Self-portrait Day – fun accessories
Megan, a.k.a, Home Detention Lady, decreed that this week’s Self-Portrait Day theme is “Show us your funny duds – interesting clothes or accessories.”
Well, I’ve been thinking about doing a collage of my fuzzy socks for a while now. The announcement of this theme just lit a fire under my arse to get it done over the weekend and not put it off any longer.
While these may not always qualify as funny duds, I think they qualify as interesting. Or at least, interesting to me. 
So, from the top pair of turquoise socks moving clockwise we have the following:
- Turquoise Laurel Burch cat socks – I showed you these at Easter
- Cat faces of a variety of colors with either green or blue eyes
- Fuzzy pink and red striped socks – note, these were the ones I showed you at Christmastime where the Girlie-girl decided to creep into my little photoshoot
- Black Laurel Burch cat socks – these were my favorites for a while, and might still be… since black socks kind of go with everything, and I wear a lot of blue and purple
- Fuzzy dark blue socks – these are my standard ‘around the house’ socks. Eventually, I’ll wear holes in them and then I’ll have to find a new standard.
- Winnie the Pooh going butterfly hunting – Amber would probably like these for the butterflies.
- Flying squirrel socks! Aren’t these crazy!? I’ll put a close-up below, they are so kooky. There are squirrels in various stages of jumping and some that peek out of a hole in a tree. I found these at the Wild Bird Store at the Mall of America when I was visiting Minneapolis recently.
- Song bird socks. Yes, the birds are playing guitars, singing into microphones, and are surrounded by musical notes. I also purchased these at the Wild Bird Store. I think they are my new favorite white socks.
- Red fuzzy socks – yup, they match the pink and red striped ones.
- Black cat socks – from a gift shop of cat stuff in St. Augustine, FL
- Nordic design, 2 layer socks – for the really cold days
- bees on a field of blue
Tah-DaH! That is most of them.
Oh, and here is that close-up of the flying squirrel socks. For some reason, they remind me of Squirl. I wonder why?
GRIN
Aren’t they bizarre?
I think I need some Ladybug socks. Can you believe the middle one in the 3rd row is sold out!? Those are the ones I want!
Oh, and you know that while I was taking these pics I had a little helper, right?
HomeDetentionLady says:
That sock collage is f ucking awesome!!! WOW! I certainly don’t have that many socks that are fun enough to post, so I’m absolutely impressed!!!
LadyBug says:
Danielle, that pic is so cool! And, as always, I LOVE the commentary to go along with it. Girlie-girl must have worked so hard. Give her an extra little scratch for me. (But only on the dark areas! Or is it the white? Agh! I can’t remember!)
Oh, and I like the ladybug socks in the middle of the top row. Simplicity.
poopie says:
Girl..you’ve created a masterpiece!
spoonleg says:
I like the turqoise kitties. Very good job on that collage, how did you do that??
Danielle says:
I’m excited to hear that all of you like it.
Happiness.
Ladybug, the dark areas are the ones that get scratched. I like that pair of socks you pointed out too (and the ones next to them with the blueish background). But part of me is drawn to the craziness too.
Spoonleg, the short answer is with a tripod and Adobe Photoshop.
The long answer, do you really want the long answer?
Well, I tried to make sure my foot was in roughly the same angle and position for each photo (and it is easier to check with the digital camera). Then in photoshop, I rotated each photo so that I could crop it into a narrow rectangle, rotated it 45 degrees and cropped off the part under my foot , then copied and pasted each one into a new image with a black background. And rotated each layer until they looked roughly symmetrical. (Side note, I was thinking over the weekend how photoshop needs to have a protractor grid as one of the options for grids, so that you can check your angles.)
If you really want to know a nitty-gritty step by step on how to work with layers, I can email it to you. Just drop me a line at danielle@danielleblog.com or leave a comment here.
Danielle says:
CORRECTION
Oh wait, I did this with Adobe Photoshop Elements. I forgot that since my regular laptop is still broken, I’m using my old one. My old one only has the scaled down photoshop elements and not the full-blown photoshop.
Amber says:
I love the socks. Oh my gosh. Flying squirrels! That is outrageous!
And I do love butterflies, and Winnie the Pooh happens to be a favorite character of mine. How’d ya know? And have you been sneaking a peek at my new website?
lol
Thank you for the socks. I love crazy socks. But I had to throw all of mine away because of a deal I made with Andy. Throw away all clothes and shoes and I get to buy a whole new wardrobe. How could I resist?
Plus, I am going to the Mall of America for the first time tonight. Glee.
Oh. And I love your red stripy socks. Those would so go with a shirt and scarf and matching purse set I used to have. eek!
Squirl says:
I love the flying squirrel socks!! Actually I like all of the socks. The picture you did is really neat. I don’t own Photoshop or Elements even though I puruchase those all the time for people at work. I wish I knew more about what they did. I’m not spending the money for myself as I don’t think I’d use it that much.
I only have two cool pairs of socks. One has cats that I got at the dollar store. The other has snowmen. A co-worker at a restaurant I was moonlighting at bought them for me. I like to buy neat socks for my Mom, though. She really likes ‘em.
Danielle says:
Amber, new website? mmmm? I just picked up your love of butterflies on the comment you left on Monday about the penguins going through security. I didn’t know about your loving Pooh, but who doesn’t love him?
Squirl, I love that you leave detailed comments with related stories.
I don’t really have any holiday socks, but whenever I’m in a store around Halloween or Christmas, I always think “THIS year, I’m going to get a pair” and then don’t.
As for Photoshop and Elements, I need Photoshop on my computer for school stuff; I make all of my own figures for scientific publications, posters, and oral presentations. Elements is a nice package for anyone with a digital camera that wants to do more than just the usual sized 4×6 prints. I mainly use it to
A) resize files into a size and shape that can be put on my blog and/or emailed (leaving the high res ones for printing purposes)
B) fix the lighting on photos of family. Oh, and touching up my complexion.
C) Make 8.5 x 11 collages of vacations that I print and display on the fridge
D) crop pics
Betsy Markum says:
I can’t believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $82756. Isn’t that crazy!