I've been so busy working on some new projects that there haven't been too many new designs on our website and The Photo Fairy blog has seriously been neglected lately! 
I took some time out to enjoy the glorious Spring sunshine this weekend and took my notepad with me so I could jot down lots of lovely new blog post ideas so expect at least a blog a week this month! If there is anything in particular you would like me to blog about - more Photoshop tips for example please leave a comment below with your suggestion. I always love to hear your comments. 

To make it up to the Photo Fairy Designs fans I've decided to show some April Fools Day madness and offer 5 FREE Fairy or Fantasy photo edits to the first five people who email me (photofairydesigns@gmail.com) with the words 'I'm no April Fool give me my free edit!'. 

Terms & Conditions
- The prize is for an image file of your completed photo edit, not a print of your image.
- Facebook is in no way associated with this competition.
- The first 5 people to email us with the required phrase will be notified by Photo Fairy Designs that they are a winner. 
- The winners will be required to select which background they would like for their photo edit and email Photo Fairy Designs a photo of the person they would like in their edit.
 


** Update: Thank you to everyone that entered the 5 winners have now been notified! 
To those that didn't win this time don't worry there is still another chance to win one of our photo edits plus a fabulous Gumigem teether  - take a look here for more information! ** 

Thank you to everyone that took part in our 'search for a model' competition, we had 262 entries in total and our judges had a very difficult time choosing between them all.

The Judges

The competition was judged by an independent panel of six judges:

Alison, who lives in Lancashire, and is a full time teacher and mum to two boys and a little girl.

Amy, who lives in South East England and is full time mum to one little girl.

Emma, who lives in Cornwall, and is a full time mum to one little girl and one little boy and has a grown up son at University.

Sally, who lives in the North West of England, works full time and is mum to a little boy and girl.

Huge congratulations to Elliot, Leo and Chloe!

You will be the faces of Photo Fairy Designs for the next 3 months, I will be emailing you shortly asking for 3 to 4 digital photos that I can use for all the new edits I will be creating. Every image I create for our website using your photos will be emailed to you free of charge to use as you wish!

Congratulations to everyone that took part, I would have been delighted to use any of the beautiful little ones in our Photo Edits. We will be running another competition in around 3 months time so join our newsletter list to make sure you don't miss out!

Thank you!

Following some problems with our earlier competition the decision has been made to start again afresh and hopefully a happier time will be had by all!
The aim of our competition is to find 3 new models for Photo Fairy Designs to use for our new edits and designs over the following three months. 

We are looking for:
- One baby under 12 months old
- One boy between 1 and 14 years old
- One girl between 1 and 14 years old

To enter the competition simply send us a photo of your child via email or through the competition entry form here on our website. Please provide the childs name and age and make sure you enter a valid email address.

You have until midnight on Sunday 19th February to send your entries to us. The photos will then be looked at by 6 independent judges via a password protected page on our website, and winners will be chosen. 

The winners will be announced here on our blog on the 1st March and will also be contacted by email. 

Rules:

1.You must have permissions to use the photographs you submit to Photo Fairy Designs, and ensure the parent/ guardian is happy for the child to take part. The photos are accepted on the strict understanding that you, the customer, shall be held liable for any action taken by a third party with respect to violation or use/ copyright. 

 2. The winners will be required to email 3-4 photos to Photo Fairy Designs of their child that we can use in new designs. These images will be used on our website so if you are not happy about this please do not enter. 

If you have any questions please contact us.

Thank you! 


Liz 



Judges Area

We've written a guest blog today for the lovely Maxine at Life's A Celebration, pop over and have a look here. 

After seeing yet another few days of snow chaos and confusion in the UK I thought it might be useful to give some top tips for driving in the snow! 

I'm not quite sure why the snow has caused such massive problems in the UK the last few years, I remember there being plenty of snow during my child hood winters and our school was always open and my parents always got to work. Even as an adult with a fairly long drive to work the snow I don't remember seeing such hype from the 
media about the UK coming to a standstill. 

Having lived in Norway for 5 years I have seen a pretty large amount of snow over the last few years and temperatures down to minus 29. Yet our cars have always been running, our children have always got to nursery and we have always got to work.

So here are my top driving tips for surviving the snow!

