A Bookstore Surprise, Free Textures, and Signs of Autumn :)

I passed this sign in Gloucester, Massachusetts and created this altered photograph with tons of texture and colorful mums!  (wait til the end of this post for some free textures which you can steal from me to do fun stuff in Photoshop, too.)

I had fun making this in Photoshop, it's not perfectly layered or lined up but I love the way it came out like the fun, orangey and vivid Autumn I imagined. I had to really brighten the colors because sadly, hurricane Irene from last month has ruined our change at colorful foliage here in Rhode Island. :(  So I used Mums instead of Leaves. :)

So, last week I was at the local bookstore, happily and caffeinatedly flipping through the latest issue of Somerset Life, when I did a double take near the end...Wait, isn't that my photograph? Yes! it is!  :)) (Big smiles and a dropped jaw in the bookstore didn't seem to faze anyone else, though. The cashier didn't really care either. sigh.) But here it is:

So that was exciting! If you're interested you can submit work to them, too- they are now accepting submissions for everything from photos to projects and jewelry and..well, check out their site above. Each issue lists items and ideas they're looking for in the back.  And finally..

Sunflower Field texture by Mary

Hunter's Beach texture by Mary

Two more free textures I made- feel free to download them here by opening in a new window in your browser or visit my flickr textures for more you can download. For the image at the top of my post I used some of the lighter brown textures mixed with bokeh, and then I used a hard brush in Photoshop with the brush tool to dodge out more bokeh around the top of the mums and bottom of the sign post.
happy Monday! :)