I could tell you how miserable Mason is.

I could tell you how miserable Mason is, however as a teething baby one expects him to be miserable. It is just an unfortunate side effect of the whole teething debacle.

Teething has basically shut Mason down.
He isn't sleeping for more than an hour at a time, he's refusing all solids. He's chewing so hard and often on his hands that those are hurting him too. He doesn't want to be put down, and his nose is so gross that now his eyes are steadily leaking gunk too.

He has three swollen areas of his gums; where the top two front teeth will be coming in and a bottom left tooth. He was like this right before corners of his teeth popped through on the bottom, so I hope it doesn’t last too much longer. All of my kids have always cut multiple teeth at once, but I’ve never had one get this miserable and icky during teething.

Yet the little dude still managed to smile every time I pointed the camera at him… I’ve trained him well.

Now lets talk about how the Mom is doing.

I am not doing well. Not one little bitty bit. I’m getting even less sleep than Mason because unlike him I can’t take any of those short naps during the day because I have Bella home. I can’t nap when she does because either Mason is awake or it’s too close to the time to pick the boys up. The few times it does seem like Mason and I will get a good amount of sleep at night Bella comes in to wake us up. I think this past week is the only time I have removed my daughter from my bed and told her to stay out of it and my room. She isn’t too happy with me.

When I am not trying to get sleep, and Mason is not trying to get sleep, I ‘m holding him. And he is rubbing his snotty gunky face on me, hitting my chest telling me he wants to nurse more – when he doesn’t, he just wants to latch on for comfort and I let him – or I am attempting to put him on the floor so I can quickly clean things up or go to the bathroom or eat. He screams at me the whole time. Or he crawls along behind me crying so pitifully. As usual since John had a bad day Friday he seems to think this qualifies him to not have to help with either child that is home and to walk around being in a pissy mood. I love my husband, and 99% of the time he’s great, but sometimes he can be really self-centered, this would be one of those times.

My lack of sleep and being able to really get even the most basic stuff done around the house is wearing on me. I’m short tempered and foul. Just ask Bella, I’m sure she’s willing to testify to that.

I’m going to go and start the roast for tonight then I’m going and waking John’s butt up so that he can be with Bella so that I can hopefully get a little more sleep while Mason is down.

New hair.

OHMUHGOODNESS! I’M A GINGER NOW!

UM, DUDE, YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN A GINGER.

I’M A GINGER-ER GINGER NOW!

In case you are wondering where the last two free gifts are, I posted this to the blog’s Facebook account:

“If you are wondering about Wednesday and Fridays free gifts, well, I have one rockingly teething babe, so I'm lucky to even get on the actual computer and not just the Kindle. I hope to have those two, along with Mondays, on the blog by Monday afternoon.”

Day 3 Gift & Days 3-6 Document December Photos

Today’s free gift is not a template.
I include my own handwriting every so often on my own scrapbook pages, which isn’t all too easy as a digital scrapbooker for the record, and for today’s gift I have a set of 8 Christmas phrases handwritten by me. It includes a PNG file for each phrase PLUS a brush set that includes a brush for each individual word so that you can mix them up or place them however you like. I figured this might give your Christmas pages (or your Document December pages) a nice little touch.

--->DOWNLOAD THE FILE HERE<---

Also if you have missed days one and two you can find where to download them in this post.

Day 4’s free gift will go up on the blog’s Facebook page on Wednesday.

Now, for days 3-6 of my Document December photos!
I am feeling so proud of myself so far. I have nine days worth of photos and five pages waiting for pictures so far. This is, sadly, the farthest I have ever gone on this. This year I decided not to be too picky about the pictures so the majority I’ve actually just been capturing with my phone and then I email them to Facebook and my email so when I get home every day all I have to do is look in those places and I have pictures ready and waiting for me!

Have you yet….

Have you picked up the TWO templates that I have offered up so far this month?

(find it here: Life as Their Mom Facebook Page)

And did you know… I’m going to keep offering up free goodies… 10 more to be exact.

(find it here: My Scrapbook Art blog)

The next one will be going up HERE on the blog on Monday.

Go! Quick, fast! Go and grab the templates now!

Creating a vintage colored black and white effect.

also known as my not wordless at all wednesday.
why I keep posting wordy tutorials on wednesdays of all days is beyond me.

As I was working on an art journal style scrapbook page for an upcoming Michelle Godin release I was stumped on my photo. I knew which one I wanted to use, and how I was going to use it, but once I actually put it on my page it just didn’t go quite right. I thought maybe black and white would be better, but no, still didn’t do. I stepped away from my page and sat and read and rocked and nursed Mason and thought. Then I thought some more. Then I laid him down for his nap, came back to my computer and stared at the page some more, and thought some more.

I knew I had to do something because not only was the color odd, it was a huge color blowout on the original photo, but it just sort of blended in and stuck out at the same time.

That’s when it hit me! I was not only going to convert it to black and white, I’d color in the black and white as well for a hand painted photography feel. It seemed like it would be the best feel for the page. I was so excited when I started it, then I got stumped trying to figure out how exactly best to get the effect. Well, let me show you how I did it.

(I meant for the cut out to be rough looking. I really like rough edged cut outs for art journal style pages. I feel that it lends a more realistic paper look.)

I did my cut out first, but you don’t have to do yours first – or do one at all.

I duplicated my layer and clipped into it a gradient mask that went from a dark almost black red and a very light cream. Then I clipped a curves adjustment and created a slight S in it. Merge those into your duplicate. Turn the duplicate’s opacity down to about 90%.

Create a new layer and go ahead and clip it into your duplicate. Pick your color, and a soft brush with an opacity of about 75% and paint your color over the area it goes with. Change your layer’s blending mode to overlay. I then go on to create a new layer for each color I use. Meaning, for me, each color tends to end up with three layers; my base color, my highlight color, and my shadow color.

After you’ve done all your painting go through and clean up where you painted on to other areas. I use a soft brush at 50% opacity so that some of the color is still there, that way I get the illusion of color bleeds. Also, at this point, go through and look at all your layers. Play with the opacity and blend modes on them to get them to look just the way you want. I end up going with soft light or multiply on some of mine to get the effects that I want.

You can be finished there, however I was going on to create my page so I then added a little custom shadowing.

And a more approachable example of it, a regular photo.

linking up here, here, here, here, here, here, and here

Decembering….

What I’ve got so far. We’re only two days in, and actually, so far, having actual paper to work with makes it easier to get things done. And looking at the pile o’ Christmas crap on my table helps with the motivating too since I’m actually not too fond of looking at Christmas crap.

And the photos to be printed off and to go in the slot for day 1 (front has a 2x6 slot and a 6x4, back is two 6x4s)

And just one 4x4 picture for today.

(frame from Karah Fredrick’s Too Excite to Sleep @ The Lilypad, gold letters from Document Christmas The Collection by Mari Koegelenberg and Studio Basic @ Sweet Shoppe, font is Darcy Baldwin’s DJB Holly Go Lightly @ Sweet Shoppe)