Posts made in May, 2010
Fantastic flowers!
Today’s gorgeous store to feature is Lauren at Rosebud Lips. She makes the most amazing fabric flower clips, belts, headbands, brooches and necklaces.
Here’s what she says about herself and her shop:
I have always been creative, and learned to sew at a young age. I was taught by my grandmother (Nana) and my mom (Tama). I have always loved fashion, and at a young age moved to New York City. I had the opportunity to intern for designer Cynthia Rowley, which was an amazing experience.
To tell you why I became a designer would have to be because of my sweet memories of being a little girl (about 4) and dancing around in my Nana’s silk bed sheets (my cape), adorned with her costume jewelry. I felt like a princess. My Nana has collected jewelry from my family generations back, and I felt like each piece had a story. This inspired me to use antiques in my pieces. I love textures, antiques, fabric and jewelry. Together, these form my concepts for my collection– Making every woman feel beautiful.
I started the company in 2009, shortly after my mom passed away from Cancer. She was my best friend, and my biggest supporter. She was an artist herself, and she told me to follow my dreams and be creative. This motivated me to leave the marketing/PR world that I worked in for over 5 years. She has changed the course of my life, and I’m so excited for what the future holds. The name Rosebud Lips was actually the nickname that she gave me when I was little, then my little girl (her grand daughter).
Set Hope Free. Every item sold through Rosebud Lips is bringing hope to women who have been trapped in oppression. By developing a partnership with I Am Change and the Set Hope Free project, we are redeeming women who have been held captive and oppressed through Human Trafficking and Forced Labor, and restoring hope to their lives. Through rescue support and care kits, we are seeing women reclaim their dignity and allowing them to feel beautiful again. Rosebud Lips is choosing to be the change and bring hope to deserving women and children. To learn more, go to www.iamchange.org.
Lauren not only supports the I Am Change project, but she’s also graciously donated a Mercy clip for one lucky Modern Magical reader! You can see her shop, her facebook, her twitter and her website. I now have a list of things to buy from her store. Really.
Aren’t those gorgeous?? So, how do you win?
Go to your blog, Facebook account, Flickr account, or Twitter account and post the following: Win a gorgeous flower hair clip over at www.modernmagical.com by @HeatherL thanks to @myrosebudlips at http://www.etsy.com/shop/rosebudlips
Post the URL(s) to your link(s) in the comments for this entry before midnight on Wednesday, May 26th. Put one link per comment (more than one post address, more than one comment, please). Winner will be chosen randomly.
Congrats to Leigh, the winner of this fantastic flower clip!
If you’re interested in having your magical products or business featured, please send me an email: heather@modernmagical.com
Backlighting adds magic
Every photographer knows what The Golden Hour is. It’s probably not all that common beyond that, but everyone who wants to take nice warm sweet photos needs to know what The Golden Hour is. The Golden Hour is the hour just after sunrise or just before sunset. It’s the point in the day when the shadows are long, the tone is golden, and the light is soft and diffuse.
One of my favorite ways to shoot in the golden, soft light is to use backlighting. That means that you position yourself or your subject so that you are pointing the camera into or nearly into the setting sun, the light is behind the subject. This will fill the outside lines of the subject with that golden light. Hair if your subject is a person or leaves and petals if you’re shooting something else. If your subject is translucent enough, the light will actually shine through!
Backlighting is somewhat difficult to get right however. The camera doesn’t see the way the human eye sees. It’s programmed to want to make the majority of the image a middle grey in tone, meaning that it wants to lighten the shadows and darken highlights. So when you point the camera towards the sun, it wants to darken the whole image down far enough that the bright bright sun is middle toned. That doesn’t work at all because then your subject would be all dark! I’m sure that every photographer or mom shooting snapshots has ended up with a bright window behind a shadowy child due to this effect. In fact, I STILL get this when shooting my cat against windows with my point-and-shoot.
All well and good if that’s the mood that you’re going for:
Not so good if it’s not:
So, how to fix it so that the camera sees the subject correctly? Well, there are a few ways, actually.
1. Set your camera manually. This means that you meter your subject yourself and set the camera accordingly. I’m not going to touch on this because if you know enough to be able to shoot in manual mode, you probably already know how to shoot backlit subjects.
2. Shoot normally and use post processing to fix this with curves or levels. I don’t like to use this at all, because the image loses a lot of quality when it’s ‘fixed’ in this way, getting very noisy/grainy very quickly.
