B&W Sunday

Murphy & Stanley

Just Sign The Card!

Thank you to everyone who pawticipated in our Fractured Fryday Hairy Tails yesterday!  All your stories were just wonderful!!  Pawfect!!  Bravo! Bravo!!

If you missed it then you get another chance next month.  The last Friday of the month is FFHT (see tab at top of blog)!  Now today we have some other business going on at our house . . .

Murphy & Stanley

FFHT - The Plight of Casey

When me and Stanley were little boy puppy dogs, one of our favorite things to do was to hide behind the Dogwood Bush and munch its delicious branches.  Not only did it taste good but those branches made our tiny, sharp puppy teeth feel so much better.  We spent a lot of time doing this.  When we would come running outside from the house, one of us would yell to the other "Meet you at the tree"!  That was our code to meet at the Dogwood and chew awhile.

One day when we were behind the bush just chewing away, we noticed a little caterpillar.  So we got to be friends with him.  We would listen to him tell stories while we munched the branches.

The caterpillar's name was Casey.  The reason he was named that was because he wanted to grow up to drive a train.  He wore one of those train engineer hats too.  Casey would tell us stories about all the trains he hitched rides on and all the places he went while riding the rails.

One day me and Stanley went running out to our tree and we didn't see Casey.  We wondered where he'd gone but decided he must have felt like it was time to ride the rails again.  We hoped that one day we would see him again cuz we really loved listening to his stories.  As me and Stanley munched down on the Dogwood, we talked about some of the adventures Casey told us about.  After awhile, I saw a little pea pod growing on our tree.  So I plucked the pea pod and popped it in my mouth.

No sooner had I swallowed the little pea pod when I could feel it wiggling in my tummy.  "What was that you ate brother", Stanley asked me.  "I don't know, I thought it was a pea pod brother.  It looked just like one but it tasted weird, kind of bitter." I replied.  We didn't think too much more about it and then decided we'd better wrestle awhile.  So we wrestled all over the back yard until we were tired and it was time to go in the house and take a nap.

When we went into the house I said I was ready to go to bed but Stanley told me he wanted to check something on his computer first.  The next thing I know he was all excited and yelling for me to come took at his computer.  I drug myself over to him and looked at his computer screen.  He had a big picture of the pea pod that I ate.  Since I could still feel it wiggling in my tummy I was interested in what he found out.  There were a lot of words and Stanley and me were sounding them out but finally we read the words that caused my jaw to drop to the floor.

I could not believe what I was reading but it was called Wikipedia so I knew it had to be right.  It said that the pea pod I ate was actually a cocoon and that Casey was inside the cocoon!  OMD!  I can't believe I ate our friend Casey!!!  I felt horrible.  I ate a friend!  How could I ever do such a thing?  Now my tummy really felt weird!!  I ran outside and started eating grass so I could throw up Casey.  But it wouldn't work!  I threw up grass but NOT Casey!  I felt like the lowest of the low and swore Stanley to secrecy that he would NEVER tell anyone I did such a horrible thing.  Of course Stanley kept my secret.

Three days later, I got up one morning and had some breakfast.  After breakfast I thought it would be nice to take a poop or maybe fart, so I headed out to the yard.  Stanley followed me.  That was back in the time when Stanley liked to eat my poops sometimes.  So I got ready to poop and the next thing I knew . . .

The End

Murphy & Stanley

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Throwback Thursday

We hope our lesson helped somebody yesterday.  It is fun to be able to edit photos and make special effects.  If there is an interest, we will do another lesson on how to make those photos that are all black and white except for one thing that is still a color (called Pop Color).  It's VERY easy to do!  BUTT since it is Thursday, we thought we'd share some photos from when me and Stanley were little puppy dogs.

I always liked exploring in the boulders that are at the bottom of our yard.  When I was just 8 weeks old I discovered I could make a slide between the rocks - whee!

I liked to hide under the stairs to the upper deck.  I haven't fit under there for a long time!

Mom says I chewed for the first 9 months of my life.  BUTT here I am only 8 weeks.

Me and Stanley always ran and chased together.  We're still bestest furiends!

Stanley does a special bark that sounds like "Woo, woo, woo, woo!"  He does it 4 times.  He still does it when our pawrents come home and every morning to say "good morning"..

Me and Stanley on a walkie learning about the world.

Stanley has always been handsome.

