Visions of Sugar Plums

Hello,  I've been away for awhile trying to get things ready for Christmas and haven't had time to post of blog surf/comment much.  I apologize for not stopping by your blogs and commenting but it's just been crazy around here.  I hope to be back to regular posting and commenting/blog viewing after the start of the New Year.

I did whip up this little photo today to keep you all in the Holiday mood.

I used one of Bonnie's textures - Pixel Dust Art Photo(Blue Me Away) on this photo.  Then I uploaded it to Picnik did a little editing there and added the text.  This is one of my Christmas Decorations.

Below is the same photo but look what happened when I used the (Auto Correct) feature in the Microsoft editing program.

Isn't that weird and yet I like it too!.

Macro Monday - Dec. 19

Hello! Yes, I'm still alive. - It's been awhile since I've posted so I thought I'd best get something up before people started thinking I'd dropped off the face of the earth.
Just super busy getting ready for Christmas. 
It's time though for Macro Monday on Lisa's blog.  It's always a pleasure to see what people have posted.  Today I chose to share one of my "cheery" Christmas decorations with you. He use to be an ornament but now he sits next to a decorated Christmas cabin.
Just in case I don't get by all your blogs I want to wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR as I am not sure I'll be posting until after the New Year - That may change but I like to cover my bases.  Have a great holiday everyone and thank you for all your wonderful support and comments.  Looking forward to sharing more in the coming New Year.

Photo Art Friday Dec.9-11

Hello!  Well the count down towards Christmas is going by quickly.  I spent most of today out shopping until my feet hurt so bad I could hardly walk.  Still not done but I will carry on.

In the meantime let's have some FUN and visit Bonnie's Blog (Pixel Photo Art) for Photo Art Friday  this is the last one until after the New Year so be sure to check it out.  Everyone is showcasing something to do with Holiday Preparations, Decorations, etc...

I chose one of my favorite Christmas decorations to showcase.  I used various techniques on Picnik and a couple of Bonnie's textures for my photos.  So here goes:

This one was mainly edited in Picnik using the Vignette feature.

The second one was soften in Picnik and I added a texture from Picnik but I don't recall which one.  I messed around doing several different things and added a frame and once I got something that I liked I closed my photo and this is the result.  I really should write this stuff down but I was in a hurry.

This one uses Bonnie's texture, (Abstract Scratches) and 1960's Picnik and Vignette features.

I think this one is my favorite.

See you back for Photo Art Friday in 2012.

Macro Monday - December 5

Happy Monday! - It's time for Macro Monday at Lisa's Chaos. 

For today's Macro I am sharing a shot of one of the newest neighborhood cats/strays that we've taken to feeding.  This guy showed up about 3 weeks ago and we have no idea if he belongs to anyone in the neighborhood or was dumped or lost.  He hangs around though and enjoys the food and the milk we leave out.  He especially loves milk as you will see in this photo.  We've named him, Piglet as he drinks milk like it's going out of style and does a pretty good job on soft cat food as well.  I truly wish people who have cats would not leave them outside especially at night and during the winter when it's cold outside.  If I had my way every cat in the world would have a nice safe, warm place to stay but alas that just can't be so I do my part to make them as comfortable as possible.

He's a really pretty cat and tame enough that I can pet him and he'll come in the house although he's very skittish about coming inside and I can only let him in after all our cats have gone to bed for the night.  He just comes in for a few minutes and then wants back outside. 

Below are a couple of pictures of him that  I really like too.

Be sure to stop by Lisa's blog and check out the other Macro Monday enteries.  Always inspiring and interesting.  Have a great week.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - Dec. 4

Hello. - Wow time is sure marching by quickly.  I am so not ready for Christmas yet but it arrives right on schedule (ready or not). 
So are you ready for this weeks Scavenger Hunt Sunday.  Yes it's time for Ashley's Scavenger Hunt over on her blog: Ramblings and Photo's. - I wasn't able to participate last week but made an effort to get my pictures ready for this week.  For one thing Ashley chose 2 of my suggested "prompts" for this week so how could I not participate.

This weeks prompts were:  Portrait, Nostalgic, Time, Full of Light and Motion.

