Community Photo Challenge-Christmas Season

Woohoo! My entry for the photo challenge. I'm so psyched about this.

I got a camera this week and have been busy getting used to it. Today I took about 20 pictures of Rylie in her new Christmas dress and this is one of the better ones. Of course, I played around with softening the focus to give it that dreamy sort of glow and put a border around it. I hope ya'll like it.



I have to admit that I do need to practice in the progamable and manual modes a bit more. This picture is nowhere near what I would like it to look. I can guarantee you that I'll be posting many more photos now that I've got a working camera again.

Jill Marie

Playing with some recent pictures

Oh how I miss my camera. I keep finding myself thinking..."there goes another lost kodak moment"...lol. Yesterday Ray and Rylie were making Halloween cut-out cookies. Rylie had to wear her little pink apron, she looked too cute. I was watching her and she looked up at me and she had flour all over her little face..."ohhhh, another lost Kodak moment!"

So I've been itching to take pictures and haven't been able to. What else is there to do? Go play with Paint Shop Pro, lol. So, that's what I did and these are some of the pictures I've been playing with.


That is Rylie with her nephew Kaden. I was taking pictures of him when she suddenly popped her head in and just had to have me take her picture too.



That is Kaden on the day we went to the Pumpkin Patch. I just love those big toothless baby smiles, don't you? He's such a sweetie pie. All you have to do is look at him, smile and he will flash that big beautiful smile at you.


This is Rylie and her niece, who happens to be about 2 and a half years younger than Ry. This is when we all stopped for dinner after the day at the Pumpkin Patch. Yeah...you can see who is more concerned with smiling for the camera and who wants more pizza, lol.

Have a good one!
Jill Marie

Testing, bigger picture instructions

Okay, I'm going to try this.



Okay, now that is what I'm talking about.



YES! I love it! Thank you so much Martha! For those of you who haven't been there, visit the Bloggers Community Photo Challenge . If you love looking at and taking photo's, you're going to love this blog.

Thanks again for the infor Martha. I don't know what code I was copying, but it wasn't that one because I didn't even know that was there. LOL

Photo editing...too much fun

I have way too much fun playing with pictures and editing them. We recently went to a pumpkin patch up in Michigan. Rylie wore this cute hooded yellow shirt and I thought it would be a pretty to take a picture of her in front of some purple flowers. And yeah, it looked nice...but I wanted to "fix" it. LOL The first picture is the original, the second is my edited version.

Hm, well, those pictures did NOT look that little bitty when I made them. I am just not having much luck figuring out how to put pictures on this blog. I'm thinking I am going to have to go in and put them in the HTML thing. But, I've kind of forgotten how to do that. I'll have to go back and re-read some old things.

Yeah, those little pictures just lose too much detail.

Well, it's almost 1 am, waaaay past my bedtime. G'night ya'll.

Can't sleep...

Well, it's almost 1:30 am and I'm having trouble sleeping. So I went through some of the pictures I took of Christopher dressed up for homecoming and played around with them in Paint Shop. Of course, while I was taking pictures of Chris, Rylie had to go and put on her "fancy" dress and get in on the action.

Here are a few of the pictures I took. This was before the death of my beloved camera.

Christopher is the next oldest, after Rylie. He turns 17 this February and Rylie will be 5 in March. They're my babies...

PS~I don't think I am liking uploading the pictures through blogger. That was the "large" size and I think they look really small.

Okay, guess I'll try to get some sleep now. Ta-ta!

My right hand is gone...

Okay, well maybe not my "hand", but my digital camera has passed on. {{{sigh and sad pouty face}}} I almost always kept my camera on me. You have to when you have a four year old, six kids and three grandchildren. You never know when the moment for a great picture is going to happen and I've been caught too many times without my camera. I've missed some moments when I could have captured some really neat memories.

That means that unless I get a new camera for an anniversary gift (yeah, right, the past 10 years have gone by with our anniversary always being forgotten) I am going to miss out on getting pictures during the upcoming holidays. I feel almost nekid leaving the house without my trusty lil' camera.

Nikon has this really awesome looking camera out now. No, not one of those little itty bitty ditties. I want a camera that feels like a REAL camera. I kind of miss my old 35mm, I loved being able to set all the "bits" myself. I want a camera with a super fast shutter speed. There was such a lag on my digital camera and a few really cute pictures got lost during that couple seconds lag time. I'd like to be able to push the button and have the camera click off 2 or 3 rapid shots. But it has to be digital. I LOVE being able to upload right to my computer and emailing pictures right after I take them.

