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Photography Walk

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This was the last week of Moving Into Manual at BPS. I was a bit disappointed in the class which was billed for "advanced" students. I don't consider myself advanced, but I have taken several photography classes and have a good understanding of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance. I KNOW I have a lot more to learn so I figured it would be good to push myself. The first three weeks were pretty basic information. Things, in fact, that were covered in Barbara Carroll's Photography 101 class at BPS. This last week, however, where Elisha "put it all together" did produce some "aha" moments. For the last couple of weeks I've shot everything on full manual. I need to keep it there so it becomes automatic. I know what to do, I just forget some of the things in the "heat of the moment." Thank goodness for instant feedback on digital cameras so you can quickly take another shot. Getting a really sharp focus is still a goal as well.

Tracy and I walked over to the Highland Park Conservatory this afternoon so I could take a few photos. Here are the best of them. I had to choose one of them to post on the critique gallery. Which one would you choose?

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And a few I didn't consider, but liked anyway:

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These are water chimes, and I liked that I finally got a photo of a water droplet falling from one cup to the next. I've tried several other times when I've been there, but never managed to get one. Here's another shot of the water chimes.

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The light was really tricky here, but I loved this turtle standing on the back of two other turtles. I think I could improve this photo in PSE 8 using some techniques I recently learned from the tablet course with Jessica Sprague, but it will have to wait until I have more time.

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On our walk through the park, we kept remarking about how wonderful it is to see the blue skies again after a week of rain.

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Something From Nothing: Patterned Paper

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Despite all I have cleared out, I have tons of patterned paper and find it hard not to buy any more. But I didn't cut into one new piece of paper for either of these projects. They both were done with scraps that I keep in a plastic baggie.

The calendar templates, (created by Celeste Smith), I found on Pebble's blog. I thought it would be fun to have a perpetual birthday calendar hanging on my bulletin board. I haven't quite decided how to bind it yet. I don't have a Bind-it All so perhaps I'll take it to Kinko's. They've done some binding for me in the past, and it's been quite good and inexpensive.

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Yesterday when I was looking for photos for the little metal frames, I found all these little square photos in the envelope with a common theme. (Thanks, Stacy Julian!) I knew right away I'd do a layout with them. Then I saw all the great pages done with punched circles on Shimelle's class forum and thought they'd work well with the photo cluster. This is not my usual "clean & simple" layout, but I'm quite happy with it. Along each side of the photo I wrote where the picture was taken.

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 I'm off to chair the Youth Ministry Committee at our church tonight, so it's unlikely I'll get any more done today. Chicken Cordon Bleu is next on the agenda, at Matt's request.

Weekly Gratitude

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(I really wanted to change the color of the text and lines in the template. I know I've done it before using the "fill layer" command, but I could not make it work today. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm guessing I'm just not clicking on the right tool.)

Scrap-Mart Projects

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I thought I'd share a couple of Scrap-Mart projects that have gone up on their blog recently. The first is a layout I did for the Friday challenges.

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The patterned papers are all new American Craft papers from the Dear Lizzie and Letterbox lines. I love both lines. The white Thickers are also American Craft. The embellishments are all from my stash:  Prima flowers, Papertrey Vintage buttons and Amuse Creative Candy pearls.

And a card using the same papers:

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It's a little busier than my usual card, but it's just the card for a friend of mine whose birthday is in April.

And one more with the Dear Lizzie papers:

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The stamped sentiment is also from a Dear Lizzie stamp set. This one was lots of fun to make.

And now for a set of cards I made with the new Just Rite stamp set "Seeds of Kindness." Also for a friend's birthday in April.

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Each sentiment is different and the colors of each patterned paper differs. Both the cardstock and the patterned paper are from Papertrey Ink. The ribbons are all from Paper Source.

Books

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I finished two books this week. The first is a novella, A River Runs Through It, that our church read for Lent. Many of my friends had read it earlier, but it was a new read for me, and I loved it. The language is beautiful, the metaphors thought-provoking, and the story was compelling. We met with a group on Tuesday night to discuss it, and after the allotted hour could have continued well on into the evening.

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Yesterday, the church rented the neighborhood cinema, and I saw the movie which I think I did see when it came out in the 90's. Brad Pitt was so young! I really enjoyed the movie as well, but the book (as usual) was so much richer.

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I also read Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin. I've read several of her earlier novels; Father Melancholy's Daughter was my favorite. Although it took me awhile to get into it, I ended up enjoying it. The story is set in a girls' parochial school in the mountains of North Carolina and goes back and forth between action set in the 1950's and reflections of the headmistress looking back from the early twenty-first century. It's a book about friendship, memories, tangled relationships between classmates as well as mothers and daughters, forgiveness, and guilt. It would also make for good discussion, although not in my book group which is a couples' group. I don't think it's a book that would appeal to most men.

