Digging into Lightroom

Last year for Christmas my sweet husband gifted me a new computer and Lightroom.  I have always heard that Lr is a beast to learn and I was a bit apprehensive about getting into it.  For the past 5+ years I've used Photoshop for editing and have either managed (in the early years) by manually sorting my photos (GAH) or have used Picasa for sorting.  It's not a great system but it's gotten the job done well enough.  Well tomorrow I am shooting a very exciting styled shoot and I thought that since I had a few hours of down time I'd try and figure it out.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Now I'm knee deep in open tabs and tutorials and my head is spinning.  Please say a prayer for me.  I have finally found a trail of tutorials that are helping me get a grasp on the basics.  If you're in the same boat and aren't looking for video tutorials (I know everyone is obsessed with video but I'm not.  Am I the only one?) I'm find these extremely helpful.  So if you're out there just starting out with Lightroom I wish you good luck.  Hopefully you won't find me with my head in the oven.

(Yep, no pictures on this blog post.)

Pictures From a Spring Day

The weather today is so wonderful.  I was hoping that by the time I got home from work it would still be nice so I could go on a little walk with my camera.  When I got home I loaded up the camera and put the leash on the dog to set out for a walk.  What I didn't realize is that the dog + camera + leisurly stroll do not equal happiness for me.  It was really nice to get out of the house and wander my neighborhood on my own time at my (nearly) own pace, but the dog made picture taking a little more difficult than I had imagined, so our walk ended a little sooner than I had expected.  Even so here are a couple of shots Tink & I managed to take:

And for the last picture of the day - Tink, after her near meltdown, happily realizing we are very close to home after an apparently stressful walk (for both of us).  Stinkin' dog.

Before & After: Family Room - still a work in progress!

While I'm off this month I've made one of my goals to get the house in tip top shape and take new pictures of the progress we've made on each room.    The other day I took photos of the family room.  The family room has always been a bit of a challenge to decorate and arrange.  It is a fairly large room (13'x17') and has no natural light except from the adjoining sunroom.  Additionally it has a fireplace, 2 doorways, and sliding glass doors leading to the sunroom.  There are vaulted ceilings, but the ceiling line is asymetrical.  Needless to say that without anything in the room, there is still a lot going on. 

Here are photos of the family room on the day we moved in (unfortuantly I only have photos of one side of the room):

Because of the layout of the room there is one obviously way to set it up, with all of the furniture against one wall (the wall across from the fireplace, not shown) and the TV in the corner of the room.  When we moved in this room was the least offensive (no wallpaper!) so we lived with it in basically this state for about 2 years.  When we finally painted it got a fresh coat of a very light greenish/blue.  We also did some massive rearranging to bring some MUCH needed symetry to the room.  Here are the photos I took earlier in the week (lovin' the wide angle lens for these indoor pics!):

To add balance to the room I painted two paintings and hung them on either side of the sliding doors.  We also floated our couch and loveseat on either side of the fireplace and placed the TV across from the fireplace.  A cabinet was placed on either side of the fireplace.  Basically in this room I've tried to do things as 'evenly' as possible. 

We recently moved a tall, smallish, blonde colored entertainment center out of here and put in a dresser to hold the TV.  I like the look of the dresser better, but after taking these pictures it really stood out how VERY EMPTY the two walls above are.  SO we have since switched the brown record cabinet (that is shown to the right of the stairs above) with the white cabinet that was residing to the right of the fireplace. 

Since we moved the white cabinet and the record stand I've also redone the fireplace decor.  This room is still a work in progress.  I'm going to be making a large vintage looking 'Weseloh Farm's' sign to hang above the new TV dresser to fill up the wall space above the TV and to hopefully get rid of some of that huge expanse of space! A new light fixture is also on the 'to do' list.

Lastly, here are just a couple of detail shots that I grabbed while the camera was out:

This is an old radio that has been converted into CD and CD player storage.

An old fan that I got last summer and Artichoke Annies :)

Thoughts?  Comments?  Suggestions?  We're still working on this room, but so far I'm very happy with it's progress!  What do you do with big empty walls?  Do you like collages?  (Which I do, but in moderation) Or do you like big pieces of art?

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To view an update to this room click here.

To view more photos of my house click here.

Poor Dog...

Poor Tink really had no idea what she was in for when I decided to 1) learn photography & 2) quit my job and be home for a month....

so on yet another test shoot, here she is in her home (kennel), she was extremely frightened at the most unwelcome intruder (camera/me) into her space.

May Table

I'm suddenly finding myself with the month off.  Hopefully some inspired posting will commence very soon.  In the meantime here is a tabletop to share!

I whipped this together the other day using a very basic green color palette.  I can't say that I think it's anything spectacular, but I think it is a nice, fairly plain tablesetting for the season.  The day that I put this together it was rainy, so I was inspired to use brown as the accent.  I was also very pleased because I made the table runner!  I purchased the table runner fabric in the form of a smallish tablecloth from a garage sale 2 summers ago.  I'd always liked it but it was far to small to use on any of my tables.  I didn't have a runner to use and I had some no sew tape sitting around so 10 minutes later I had a new table runner.  I have to say I'm very ahppy with it!

I've got a new table top idea forming in my head.  The pieces are coming together but aren't quite there yet!  Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

(I am also very excited because I picked up a bottle of Mrs. Meyers cleaner tonight.  I've been eyeing it for a while and I'm excited to try it out myself.  [WOW - how is it possible that I am this old blogging about cleaning products....]  Since I'm going to be off the entire month of May my main goal is to get this house CLEAN!  Once I try this out I'll let you know what I think!)

Amateur Photography Hour 2

Since I'm working on my photography skills I'm going to try and pick up the camera whenever I have a few minutes to get more comfortable with it.  Here are the best shots from yesterday's practice.

Thanks for looking!

Amateur Photography Hour

I'm trying to learn photography.  I'm just a beginner and I know NOTHING about it what so ever.  It is kind of scary to learn!  But I'm excited to learn a new skill set to be able to help out with the photography side of our business as we continue to grow.  {Official plug:  looking for photography or event design?  Check out Creative Event Studio!}  With the camera in hand and a semi-willing subject here are a few pictures of me learning photography....

Runners feet = gross

I really love this one.

I didn't take this last one (obviously, since I'm in the picture), but I love it!  (thanks babe!)

So what do you think of my pictures?  Wish me luck as I try and learn more in the coming days!