my boy...

Took this shot of my boy Ozzi yesterday while we hung out together on the front porch! I'm working hard at trying to use my camera off of the fully automatic setting. This was shot in AV mode and I think I like that mode best so far. I feel comfortable knowing that the camera will choose my shutter speed as long and I can choose the aperture setting. Either way, it's going to be a long road ahead of me of learning, but I'm really excited to be understanding it just a bit more each time I take shots!

The master image had a bit of a blueish cast to it, I'm thinking a lot of it had to do with where I was shooting the picture of him, so I did make an adjustment to the white balance and I upped the saturation just a twitch to help warm up the browns in his coat...hopefully I will get "good" enough to where I won't have to rely on post camera processing in the future!



This next shot was also taken yesterday..same spot, front porch.



Here is one of the flowers I have planted in a small planter on my front porch (actually the reason I was out there shooting). I have recently purchased some extension tubes for my zoom lens, in the hopes of staving off the purchase of a macro lens for a while. While I love portraiture photography and want to get better at that, my real passion is in macro and landscape or fine art photography. I used one of the three tubes for this shot and again, it is shot in AV mode but manual focus (which can be difficult for me with my poor eyesight, however, the extension tubes render the auto focus feature useless)..I think the lighting is good. I like how you can see the droplets of water on the petals. I am taking this shot with me to my next instruction for critiquing and hoping that there is something correct in it! LOL

Either way, I enjoy looking at it and, really, when it is all said and done...photography is an art and art is subjective to what a person sees and enjoys. While there are correct ways to light and expose a shot, ultimately, if I enjoy the shot, that is all that I really care about!

What do you think?



I turned out to be a rather GORGEOUS day today! I thought we were going to have rain, but Mr. Sun decided to stay instead! I was able to get out and check out my new garden (it's looking pretty darn good!), water it and all my flowers and now, I think I'll sit myself out on the front porch again and enjoy!

Until next time,
Blessings!

Spending today...

doing some of this...



however, I should add a pic of my puter since the creative process took a different turn from when I shot this photo! I decided that the basic idea of my layout would remain the same, but I wanted to incorporate some digital elements into it! I love the simplicity of what I came up with, and, truth be told, while I love all the inking, painting and lumpy embellishment of layouts, I really am much more at ease with my creativity and much more in like of my work when I tend to stick to clean and simple! I feel, that in this layout, at least, the story is being told instead of a display of all kinds of "stuff"!!

I used my favorite Ali Edwards digital elements which I scored at Designer Digitals, for this layout. In Photoshop Elements 6.0 I created a photo collage with 3 recent pics (yesterday in fact) of Miss Mandi. I added a border to the bottom edge of the photos to which I added one of Ali's word art elements. For the journal block I used another Ali element and printed it directly onto my cardstock (LOVE that I can do that!!). To assemble the layout I simply cut a small strip of American Crafts patterened paper, punched a decorative edge to it with my new EK Success border punch, cut another small strip of the same paper (it's double sided...love that too!) and used it to layer on top. Of course no layout is complete for me with the addition of buttons! 3 little black buttons and viola...layout finished!



I love when I can spend a day like this! Now, it's off to finish up some cards for a swap I'm involved in...then, tonight, the girl and I have a movie to watch together..another way we "Celebrate Everyday"!!
Until next time,
Blessings!

Twice in one day!

Wow, not only do I not blog for a couple weeks, but when I do, I blog twice in one stinkin' day! Be sure to scroll to the next post for an update, but for this one, just sharing a picture I played with in PS tonight! Using some texture and adjusting Hue/Saturation and Lightness..

Took this picture of teeny tiny flowers during a photo lesson....had just purchased some extension tubes to make my zoom lens a macro! Yay!!


Original picture:



After playing around:



Subtle difference...well, the texture is sublte, the colors I think are not hugely changed..you can really see it in the stems but I do like how it turned out, and it was fun to learn something new!! Will definitely be playing around more with this in the future! When I think of all the options out there to use for texture...fun stuff!!!

Until next time, (and it won't be another one tonight! LOL)
Blessings!

Yes, Shari....I'm still here!

So, today my sister called me, curious as to whether I had stopped blogging because every day at lunch, she checks my blog to see what is going on with me. When she checked today, and yet again saw that I hadn't posted an update since May 24th or so..she decided she had better give me a call to see if I was still "here"! LOL!!

I told her, like I'll tell you, those few of you who visit my blog and who I greatly appreciate for it, yes, I am still here, it's just been a busy couple weeks! Mandi finished off her first year of high school, Roger was in town and I've just been busy getting stuff accomplished around the house, as well as creating a bit too! What I haven't spent much time doing is taking pics of said creations or updating my blog!!

