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I’ve always been wondering how the lights in the shape of hearts (see my header) can be achieved when I saw pictures in the Flickr or in someone else’s photoblogs. I just love the effect.
And one fine day, my dear colleague happened to link me to a blog (I can’t remember the address) and I went “OMG!! That’s what I’ve always wanted to do!! Thanks so much for the link!! Love you love you love you!!”. Lol….lol….. I was simply thrilled when she sent me the link and when I got home that very evening, I went into action, duplicating the technique so I could capture those images I’ve been drooling at for ages.
Some girls asked me how did I do it and so I decided to make a short tutorial and share what I’ve learned. Please remember that this tutorial is based on what I did and I hope it works best for you too. Anyway, it’s a very simple technique and I’m sure you’ll be able to follow suit.
Step 1
Cut out a strip of black cardstock, with the width about 80% of the length of your lens like below (I’m using a 50mm lens)
Step 2
Encircle the paper around the lens and secure it with tape or glue. I used cellophane tape to secure the paper.
Step 3
Draw a circle with a diameter that will fit the tube-shaped paper. The best thing to do is to remove the paper tube, trace it on another black cardstock to get the exact circle size. Cut out the circle. Thereafter, draw a small heart shape in the center of the circle paper and cut it with a exacto knife. I hand drawn the heart or if you have a small heart shape punch, you can use it too.
Step 4
Adhere the the circle paper onto the tube-shaped paper with cellophane tape or any glue. Just make sure you secure it properly without any gap. It will look like what I did here (it doesn’t look presentable at all but it’s secure and works really well for me)
Step 5
Before you start taking pictures, make sure you set your lens to manual focus (MF) like shown below
Step 6
Insert the completed tube-shaped paper into your lens like this
Before you start taking pictures, find a place with lots of light source for example on the street, where there are cars with head lamps and street lights. Look through your viewfinder, manually turn the focus ring on your lens and throw the image off-focus (blur effect). Then you will be able to see the lights in heart shapes and start snapping away! 
It’s as easy as I’ve mentioned earlier. So, try it yourself and have fun with this technique!
Here are a couple of shots I took the last 2 days my heart shape lens ‘cap’.
I love this one!! Taken on ECP highway towards the Flyer.
Have a great evening!
This Wednesday’s Challenge at [entreARTistes} Magazine blog is all about 100% Boy. A layout of a boy doesn’t mean it has to be the same old boring colors of blue, grey or black.
Boys or men layouts can look really great and fun and exciting in bright colors like what I did here
Hop right in and try this! If you have your layout ready, link it to the comment box in the EA blog here.
Have a fun Wednesday!! 
that Made With Love has opened its new wing last week? Yes!! That place is absolutely awesome!! I fell in love with the new window display and also the workshop rooms!! The whole place is filled with Sizzix products and projects and there’s also a demo bar which looks like a wine bar!! Gorgeous I tell you.
See what I mean here.
There’s going to be a launch party on the 6th Feb and please block this date for a full day of great activities such as FREE Make-N-Takes, a “To Die For” Crop Party to attend, champagne popping and more!!! The DT will be there for the Make-N-Take session, including me! For more details, please read them here. See you this Saturday!!
Oh oh……….another good news is there’s a Sizzix Design Team Open Call now!! For more details, read about the conditions here. Closing date is 11th Feb. Go for it and good luck to all!!
*Update* ~ Thank you to those who have expressed your interest in my canvas class but as I’ve mentioned in my previous post, after this Sunday’s class, I’ll be taking a break indefinitely. Keep a lookout here for any future classes and I’ll definitely let you know if there’s one coming up again. Thank you so much again to the girls who attended my last 3 classes, I’m happy that you’ve learned something and enjoyed yourselves. I certainly do, very much indeed.
that I’m ever so thankful for all the good things that happened to me, and also the not-so-good things because they helped me build up my character to a different level and make me a stronger person. I thank the Lord for always watching over me and for lighting up the path for me to walk on, for opening my heart and be forgiving to myself and to others, for the love He has shown me and for holding my hand and guiding me when I’m lost.
