Bokeh Christmas Light Photos

I love this time of year so much.  I love the music, the lights, advent church services, all of the fun traditions, and fluffy white snow.   I do not like the very frigid weather that we had for about a week last year.  The one advantage to that was that we didn't have to wait in line at Santa's Village like we did last year because most people decided to stay home because the high was -8.  Don't worry we bundled her up well and Santa's house was well heated.

Today I am finally posting about some lovely photos I took with my Nikon DSLR around Thanksgiving.  I recently purchased a 50 mm f/1.8 lens which had been on my wish list for awhile. This lens is great for portrait photography and it has the ability to create some nice bokeh effects. Bokeh is that wonderful background blur that you often see in professional photographs.  Another definition of bokeh that I love is "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."  I like that definition especially for this post on bokeh Christmas lights.

I moved some furniture around in our bonus room to get some blank wall space.  I found some 5' light strings at the Dollar Tree and hung them up on the wall with clear push pins.  I chose to get colored lights but you could also use plain white ones too.  We have laminate flooring in our bonus room that looks like a dark wood and I loved the way the colored lights reflected off of the floor.

I used Lyla's Simba stuffed animal to take some test shots while she was napping.  The key to these photos is to shoot in either manual mode or aperture priority mode so that you can adjust the aperture on your lens.  Aperture is the opening in your lens.  As the aperture widens, the amount of light that gets in increases.  Aperture is measured in f-stops.  Smaller f-stops=wider aperture and more light, bigger f-stop=smaller aperture and less light.  My standard kit lens that came with my camera had 3.2 as the smallest f-stop that it could achieve.  This new lens can go down to 1.8 which is a significant difference.  I toyed with the idea of spending twice as much to get a fixed focal lens that could go down to 1.4 but I have been satisfied with the results that I get with this lens.  I got to try it out for the first time with my sister's senior pictures and I loved the beautiful bokeh backgrounds that it produced.

The other key to these photos is the distance of your subject from the background that you want blurred.  In the first photo of Simba I have him placed only about a foot or 2 from the background and you can see that I get a some blur but the green wires are still visible.

I gradually moved Simba further from the background until I achieved the effect I wanted.

Unfortunately my subject was a toddler and didn't always stay where I wanted her to but I still love shots like the one above even if I can see the wires and the baseboard heater in the background.  This lens is also harder to get the subject in focus when your subject is constantly moving.  I definitely need more practice!

Bob the Sloth and a snack had to make an appearance in some of the photos to keep her in one place. One of my favorite shots is the one of her lying on the floor and holding the snowflake.  This definitely wasn't in the plan but I'm glad I kept snapping even when she decided to lie down!  Oh and if you want to learn about the Christmas pjs that she is wearing read this post.

I think I am going to try to get another session in with a milk and cookies for Santa set up.  Cookies will definitely keep her in one place!  Next on the blog: my take on a car seat poncho.

4 Years

The fourth year in our house has been the fastest one yet.  The biggest change in our lives this year was our family addition last July with the birth of our daughter.  Technically her room was mostly finished before our 3 year house anniversary but I only shared one photo last year so I thought I would share some more this year.

Above is a reminder of the blank slate that I started with.  The only updates that I did to this room before turning it into a nursery were to paint the walls and trim.  The only furniture in the room was a full bed and the rocker that I bought at a thrift store several years before getting pregnant.

As you can see the room looks completely different.  I loved the way it came together (although it is a little messier in there right now).  I hope to share one more big project in that room in the near future.

The other room that is in the process of getting a large makeover is our bonus room.

A few years ago it looked like this but then it got water damage over the last several years.  The carpet was stained and ruined.  Thankfully everything else in the room besides some drywall was unaffected by the water.

So we had drain tile installed and new drywall and flooring put in.  The workers also installed a banister and built a drywall banister to close off the previously open stairs.

Last weekend we took a trip to Minneapolis and made a stop at IKEA.  We purchased a few furniture pieces there for the room and we are in the process of building them right now.

Well those are the major changes in our house this year.  Most of the rooms of our house are done now but you never know what kind of projects I might come up with over this next year.

More Updates in the Bonus Room

When I last posted about this room it looked like this:

And here is a reminder of how it looked before:

After the workers were done with their part of the redo it was our turn to start on our work.  First off we selected some baseboards at Home Depot and my husband took on the task of installing them. There are still a few left to install but we are waiting until we get a new door for the closet first.  Then it was time for paint.  I didn't mind the paint color in this room which is also in the hallway upstairs but for some reason it looked pink under the lights in this room.  It was even more noticeable in person than in the above photos.  We had to paint anyway since the bottom 3rd of the walls were removed and then replaced because of the drain tile installation.  The color we selected is Behr Windrush.  It is a lovely greige that looks different in different lights and at different times of day.

We purchased a new futon because the frame of my futon that I purchased in college was shot.  I think it had been taken apart and reassembled too many times with many moves over the years.  We purchased the Emily Futon in gray linen from Target.  I like this futon because it has a nice modern look and it isn't as bulky as my old futon.  It is also so simple to change it from a bed to sofa.  My other futon required two people to switch it back and forth but this one is easy to do all by myself.

I also purchased this 5' by 7' area rug at Target.  I wanted a soft surface for Lyla to play on in the room.  

This room still needs a lot of things:

1. finish installing baseboards, fill nail holes, caulk, and paint

2. install closet door (the current door wouldn't close)

3. paint trim around the closet door

4. curtain rods and curtains

5. media furniture for the TV

6. toy storage

7. pillows and a throw for the futon

8. wall decor

I hope to have the room mostly finished by the end of the summer.  Wish me luck!

Updates to the Bonus Room

The last time I posted about this room which we have referred to as the bonus room (that is what this room was listed as on the real estate description) was back in February of 2013 in this post. In that post I talked about how this room was more about function than aesthetics for me so I hadn't done a lot of design updates to it.  This is changing now though because of 2 unfortunate springs of water damage to the room.  I don't have any photos of the water damage but the carpet was ruined. Thankfully the exercise equipment, TV, and futon didn't suffer any damage.  We decided that this room would probably continue to risk getting water in it so we had two basement companies who install drain tile come in and do bids for the room.  We ended up going with the same company that did the drain tile in our main basement and we decided to have the company do some updates in flooring and add a drywall railing to the stairs while they were working on it.

To install drain tile they cut out the bottom portion of the drywall and removed the concrete floor around the wall.  They were able to put a sump pump in the closet under the stairs. The other company wanted to put one in along the walls so we would of lost floor space in the room.

We decided to put laminate flooring in instead of new carpet.

As you can see from this picture of our cat, the staircase used to be open on one side and there was no handrail on the other side.  It wasn't very safe and it would be impossible to put a gate at the bottom of the stairs.  Since we intend on using this room as a playroom for Lyla that was a big problem.

We had the workers build a drywall railing on the other side of the stairs.  Here is what the room looks like after the workers finished up their part of the work (we still have a lot to do down there).

Our next job in this room is to paint and install the baseboards.  You can see the baseboards that we picked in the last photo.  The paint has been selected and purchased as well.  I have also bought a new futon and a rug for the room.  We will still need curtain rods, curtains, and a piece of furniture to hold the TV and to use as storage.  We also need a new door for the closet under the stairs because the one that is in the room now doesn't shut.  It will be hard to keep the baby out of that closet unless we have a door that shuts!  I will keep you updated on the progress of this room.  I am excited with how it looks so far!