Yep...those are a few of my wishes for my new camera. Just in case anyone wants to let the ol' man know. LOL

Well, maybe I'll take some time to play around with some old photos. I love photo shopping!
Have a good one,
Jill Marie

code bX-zcvzxcv

Okay, first things first...for those of you who may get this weird code:
bX-zcvzxcv , don't worry. It is not as bad as it may seem. Okay, I can't guarantee that, but it wasn't for me. I went back to the blogger login page, I think it's called the Dashboard. When I got there I saw that the aol journal I was trying to transfer was there. So I clicked the link...it brought up my old aol journal on it's new blogger page, EXCEPT there were NO entries.

Well, sheesh! AH! So I clicked on that CUSTOMIZE button up top. Then I went to POSTING, now look at the bottom see where it says "Return to list of posts". Click that. Now upon arrival I see all my entries, although they are not posted. (Well, I didn't have a lot of entries on this journal anyway) But NO WORRIES...At the top of that little box check the SELECT ALL, now just to the left of that you'll see a drop down box thingie (I know, I shouldn't talk in such technical terms), if you look to the bottom you'll see where it says "Publish", do that. Now your blog should have all the entries posted...well, mine did anyway.

I hope this helps for anyone else getting that nasty ol' bX-blah-blah-blah.

Good Luck!
Jill Marie

2022 Ohio State cheerleader?

Good Morning! Here are two shots of Rylie in her cheerleading outfit. This was her "prize" for learning to sleep in her own bed. Believe me it was well worth the $18.00 to be able to sleep without a tiny little foot shoved in my back or a lil' leg thrown over my neck.

Last evening she heard the Ice Cream Man in the neighborhood. BTW, she thought the fella'a actual name was Ice Cream Man, lol, too cute. So I went and got my wallet. I came outside and she was waiting at the end of the driveway, looking for the truck. Well as soon as he turned and started coming down our street Rylie began jumping up and down, waving her arms and yelling "Ice Cream Man! Ice Cream Man! Ice Cream Man! Stop! Stop! Ice Cream Man!" She was too funny, even the Ice Cream Man said "Someone is a little excited, huh?" LOL

I wish I had my camera with me at the time. Oh well, next time I go for my wallet...I'm grabbing the camera too.

Have a great day!
Jill Marie

****Transfer to blogger editing. I had a great graphic of those 2 pictures, but it doesn't all show up on this skinny lil' journal, so I just posted the pictures. Even though I click "medium", for some reason it still transferred them real small.

I'm going to have to figure out how to post pictures saved on Image shack or flckr here. I am still a wee bit confused on all this new stuff.

Tags: Rylie, Ohio State, Buckeyes, cheerleading

My girls

I took this picture of Rylie and Samantha sitting in my garden yesterday. Sammi doesn't like it so I hope she doesn't see that I posted it here. I think they both look too cute!

I cut it down a bit, added a border on both copies and then lowered the level of color on one of the copies. I think they both look pretty.

Have a wonderful week!
Jill Marie

Tags: Samantha & Rylie

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A few recent photo's

Here are a few recent photo's that I just got done "framing". The first one is the sunset Rylie and I saw after we left the Wood County Fair.

This next one I took as Rylie and I were leaving a store the other day. She walked out and leaned against a brick wall as I dug for my keys. I grabbed my camera and she flipped up her shades and popped on the model smile. LOL And yes, she put a bunch of her little lip gloss on. Everytime she see's me put on some lipstick she thinks she has to pile on her clear lip gloss. It is too funny.

This one I took just yesterday. It is Rylie, Aubreigh or as we call her Aubber Gaubers (Ry's niece and our grand-daughter) and myself. When I took the picture I forgot that I hadn't put any make-up on and had been cleaning. Well, there ya go...my happy home make look, lol.

Yep, Rylie has another stye in her eye. Grrrr. Poor kid, I don't know why she keeps getting the dern things.

Have a good one!
Jill Marie

Wood County Fair

On Friday Rylie and I drove down to Bowling Green to have dinner with Samantha and her friend, Dayna. After dinner I took Rylie over to the fair. She got tired walking around but she had a lot of fun. Unfortunately you can't see Ry's pretty blue eye's in any of the photos because she insisted on wearing her shades the entire time. LOL She's way to cool to be seen with me.