There are many things in life when one could wish he or she could have everything in this world. Everyone always dream and wish for great things and things beyond their reach but one would has failed to ask themself “what did I do to deserve this?”. People will always seek for the easiet route to success, be it in their job or personal life and in reality, there’s in no short cuts to success. (unless you’re someone born with a silver spoon in your mouth or you’ve striked a $2million Big Sweep)
So, what I want to say is one always has to work hard and smart to achieve what they want in life (I mean in a legal way). Dreaming is everyone’sfavorite past time and when you have enough of that, please wake up and start making a difference in your life. I wasn’t born poor nor was I well-endowed. What I can say is that I had a great childhood and a comfortable life with both my parents. I was never deprived of anything nor was I being spoilt with everything. I’m so thankful I was brought up in best way my folks can do within their abilities. They clothed me, sheltered me and showered me with unconditional love. (and thanks Mum for tolerating my obsession in catching ”longkang fish” when I was in school!! lol…….lol……… “Longkang” means drain)
And what I’m most thankful to them is how well they’ve moulded me into a well-mannered person with a sense of pride and belonging. They’ve build a great sense of responsibility in me and always remind me never to take people or things for granted.
So, whatever I am today, I have my parents, the hub, my son and the people around me to thank for making me who I am today.
Sometimes I’m quite appalled with the people I’ve met or seen, who have absolutely no idea at all what respect means. Simple tasks like greetings, listening and saying thank you are missing in the societies today. Being disrespectful is something I have very low tolerance with and I could just simply ignore people like that and say “Pity them, their folks never raised them up properly”. I always believe the behavior of a person portrays how the person is being raised and moulded and the family background of the person (in terms of mannerism). So, it is the responsibility of a parent, like myself to instill good mannerism and behavior in our children from a very young age, not when they are already in the ripe age of becoming a parent themselves.
I’m not here to preach about how one should behave but just to state the fact that one will not go far with bad behavior and mannerism.
And I feel sad and disappointed when I can’t explain to Ethan why people ignore him when he said hello to someone in the elevator or when he said thank you to someone, there is simply no reply of “you’re most welcome” or when he tries to befriend someone in the playground, he was told to “go away”.
What has become of the society these days?
Anyway, enough has been said. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Sharon for this wonderful invitation! I’m so thankful for this opportunity and looking forward to be back home for a couple of days visit. This is going to be quite a good experience for me, especially venturing out of Singapore for a teaching stint. Never in my mind that one day I’ll be asked to teach but this day has come and I’m certainly thrilled about it! I’m definitely excited to meet the people back home again and I know I’m going to have a great time.
Thank you very much to those of you who have left me some love. I appreciate you taking time to pop in here.
Til then, have a great evening!
an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges. That is very true but we could still make the best of it, if only we want to, right?
Anyway, I’m posting a new piece of canvas work for my last class this Sunday. I’m taking a short break from teaching. It’s going to be busy in the next couple of months, so if I’m going to create other canvas work, it’s for personal keeping. Here she is
To the four girls who have booked the class with me, see you soon! We’re going to have a great time because we’re not only going to play with paints, inks and mists, we’re also going to be sewing!! The first time I’m teaching sewing with the machine.
Have a great week ahead!!
It was certainly a busy weekend for me and my family. There was some kind of kite flying event going on for the past 2 days in our community. And we had an awesome time, with our kites (which were lighted up with some light bulbs) flying high under the clear starry night. Gigglings and laughter were heard across the field. They came from me most of the time. 
