A Song (by Jonathan), The Opry, and 3 Giveaway (fish foam) Winners!
Happy Friday, friends!
I wanted to share a few things with you today.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Layla, shared a video of my 12 year old son, Jonathan, singing for her This Little Word of Mine” linky party.
Jonathan was overwhelmed by all of your sweet comments! He absolutely loves to sing and has been singing literally since birth. He first sang in front of our church at age 2 1/2. He sang “Victory in Jesus” a cappella. It was so stinking cute. If I can find the tape, I will try to show it to you sometime.
Jonathan has never had voice lessons, but since music is such a passion of his, we may look into it in the next year. He also has never competed in any competitions. But because of all of your encouragement, he will be competing in his first talent search at the Kentucky Opry this Saturday (the 11th) night.
The Kentucky Opry is in Draffenville, Ky, which is way down in Western, Ky by Paducah!
Jonathan will be competing in the junior division. They choose a weekly winner in each age category now through April. If you are a weekly winner, you will compete in the semi-finals in April.
So we will see how it goes. We think this will be great practice for him.
If anyone lives near the Kentucky Opry, please come on by and see Jonathan sing. But be sure you come up and introduce yourself to us first! We would love to meet you!
When Jonathan sang on Layla’s blog, many of you also asked me to share him singing again. So, I wanted to share a song that he sang at church recently.
It’s called “Someone Worth Dying For” by Mikeschair.
(I’m very sorry for the bad camera work in the beginning. There was no one sitting in front of me when I sat my video camera up, but right before Jonathan sang, my pastor sat right in front of me! That stinker! )
I also wanted you to know that Jonathan has his own youtube channel, JHUTCHBOY, which he is VERY excited about. So if you want to subscribe to it, here is the link:
www.youtube.com/user/jhutchboy?feature=mhee
We will be posting future videos of him singing.
Another thing I wanted to share today is that I am guest posting over at Homemaker on a Dime for her Blogging for Dollars series.
I would love for you to come over and see me! Click HERE to read my post.
Lastly, the 3 winners of the
Fish Foam giveaway are…
Congratulations to
Jennifer Jones (jones6310)
Misti L. (cypresshill)
Laura (bllosch7)
You are going to love your Fish Foam Cleaner!
I will be contacting you soon about how to claim your prize!
I have another great giveaway tonight, so come back and see me!
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Improving Your Photos with Photoscape
Hey Friends!
I hope you are having a great week.
I wanted to quickly share with you the FREE photo editing program I use when preparing my photos for a post.
It’s called Photoscape.
My friend, Rhoda, told me about it a few months ago, and I have loved using it.
I want to give you an idea of what it can do.
Here is the original picture (straight out of my camera) that I took of my kitchen renovation reveal…
Here it is, after I edited it in Photoscape…
Isn’t that amazing?
I cropped the photo a little bit and brightened the picture.
I also covered up the hole in the ceiling above the window. Since we haven’t chosen a light fixture for above the sink, I didn’t want that hole showing up in my “reveal” pictures. Although I don’t many people would have noticed it anyway.
Yesterday, I took some pictures of the new wicker chalkboard in my kitchen. The pictures looked pretty bright in my viewer when I took the pictures, but when I uploaded them on my computer, they were a lot darker than I wanted.
Here is the original picture I took: Here is the after:
Not a huge difference, but definitely better. I uploaded the original into Photoscape, cropped it, up’d the brightness, and sharpened it a bit.
I’m still playing around with this program and learning what all it can do. But so far, I love how it transforms my pictures.
Remember the picture I took of Cy and I at my cousin’s wedding? Look at the difference between the original and edited one.
I cropped and brightened the picture, and I also used a feature called “bloom” on this photo. I ended up using this picture in our Christmas cards this year, and I do not know if I would have had I not had Photoscape.
So if you have never tried a FREE photo editing program, maybe you should check out Photoscape. (And NO, I am not getting paid for this post.)
Now, I am not professional photographer, and my pictures do not even compare to some of the amazing pictures on other home blogs, but they definitely look better than they did a couple of years ago.
So, I’m making some progress.
And I’m learning more about how to take good pictures to begin with. I actually bought a tripod to help me with my still shots. I never use a flash, and I usually shoot in Manual Mode. That’s HUGE for me!
Although you do not have to be a professional photographer to have a blog, good pictures of your projects do help you to get featured more on other blogs. Good picture taking and editing can help to show how truly amazing your projects are.
I am very excited about the Photo Workshops we are having at Haven this summer too. We are planning some amazing hands-on Photo Workshops, led by some amazing photographers, so we can all learn how to use our cameras better.
Have you bought your ticket yet? There are only about 75 tickets left, so you better hurry!
Click here to purchase…
And if you have already bought your ticket to HAVEN and have a blog, we would love for you to link up on our Attendee Page. Just click on the button to link up and get to know other Haven Mavens!
Also, we are having our very first Haven Twitter Party tonight (Feb. 9th) at 8:00 pm EST. We will be using the #haven2012 hashtag. If you are going or trying to decide whether or not to attend, this will be a great twitter party for you!
Hope to see you there!
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