Next on the list is The Help as soon as I finish my book for Lent.

Something From Nothing: Metals

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It's been a particularly productive week, but finding time to get to the computer to blog has been difficult. I broke down and decided to take Shimelle's class Something From Almost Nothing for two reasons. One, several of my blogging friends were taking it, and second, I have plenty of stash to work with even after cleaning out and giving away a LOT of my supplies since the holidays.

The first prompt involved using your metal stash. I have several little drawers filled with metal letters, words, and frames as well as a little box devoted to brads. One items I saw used in the prompts was bottle caps. Ever since I bought them (probably 3-4 years ago) I have wondered what I was thinking. So I pulled them out and this is what I came up with.

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Matt thought this was a particularly cool card–"Wow, a card with beer bottle caps!" Well, not exactly, but it sure is the idea.

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Three very similar cards, but all with a slightly different shape and size.

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These cards will need to be hand delivered or put into a padded envelope, but I like the flowers.

And a card with brads. I saved this paper when I cleaned out earlier this year and cut it into little squares. But then didn't know quite what to do with it.

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I have quite a bit of it left for another project or two or three.

When I was perusing my metal goodies, I found a set of Making Memories metal frames. Then I started going through the little square photos I have in a drawer (a tip from Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom). I found a set I have piled on my desk for a later layout, but these four fit the frames perfectly. Since the three of us were just talking about Kiawah the other night at dinner, the journaling came easily.

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I have a lot of ideas for prompt #2 (patterned paper), and hope to get to some of them this week, but the days are pretty filled with appointments and errands that need to be done before we leave for California early Saturday morning. I knew when I signed up that I would never be able to keep up, so I'm pleased to have created a few things for the beginning of class.

Weekly Gratitude

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I'm slowly catching up after several very busy days. Here's last week's Weekly Gratitude page.

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The photo was taken Saturday when we were in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario with our good friends, Karen and Mike. It was our annual spring trip to pick up tickets for the Shaw Festival in October.

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We'll be seeing The Ideal Wife by Oscar Wilde this year. Some years we see two plays, but this year there was only one that interested all four of us on the weekend we'll be there.

We had a fabulous lunch at the Irish Harp . . . bangers and champ for three of us while Tracy ordered his favorite, Shepard's Pie.

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We always visit our favorite wineries:  Strewn for their Semi-dry Reisling, Jackson-Trigg for Shiraz, and Vineland for Baco Noir. Karen took our photo next to the ice wine barrel outside the Jackson-Trigg Winery.

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Although it was still quite chilly in the wind, it was warm enough that neither Tracy or Mike wore their jackets most of the day.

We also made a stop in Port Dalhousie to enjoy the beautiful day and the numerous waterfowl in the harbor. There were lots of ducks, gulls, geese, and swans gathered by the walkway where folks were feeding them.

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We finished our day at The Pie Plate in Virgil, but I forgot to take a photo. We almost always bring home a pie, (this time it was cherry which I froze for our book group this Friday), but Saturday we all enjoyed dessert and coffee before we headed home. Crossing the border was amazing. The average wait is usually about 20 minutes, but we've waited as long as an hour and a half. Saturday there was NO ONE in front of us, and we breezed right through thanks to one of the friendliest border agents ever.

Jillibean Goodness

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In addition to the CPS 156 Challenge, I've made several other cards using the goodies I won on the Jillibean blog. The embellishments are so versatile and can be found at Scrap-Mart. I already owned most of  the Jillibean papers I used.

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All Jillibean products unless otherwise noted:  Patterned paper (New England Clam Chowder & Lentil Soup), Canvas flowers (Green Grid), Twine (Pigs), Sentiment (Birthday Party), tag (Spellbinders), brads from stash, epoxy tile sticker (EK Success), cardstock (Papertrey Ink Dark chocolate)

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Patterned Paper (Jillibean Soup Staples "Light Blue Sugar" both sides), Stamp (Jillibean "Hand Made"), Copic markers, button and rickrack from stash, flowers (Prima) 

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Jillibean stamps ("Birthday Party"), cardstock from stash, Copic markers, Making Memories glitter alpha

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Cardstock (Papertrey), patterned paper (Jillibean Soup Staples " Red Sugar"), Jillibean canvas flowers (Red Polka & Brown Letters), rickrack (Jillibean Bean Stalks "Red & Black"), sentiment (Papertrey "Signature Greetings)

CPS 156

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I've been playing with the fabulous goodies I won on the Jillibean blog a few weeks ago. Today I used some of them to make a card for the CPS 156 challenge. Here's the sketch:

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And my take on it:

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I hand cut and folded the edges of a sunflower from the Lentil Soup "Vegetable Soup" paper. In the center I added one of the great new canvas flowers "Green Grid", a button (PTI), and some twine from the Jillibean Stalks "Pigs". I added a strip of the B side of the same patterned paper as a border with a piece of twill from the Bean Stalks "Red & Black." The sentiment is from Papertrey's "Signature Greetings."