We hope you enjoyed looking at our puppy pictures!  Remember TOMORROW is our FFHT (see on tab at top of blog)!!  We'll post early so everyone can jump on the blog hop!

Murphy & Stanley

A Photo Editing Lesson

As anyone who has been to our blog for even a minute already knows, we do a lot of photo editing.  There are many different ways of editing photos, some easier than others, but we think our method is VERY easy and want to share it with you.

We do our editing from mom's cell phone.  It is a Samsung S4 (Android).  And we use an app called "PicSay Pro".  There are 2 versions, a free one and an upgrade (PRO).  We highly recommend the upgrade to the "PRO", and it is VERY cheap!

The app may work slightly different on various types of phones.  (We are not sure if it is available for iphone or not.)  But these instructions should have you doing amazing editing effects in no time flat!  So grab your phone and let's get started!

1.  The first thing you need to do is download the app.  Go to the Android store and get it.  There are also 2 free font packs you can download to work with it.  So go ahead and do all that, me and Stanley will wrestle until you are done.

2.  Got it? OK good.  Now the next thing you need is a GOOD quality picture of your doggie or kitty.  The better the photo, the better the result.  If you have to take a few photos to get a good one that is OK.  TIP:  If your pet won't hold still, put your camera on "burst" so it will rapid fire a whole bunch of pictures.  You'll need to delete a bunch but should get at least a few good ones.  Another good tip is to get down on the floor and take the photo from the pet's eye level.  Try to get the WHOLE BODY.  So go ahead and take a CLEAR whole body photo at eye level.  I'll chew on an antler while I wait.

3.  Oh, that was fast.  OK, now open the app.

Notice on the upper left, the "menu" button.  On the upper right is the last photo we edited.

Tap on "Get a Picture".

You see the options?  If you used your phone to take the photo then you will want to press on "GALLERY" to retrieve it.  If you didn't listen and already take a photo, then touch "Camera" and take one now.  If you saved the photo on your computer or on the cloud (like Drop Box or similar), tap "Import".  We will explore the last option "New Blank Picture"  in a few minutes.

4.  So now you should be looking at the picture of your pet along with the options.

Let's just explore the options very quickly.  You can look into them in more detail when I'm not standing here hoping someone will throw my ball for me.  Note that there are more options if you scroll down on your phone.  We just did screen grabs for this lesson.

Adjust is where you go to fix your photo, lighten it, tweak the colors, sharpen it, crop and resize, etc.

Effect is where you need to play around to experiment.  This is also the place where you can curve titles when you get more advanced.

Sticker is where you get to the dialog balloons and titles.  You'll use these a lot.  And of course there are lots of stickers you can put on your photos too.  We like the paw print one.

Export is how you will save your photos.  You use this to send photos to Facebook, Blogger, Email, texts, etc.  We recommend you save them on a cloud, a free cloud like Dropbox.  TIP:  Save your photo in various stages so if you totally mess it up you can retrieve it before you added the thing that messed it up.  We also save photos with and without dialog balloons so we have the option of reusing the photo with a different "conversation".

5.  Now, go ahead and play around with your photo, make it look as good as possible.  I will have mom scratch my belly until you are done.

6.  Love me some belly rubs! Now, we'll get to the meat of the lesson.  There are 2 different ways (at least) to make a cut out.  Do you know what a cut out is?  It is a picture of your pet (or anything else) with NO BACKGROUND.  Actually, it is a transparent background.  That way you can drop the image into another photo very easily, in about 1.5 seconds to be exact.  You can use 1 cutout of your pet for all kinds of Blogville events and photos.  That is why it is impawtent to start with a really good photo.  The 2 ways of doing it are:  a) make the cutout while inserting it into another photo or b) make the cutout and insert in a photo after.  We are going to do the second option cuz mom thinks you will earn more that way.

7.  Now, open your app again, remember the option "New Blank Picture"?  Tap on it.

Here's where you can adjust the background color of your new blank photo.  In this case we want to make it transparent so slide the bar until you get the checkerboard and make sure it is the checkerboard that shows up as the background color.  Then tap the green check mark.

8. Now your screen looks sort of blank.  That is cuz it is transparent silly!  So you have to tap on EFFECT in order to insert the picture you took of your pet.  Select the option to INSERT a Picture.  Then it will ask you where to get the picture from.  It is probably in your Gallery.  If not, select where you saved it.  Now it is giving you the option to crop it which means trimming off the excess.  Go ahead and crop the background off.  I'll wait. Maybe you can toss me a treat?  When you are done you can click on the green arrow.  TIP:  The slide bar on the bottom will lighten the image.  This can be useful when you are placing a picture directly into another picture and you are trying to place it correctly (like in the car photo we talk about at the end).