1. Tyres: The super slick summer tyres a lot of cars have on in the UK are really are not made for snow or icy conditions. In Norway (and many other countries) it is a legal requirement to change over to winter tyres from October to April. These do not have to be studded tyres, and in fact most people in Norway don't use studded tyres unless they live in rural areas or need to be able to drive to their cabins in the mountains. Winter tyres are made with a rubber compound that is specially formulated for superior performance in wintry conditions. You may think that because it hardly ever snows in the UK, winter tyres are a waste of time. However winter tyres aren't just for snow, they can be used on slush, ice, frost and are even better on wet roads. In fact any time the temperature dips below +7deg the consensus is that you’re better off on winter tyres. Take a look here for a review of winter tyres and here for more general information. So next time you are buying tyres for your car perhaps have a think about whether winter tyres would be a good idea for you!

2. Visibility: It sounds really obvious but you would be amazed at the number of people who set off in their cars with snow covered windows or a pile of snow on top of their cars. Take the extra time to clear your car of snow before you set off on your journey, far better to be 5 minutes late then not arrive at all.

3. Frozen Locks: Use a cigarette lighter to warm a key for a frozen lock. Don't breathe on the lock, as the moisture will condense and freeze. 

4. Be Prepared: Make sure your mobile phone has a fully charged battery in case you do get stuck somewhere and have to call for help. A torch, tow rope, blanket, snow shovel and warning triangle are all useful things to have in your car during the winter months.

5. How to cope if your car skids:  If your vehicle skids, depress the clutch and turn the steering wheel into the direction of the skid. When the vehicle straightens steer along the road. Don't brake - it will just lock up your wheels and you'll skid further. 

6. Use a high gear:  If you are trying to set off on a snowy patch use 2nd gear and ease the clutch up gently to avoid wheel spin. If your tyres can't grip then using 1st gear and accelerating hard isn't going to fix that.

7. Plan your route: Even if it is a trip you make all the time make sure you think a little more about which way to go in snowy and icy conditions. Which roads are the most likely to be difficult and which are likely to have been gritted. 

8. Take it steady!: Poor road conditions mean you need to reduce your speed, your braking distance will be increased massively in slippery conditions. Leave yourself plenty of time to get to where you are going or just accept you are going to be a little late. 

9. Be aware of others: Have you ever noticed that when the bad weather hits all the crazy drivers appear on the roads?! Keep your distance from others and be aware of other vehicles on the road. HGVs in particular may not see you on motorways in bad conditions.

10. Work from home: If you plan ahead during winter months and talk to your manager you may be able to arrange a contingency plan for days that the roads really aren't safe to drive on. Working from home can be a good option where possible in extremely snowy conditions.

At the end of last year I was informed about the #BlogBoost challenge via a post by Joanne Dewberry. Joanne was debating whether she should take part or whether it would result in death by blogging! 
I'd always planned on being more organised with writing posts for my blog, however it was always one of the last things on my 'to do' list and as a result it had been pretty badly neglected! I always had the dilemma that I wasn't so sure what I should be writing about and who would want to read it anyway? Should I stick to things that are relevant to Photo Fairy Designs such as photography, photo editing and graphic design? Or was I OK to talk about things that influenced me and my life as an expat and mum to two little boys?  

I decided to jump on board the #BlogBoost challenge and use January as my month for getting to grips with blog writing. As you can see from the last 30 posts I have written I can waffle on about most things! I soon realised that as long as the content was good it didn't really matter whether what I was writing was highly relevant to my business. I've learnt a lot taking part in this challenge and can honestly say I have really enjoyed it! So if you are thinking about starting your own blog or are struggling to know what to write about in yours here are my top tips!


1. Don't put your own skills/ knowledge down, you don't have to be the best at something to give advice. One of the things stopping me writing some of my Photoshop tips was that I'd often thought 'oh that's too easy, nobody will be interested in reading about that' - WRONG! If you have a skill in something, even if you're not an expert, there will always be people who have less ability than you. Sharing your knowledge and helping others to learn the things that you have will nearly always attract readers.