Project 365 & A Card

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Here's the February Photo 365 Layout. I used an Ali Edward's template and simply listed the photos under the collage. That's really all the journaling I need for this month. I chose photos that represented what happened this month as well as a couple of favorites from the month. I decided to go with graph paper again. If I have enough in my stash, I think that will be the consistent element in the layouts. I'm not nuts about the font style of these Doodlebug stickers, but I'm determined to use my stash, and these were the only ones that were the right color.

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Journaling:

1. Snow, lots and lots of snow 2. One of my favorite photos of the month 3. The night sky 4. My new high-tech point and shoot camera 5. Valentine flowers and cupcakes 6. Books read  7. The 2010 Olympics  8. Goodies from a road trip to Buffalo 9. Wacom tablet & pen class

I've been wanting to try the Flower Soft I got in Buffalo, so while I watched the news tonight I put together this card. I love the soft, spring-like feel to it, and have a spring birthday recipient in mind for it.

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Cardstock: Papertrey (Sweet Blush, Spring Moss) & Bazzil textured white, stamp: Memory Box,  pearls (A Muse Creative Candy), sentiment: Papertrey (Vintage Picnic), silk ribbon: Papertrey, Flower Soft & glitter

Happy Birthday, Matt

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It's a rare three post day. Matt turned 27 today. We decided to eat at home instead of going out since he's taking the Graduate Record Exam tomorrow. We'll celebrate both tomorrow night at his favorite restaurant.

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The birthday cake never varies:  a cookie cake from Wegmans. This year I forgot to order one ahead (gasp!) so it has a bit more frosting than usual.

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And his gift:

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Cosmos Cricket "Boyfriend" had the perfect paper for a card:

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Alice in Wonderland Challenge

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I've been thinking about Rhinda's Alice in Wonderland challenge, and really didn't have any idea what to do, but finally decided to give it a whirl. I ended up with this card, just in time!

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I used my Maya Mist for the very first time on sticky back canvas, and then stamped three different watch stamps for the background. I ran a Jillibean "Repair Tag" through my corrugator (haven't used that in years) and added a quote from Alice in Wonderland. The image was a download kindly given to us by Rhinda. A Heidi Swapp watch finished the card front.

Waiting for Spring

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We're waiting, but the weather is not cooperating. We've had about 8-9 more inches of snow since I took these photos yesterday morning.

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Fortunately we've not lost power, and the snow hasn't prevented me from getting to a concert at the Rochester Philharmonic last night, or to a Church Leadership Conference this morning. Tracy used the snow blower three times yesterday, and again this morning.

The Friday challenge on my photo board this week was "vintage." I used an antique cup that belonged to my great-aunts and put it on a beautiful hand-embroidered tablecloth that was made as a wedding gift to my parents. I used it as an opportunity to work on the fourth Develop on Friday lesson on changing your angle. Here are my two favorites.

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I'm way behind in reading blogs, so I know there's new Develop on Friday lesson ready to try this week. I've just about finished all the lessons for Jessica Spragues's Wacom Tablet course. I didn't do the layouts since I'm not interested in doing that kind of total digital layout, but I will certainly use many of the techniques she demonstrated. One of the lessons was on photo editing a portrait, and the results were incredible. I have to say her courses provide a lot of "bang for the buck!" My goal was to learn to use my pen and tablet, and I've been using them exclusively since the first week of class.

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

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Tonight is the February Blog Hop for Papertrey Ink. The challenge was to choose one of the designers who is an inspiration to you, find a project they've completed, and make it your own. I could choose almost any of the Papertrey designers, and I get lots and lots of inspiration from their blogs. I chose Debbie Olsen whose work blows me away time and again. Her coloring with Copic markers is the very best, and details in her cards are amazing. I spend a lot of time on her blog looking at her techniques. Here's the card I chose from Debbie's blog:

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It's a perfect example of her beautiful work. I chose to replicate the paper-pieced violets from Papertrey's new stamp set "A Year of Flowers: Violets," but chose to stamp the smaller violets in the set.

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The shape of my card is also a "lift" from Debbie's blog seen here. I used Papertrey's "Perfect Pastel" papers to piece the violets and mounted them on a piece of Memory Box "Gossamer" paper. The ribbon and safety pin are from my stash. The sentiment on a Quickutz tag is from "Vintage Picnic Sentiments" (Papertrey).