Anyway, the boys are knocked out cold while I’m posting this! A clear sign of a long and fun weekend! lol……..lol………
I experimented with some sort of technique on my camera this evening and I’m extremely pleased how it turned out for my first try. You know, I’ve turned into a technique freak lately when it comes to photography. *laugh* Of course in a good way. I’m still actively reading on photography articles everyday without fail. I guess I’m hungry for knowledge. This isn’t exactly a new-found ‘hobby’, reading and learning and experimenting and all. It’s in me for as long as I remember. I’m always very committed and serious when it comes to learning, a strong trait that I’m glad I possess.
And the outcome of my learning has produced these pictures I absoloutely love!!
The lights in heart shape are just fabulous!! Love me more hearts!! *laugh*
And mind you, this is NOT a Photoshop effect. I’ll talk about how I achieved this effect in a very simple way next time. But I’m sure some of you may have already know how to do this.
I’ll be trying this again to add to my “collection” of lights effect photos.
Til then, good night!
It is defined as “the amount of time that the shutter is opened”.
I won’t really go into detail of how this works. If you want to know more, please read up the article on “Introduction to Shutter Speed in Digital Photography” at DPS. There are lots of articles on tips & tutorials when you read on. I’ve been reading lots and lots of articles from this site, every single day without fail. It helps me theoretically and I would apply them into actions when I’m out with my camera.
So, tonight was the night that I put into action of what I’ve read about shutter speed. After dropping Ethan for his Chinese class, I grabbed by camera & tripod (which I’ve already packed them in my car when we left the house) and headed to a nearby pedestrian overhead bridge. And down below was the TPE highway at its busiest time at 8pm, when everyone was heading home from work. The sky was clear and the highway was brightly lighted up. And so I started setting up my tripod, propped my camera on it using my 3 weeks old 50mm f/1.4 lens, attached the shutter release cable to minimize the movement of the camera and I started playing around with the shutter speed.
After reading plenty of articles on shutter speed settings and how to achieve different effects using the function, I switched the camera mode to TV (on a Canon), which means Shutter Speed Priority. I would have to manually set my desired shutter speed and the aperture setting will be automatically set.
I’ve always wanted to capture images of moving traffic with blurred headlights and when you see them, the headlights of cars actually turned into strips of lights on the street, and the rest are clear and sharp.
What I’ve learned is that to be able to achieve this effect, I have to set my camera reading to a slow shutter speed as this will allow longer exposure, hence it will allow more light to enter the lens and I will get a well exposed image for the night scene (provided the exposure and ISO settings are also right). Propping my camera on a tripod and using shutter release cable will prevent camera shake (which can result in blur images).
I first tried setting the shutter speed at 1/3 of a second and the aperture was automatically set at f/3.5. And here was my 1st attempt.
This was not what I wanted as the cars were still visible.
On my 2nd attempt, I reduced the shutter speed to 3.2 seconds with an aperture reading of f/9 (as I decreased the shutter speed, the aperture reading increased) and here’s the effect.
I wasn’t happy with this either as you can see the light strips were ‘broken’. I didn’t leave the shutter opened long enough to get a better effect.
My 3rd attempt, I increased the shutter speed significantly to 30 seconds with an aperture of f/22.
Whoa!! This was pretty cool, finally seeing the continuous light strips but then again, this wasn’t what I wanted. lol…lo…. Yes, I am a hard person to please. ;) But the hub loves this! It’s more dramatic according to him.
And I tried again a few more times, reducing and increasing the shutter speed by fractions of seconds and finally………………….. at 15 seconds with an aperture of f/22, exposure -2 and ISO200, I achieved my perfect shot (at least to me).
I think this is the right exposure with the right setting for my first session at trying out slow shutter speed capturing moving traffic in the night. Phew, that was a long sentence! lol…lol…. I’m totally thrilled with my evening with these session and I will be trying again in a different scene.
Ohhh…………I have to tell you this joke. While I was up on the bridge standing behind my tripod and camera, the cars below actually thought I was a traffic police officer trying to capture cars that were speeding!! And many cars on the road actually slowed down when they approached the bridge and saw me behind my camera!! Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!! This was simply hilarious!! I tell you, I was having a good time taking photos and ‘pretending’ to be taking pictures of traffic offenders.