2. Interact with your readers. So we've already established that the large majority of us aren't geniuses, we can however share our experiences and knowledge. Instead of just writing a post that requires no real interaction from your readers why not add a question or two so they can interact with you? Finishing a blog post with as simple a statement as 'what do you think?' encourages people to comment. Who knows, you may even learn something new yourself from the comments your readers make!  

3. Start writing! Don't be so afraid of writing something silly that you don't start writing a blog at all. If you've written something but you're not quite happy with it save it as a draft and come back to it later, you may have a flash of inspiration for what was missing or realise actually it is fine as it is! 

As much as I have enjoyed taking part in #BlogBoost and being part of such a supportive group I am relieved that I no longer have to write a post a day! It now makes the prospect of writing two or three posts a week seem ridiculously easy and I've even been volunteering my services as a guest blogger on a couple of other sites.

Congratulations to everyone that has completed the #BlogBoost challenge 2012!

If you have any top blog writing tips I would love to hear them, what gives you the inspiration to write? 

 I recently 'bumped' into Gary King on twitter (@gking_photo) and instantly fell in love with his fantastic landscape photography.

Gary is based in South Devon in the UK, and was born and raised in Cornwall. He lives just ten minutes from the coast and ten minutes from Dartmoor and he really makes the most of his beautiful location through his photography. 

As a UK expat the photographs give me a wonderful sense of home. The variety of coastal scenes, rugged landscapes and stunning woodland cover pretty much all the aspects I remember from my childhood.

Take a look through his gallery for more examples of his work.

If like me you are inspired by his photography you can book to take part in one of his Landscape Photography Workshops. The workshops are one to one sessions tailored for the beginner and intermediate photographer who wish to develop and improve their landscape techniques. The workshop locations include the beautiful South Hams region of Devon and Dartmoor.  

You can also purchase prints of Gary's work via his website.

I'd love to hear about which photographers inspire you and why!

I feel totally inspired today by my 4 year old little boy Brendan. We were out sledging on a field near our house, a usual weekend activity at this time of year. My husband (an ex snowboard instructor) was giving a snowboard lesson to a friends daughter. After about 30 minutes of sledging and watching his Daddy showing the young girl the basics Brendan decided that he really wanted a go. He started putting his feet into the bindings of my husbands snowboard and fastening himself in. Of course we had a good chuckle at how cute he was, the snowboard was far too big for him and his feet were so wide apart! 
Brendan insisted that he wanted to have a go so my husband moved him around so he was in the right position. I was a little apprehensive (typical worried mum!) but my husband assured me that he wouldn't go very far before he was sitting on his bum.

So we were completely amazed (and full of pride) to see him sail down the hill with the perfect snowboard stance, completely unfazed by our dog chasing down beside him! 

It really showed me how much we are capable of with childhood innocence and the worries of 'but what if...' that we drag around with us as adults. 

Perhaps we should all try a little harder to shrug those worries off that are preventing us from trying new things and achieving or dreams. Focus our minds with a 'Can do' attitude and who knows we may sail our way through our challenges as easily as Brendan!

In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to add tone to a black and white photograph to create a more professional look. This method works well for close up portait photos but isn't really suitable for landscape shots.

I am using Photoshop CS4 for this tutorial but the same effects can be applied using Photoshop Elements.

1. Open up the photograph you want to use in Photoshop.

2. If the image isn't black and white already then change it to black and white by clicking on the black and white option in photoshop.




3. Now we need to add a colour balance adjustment layer. To do this go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance > OK.
A new layer will appear in your layers panel. 

4. You will see a Color Balance panel has appeared with three tone options to change. We're going to modify this to alter the colour balance of the shadows and highlights so you get a slight colour tint. 

First of all select the Highlights button and change the settings to what I have shown in the image to the right.

This will add a warm tint.

5. Next select the Shadows button and once again change the settings to what I have shown in the image to the left here.

This will add a cool tint.

You can play around with these a bit more if you would like to create a slightly different effect from what you have currently achieved. 

Next select the Hue/ Saturation tool and modify the Hue and Saturation until you are happy with the results. 

Finally you can also adjust the contrast and brightness slightly until you are happy with the results.

Below you can see our final result!

Here you can see the comparison from the original colour photograph, the black and white and finally our edited image with the tonal manipulation:

I hope this tutorial has been useful for you!