I have spent the past few days in bed due to being under the weather and I wanted to show you a blog filled to the brim with inspiration that put a serious smile on my face. Last year, 13 brilliant female photographers took a trip to Middleofnowehere, Texas also known as Marfa, Texas. What was created during that week was pure magic. I honestly haven’t been this inspired in a long time. I’m amazed by their attention to detail, really capturing what is all around them. Even the small things, the things I would walk right on by. Not to mention the crazy DoF (depth of field) that’s going on in these photos and the perspectives they chose to shoot the “things” I mentioned earlier. I’m so jealous over here! Though I assume it’s not that hard when you are surround by a place as beautiful and unique as Marfa. Head on over to the Marfa Trip blog for some amazing inspiration!

For designers this gives you an amazing opportunity to share your work with the world. Your logo could be used for t-shirts, billboards, print, and even TV! If your logo wins the contest you receive payment starting at $200 (can get up to $1000!) within 48 hours of the contest’s completion. The clients constantly provide feedback on the elements they like to allow the logo designer to revise his/her submission as long as the contest is ongoing. Here are some screenshots of a few of the contests that were in progress at the time of this writing:

One photo trend I am totally on board with is the TTV (Through the Viewfinder) look. Because I don’t have the patience I just prefer to use TTV textures instead of building a contraption.

Actions and more actions! Made by The Pioneer Woman they’re my absolute favorite not only ’cause they are free but they’re easy to use. Let’s not forget to mention her awesome blog with Photoshop tutorials and photography tips.

http://www.marthastewart.com/glitter-painting

ShabbyPrincess.com – The Shabby Princess is more for the digital scrapbooker; you’ll find some great tutorials (even tutorials using Photoshop Elements!), FREE downloads, a gallery where you can showcase your work (as long as you use 75% of her products in your work), and the Shabby Shoppe where you can purchase her digital kits. There’s also the Shabby Princess blog where I saw she provided a recipe card for download and I thought that was a great idea. Even if you don’t enjoy traditional scrapbooking, you can still design items like recipe cards in scrapbook style and give them as a gift to the cook in your like or just make them for yourself!

DigitalScrapbooking.com – Digital Scrapbooking Magazine is one of the magazines I pick to read during my weekly visits to the bookstore. While most of the good stuff is in the magazine (and I recommend picking it up), you can still find some great freebies on their website. I even found this great article about taking your digital scrapbooking to another level by using digital frames, cell phones, and your TV.

FreeDigitalScrapbooking.com – features a shop, some tutorials, and a TON of great freebies like paper and embellishments.

TwoPeasInABucket.com – Two Peas in a Bucket is like your one stop shop in the scrapbooking world. There’s everything for the paper scrappers and the digital scrappers from numerous brands as well. There’s a huge community on Two Peas in a Bucket where you can upload your work, photographs, and compete in weekly competitions.

KitschyDigitals.com Saving the best for last! I am so in love with Kitschy Digitals! Their style is impeccable and pretty much everything I could ever want out of paper and scrapbook design. They even go beyond that! In addition to their digital kits, you can buy gorgeous vinyl decal frames for your home, printable embroidery patterns, cutouts to make wreaths, etc. Don’t forget to check out the cute Kitschy Digitals blog for tutorials and more.

Picnik – This very easy-to-use program allows you to make subtle changes, like enhancing contrast and changing exposure, but you can also run an impressive selection of special effects on your photos. You can upgrade to Picknik Premium for more effects, fonts, and collage features for $24.95 a year, but the free tool will suit you just fine for the vast majority of uses.

FotoFlexer – Much like Picnik, you can add effects and stickers, but you can also add animations to your photos, along with some different effects. You get a little more bang with FotoFlexer since the program is completely free, and rivals what the paid version of Picnik can do.

Pixlr – Pixlr will be the most familiar to those who already use Photoshop; the layout is basically the same as you have a layers and history palette. This program is awesome and has some great filter effects too. The interface has movable panels, and the menu closely resembles that of common desktop applications. This is as about as close to Photoshop as you can get!

Splashup – Splashup is very similar to Pixlr, but lacks a few of the features that Pixlr has. It is also fairly similar to Photoshop with its desktop-like interface. If you don’t feel the need to have all the advanced features of Pixlr, you may like the visual style of the Splashup interface a bit more. It’s all up to personal preference.

Poladroid – OK I cheated a bit here; Poladroid is a free app, but you have to download it to use it rather than being in an online interface. It serves one purpose only, and that is to replicate the nostalgic user experience that it is to snap a few shots with a Polaroid camera, and then wait for it to develop! With Polaroid no longer producing instant film, Poladroid offers an awesome substitute to create that Polaroid look with blurry, scratchy, and finger print effects to make your digital photographs look legit! This application is a personal favorite of mine.

Creating Fangs

Get Golden Twilight Inspired Vampire Eyes

Bloody Vampire Effect

Amazing Realistic Blood Tutorial

The Twilight Vampire Effect

Tip: For people with brown eyes, like me, we need just one extra step because the technique has a tendency to make our eyes very red. So just after your done using the Dodge and Burn tools go to the Hue/Saturation slider and change the hue back to a natural brown.

Click the launch video button below to view.

Roll over image to see original.

Click the launch video button below to view.

Roll over image to see original.