9.  You will see an eraser and a brush.  Go ahead and tap these and see your options.  The eraser will be used to erase everything EXCEPT your pet from the photo.  If you make a mistake, you can use the paintbrush to restore what you accidentally removed (like a paw or something).  The different types of erasers make it easier to cut out your photo.  Now, use your fingers to make the photo bigger so it is easy to cut out.  

TIP:  Enlarge the photo so you can get really close to the edges when you are cutting it out.  Using a stylus makes it even easier to cut out.  The more care you put into this part is what will make your photos look great when inserted into another photo!

You can see in the photo above that I took a big eraser and quickly took off a lot of the background.  

Now I will choose a smaller eraser head (small round one with the fuzzy edges) to do the detail work.  I will work VERY close to the furs cuz if I take off too much I can replace it with the paint brush.

You can see on the right side of the head where the cut out is finished.  Just do the same thing all around the body.  Remember, if you use your fingers to make the photo larger you can get real close to the furs and get a good quality cutout.

10.  Once it is all cut out, you can save it by exporting it.  When PicSay asks if you want to save it in the Cut Out Album always say yes.  It is easier to delete extra copies later.  We often save multiple copies.

Now all you have to do to use your cut out is:  

• Select a photo you want to use as your main photo.  For example, you might want to pick a picture of a car.  Find an image of a car to use off the Internet or else take a picture of your car.
• Open PicSayPro and select your (car or other) photo.  
• Then select (from Affects) to Insert a picture.  
• Choose your cutout (it should be in your Gallery Cut Outs folder) as the picture to insert.  
• Move the cut out around for correct placement.  Size it accordingly.  Use the slide bar to lighten the cut out to be sure you are placing it exactly where you want it. 
• If you need to trim off any of your cutout in order to make the image of your pet look realistic in the car, just use the erase tool.  
• Make sure you enlarge the photo to make it easy to work on.  I'm not detailing this part since you have already learned how to do it when you did the cutout.  
• Save your photo using the Export option.  

Now that you have inserted your pet into another photo, go through the steps again to add a dialog balloon or put a title on your photo.  As you continue using the app, you will discover that it is very easy to rotate or flip images too.  The key to success is experience.  After a few times you will find that you can fly through these steps!  You can experiment with all the tools by creating your own scene using multiple placements of a variety of cutouts.  Using cutouts you can place things in your scene (ie: toys, other characters, commonly used props, etc.).  Save all cutouts for future use.

See!  Pretty easy huh?  If you run into troubles, you can ask me a question.  Just email me or Stanley at cecampbell@q.com!

Professors Murphy & Stanley

Mayorz For All Paws

"Use Your Noodle & Vote For A Doodle!"

FH&G Rocks!

We're hitting the campaign trail hard!  We could NOT have picked better campaign managers than the FH&G Management team!!  They have organized all the campaign advertising and everything.  They are even setting up the GREAT DEBATE for next month with our opponent Dory!  When we stopped by and saw them in action today we were just dumbfounded!  They think of everything!  Check them out HERE.  And in the meantime, oh wait, I hear a plane and it's flying really low.  "Stanley, mom, dad, quick, run outside!"

Murphy & Stanley
Mayorz For All Paws

Our Furiend Jazzi

 As many of you already know, the Bridge has taken away another of our beautiful Blogville citizens.  When me and Stanley were little tiny puppy dogs, Jazzi and her mom were so nice to us.  They even called us on the phone to get to know us better!  Me and Stanley NEVER EVER had a taco and mom was NOT going to let us have one but Jazzi talked mom into it and we got to have a REAL taco from Taco Bell.  Jazzi may be gone but her pawprints will remain on our hearts!  If you haven't already, leave some words with her mom HERE.

Murphy & Stanley & Mom

Just Driving Through Blogville

Our campaign has been so wonderful and we have met so many furiends.  Some furiends have asked who is running against us. It is Dory and her team Bilbo, Jakey, and Arty.  If you don't know them, you can find them HERE.

Murphy & Stanley
Mayorz For All Paws

Pee Ess - Voting will be in November.  There will be an official election.  Details later!

