Are you a mom or dad with a little one at home?
Do you have some free time tomorrow (Thursday, March 19th) in the morning?

If you're spontaneous and like spending time at the beach,
you can come hang out at the beach and have a free little photo session!

Tomorrow morning, I'm meeting with a very nice lady for some one-on-one mentoring
(her awesome hubby suprised her with it for Valentines Day -- what a sweetie!).
She chose "real world shooting" as her #1 priority for the session,
so we're going to be spending a lot of time shooting at the beach.

Our plans for a little "practice subject" fell through,
and even though it would be OK practicing on each other,
it would be great to have a little model.

If you'd like to come hang out at the beach tomorrow morning (La Jolla, around 10am),
shoot me an email (barefootmemories@gmail.com), and I'll get directions to you!

I'll make sure you get your pictures on CD!

Our little model needs to be able to stand, and that's the only requirement!

Have a great day!

~Carey

Getting the mail isn't as high on my "exciting things" list as it was when I was little.

Nowadays it's mostly bills and junk.

EXCEPT FOR TODAY.

TODAY was SOCCER MAIL!

First, Mat's "Totally Frank" (Frank Lampard's autobiography) arrived.
If this won't get him to like reading, I don't know what will!

THEN, under all of the junk (oh, and Costco coupons, gotta look through those!),
there was something very exciting:
our first issue from our free subscription to SOCCER AMERICA MAGAZINE.

I subscribed to Soccer America a few months ago, and this was the first issue to arrive.

As I was flipping through it,
I came to the centerfold,

AND THERE'S MAT AND HIS WHOLE TEAM!!!!!

Mat and all of his friends made the centerfold of SOCCER AMERICA MAGAZINE!

I told him he's got to work on his autograph a little more before I let him sign it.

Thanks for enjoying my fun mom moment with me!!

~Carey

An AMAZING offer just arrived in my inbox!

Gina Alexander is offering 35% off any purchase of $150 or more through March 16th.

That's BEFORE the Mother's Day ordering deadline, so you'll be sure to get your handbag
in time for Mother's Day gift-giving!

As if 35% off isn't huge enough, YOU CAN COMBINE THAT with my 10% off code
and get 45% OFF! HOLY MOLY!

I did a little test order just because I thought it was too good to be true,
and check out my shopping cart total after I entered the discount codes:

That's HUGE savings!

Go to GinaAlexander.com to shop around!

Enter code 3109 for the 35% off,
then enter 5870286 in the "Consultant ID" box for another 10% off!

I just ordered four Mother's Day bags for the moms of those cousins in the park
I posted a few days ago, and I know they're going to be THE HIT of Mother's Day!

(There will be tears flowing, I KNOW IT!)

Have a great day!

~Carey

During WPPI last week, I had many requests for the sand and shells I used in my hard cover books that Mpix had on display.
CLICK HERE to see more about the Mpix hard cover books.

I created these images by collecting shells from right here in San Diego
and taking high-quality (super sharp) pictures of them.
In other words, these aren't stock images that I found or bought online somewhere.

The sandy backgrounds are jpgs, and the shells are png files with transparent backgrounds,
so it's really easy to drag them into the Mpix book software or into Photoshop.
BUT, you don't HAVE to have Photoshop to use them!

There are 5 shells (including a starfish), a sany background, and a background
with lots of jumbled little shells from Imperial Beach.

I've included lots of background sizes for different sized books, cards, and layouts,
so you don't have to worry about resizing or cropping to create the size you need.

The files are big, so you can make any size book or card or scrapbook page,
and you won't have to worry about quality loss when you GO BIG!

Here's a 100% view of some details.

GO HERE to purchase at myFUNcamera.com.

Once your payment is complete, you will get a link to download your purchase.

It's Saturday afternoon, and I just finished my "mom's leaving" tradition.
Every time I leave town for a photo convention,
I get a card for everyone for every day.
(Thank goodness for those $1 cards at Papyrus and Target!)

Mat, Rory, and Jason each get a card each morning that I'm gone.
Today I had to write out 12 cards.
The kids think I do this just because I'm an awesome mom.
Fellow wives: In addition to trying to be an awesome mom,
do you know why I REALLY do this?? I bet you do!

Anyway, I saw all of the cards lined up on the counter,
and I thought it would be cool to use them for some little lessons on camera settings.

The full lesson is at myFUNcamera.com, so check it out if you're interested!

Check out these images where I changed the f/# on the camera:








You can see how the pictures get darker as that f/# gets higher, but you also get more into focus.

If you wanted the picture brighter with more in focus, you could raise the ISO or lower your shutter speed.

Enjoy this little "back to basics" lesson,
and have fun experimenting with your own camera and lenses!
See the entire lesson HERE.

Next up: ISO! Stay tuned!

~Carey