{in my shoes}

I decided that it was finally time for a change. It ended up being a lot of work. I was inspired recently by a new pair of shoes my Mother-in-law bought me. Not very expensive but definitely worth the way they make me feel. I've been saying for a while that I'm so glad I married someone tall, because now I can wear tall shoes and have nothing to worry about. I haven't really expanded my shoes collection since then, but I found these and LOVE them. So I decided to make it a theme. Kind of like - see what it's like from my perspective. The other thing that I love about this idea, is that Mom's can wear heels and look good.

Now, how did I get there.:
I googled a bunch of shoes on the internet, found ones I like in brown, red or white. Note that I included one pair of little girl red shoes - signifies my beautiful daughter. But there's also a pair of dirty sneakers, some heels and flats. My life. Then I picked two colors for my checkerboard. I took each picture and used either the magnetic lasso or the magic wand to select the shoes and underneath them, so that they could maintain their 3D look. Once on the new background, I cut selected the floor underneath them and then darkened, or multiplied or blurred it with the background so that you could get the darkening or shadow in the right color. I then arranged those on a grid and voila.

I upload pictures for backgrounds using 'google pages' it's free and pretty self explanatory.

Finally the header: Yes, those are my legs, on our couch. It was hard trying to take a picture using the self timer while trying to keep the baby and toys out of the picture. Next time I think I'll wait until nap time. But because there was toys and baby in the picture I decided to cut out the floor. That means I don't get the 3D look I want, so I used a paint brush for underneath the couch and under my shoes to make it feel three dimensional. I then used the opacity scroll bar to make it look accurate. For a border I used the definition of a shoe: very fitting I thought for this theme. The dark halo is created by selecting an area in whatever shape you want, then feathering (under the selection tab) it - I did it about 150 px. Then adding a new layer - (solid color) and it will fill in where ever you have selected it. Pick whatever color you choose. You can then either use the opacity scroll to make it not appear so dark, or you can multiply it. This makes it look more like one layer.

Yay for shoes! Do you have a favorite pair?