Baby Girl Baby Shower

One of my good friends called me and asked if I would make a baby shower invite for her.  I was thrilled to do it.  I love scrapbooking on the computer!!  It is awesome!
She told me she decorated the baby's room with Lady Bugs since she is having a girl so I made the invitation with that in mind... :) I may be bias but I think it turned out so cute! :)

I changed the names so personal information wouldn't be shared. :)

New Scrapbooking Blog

I'm so excited to announce my new Scrapbooking blog for my family. It only has scrapbook pages on it! This is a new fun way to keep up on my scrapbooking and share my thoughts and activities with my friends and family.  If you are reading this blog, I consider you a friend... :)

Here is the link... Eardley Scrapbook.

Shooting in Low Light

Yesterday my daughter had her very first dance recital on the BIG STAGE!! She was so excited and I was excited too... and nervous!! :) She did amazing and I am so proud of her!

When the recital started, they asked all the parents not to use flash photography because it would ruin the video they were making of the performances.  I looked down at my camera with a huge external flash sitting on top and realized I needed to change my plans. :) There were other people still using their flashes during the performance, so I could have gotten away with it, but instead I decided to play by the rules. :)

In order to still get some pictures of my daughter on stage I changed my camera settings to help me take some photos in low light. (It didn't help that we were clear in the back of the auditorium.)

First - I changed my ISO to 1600. I could've used 800, but some of the routines were lit more than the others and I wasn't sure how lit her routine would be so I used 1600. ISO is equivalent to film speed. The higher the ISO, the faster the photo processes, the more grain you will get in your photos. 1600 will have quite a bit of grain.

Second - I switched to Manual Mode on my camera so i could set my f-stop and shutter at settings I knew would work.

Third - In manual mode, I put my f-stop on the lowest setting. (Since I was zoomed all the way out to 300mm, the lowest setting is 5.6.) In general, the lower you set your f-stop number, the bigger the aperture opening in your lens, the more light that gets in.

Fourth - In manual mode, I put my shutter on 60. For me, 60 is my cut-off shutter speed for blur. Even at 60 I will get blur sometimes so 80 is even better.  However, since I was zoomed to 300mm I needed all the light I could get. Unless your subject is holding still, don't shoot below 60 if you can help it! :)

I was able to get some great pictures of my daughter dancing on stage, without a flash. There was quite a bit of grain since I was shooting on 1600 ISO so I used photoshop to clean them up a bit, but overall, I am very pleased with my photos based on my low light, no flash, situation. :)

My daughter is second from the left. Isn't she so cute?! :) She did such an amazing job! I am so proud of her!

Photoshop Tip of the Week

I have so many people ask me how I move through photoshop so fast, well, I'll tell you... the keyboard shortcuts.  Photoshop/PSE made it easy to use the keyboard to get things done faster.  I want to share the ones I use the very most... :)

All the tools have a keyboard shortcut. If you mouse-over each tool, it will tell you the name of it and the keyboard shortcut for it.

Here are the tools I use the most:
v - Move tool (It's so great, you don't have to push anything else with v, just v... same with all the rest)
b - Brush Tool
u - Shapes Tool
t - Type Tool
o - Dodge/Burn Tool
m - Marque Tool

To Change the Opacity of the Layer:
If you want to change the opacity of the layer you are on, just push "v" on your keyboard (to get the move tool) and then press a number on your keyboard.  If you press 5, the layer you are on will change to 50% opacity. If you press 8, the layer will change to 80% opacity, and so on.  Anytime you are on the move tool and press a number on the keyboard, it will change the opacity of whatever layer you are on in the layers palette.

To Change the Opacity of the Brush:
While you are using the brush (b), you can press a number on the keyboard and change the opacity of the brush you are using.  This is great because sometimes you want to paint a little lighter and the sliders are a pain.  While on the brush tool, if you press 4 on the keyboard, your brush opacity will go to 40%, pressing 9 will give you 90%, and so on.

To Change the Size of the Brush:
I think we all agree that the sliders are a pain in the butt for resizing our brushes. The easiest way to re-size your brush is using the brackets on your keyboard. ([ ]). The left bracket ([) will make your brush smaller, while the right bracket (]) will make your brush bigger. (You don't need to push the parenthesis, just push the bracket keys).

