Babu, Babu, oh how I love you

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of being and ideal grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for right. 

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.

How to make a vintage baby photo in three simple steps

 I love vintage and antique photographs and decided to try and make my 4 month old look straight out of the 1940s.  I selected a photo that had a simple background and focused on his face--something which captured his bright-eyed expression.

To create a vintage look was very easy--only three steps and it can be done in any photo editing software.  Two free programs are Picasa (download only) and Picmonkey (online only you have to pay for their premium features)

Step 1: This is the image out of the camera.  Dark.  I used an auto contrast and fooled around with highlights to get it a little brighter.

Step 2: Now that's better.  After brightening things up I selected a little white "vignette" border to put the focus on his face.  In Picasa this is found under "vignette" and then you change the color to white, and in Picmonkey the option is under Effects--> Frost.  I then selected Infared Film and it suddenly made him look like a vintage photograph from the 1940's!  I'd tried the black and white but it left his face too flat.  This one emphasized his expression.

You can play around to get the look you want, especially depending on the skin tone of your baby.  My baby is very fair and this method worked well.  You can also add a white border, and in Picmonkey I love the premium "Craft" borders.  Go have fun!




  

Pinwheel Christmas Tree Topper

What Christmas is complete without a tree?  Part of what I love about Christmas is how decorating the tree brings a family together.  Old ornaments are revisited, new ones added, and lights are lovingly strung up. Like a cherry on a sundae, the tree topper finishes things off with a flourish. 

This was my son's second Christmas.  At age 21 months he is starting to grasp the concept of it all, and so we wanted to make it special for him.  My mom sent me some of my childhood ornaments, but we still needed a topper.  

I thought his favorite pinwheel from World Market would do nicely as our tree topper, with its sturdy translucent plastic petals, and would convey the fun childhood spirit I wanted to capture.  I stuck it down the top center, stake and all, and used twist ties to secure it inside the tree.  Then I placed a few of the lights behind it and secured those, too.  The result was a lovely warm and colorful glow.  The whole family loved it and I think a tradition has been started.

 My tree was in a corner, but if you want to try this with a 360 degree tree, maybe you could put two pinwheels back to back, or even four of them with a bunch of lights in the center. You want to be sure that the pinwheel petals let enough light through to get the effect you want.  

Next year, I plan to try and attach a motor to the back of the pinwheel to get it to spin!  That would be very cool!  And our pinwheel, at $1.99, ended up as the most affordable, priceless ornament we could have asked for!