Anyway, hope you like what you see here and I’ll be back again soon once I take more photos using the shutter speed priority function.
Good night!
Here are a couple of updates for the past week on some layouts I’ve created for some challenges.
The daily challenges in Scrapperie has started for more than a week and everyday we’ve been seeing lots of wonderful working pouring in from the DT and their forum members. My take for last Saturday’s challenge for the Freestyle Team is “What does freestyle mean to you?”.
Here’s how I defined freestyle ~ carefree, unconventional, bold, experiment and unlimited.
Playing with more paints and mist. I’m simply obsessed with them.
And next, the Made With Love Sketch Challenge #2 is already up!! Oh……before I move on, congratulations to the Sketch #1 winner, Adeline!! You go girl! Your take is awesome!!
And here’s Sketch #2 and my layout, using Pink Paislee’s Cupid collection. Yup, I’ve received this collection from the very generous owner of Pink Paislee, Rebecca and she included the previous collections in the goodie box when the package came in!
I apologized for the lousy image as I’ve tried ‘cutting’ the outline of the paper using PS and it failed miserably. My 1st time and I’ll work on improving it. It’s always easy to crop in squares with straight lines.
Hey, play along with these challenges if you’re looking for something to perk up your mojo ok?
I have a couple more projects to complete this week and will share them here again soon. I’m also having a private class for 4 lovely ladies for my Canvas Madness class. They’re 4 four friends who’s getting together for this Saturday’s class. I’m really looking forward to some fun with them!
And for those who have pre-booked the new canvas/layout Feb’s class with me, the canvas sample will be up soon and I’ll email the details as soon as possible. *Update* – the 4 slots have been taken up and for those of you who is interested, please let me know and I’ll put you on the waiting list. In case of any pull-out from any of the 4 girls, I’ll slot you in.
Thank you so much for the pre-booking the Feb’s class with me even though the sample is not out yet. Thank you for the faith you have in me.
I missed my posting on my Project365 last night because I was having a bad tummy ache. This has been a constant problem for me for years and years. So, I went to bed early. Will make up to it tonight.
And just before I sign off, I’m answering a couple of questions on the comments left by my blog readers.
fiona
Hi Leena
Did you get all these beautiful fabrics from Japan?
Do you know of anywhere in S’pore that sells such pretty fabrics?
Fiona, I got the fabrics from Etsy. There are several sellers from the US that I would recommend to you are Fabric Shoppe & Fabric by the Yard. You can search for more of this kind of fabric sellers in Etsy. I’m not sure if we can get this from Spore but if you found one, please share with us ok? Happy shopping!!
Ying
Hi Leena,
what do you use and how do you create those splats on your layouts?
ying
I used Making Memories acrylic paints for the splatter effect. I cannot exactly describe it in words how you can achieve this effect but it’s pretty simple.
1. choose your preferred paint colors and dilute with some water to get the desired texture
2. Use a paint brush (i use the Chinese painting brush with sharp tip) and dip into the paint.
3. Use a flipping movement with your wrist (this i cannot demostrate to you through my blog, it’s a hands-on tutorial) and splatter the paint brush over your layouts/projects randomly.
Ying, this is the best I can explain the technique to you. And I wish I could video this technique but I seriously don’t have time to do this. I’m a full-time working mother, I hope you understand.
I do teach this technnique in my canvas class but unfortunately, it is all fully booked.
But please try it yourself and you will master it in no time. That’s how I learned myself.
*Update* – Ying, the spritz is from Tattered Angels Mist
Thank you very much again for all your comments. I really love reading them, though there are not many of them. lol…..lol…….
Have a great week ahead!
I’ve never exactly done any tutorials on anything besides my scrapbooking projects. So, today I’ve received a message from Gazel asking me some questions on how I photograph my layouts.
