oh Bats!

home sweet home

It may look like Halloween is my favorite holiday, but in reality, its pretty far down my list - somewhere between Groundhog Day and Administrative Professional's Day. Having kids generally complicates matters, in that the pressure to decorate, at least for major holidays, is worse than the peer pressure I received in High School to ditch class. These days, I just expect that if the neighbor's houses are decorated, I need to (remind me to send a thank you note to the neighbors).

Anyway, a couple of weeks back, I noticed Martha had put together this little number, and it has been in the back of my mind ever since.


I love the dramatic effect you can get when you repeat the same element over and over and over and over and over... oh, well, you get it.

So, searching online for a simplified (sorry Martha, your template is way to complex) I did find an outline of a bat, that I then changed to fit my needs.



Next, I racked my brain to figure out what I could cut it out of that would be a least slightly weather proof (I do live in southern California, so its not like we have snow to contend with), and practically free.

Ah ha!

The leftover black plates from the Pirate birthday party! I traced the template onto the back of the plates, cut them out, and used blue painters tape to adhere them to the front of my house.




I did run out of plates for the full effect that I was hoping to achieve, so I think I'll run next door and ask if I can borrow some from my neighbor.

Family Holiday Card

About three seconds ago, I clicked the "order now" button from Kodak Gallery's website. I feel as though a weight has finally lifted from my shoulders!

To make this card, I purchased several yards of saturated green felt from the fabric store (on sale!) and taped it high on the wall. Three of my family members posed in front of it while my trusty tripod took several photos (before the felt succombed to gravity). Meanwhile, my daughter decorated her gingerbread house. She had such a good time!

Then it was all about the photoshop. I found a tutorial, online, for removing the "green screen" from the background - using a green fabric just makes it fairly simple to "cut" the people out of the background. I had to play around with the coloring of both photographs, the "gingerbread" photo was red in comparison to the "family portrait" photo. I also had to put shadows in behind the "family portrait" photo to make it look as though we had the same lighting as the other photo.

And voila! Sillyness ensues.

"green screen" portrait

Autumn's gingerbread masterpiece


Final combo photograph