Sometimes I take a break from my YouTube forays to create something that doesn’t end in swift defeat (MY swift defeat). I'm no hater, but HappyJoel wins every contest I enter so I’m feeling a bit bitter these days. I think my songs are as strong as his but he looks just like Borat and creates these incredibly silly videos that seem to have mass appeal. I wonder if he uses Creator? I should ask him.

That said, I am considering entering the “raise the steaks” video contest (a video about beef and where you eat it) but I just have to finish the song and then really think hard about whether I feel like coming in second place again. ;)

So I’ve been poking around doing other things with my media…and found a fun one! At Christmas I discovered that I could put my favorite photo on a bottle of my favorite perfume – “Happy” by Clinique. So, I uploaded a super cute pic of my kitty, Peanut. Now every morning when I open my medicine cabinet and reach for my perfume, I see her sweet fuzzy face staring back at me.

CUTE!

Well, I thought it was a one-time promo, but now I see that Clinique is running a Mother’s Day contest/opportunity to upload a picture of a fav mom moment!

Yes, it was the contest that caught my eye...but I also liked the idea as a good Mother’s Day gift! I trolled around my THOUSANDS of pics and found one that I thought would work with a little “adjusting” (read: crop the Xmas tree from the background). And, because the photo had to be a certain size I knew I’d have to make the original waaaaaaay smaller. Sooo, I opened EMC10, went to PhotoSuite, and then imported the pic I wanted to use.

I took what was a photo of my mom, sister in law and me with a Xmas tree behind us, and cropped my sis out (sorry Cindy!), minimized the tree exposure, and really made the focus of the composition me and my mom. I used “auto fix” to adjust the color (I always do this because I figure the system knows best how to adjust for poor lighting/over exposure), and voila! Perfect for a perfume bottle if I do say so myself. Take a look at the before and afters here:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I’ll let you know how the gift goes over….and, I’ll let you know if I win this photo contest! (I’m kinda doubting it because babies and puppies generally rule over washed up thirty-something-year-olds in front of fake trees. Sigh). Can a girl ever get a break around here?