Friday, February 29, 2008

Happy Leap Year

Happy Leap Year and Leap Day. I hope everyone is having a nice day.

BriannaNichole!

Monday, February 25, 2008

My Hair is NOT Fabulous

So my hair has been pissing me off lately. Besides the fact that it is in desperate need of highlights, it really needs to be cut. My hair is not that thick, but there is a lot of it.

Med. Thin Hair + Lots of Hair = Tangled Mess

Its actually not that bad when it is dry, but its near impossible to brush when it is wet. My problem: Too much conditioner (not on roots) and its easy to brush, but too silky when dry. Too little conditioner a bitch to brush, but perfect when dry. I have tried all kinds of great $$$ products and its always the same thing, unless......I cut my hair!

Plus, my cousin said something about how she likes my hair short, or rather it looks better on me. That just planted the seed. I started thinking about it and decided my life would be a lot easier if I just cut it.

So, here is my dilemma: How to cut my hair? I looked up some information about good hair cut styles for my face type, which apparently is Oval, according to Stellsure.com. Which I guess is good for me because hairstylists say that it is the best face shape to have because you can wear your hair so many different ways. I don't know how true that is, but it doesn't sound too bad to me.

How to cut my hair? The only hair don't that they gave me was too long hair. Basically, the best hairstyle for most people is shoulder length hair with layers starting at the cheekbones. Here are some of the styles that they said would be good for me:







I wish I had wavy hair so I could rock this style.

I am not seeing any styles that I totally love so I guess I will keep looking.
Thanks for checking out my blog,
BriannaNichole!

Friday, February 22, 2008

BB8 Sighting

My hubby went to the Hooters in Costa Mesa last night and Danielle Donato from Big Brother 8 was there. If you are a BB8 fan you know that Danielle was in the BB8 house and was reunited with her estranged father Evil Dick. Danielle ended up coming in second, her father won, in the competition.

Danielle used to work at the Hooters in Costa Mesa and she was just hanging out catching up with her friends. MH didn't want to be annoying so he just snapped a quick shot with his camera phone.


On a side note, MH and I used to go to that Hooters all the time. When BB8 started I could not shake the feeling that I had seen Danielle before. She just looked so familiar to me. It wasn't until the end of the show that someone said she worked at the Hooters that I frequented.

BTW: How good does this look?


I may have to make a Hooters run for lunch tonight.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I love me some Madonna

So she may be called a different name, and she may speak with a fake British accent but to me she will always be this girl


I love me some Madonna. I can remember listening to the The Immaculate Collection tape on my pink and white tape player. Tunes like; 'Material Girl', 'Express Yourself', 'Borderline', 'Papa Don't Preach' and of course 'Like a Virgin' remind me of my childhood.

So now I am work, trying hard not to sing along to all my old 80's Madonna music.

'I made it through the wilderness....' ahhhh I love it!



BriannaNichole!

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Lost GTG Pictures

I was cleaning out all my old pics from my computer and I came across some pics from a knottie Hooters GTG and my accident, which happened on the way to the GTG. Som douche hit my car and drove away when I was trying to pull over to exchange information. Shelley and I had to wait on the side of the road until the cops got there. Although the cops ended up catching the guy who did it and hauling him off to jail!


My poor car :( The stupid SOB hit me so hard his license plate was imprinted on my car.


Shelley and I making the best out of a bad situation.


Calling the cops.


So sad :(


Shelley helping me wait.


Kris, Diane, Jennifer and I.


Shell, Andrea, Me and the missing knottie.


Diane, Kim and their food.




Not sure what they are pointing at.


Awww the girlies.


Andrea and I showing our true colors.


I think only two of these people are still knotties/nesties


Mrs. Tucker and I.


LOL Jennifer

I was so happy to find these pictures. That was was really crappy and then really fun. We need another GTG and soon!

Hugs,
BriannaNichole!

My New Obession!

So, yesterday I saw a commercial for the New Season of the The Tudors on Showtime. I checked out the wonderful on demand feature that Cox has and they had the whole first season!!! I ended up watching the first four episodes last night and they did not disappoint. In the first few minutes they kill someone, talk about going to war and have some hot sex. Couple that with the verrrry hot king, great acting and cool period costumes and you have amazing show!!

Basically the show is about King Henry the Eighth when he is in his younger days. He is still married to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. However he meets Ann Boleyn and wants her, along with any other women he sees. There are all kinds of plots going on to kill the king, to make and break treaties.


This is JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS who plays King Henry the Eighth, and he is some kind of yummy!


HENRY CAVILL plays Charles Brandon some duke. He is also very hot.


King Henry and Ann Boleyn.


I would highly recommend watching!

BriannaNichole!