Today, that changes! Yes, I have a few things that I can share with you today! I have been able to spend a couple weekends now, scrapping with my friends! First, Amy and I met up at Archiver's and I was able to actually start, and finish a layout!! That is huge for me!! I used a few pics I had taken of Miss Mandi a few months back when we really did have some sunny and warm weather here in Illinois! While the picture quality and composition isn't much to write home about, I just like the pictures and thought they would make a cute layout! I used patterned papers from one of my many Studio Calico kits that I have piled up in the sCRAP room LOL, and a sweet little Maya Road tree and bird (thanks Amy for the cute papers for my little birdie). Of course I used my Bazzill Kraft Cardstock as the base (LOVE my kraft cardstock) and had to add some buttons..always there are buttons!!



Alright, moving right along...the following Saturday, I met up with Amy again, as well as Tracy, Kim and Nan at Hannah's for their Scrap Pink crop! It was fabulous...we spent the entire day 9 to 9 scrapping and hanging out. The bummer is that it would be our goodbye crop for Tracy who moved! Boo!! Yep, her hubs got a transfer and job promotion and they moved out to Long Island! It was so hard to have to say goodbye, I will really miss those fun and crazy scrappy nights we would have, but, Tracy has told us all that her house has plenty of room and Nan and I are already planning the girls weekend in New York!!

For this layout, done at the Hannah's crop, I used some cute Bo Bunny papers and embellies! While I traditionally don't use pastels, these papers just screamed out to me to buy and use! Again, another picture I took of Mandi. Don't mind the quality, again, but I like it! I am, however, taking major steps to improve my picture taking skills...very excited about it and I think it's finally clicking! (no pun intended LOL)..but, alas, this picture was taken before my jump into some serious camera learning! I painted these adorable mini chipboard letters by Maya Road and used some cute dimensional sticker letters to fill in the phrase! There is a funny side note to this "quote" that I used. I love hair bands...you all know that right? well, anyway, I listen to them each morning as I am doing my 5 miles (yes you read that right...5 miles 7 days a week!) and Queensryche is one of my very favorite groups to get me moving...Silent Lucidity is one of the BEST songs...and I had been singing a verse of it, when it dawned on me that it would make a great scrappy layout quote! Problem is, I have been singing it wrong!!! YIKES!! Their version of it goes something like: "if you persist in your efforts, you can acheive dream control"....dream control!!?? WHAT??!! so, I just tweaked it to how I had been singing it and added it to my layout! LOL!! So, maybe this is "my" quote now huh? :0)



So, yes, lots of inspiration floating around in my head these days, lots of new ideas I can't wait to give a try to! One of them is to do some more altered type of art. Yeah, do I call it art? Still unsure about that whole argument, but whatever, I'll say art for now and leave it at that! So, I've been downloading free vintage images like mad for awhile and decided it is about time to put them to good use! I played around last night with an image and some gorgeous Graphic 45 cardstock..gosh, it's the best, love it!!! Dug out a cute little crown embellie I had bought last fall while at Mystic Paper in Mesa, Arizona on a trip to visit my sister (can't wait for this fall and yet more trips to visit both Shari and Mystic Paper!!) but the crown was gold and I'm not much of a gold gal right now, so what is a girl to do? She digs out her Ranger Alcohol Inks...you know, the ones she had to have every stinking color of as they came out but never really used...yep, about 5 years or so later, they come in handy! I used the silver metallic fixative on the crown and viola! a silver crown for my Dream Princess! I really like her, and I think I can see a little more altering artwork in my future!! What's even cooler is that in my venture to a fab antique mall yesterday afternoon, I was able to score TWO vintage dictionaries (I had been searching for them for ages) and I used a page from one on the card. I also got a massive jar of vintage cream and white buttons..I mean MASSIVE! I can never say no to buttons, let alone a big 'ol honking jar of cream and white ones! I also got some cool glass buttons but I'm saving those for just the right project..can't wait to use them though! All in all, a bonus of a day spent at the antique mall!! Alright, here she is, isn't she cute!?



Okay now...that should get me in good now with the bloggy world. A nice long post, with pictures and everything! I should have more to share in the next coming weeks...a trip with Miss Mandi will prove to be a great source of pictures and scrappy pages and now that my altered bug has bit, who knows what ya'll will see popping up on this here blog of mine!

Shari, keep checking back and thanks for checking up on your sister...nice to know I'm missed!!

Until next time,
Blessings!