3. Set your camera’s metering to fix this. Now, this is the method I use. If you have a Nikon brand DSLR, you have it easy. This is because Nikon cameras use the focal point (that little square box that determines what the camera focuses on) selected when metering. So, set your camera’s metering to ‘spot’ metering and make sure you select the focal point that you will be using ON the subject, don’t focus and recompose, otherwise it will throw it all out of whack. If you own a Canon, it’s a bit more difficult because Canon cameras do NOT use the focal point selected, they use a very tiny point right in the very center of the sensor. So, if your subject is off to the left or right, that spot metering won’t even ‘see’ your subject at all. You will either have to focus and lock exposure, then recompose and hope your subject doesn’t move, or you will have to use the center point to focus.
When shooting, either use a lens hood or position yourself or your subject so that the sun is 45 degrees off center to the left or right so that the sun doesn’t shine right on the lens.
Breathtaking
While trolling etsy yet again, I stumbled over the Plumevine shop. I knew you would love it as much as I do.
I WILL own one of these little Feylen flower necklaces one day.
Fantastic fairy houses and doors!
While browsing etsy, I ran across this super special shop. Rachel sells not only fairy doors, but also fairy houses! I didn’t have any clue about fairy doors until a year ago, but they’re becoming more and more seen. You just stick them to walls where you think a fairy might live. Who knows.. they might actually invite them in!
You can also become a facebook fan here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rachels-Fairy-Houses
Rachel’s graciously opted to give away one of her cutest fairy doors, the Rabbit door!
So, how do you win?
Go to your blog, Facebook account, Flickr account, or Twitter account and post the following: Win a magical fairy door over at www.modernmagical.com by @HeatherL thanks to Rachel’s Fairy Houses – http://www.etsy.com/shop/Centaur1201
Post the URL(s) to your link(s) in the comments for this entry before midnight on Wednesday, May 20th. Put one link per comment (more than one post location, more than one comment, please). Winner will be chosen randomly.
If you’re interested in having your magical products or business featured, please send me an email: heather@modernmagical.com
Congrats to Linh, winner of our fairy door giveaway!
Suction cup bird feeders
I live in a tiny apartment. I LOVE hummingbirds. I like to watch them up close, while I’m working. So I can do that, I have bird feeders suction cupped to my windows! Not only are the poor birds under the overhang and out of the rain and sun, but it makes it so that I can get my closeup views of the tiny creatures.
This photo was taken from my couch, about 12 feet from the window. D700, 85mm 1.4 on f/1.4 and 1/2500 SS.
The suction hook is from walmart, $4. The hummingbird feeder is a Hummzinger, the best feeder on the market. Easiest to clean, no leaks, dishwasher safe and has a lifetime guarantee! This feeder has six feeding ports, I tap off the front two to make sure the birds come around to the sides where I can see them. 
Adding a little magic in at home
It’s the little things. Little details like tiny stars in your drink? Yes.
Fairy wing tutorial
How to make a pair of fairy wings! You will need to following:
Wire and wire cutters, easy enough to bend with your fingers, but strong enough not to crush under the weight of the wings. I like 14 gauge.
Thin wire, very easy to bend
Knee high pantyhose, just the cheapest kind you can find.
Design Masters floral spray paint. ONLY use this brand, other paints will make your wings bubble or warp.
Glitter paint
Glitter glue
Incense and a lighter
Ribbon
Paint brush
Rhinestones
Hot glue gun
Fabric flowers
Elastic (I like to use the clear kind)
Scissors
Ladymantis designs
I don’t know about you, but I wander a lot. I wander stores, just looking. I wander the net, just looking. Looking for nothing in specific, just.. looking at everything pretty out there. Often, I wander Etsy. Well, I wandered across this store and just HAD to feature her. I love really well done costumes. Not the *-mart cheap things you so often see now, but really well made costumes. My mother used to make all of our Halloween costumes when I was little and it was SO wonderful to have costumes that not everyone else had. So .. long story just to let you know how wonderful handmade costumes are.
The owner of this store has decided to do a giveaway for us an she’s offering a pair of fairy slippers! I mean, just LOOK at the little things. They even have bells on them! But don’t ignore the rest of her store at all, she has some of the cutest fairy dresses around.
So, how do you win?
Go to your blog, Facebook account, Flickr account, or Twitter account and post the following: Win a pair of fairy slippers over at www.modernmagical.com by @HeatherL thanks to http://www.etsy.com/shop/ladymantis
Post the URL(s) to your link(s) in the comments for this entry before midnight on Wednesday, May 12th. Put one link per comment (more than one post location, more than one comment, please). Winner will be chosen randomly.
Congratulations to Laure McClure, winner by a coin toss!
Layla Grace, not just for kids!
I hate it when I go shopping and a super sweet little something catches my eye and I go over and find out… it’s not for grownups. Shirts, hair things, little dresses… all not for adults. Then.. I found Layla Grace. You know what? Most of their things are for kids, but a lot of it is for adults too!
Spotted Octopus
I bought a raindrop necklace from this wonderful store a while ago and I just LOVE it. I also have a few of the lucky cat items as well!
