Moved!

Please visit my blog here: http://home.qpaulson.net/~julie/blog/

Panorama Creation

Curacao is an island full of colorful buildings in the Caribbean. It was one of the port of calls for the cruise I went on holidays this year. The official language in Curacao is a combination of Portugese, French,....

Hand Painted Heart-Shape Bowl

It has been so long since I last visited Crankpots. This time, I took Q with me and we decided to paint some heart-shape bowls. I painted my bowl half in red and half with tomatos and a carrot.

Q painted his bowl grey blended in some blue and red hearts on the outside and little puppy paws inside. He also wrote a funky sign in the bowl. I asked him what it is and his reply was "True Love Forever". Can you see the TLFE now?

Hand Painted Herb Pots

I painted the plate with a heart. Left is mine, right is yours!

Lomoize Your Photo

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1. Create the classic vignette
- set the feather to 80 px and use a freehand lasso to create a circle around the photo.
- invert the selection by Shift-Ctrl-I or go to menu Select>Inverse
- add a Levels layer
- adjust the levels by moving the center arrow to the right.

2. Making the photo look Lomo
- flatten the image by Shift-Ctrl-e or go to menu Layer>Merge Layers.
- add a Curve layer and create a slanted S.
- create a new layer and fill it with black.
- change the blending mode and set it to Hue and reduce the opacity to 40%

3. Sharpening and Saving
- flatten the photo by using Shift-Ctrl-e or go to the menu and Layer>Merge Layers.
- set Image>Mode>Lab Color
- go to your channel window and click on the lightness channel
- go to the menu, select Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask
- set the Amount to 50%, Radius to 50 and the Threshold to 0.
- set back to Image>Mode> RGB Color

4. Save and Share!

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After:

Painting the Garage Entrance Door

Mom has given me a list of things to fix before the summer is over. Painting our garage entrance door is one of the tasks. I have never done any painting before. Mr. Q has gone out of his way to help me as always. He bought the rollers, brushes, sand paper, paint container, primere paint, and all the things we need.

It has been a really hot summer this year and we decided that it was too hot to work on the door in the afternoon. I took a long nap while Mr. Q attended a wedding. He came back at around 11pm and we started our midnight painting project.

Here is how the door looks like before. (see left)
You can see the paint peeling off on the edges. This door has gone through 13 years of sunshine, wind, rain and snow.

The hardest part of painting is sanding the surface until it is smooth enough to paint. It took us almost 2 hours to sand the whole door on both sides. By the time we finished painting the first layer of Primer, it was already 3am. It did not seem very long as we chatted and laughed during the whole process. I really enjoyed the process.


The next day, we had to lightly sand the door and paint the 2nd coat. We started at around 5pm while mom preparing a delicious meal for us. It didn't take as much time as most of the hard work was done already. This is how the door looks like after. (see left)

Colorizing a Grayscale Image with Photoshop

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After

Paper flowers

I made this bouquet of paper flowers 4 years ago. I even wrapped them individually in blue papers myself. Some flowers that money can't buy~

All girls like flowers. I like flowers too, especially the ones that last forever.

Weed Project

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After

Create-Your-Own Cell Phone Strap

I made this at a small shop called Mimosa on Robson St. You can pick the straps in different colors. Pick the "charms" (letters) in various styles and colors. There are many clip-on ends to choose from.

I decided to go with black strap with crystal letters in 3 different colors spelled out "Love Jules", and a clip-on end of a heart shape key.