Cups and Saucers!

As I was browsing through the tableware at Goodwill  I almost screamed with delight when I saw this tableware. It is the same as my grandmother’s tableware! I love it. The minute that I laid eyes on it I felt as if I were back in her kitchen.

Her small, pink kitchen with the light grayish/green table and green chairs very similar to the one below. I loved it but I didn’t get it when she passed away.

Photo from Kitchenchairs on Bogspot.com

I can almost taste the hot chocolate she made for me in those cups. She made it with milk that she warmed on the stove top. My grandmother never had Nestle Quick; she used unsweetened Hershey Baking Powder and added sugar. This unusual and different mixture was soft and silky, warm and filling.

It filled me with more than warmth and nourishment. It filled me with memories. Memories of a grandmother who loved me and loved to cook. To her, cooking was a way to show love. She made everything from scratch because she was brought up on a farm. When my grandmother was older and my grandfather had passed away, my mom would often drive the hour to her house to stay with her for a few days as needed. My mom took a microwave and left it at my grandmother’s house but she never used it. She continued to use her  beloved stove, pots and pans to cook with. My grandmother was born in 1914 and passed away when she was ninety-two. I will cherish these cups and saucers and pass them along to my daughter.

Photo Restoration Green Dress

Taking a Photograph from blah to better!

This is my Ru Ru. Well she isn’t exactly mine. She belongs to my son but she has no idea that she is not one of my grandchildren. She thinks that I go over just to see her. Her real name is Rudie but I often call her Ru Ru. I spoil her. Whenever I babysit her I take her for a ride in the car which she loves. Last time I watched her I took her for several walks and a ride in the car. I even sneak her up on the couch with me sometimes. Ssshhhh don’t tell her mom and dad. That isn’t allowed at her house 😦

As you can see this first photo is a little blah. Using Photoshop we are going to use the content aware tool to remove the water hose that is behind her head. So we begin by using the marquee tool to make a selection around part of the water hose. I don’t go all the way to her head because it will pick up from that. Next go to Edit > Fill > Contents > Use > Content Aware. Blending Mode, normal, Opacity 100%. And like magic the part of the photo that you don’t want disappears.

Then I used the clone tool to clean up the rest of the small bits of the water hose that were close to her head.

Now we can work on perking things up a bit. Under Image go to Adjustments then levels. First use the black eye dropper to pick out the darkest part of your photo. I used Rudie’s nose.

Next do the same thing with the white eye dropper.

Next use the gray eye dropper. This one you may want to click around on various shades of gray in your photo until the overall color is what you think it should be. Sometimes what you think you should click on isn’t going to work. Do this a few times and you will see what I mean. The first time I clicked on the white part of her chest that was near the bottom sort of shaded. The photo was still to dull. Then I decided to just try clicking on the silver part of her black collar and I knew that was where it should be.

I always use the dodge tool set to about 12 to highlight the sparkle in the eyes and the iris as well.

Now isn’t that so much better?!

Digital Art – Dreams…

Inverted Tree Trunk

I couldn’t figure out what to do with this photo of a tree trunk. It had a lot of what I am assuming to be woodpecker holes but I wasn’t tall enough to get a good photo of them. So I used the invert button in photoshop and it looks like an extremely damaged piece of hair. You know the ones they show on the shampoo commercials to sell you shampoo. The kind of shampoo that will give you the most powerful, rich, handsome man catching hair in the world!