To Change the Softness/Hardness of the Brush:
This is my favorite trick when using the brush... If you hold SHIFT while pressing the left bracket ([), your brush will get softer by 25%. Pushing it multiple times will make your brush the softest it can go. On the reverse, if you hold SHIFT while pressing the right bracket (]), your brush will get harder by 25%. Pushing those keys multiple times will make your brush the hardest it can go.
Here are some examples of a soft brush and a hard brush:

I hope you enjoy my tip of the week and I hope it helps you get faster in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements! Feel free to ask me questions if you have any! :)

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week at my son's school. This is what I came up with to give his teacher along with her favorite pie. Just thought I would pass it along to help your ideas get flowing. The flower is a freebie, go here to get it. 

We love our moms

Happy Mother's Day to our mama's! We had such a wonderful day and were able to spend time with both our moms. First we went to a park with my mom and all my family. This picture is of all us women. My grandma, aunts, cousins, my mom, me and my sisters. Mother's day is known in Germay as Woman's Day. So this is a tribute to WOMEN. Even though some of us don't have kids, we can celebrate womanhood and how wonderful it is. :)

After some time at the park, we went to Garrett's mom's house and spent some time with his mom. We had a BBQ and played cards with the women. They were loving having their husbands do everything for them. Someday I will be able to enjoy that. We love our mom's and want them to know how much they mean to us. LOVE YOU MOM!

Mother's Day

We want to wish a Happy Mother's day all our mom's out there!! I've had a great day so far and I hope the rest of you do too!  :)
I'm so grateful to be a mother. It is the greatest blessing I could have.  I'm also very grateful for my own mother who motivates me, inspires me, and drives me to be the person I am today!
I love you mom!

Me and my mom on Mother's Day!

I'm in the APPLE family!

So I came home from work the other day and my husband said he had a surprise for me....told me to close my eyes... and hold out my hands.... then he placed this heavy wrapped box. I opened it and tada!!!! It's my new laptop!!! I've been saving for like 6 months to get one but haven't saved enough - so my husband surprised me and went and got one for me! I was sooooo excited! I told him this was way better then going and picking it out myself. This means it's time for me to get to work making some beautiful designs for you the people to fall in love with. :) Happy scrapbooking! Until next time... Aubrey

{Inter} National Scrapbook Day

Today is National Scrapbooking Day... or as it's now called {inter}National Scrapbooking Day (iNSD).  It's a special day when scrapbookers all over the world come together to pay tribute to the hobby/sport/obsession that is digital scrapbooking.   

I have been teaching digital scrapbooking for many years now... if there is one thing I have learned, it is that people (mom's, wife's, sisters, friends) are so dedicated in preserving their cherished memories.  Women are a special kind of breed. :) We spend countless hours learning and doing for others (and ourselves).  We are so proud of all of you out there, doing your best to make a difference!!

Signature Scrapbooks wants to make a difference too... even though our site is new to the world wide web... we want to award 3 customers with a chance to download $20, $10, or $5 worth of free products from our store!! {Great huh?!} All you have to do for a chance to win is leave your name in the comments of this post! We will randomly pick one winner to get the $20 award, one winner for the $10 award, and one winner for the $5 award.  We will be picking the winner next Saturday, May 8th!  Check back on May 8th to see the winners! :)

New Lens

I've had a few people ask me what camera and lens I use to take my pictures so I thought I'd make a post and tell all! :) This lens is my newest purchase... it just arrived in the mail from adorama.com.  It is a Canon 50mm lens with a 1.8 f-stop.  At the bottom of this post I will put a picture of what this lens can do. :) Here is the rest of my stuff:

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XSi (love it)
Lens: Sigma 28-300mm with 3.5 fstop
Lens: Canon 50mm with 1.8 fstop
Ext. Flash: Sunpack PZ42X

I have a few other accessories like remotes, tripods, and reflectors. I also share a set of studio lights with my sisters-in-law.

Here is just a sample of what the Canon 50mm Prime lens with a 1.8 fstop can do...

I focused on the "J" of my macbook pro... You can see that the blur starts before it even hits the M or the U!! Totally awesome! You have to be careful when you use the 1.8 when photographing people. If their face is turned slightly, the eye in the back will be blurry.  I always like to keep both eyes in focus at all times. :-)

I hope this helps answer some questions and if you have more, feel free to leave comments and I will answer them! I love helping people use their cameras!! :-)