Just a Reminder

The last Friday of the month is coming up fast, just a week away!!  And you know what that means! 

 Fractured Fryday Hairy Tails!  

Yep, it's time to get those creative juices flowing and tell your story!

Remember, the special words that must appear somewhere in this month's story are: 

 "I can't believe I ate . . . "

For more details of our monthly Fractured Fryday Hairy Tails fun, check under the FFHT tab at the top of our bloggy.  We can't wait to read your stories!



Murphy & Stanley
Mayorz For All Paws

NEW POTP

Please notice a new addition to our POTP page.

Jealous Mom

Mom is always petting me and Stanley and telling us how she loves our soft curly furs.  We think she's jealous.

She went to a place and when she came home she had curls too but she smelled real bad.  

Murphy & Stanley

Mayorz For All Paws

Wordless Wednesday

Murphy & Stanley

Bad Poetry

Today we join Oz (better late than never) with my Bad Poetry submission.

Ode To Cherry Bomb

How do I love thee my Cherry Bomb?

You bring me joy.

The very thought of you makes my heart leap within my chest.

I love you with my every breath.

You are my everything sweet Cherry Bomb!

Murphy

Life's Beachy With Chewy!

We love Chewy!  They are more than just another company.  They read the bloggies to see what is going on and if there are any troubles in Blogville.  If me and Stanley are elected Mayors of Blogville I am sure we will always be talking to them about Blogville business.  Maybe we can get a special "hot phone" installed in the mayor's office.  Maybe they will put a big warehouse in downtown Blogville!

Anyway, when they surprised us with our wonderful beach package last month, we knew they would just love to see how we used it!  Since it is VERY dry here in Utah, we are a desert after all, we don't have many lakes and streams to go swimming.  We have SOME but not lots as compared to our other furiends. So we used our stuffs at our very own pool.

Wait a minute . . . do you see anything wrong with this picture?????

Why is mom wearing OUR Chewy sunglasses?  Again??  And that is OUR beach towel!!  MOM!!

So mom threw the ball in the pool.  I was excited about chasing a GIANT ball but it was way too big to retrieve so we just bumped it around with our noses.  We liked that too.

If you are wondering why that gate is on the deck stairs it is to force me and Stanley to use the doggie door.  Otherwise we just go up the deck stairs and mom wants to keep us off them cuz they are steep.

We sure have fun with our fun stuffs from Chewy!  

Thank you very much Chewy!!!!!!

Now, on to more Chewy business . . . 

One of the thingies we do with Chewy is every month we pick something we want to try out.  Then we let our furiends know if it is something they should buy.  If it is no good then we are free to tell them too.  But no matter what the treat is that we are trying out, we know we will always get the wonderful Chewy service that we are used to!

And they have good prices too!  They carry all the stuffs you already like.  They have lots of stuffs made in the USA and stuffs that are raw, natural, and made special for doggies with eating troubles.

This month we tried out Smooches!

These are very healthy low calorie treats!  Mom likes it when she can give us treats without loading us up on calories.  We need to stay in good Doodle form so the girls can see our muscles we can stay healthy!  Here's what Chewy says about them on their website:

The Honest Kitchen Smooches Chicken & Cranberry Recipe Dog Treats

Smooches are made with all human-grade ingredients and an extra helping of love. Each treat is individually crafted into a little heart so there’s no doubt that these really are homemade dog treats! Feed one and you’ll have a best friend for life!

Key Benefits:

• Gourmet healthy dog treats
• Wheat-free formula
• Popular with even the fussiest hounds
• Each treat contains only 2.3 calories!
• Made in a human food facility with 100% human-grade ingredients in the USA!

They are delicious even if they are low calorie.  Me and Stanley munched them right up.  We give them 8 paws up and we give the excellent Chewy company a million paws up!

Murphy & Stanley

Mayorz For All Paws

Addition To POTP

See POTP tab for new addition.

Spying On Pawrents

On Saturday mom and dad left me and Stanley alone for a long time . . . maybe for 87 hours or even more!  When they came home they were really dirty!  And mom said her paws hurt really bad.  Then dad said something about 16 miles and climbing the mountain (the one you might have seen that  is across the street from our house).  So I checked her cell phone and this is what I found.

(Dad & our hooman brother)

We thought maybe mom wasn't even there but in the last picture we see she was!

Murphy & Stanley

Mayorz For All Paws