Have a great Sunday!
Jill Marie

Tags: Rylie Jo, Wood County Fair, Bowling Green

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Petty toe nails

Rylie and I love nail polish. One day a week ago we sat outside and painted our nails. The photo shows the end result. And yes, that is a huge hole in the knee of my jeans. They are just so darn comfy. If you think the knee is bad...you should see the bum of the jeans. LOL

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From my garden

These are just a few pictures of some of the flowers in my garden.

Tags: flowers, hibiscus, cosmos, mallow

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2 pictures

These are just two random pictures I took last weekend. I had walked for awhile and decided to sit down on a bench for a few minutes. I pulled out my camera and snapped these two pictures. One is my view looking up from the bench, the other is my view looking down. Now I'm wishing I had painted my toe nails. LOL

Have a good day!
Jill Marie

PS~See how my pinky toes curl? I think that is a sign of great intelligence...LMBO!

Tags: Pictures, Jill Corral

My picture editing

There was a question about how I'm doing my borders, so I thought I would share it with everyone. It's quite easy really, if you have a photo editing program. I'm using Corel Paint Shop Pro. I do most of my editing with the picture in it's original size because it is so much easier to see. (Yeah, these old eyes, lol)

I select the area in the middle that I want. Then I cut that part and paste as a new image. I add a border if I want one. Then I copy that new image and paste it as a NEW LAYER back onto the original. (Well, it's not really the original. I do all of this with a copy of the original so I can keep the origianl picture)

Then I can adjust the property of either layer. If I want a faded look to the border I just right click on that layer and adjust the property of it to whatever I like the look of (usually between 72 and 80 percent transparency)

Or I can go into the Color and adjust the Hue and Saturation to make it look black and white by taking the saturation all the way down to -100. Or if I just want it to look like faded colors I can take adjust it to where ever I like the look.

Oh, and on the last picture I added a halo effect to the border to get that soft fuzzy look. I like that one alot.

It is a lot of fun to play with...and very addicting. LOL

If you don't have a photo program, look around online. You can usually find a program trial period. That way you can play around with it to see if you like it first. There are also lots of great tutorials online to help you learn what all those cool little buttons will do. The layers and the different properties can be a little daunting, but it doesn't take too long to figure it out.

Feel free to email me, or leave a comment if you have any questions. I will try to answer them, if I can.

Also, if you have any photography advice, I'd really appreciate that too. I am working with an HP photosmart camera, a measly 4 (Oh NO!)...I thought it was 4 MP, butit's only 3.2 MP and 3X optical zoom. Digital camera donations can be sent directly to me, LOL! Well, dang...considering what I am working with...I must be a very good photographer. LMBO!

Beautiful day for a picnic

It was just too beautiful to stay inside, so Rylie and I packed PB&J sandwiches and went back to Wildwood Metro Park today. Of course, I took my camera along.

I hope you enjoy the pictures!

I just can't seem to leave the pictures alone. I keep playing around with them seeing what they look like if I do this or that. LOL

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Wildwood Metro Park Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our trip to the Wildwood Metro Park on Sunday. It was a wee bit overcast, but it was a really nice day. Rylie and I had so much fun with Daddy, it was good to just get out of the house and enjoy the beginning of spring.

The first two pictures are the same one's I used in my little collage in my Housewife Journal. I just love these two faces!

This was taken shortly after Daddy had put Rylie down to walk and she collapsed to the ground saying she couldn't walk because her legs hurt soooooooo bad.

Our Angel in front of an empty fountain. I'm surprised she smiled so well, she really did NOT want to stand there and pose for this photograph. I think the little fairy was kind of freaking her out.

This is a picture of the view from one of the trails we walked.

A picture of Rylie and Daddy (my loves) on the trail.

Rylie, who couldn't walk because her little legs hurt, running to the playground!

Tags: Wildwood Metro Park, Toledo, Rylie & Daddy

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My photographs...

Well, I'm certainly not a professional. I got my first 35mm camera shortly after my first child was born 22 years ago. I took a class at the University and have loved taking pictures ever since.

I especially love black and white photographs. I used to carry around 2 cameras, one with color film and one with black and white film. Sometimes I can't stand my digital camera with it's delay...but I love being able to load the photos right onto my computer and editing them myself.

I've scanned a lot of my old photographs so I can use them in projects, edit them and then transfer them to cd's for storage. Sometimes this computer stuff is just way too cool. LOL

Here are a few of my pictures from back in the day.

The first picture was taken about 19 years ago with my 35mm Minolta and color film. I took the picture. The two were taken with my camera by my son David, who was probably all of about 9 years old. Of course I just couldn't resist playing with them in my Paint shop program.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: Photographs, Jill Corral

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