Book-Centered Gifts For My Niece — Package #7(ish)
My niece is a voracious reader who dreams of leaving that whole public library baloney behind in favor of her own personal library. Can you blame her?
I had that same dream when I was her age, but have had thirty years to make good on it. I've amassed quite a collection, most of which (I donated many boxes of books to a local library a while back) is now quietly collecting dust on the bookshelves, side tables, and/or any available flat surfaces of my home -- up to and including the floor. And, though the threat of our home collapsing under the weight of said books concerns me deeply, I continue to purchase more. It's like a sickness. A sickness that makes you feel good and learn things and exercise your brain and whatever. Disgusting.Anywho, I got to thinking: This little girl wants books and I appear to possess more books than generally considered healthy for an individual person (if I were a library it would make more sense -- you might even be disappointed with the selection -- but fuck the library). And, I definitely want to cut back on the amount of just plain "stuff" I own. Perhaps I could send some of these books her way to get her personal library started!So, each weekend for the last six or so weeks (I haven't kept track), I've sent my niece back in Texas a little package containing an age-appropriate (she's ten) book from my collection and a little note wishing her well, etc.At least, that's how it started.After the first couple of books, I began thinking things like: "Oh, maybe she'd like a bookmark," or "Maybe she needs a journal to keep track of all the books she's read," or "Maybe she needs hella packs of cute Japanese stationery, pens and pencils, stickers, and those erasers that smell like food."So, I started purchasing and adding more things to the packages.After another couple of weeks, a problem arose. As it turns out, at a childless forty years old, I don't actually own that many books appropriate for a ten-year-old. I've begun running low on my own books to send her -- I have maybe half a dozen left.So, now I'm buying books specifically for my niece instead of purging my own collection.This has not turned out the way I'd planned.But, you know what? It's fun. I get all the satisfaction of shopping with none of the having-to-keep-stuff-around bit. Plus, I get the bonus satisfaction of knowing I'm making another person happy without having to actually physically, personally interact with them! If you ask me, that's money well spent!Somewhere along the line, though, I realized I hadn't been keeping track of the books I've sent nor the various knickknacks that accompanied each book. Hence this post and the photo above. From here on out I am going to keep a visual record of what goes into each package. Wish I'd thought of it six weeks ago, but here we are. Hope she doesn't end up with three different collections of the Lord of the Rings (cuz somehow I did).This week's package is pretty bare bones to compensate for the absolute madness of the last one (the one with the ultra cute Japanese everything). This package contains:
- An Edward Gorey book (mine)
- An Edward Gorey wall calendar (purchased)
- A great big bag of googly eyes (mine, obvs)
Much more to come!In the meantime, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions for books appropriate for ten-year-olds. I am clueless. Tell me things!Hope you're well.
Lawn = Mown.
My home does not provide ideal lighting conditions for shooting self-portraits. This is only compounded by the fact that I am shooting at different times of day, whenever I have a free moment, usually in some state of rushed and unprepared. The resulting raw images are therefore, unsurprisingly, deeply in need of some sprucing up.While I can stumble my way through some Photoshop, Instagram has spoiled me. I much prefer the ease and simplicity of Instagram's Tools – with their cute little icons and their uncomplicated little sliders and their real-time preview. At last, Technology is making life easier and not an even more baffling ordeal!Unfortunately, Instagram's Tools are exclusive to their mobile app, and, for the purposes of my picture project, I need tools I can use on my computer. For the first few weeks, I did what I could with Photoshop. It wasn't great and I wasn't pleased. Then, after a spirited round of googling and downloading and googling some more, I discovered two little apps that were just what I needed: 
Start by taking the image you want to edit (here I'm using an outtake that had already been cropped in iPhoto) and dragging it into Focus 2.
There are several presets to choose from, but since this image is a portrait, I'm using the PORTRAIT preset, which overlays two adjustable circles onto the image. The inner circle should encompass the area you'd like to keep in focus. The outer circle allows you to adjust the distance between in-focus and completely blurred. These constructs are more or less true for any of the presets offered. So, certainly, you should feel free to play around. In fact, you can even go CUSTOM and manually mask out an area of focus using a brush tool:
At any rate, once you've adjusted the areas of focus and blur to suit your image, fiddle a bit with the APERTURE and VIGNETTE sliders until you've got it to your liking.PROTIP: You can toggle between your original and edited images at any time by pressing the spacebar.
This was a major discovery for me. The first few times I used these apps together, I saved all my color, contrast, etc., adjustments to do manually in FX Photo Studio, which honestly offers a great and user-friendly interface. However, one day, out of curiosity, I clicked the AUTO ENHANCEMENT button and... heyo!... it was pretty terrific! Admittedly, though, this is a matter of personal taste. Use it if you like. If not, I recommend skipping this step and moving on to the next.
Remember how I said these apps work really well together? In fact, you can share the image you've been working on in Focus 2 directly to FX Photo Studio without even saving. Just click the SHARE button in the bottom right-hand corner of the window and select the FX Photo Studio icon under the "Open In" section. It will do exactly that.
Now we're in FX Photo Studio! If you skipped the Auto Enhancement step, or just think the image could use some extra attention, click the ADJUST tab in the upper right-hand corner of the FX Photo Studio window and adjust those sliders to your heart's content. When you've finished, don't forget to click APPLY. Otherwise, all your changes will be lost!I like to add a little frame to my images. To do this, start by clicking the FX EFFECTS tab at the top right. This will bring up one of those little tray thingies at the bottom of your window where you can select between EFFECTS, FRAMES, and PRESETS tabs.
EFFECTS are essentially the sorts of filters you've seen in Instagram and the like, but far more numerous and sometimes really trippy or oddly specific. I tend to skip these and go straight to FRAMES. Since I've used the app before, I already have a favorite frame under FRAMES > FAVORITES, but, just like with EFFECTS, there are many, many to chose from. Anywho, if frames are your thing, once you've selected one, you can adjust it manually with the little slider on the right.
