Photoshop Fun

I downloaded a free trial of Photoshop a few days ago, and have had fun playing around with it since. I've used Photoshop before for college classes and have downloaded trials of older versions in the past, but I feel like I'm finally getting bold enough to try out some more exciting projects this time around.

I stumbled upon some great tutorials over at Pugly Pixel that I've really had fun with so far. The other day I posted some craft inspiration using the collage tutorial, and here are some pictures I made using Pugly Pixel's Blending Modes tutorial.

For this image I created my own stripes layer, and used a glitter tutorial for the texture layer. The photo is one of my favorite wedding pictures of ours. The floral layer is from The Graphics Fairy.

This next image uses my same stripes layer (just modified slightly) and a built-in texture from Photoshop. The floral background is once again from The Graphics Fairy.

Instead of using a separate image on top of the embellishments, I used a layer mask to bring parts of the original floral background to the forefront.

Can you tell I have plenty of free time right now? Haha. Neither of the images I created are perfect, but I think they're pretty fun! It's going to be a sad day when my free trial runs out.

Inspired by Anthropologie

It's been awhile since I've posted a craft/DIY project, mostly because my craft supplies (and most of our other belongings) are in storage right now. But I have been cultivating ideas for projects I'd like to complete once I have the resources I need so I thought I'd share them with you.

I have a lot of free time for perusing Pinterest and doing some online window shopping, and Anthropologie is one of my favorite stores to look to for fun ideas to turn into DIYs. Here's what I'm loving right now and will hopefully recreate on my own soon enough.

Right now I'm leaning towards tackling the jewelry box first, but we'll see how I feel when I actually get around to starting!

Birthday Adventures (And a Job Update!)

I completely forgot to mention that Drew and I headed over to Downtown Disney to celebrate my birthday a few weeks ago.

After lunch and wandering in and out of shops for awhile, we decided to check out the scenery (and ice cream) at the Yacht & Beach Club and Boardwalk Resorts. We got some of the biggest sundaes ever at Beaches & Cream.

One of my favorite parts of the day? Seeing this little kid hanging out in the Magic Kingdom monorail station dressed up just like the monorail cast members. He was waving his arms to direct traffic and everything, and it was adorable. I didn't think to snap a picture until our monorail started to leave, so this blurry picture is the only evidence I have of him.

Our original plan was to hang out at one of the Magic Kingdom-area resorts to watch the fireworks that night, but by around 6 or so we were hot and tired enough to call it a day. Even though it would have been better if we could have actually visited the parks, it was still a fun birthday!

Plus, we'll have plenty of time to visit the parks whenever we feel like it now since I was officially offered a job with Disney yesterday! I start in a few weeks, so Drew and I are officially on the hunt for an apartment in Orlando. Wish us luck, because apartment hunting is intense and a bit tougher (read: waiting-list filled) than we expected.

Interviews

During the two years I lived in Michigan, I had about 8 job interviews in attempts to land a position better suited for me than the job I had. Obviously none of them worked out, which is part of why Drew and I moved to Florida.

Since we arrived a few weeks ago, I've had three interviews (OK, really just two since the 3rd is tomorrow). Clearly the job market is a little bit better here than back up north, which is just fine with me. I'll give some more details about my job hunt once I have some more interesting news to share (i.e. when I actually have a job - which will hopefully be soon), but for now I'm focused on the interview.

Specifically the interview suit. For all of the interviews I've had in the past two years, I've had the same rotation of 2 or 3 shirts to wear with my suits. Which is getting kind of old. So I've been doing some online window shopping lately to daydream about something more interesting to wear on my interviews and to my eventual job.

Top row (left to right): J. Crew, American Eagle, Topshop
Bottom row (left to right): Alloy, Forever 21, J. Crew

I made the collage with Polyvore, which is an excellent time suck and a great way to make collages if, like me, you don't have PhotoShop or Snagit. If you're interested, you can check out my other Polyvore collections here.

Hopefully I'll have a job update for you soon, but until then I'm prepping for my next interview and planning some more posts (I might as well be productive in my free time, right?).