Hey Gazel, no question is ever dumb, silly or stupid, please remember that. I’ll be more than happy to answer them. So, I’ll try my best to help you in any way I can but remember, this is just a simple guide to what I usually do. I hope this will help you.
G: do you scan or photograph your layouts?
L: I photograph all my layouts
G: i don’t think my scanner’s big enough and i doubt it can scan it nicely.
L: I could not advice you on this because I don’t own a scanner and I’ve never tried scanning my layout. But I’ve seen people scanning their layouts and the outcome is amazing!
G: i have never been able to photograph my layouts to appear like yours or the many others i see people do..
L: Yes, you certainly can do it and you can make yours look like mine or others too.
G: is there a way to do it?
L: Yes and I’ll guide you how I do it on my layouts.
The short tutorials below will by based on how I photograph my layout and I’ll go a step further on how you can crop, resize and save the picture of your layout.
Step 1
First, before you photograph your layout, make sure you find a good light source because this will help you take clearer and sharper images. The best time to photograph your layout would be during the day.
Second, prop your layout against a sturdy background such as wall. I used an easel to prop my layouts and projects. You can get them at Art Friend. Please make sure the layout is facing the light source.
Third, start composing your layout with your camera, be it a P&S or DSLR (it doesn’t matter) through the viewfinder. Make sure you frame your layout by moving yourself forward or backward or tilt your camera until you’re happy with the position of your layout. Please note that this requires a lot of practice to perfect the angle of your layout.
Next, photography the layout.
Here’s a sample of how I captured my layout with my DSLR.
Step 2
I will show you how I crop my picture using Photoshop CS2 because this is the only software i’m currenty using to edit my pictures. But if you’re using other programs, please feel free to do so. If you don’t have any program, I would recommend you to use Picasa 3. I used this before I switched to PS. It’s easy to use and you can download it for free here.
Once I opened my layout picture in the PS, I select the Crop tool in the Tool bar as shown in the arrow below
I would then drag the cursor from the corner of the layout and define the area that I want to crop. Double click your mouse to crop.
This is how my layout will look after cropping.
Step 3
I usually re-size my pictures before I post them in my blog or any of the SB gallery. Most SB galleries would allow you to upload a limited picture size. (I’m sure you know how to upload your pics and how the galleries work). I always re-size my picture to a width of 580pixels because it fits perfectly into my blog. Click Ctrl+Alt+I simultaneously and a separate window will pop up. Key in the size that you prefer as shown below
I will also select Bicubic Sharper at the bottom of the window to ensure my image maintained its sharpness. Then click OK.
Step 4
I would usually save my pictures under “Save for web” as this will significantly reduce the the size of my images. Doing so will allow me to maximize my gallery space in my blog, Flickr, SB galleries and also my hard disk. To do this, go to File and select Save for Web. A window will pop up as below
On the left is the original image with the size of 469kb. On the right is the image I want to save as web with the size of only 82kb. Can you see the difference now?
The last step would be to save your picture into your folder. Voila! It’s not as difficult as you may think.
And here’s my final image
Play around with the contrast and hue to get the image color as close as possible to your masterpiece.
I hope this tutorial will help you photograph your layout in the simplest way and also to guide you how to crop, resize your image and save space in your galleries.
Remember, practice makes perfect!
New Twinkle Panda
Chipboard Shoe
Fortune Cookies Tags
Mobile Phone Tags
Music Tape Tags
Aren’t they AMAZING??!! Gosh, I absolutely LOVE them!! Angie, the creator of all the wonderful stamps, tags and chipboards for Angie Delarie Designs has been busy working out all her new creations and we get to play with them first hand! If you are wondering where you can get them, please pop by her etsy and you’ll see all her goodies in her store. You’ll love what you see there.
Before I go, please remember to check my Project365 page where I posted all my photos there, EVERYDAY!! lol…lol… Just wanna tell you that I’m not slacking in my project.
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