Sorry I have been away on vacation so I have not kept up with my teaching tuesday or freebie friday.

While I was on vacation I took out my camera and asked my big brother to teach me some things.  The first thing he taught me was ISO settings.  This is an amazing thing!  As you all probably already know, I have a Sony Alpha 300 DSLR camera.  What you don’t know is that for Christmas my baby sister (I say baby because she is the youngest, but she is 18 now!) gave me a book about how to use my camera!  I LOVE it!  So does hubby lol.  That is what I am reading right now and that is where my information is going to be coming from for the ISO settings.

The book is called David Busch’s SONY a DSLR - A350/A300/A200

Guide to Digital SLR Photography

Auth of course is David D. Busch

So here we go!  The ISO settings are going to adjust your exposure.  So if you are outside where it is sunny, you should have your ISO setting lower at like 100-200.  And indoors where it is not as bright you would want it set to like 800.  That’s about it.  You change your settings to match the amount of light you have at the moment.  If you are outside and it’s a bright sunny day, set it to something low like 100, but if you are outside and it’s not as bright then set it higher to like 200.  Then when you are inside and there’s a few lights on you can set it to 800 or if all the lights are off then set it higher to like 1600 0r 3200.  Ok here are my pictures I took to show the difference.  Keep in mind I am not that good yet.  Also Bekah is napping so I only took pictures of my wall lol.  I also wanted to mention that I had the flash on.

I set it to an auto setting (the face for portrate) and changed the ISO settings.

3200

1600

800

400

200

100

Auto (I checked the details of each photo and the ISO settings matched up with what I was taking.  When I checked Auto it said ISO was at 400.  So I guess auto will adjust to what it thinks is the best setting for the lighting you are using.)

So there you have it.  Sorry the photos aren’t that great.  I wanted to keep the subject the same and since Bekah is napping I couldn’t use her haha.  I hope this tip helps some of you.  Also sorry that I set the photos to web quality so I could post them here, so you don’t really get a great look at the difference.  I encourage you to go play with your ISO settings and see if you can see a difference in your pictures!

Have fun!

Oh and one more thing.  I took these photos indoors, with all the lights off.  The only light is coming from my computer!  haha.

I made a paper pack for you.  The Damask Print was requested at Ginger Scraps so I made a quick paper pack and loved it so much I made it in a bunch of different colors!  There is chocolate brown, navy blue and dark purple for a base and each base has 7 colors.  So you get 7 Chocolates, 7 Navy,  and 7 Purple papers.  The last paper in the pack preview is not in the pack.  It was just uneven so I threw that in there to even out the preview haha. Click the preview to go to 4shared.  There are 3 downloads, each color has it’s own zip file.

The other two links:

Purple

Navy Blue

Like my new paper packaging?  I needed a new font and I needed to make a CU one anyway.  Yup I will soon have CU items!  I am also working on a template for a packaging preview.  I think it is done I just gotta add some cute things like flowers and butterflies haha.  You will get to see it after the holidays when I release my next kit.  Don’t know when that will be exactly but not till after the holidays for sure.

Here is a close up of one of the papers so you can see the design.

Enjoy!

I wrote this tutorial a while ago and this past weekend at Ginger Scraps forum there was a challenge for this effect so I thought I would share my tutorial with you all so you could do this with your photos and incorperate them into your LO’s.   I wrote it using Paint.net but this will work for Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop as well, you might have to modify the instructions a bit to match whatever program you are using.

How to do a pop out photo

Also instead of drawing the black box you could just use a digi scrap frame instead.  Here are two of my recent LO’s using this technique so you can see what I mean.

This one I submitted for the pop out photo challenge this weekend and I did a two fer and also used it for the word lovers challenge.

I used Ginger Scraps  “Whoville” kit, Julie’s word art and two kits from the DAC blog train
Nydia M. Acabá - DAC Blog Train - http://mis-myscraps.blogspot.com/
KayJay - DAC Blog Train

Yes that soldier is tall, yes he is real haha.  We were waiting in line to see Santa and this guy was on stilts.  There was also an Elf on a unicycle haha. This LO you can see Bekah popping right out of that frame and of course the soldier towering out and over the frame.

This LO I submitted at Ginger Scraps for the A-Z challenge (where you get the A-Z prizes if you participate).

I used Pixie Keepsakes “Snow Princess” for this LO.  You can get it at Ginger’s store.

See my HUGE belly popping out?  Yeah how could you miss it right?  HAHA.  So that’s it, I just used frames instead of drawing a black box around the image.  Ok everyone, have fun playing with this new technique!

Ok everyone, as stated below in my hubby’s comment I made this LO on a dare.  Saturday night after a speed scrap at Ginger Scraps, we had a Truth or Dare game going on and Ginger and I were both dared to post a “hideous” LO on our blogs and we were not aloud to say that it was a dare till Sunday.  Ginger Scraps is having a party this weekend so head on over to join the fun!  There is another speed scrap tonight at 9pm Eastern and another truth or dare after that.  There are also 3 challenges in the party section that you can do to win prizes!  Who doesn’t LOVE FREE stuff!?  Oh if you want to see Ginger’s LO she did on the dare, head on over to her blog.  I think it’s cute because Cooper is just too cute!

I used Two Kits from the “After Dusk” Blog train

One from Blind Sight Designs

the other from - www.abyscraps.blogspot.com