Friday, February 15, 2008

My Fabulous Valentines Day!

I had such a nice relaxing Valentines day. To give everyone a little background, my hubby totally spoils me. Four our first year anniversary he bought me the most beautiful diamond ring! He has always said how scary it would be if we had a lot of money because he would always be buying me stuff like that. He really is such a sweet guy. He like to plan special things for me and I never really do that stuff for him. We joke that in every relationship there is a flower and a gardener....guess which I am. So hubby and I decided that we were not going to do anything for V-day since we wanted to save some money. So I decided to plan a little surprise for him to make him feel special, but also something that was not going to cost a lot. Plus I didn't want him to feel bad that I was going all out for me and he wasn't doing anything for me.

I asked his boss for the day off for him. I surprised him that night and told him that he didn't have to go to work and I was treating him to the movies and breakfast. For the rest of the day we could do whatever he wanted. We could go hang out in Laguna Beach or just sit and watch TV.

We ended up spending a relaxing day hanging out and just being with each other. It was a really fun and special day.

I hope you all had a great Valentines day!

Hugs,
BriannaNichole!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Want To Make Yourself Feel Better?

I was going through photos for my next tutorial, which I have no idea what it will be, and I came across some interesting pictures. I talk a lot about how crappy I thought my photographer was. More so about how she handled me being angry than for the actual photos. I think she is an ok photographer, but her photos are not that nice, etc. I am not going to post who my photographer was on my blog.

Annnyway. I am wanted to post her very lame attempt at editing some of my wedding photos. I would be embarrassed if I was her.




BTW these are the ONLY photos she edited.

Have a good laugh for the weekend.
BriannaNichole!

Random Picture for a Happy Friday

I don't really have much to blog today, so I though I would drag out some old pictures.


This picture was taken with my cell phone. It is my sister and I. Denielle was preggo with her second baby Alexa (now 2) in this picture. I am pretty sure we were at the Dana Point Harbor. We prob were getting food after church. Denielle looks like she is ready to pop in this picture.


LOL This is my brother, Devin, and my Dad. This was our trip to Cancun, on the party boat, in October of 04. They are intently listening to instructions on what they must do to get a shot.

FYI.... this is what they had to do



Since we are on the subject of Cancun... Best Margaritas in the World


Siiigh, and I was not that skinny here. I would love to go back though.


My sister and I at my bridal shower. We are pretending to cut the cake like we were getting married. The cake was huge and sosososososos yummy.


T.G.I.F
BriannaNichole!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Creating A Focus: Selective Blur

A few weeks ago I posted a tutorial on how to add focus to a specific section of a picture. The first way to create the focus was by colorizing just one part of the image. The second way to add focus to your picture is by blurring sections of your image. This causes sections of the picture to pop out at you.

There are a couple of ways to achieve this. I will show you two of my favorite ways.
One uses the selection tool and Gaussian Blur, The other uses the Alpha Channel and the Lens Blur. Don't worry if you don't know what these things are, I will be going over each step in detail.

Here is my original Image


Type I


Type II





Section I: Alpha Channel Lens Blur
To make this easier on me (read: less typing) I am going to call this Type 1. I like to use Type 1 when I am only editing a small section of an image. It allows for more control over the image and it makes for a softer image, since I can make the blur fade in sections.

Step 1 Open you photo in Photoshop and duplicate the background layer (Ctrl + J).


Step 2 Select the Channels link and create a new layer. This layer will be called Alpha 1.


Step 3 Click on the Eye icon next to RGB. Select a soft edge large Paintbrush tool, change the foreground color to White and change the Opacity to 50%.


Step 4 Paint over the section that you do not want to be blurry. The lighter the section the less blurry it will be. There should be no blur over the eyes.


Step 5 Click on the Eye icon next to the Alpha 1 layer, this will turn off the layer. Highlight the RGB layer and select the Layers tab.


Step 6 Highlight the top layer and apply the Lens Blur: Filter > Blur > Lens Blur.


Step 7 Change the Source to Alpha 1, check the Invert box and change the Radius to the amount of blur you want. Click Ok to save the changes.



You are finished!




Section II
I like to use this type to edit a larger section of an image.

Step 1 Open you photo in Photoshop and duplicate the background layer (Ctrl + J). Select the Lasso Tool


Note: If you are more familiar with the Pen tool, it will work for this tutorial.

Step 2 Using the Lasso tool, select the area you do not want to be blurry.


Step 3 Invert the selection: Select > Inverse.


Step 4 Apply the Gaussian Blur: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.


Step 5 Make sure the Preview box is checked so you can see the effect of the blur. Change the Radius Pixels to the amount you like. I used 10. Click Ok to save the changes.


You are finished!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful.
Hugs,
BriannaNichole!