Christmas Eve at Jeff and Judith’s

Sony NEX-5, Camera HDR, 16mm, ISO 1600, 1/40 at f3.5, lens corrected in Adobe Lightroom.

Christmas morning at the Jeff and Judith’s.

50mm 1.4G, ISO 2000, 1/50 at f1.4, edited in Adobe Lightroom.

We found our Christmas tree and 2011 Christmas Card image at Kinsey Family Farm.  We were able to take a tractor ride out on the property to find our perfect tree.  Once we found “the one” we wrapped it with lights and took the shot.  Matty loved the whole experience and even helped cut down our tree.

Below is information on how we created the image for our Christmas card.

We wrapped the strings of lights around a stick to help with quickly wrapping the tree.

We used our lawn tractor battery connected to a power inverter and connected and powered the lights for the shot. This gave us about 10 minutes of time.

Here I am taking the shots. Thanks to my assistant, Alex, for helping me and taking this picture.

A quick shot of Matty helping Alex cut down our tree.

We selected the image in Adobe Lightroom and created a virtual copy so now we have two images. For the blue sky, we adjust image 1 to a cooler color temp and clone out some of the branches.

For image 2, we adjusted the color temp to warm. Then, we selected both images and selected Edit in Photoshop as Layers. Keeping the cooler image layered on top, we erased the tree and Matty and a little of the ground where the glow of the lights spilled. Then, we added the text “Merry Christmas” and saved the changes back into Lighroom. As a final edit step in Lightroom, we added a little gradient for the sky and slight vignette. Then, exported the image as a JPG sized for the card. Hope you like it, Charlie

The beds that are issued to service personnel while deployed are not very comfortable by themselves.  Here is a way to ship a foam mattress topper in a cost effective way.  The Priority Mail Large Flat Rate Box from USPS is the least expensive shipping method for overseas.  The USPS has a special $12.95 rate when sending to APO/FPO addresses.

https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10052&productId=10001232&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=10000002&top_category=10000002&categoryId=10000036&top=&currentPage=0&sort=&viewAll=N&rn=CategoriesDisplay&WT.ac=10001232

We sent 2 toppers in 1 large flat rate box with the following method.

The large Space Bags can be purchased at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Fold the pad into a square just smaller than the outer size of the box. Don’t worry about the pad being tall.  Place the foam pad in the middle of the bag with the hose outlet near the pad.

Completely suck the air out of the bag.  Sitting on the bag will help with removing all the air and compressing the foam.

The bag will fit into the box.

Another method is to fold the pad lengthwise in thirds and roll the pad up from the end creating a large round roll.  Again, suck the air out and continue to compress the bag removing all air.  Using this method, we were able to get 2 mat pads in 1 box!

We also wrapped shipping tape around the bags to prevent the bags from expanding in shipping.  Wrap the box all 3 ways to further prevent accidents during shipping.