that new action I promised... (I swear I did make one, it just needs a little tlc before I post it here) but still cool nonetheless!

I bought a knifty knitter, and I'm having so much fun with it. It's keeping me sane as the kids peek at presents and watch movie after movie.

I made a baby hat (using the instructions that came with the loom) and then got to thinkin' and although that usually gets me into some trouble, this time disaster decided not to strike and I made this little stork pouch.













Isn't that the cutest?! Ah! I love it. I wanna put a baby in there so bad!

And the matching hat!





And no, the photos aren't the greatest but I used my new dun dun dun....

light set!!!




Yay!

Yes, I was so excited yesterday when I got home from finishing my holiday shopping (or at least I thought I did) to find a big box waiting for me with my new lights in it.

I feel all professional now.


Sooo... I'm working on another Pouch, this one will be brown, and then I'm going to make a bowl/cocoom. I have to get ready for my friend Dawna's baby next month (though he thinks he needs to get here now) so I can drive everyone insane with incessant posting of his gorgeous photos!

I'm just wondering if anybody is interested in buying one? (I've had a few requests) And if so, just e-mail me @ groove.chick @ ymail.com and we'll discuss it!

I hope everybody has a lovely weekend!!!

My First Action!

Oh Lordy, let me tell yah! I have learned a great deal and I have a whole new respect for people like Rita from CoffeeShop and the Pioneer Woman because it wasn't exactly easy. But I did it!!!



You can grab that stinker here.


This is relatively simple.

Duplicate bg overlay @ 45%
Gradient map pastel spectrum screen @ 25%

Color fill 7a4d8f screen @ 7%
Color fill e58dd8 screen @ 10%

Levels > adjust as needed

new layer named light texture
set swatches to 402a66 and black
render clouds
add noise 21.27%
set to screen 58%

reset swatches
create group
pull all into group

And if you're anything like me, you'll toggle it on and off repeatedly and hem and haw over whether you like it or not before adjusting things until you get it just right.


Here's a larger view of Miss Melanie and Miss Anna.


Which brings me to our lovely weekend at "Papa's" house. It was so much fun! Not only did we all have the opportunity to stuff ourselves till we could barely walk, we got to see one another, and I haven't seen some of my family in over a year!

My niece Melanie asked me to shoot a few photos of her since she didn't get any school pictures this year and I was more than happy to oblige. Here's some from our little mini session.

















I still have a ton of photos to go over (most are snaps) so family I didn't forget about you, I'll probably be posting more later. Whew!

New Texture & Template Freebie!

Not much to post today people, just a couple of freebies and this lovely photo of Miss Isabelle with her new haircut!




Doesn't she just look adorable? Ah! I love it.

I've also had way too much coffee today, so I can barely sit still to type this!

I used one of my lovely textures and some wonderful swirly brushes to create this holiday paper texture.



And I have this 4 pane template for you lovely blog viewers. It was actually a request but I thought there might be others out there who would enjoy it as well!



You can grab that sucker here!

8 Free Textures!

I think you can tell what kind of mood I'm in when I create my textures based on the name. Apparently I was going through a fairy tale phase while making these. Sometimes the soft feeling is perfect for photos and other times I just need some grunge. I hope these are a nice mix between the two. I must apologize for not putting them all together in an easily downloadable pack, they'll only be offered through my flickr for now.

And in other news. Felix is 6 months old now!! We did a mini session last night and hung him up again.




He's getting so big that hanging him isn't easy anymore. He squirmed and kept hanging out of the scarf we were using.

It's so hard to believe it's been 6 months already. He's part of the reason I began doing photography again. Having older kiddos, I realized that the time really does fly by and there are so many moments I wish I had captured. So many things that my tired mind can't really remember. I decided before he was born that I wanted to do photos weekly. And not just any old photos, nice ones. I didn't realize the work I was making for myself but I also did something else, I gave myself a reason to learn more. I'm pretty proud of me! I'm not quite there yet, but it's coming and I can feel it. I can't wait to see where I'm at in another 6 months.



Aah... enough of this. It's time for a texture preview!




Here's where you can find those textures! I never require a linkback but I would love to see what people are doing with these! Enjoy~


edit: Apparently I can't count or align. I had posted 7 new free textures... there's actually 8. And I just noticed that my preview pic isn't exactly perfect. <-- proof that I need a nap!

Lovin' these free storyboard templates!!

When Rita from Coffeeshop posted these templates I finally knew what I'd do with these holiday studio shots that I didn't use for our card. They're so cute! I had to do something with them. Whaddya think?

New Texture Freebie!

I haven't gotten much done lately as far as photoshop goes. It's been pretty busy around the house, but today is nice and quiet so who knows what will happen?

We had a wonderful session last week with Mom & Pops as well as one with all the kiddos. It was so warm and nice that day so everything was near perfect for shooting. I got a few that I'm pretty proud of. I still have a whole bunch to edit. But with the kiddos gone for the weekend I'm counting on finishing up this set. Then it's back to more textures, a couple tutorials coming soon as well as me discovering how to make my own actions. I'm a bit worried about that one. But I'm gonna tackle it!




















I used this new texture on that last one. Aren't the purple tones just gorgeous?
Here's the brand spankin' new texture as promised!