So here we go:

I'm not sure this would qualify as "portrait" quality but it's a pretty decent photo of my little Granddaughter, Coleen taken at the Christmas Light Parade on Saturday night.  It's not easy getting a good picture of her these days as she's always looking off to the side or up in the air instead of at the camera so I was happy to have snapped this happy photo.












Nostalgic: This was one of my prompts.  - I knew right away what I wanted to do for this photo.

These sweet little Angels belonged to my Grandmother.  She passed them on to me one day shortly before she passed away in 1988 - They are a part of her that I treasure. I believe they were probably made in the 1930's-40's and are of course "vintage" now.

Next prompt:  Time (also my suggestion) - For this I decided to photograph the Clock Tower on the Whitman College Campus here in Walla Walla.

Full of Light:

These little Gingerbread Figures and House are part of our holiday light display between our house and my mom's next door.  They sit in her yard.  We really light up the neighborhood with our lights. 

Lastly:  Full of Motion:  This one was a touch one for me.   I ended up with something a bit different (at least I think it is).

These are little bells hanging off a Christmas Santa that plays, "Just take those old Stockings off the shelf." to the tune of Bob Seger's, Old Time Rock-n-Roll.

So there you have my interpretations of this weeks prompts.  Don't forget to stop by Ashley's blog and check out what other people have done.

Photo Art Friday - Dec. 2-4

Hello!  Well with the holiday season in full swing now I haven't had a lot of time for editing photo's and such.  Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US I was unable to participate last week for Bonnie's, Photo Art Friday challenge.  I have prepared something though for this week.

We were to try a new technique or tutorial etc...that we've been wanting to try. I really didn't have a lot of time to try and learn a new technique or find a tutorial to try and follow.  So I went with something that I sort of understand now how to do. 

Here is my "Before" photo:

This is my newest Christmas decoration.  I fell in love with this Angel the minute that I saw her.  She is so beautiful.  The problem was that she was a bit "spendy" ($75) so I called hubby and asked if it was okay to buy her.  He said, YES!


So I have edited my photo using one of Bonnie's FREE Christmas textures that she offered here:  This one is called, Christmas Music.

I used the GIMP program and did a few adjustments (which of course I didn't write down) and then went into Picnik and edited the photo, went back to Gimp and reapplied the texture again using different settings, back to Picnik and voila~ finished up with this:

I hope to get by all your blogs to leave comments but time is so limited these day with so many things to do before Christmas arrives.  So if I don't get around to commenting on your blog please know that I truly enjoy all your work and hope that once the New Year is here life will once again settle back down to a normal routine and I will have more time for commenting.











Before I close I'm going to share a picture of the Angel in full length.

Macro Monday - November 28

Hello and Welcome! - Wow it's been a few days since I've posted.  I want to apologize to anyone who has visited my blog and left a comment if I have not gotten around to visiting your blog and commenting back.  With the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US and my Granddaughter being home from school and my mom having to go in for doctor's appointments I just have not had the time nor the energy to comment on every one's blogs.  I try my best to leave comments on your blogs but if I don't it's not because I don't like your work but more because I just don't have enough time to get it all done.

Okay with that said it's Macro Monday on Lisa's Chaos and let me just say I popped by there quickly this morning and you are going to be blown away by her photo's.

This week I'm sharing 2 photo's because I couldn't decide which one I like the best.
The first is a bit of an "out of the box" type photo for me.  I took this one out at my Husband's Shop the other day.  It's sort of a fun and whimsical photo (imho).

He's working on a big computer desk project and these wood shavings were on one of his tables.  Don't you just love the way they curl up in little corkscrew shapes.

Next up is a picture of what I believe are Apples or some type of fruit/berry that I saw on a tree one night as I was driving to the store.  I liked the yellow color of the fruit, that's what caught my eye since most berries on trees are either red or orange in the fall it was surprising to see the yellow color.

So that's it for me today.  I am trying hard to work on getting a few Christmas cards made this week and then start getting them ready to be mailed.

Be sure to pop by Lisa's blog and see all the great entries for this fun challenge.

Macro Monday - November 21

Hello & Welcome. - Hope the start of the new week is a good one for everyone.

It's time to join Lisa (Lisa's Chaos) for Macro Monday.
I just love seeing the world up close through the use of a Macro Lens.  The detail is often astounding.

Just the other day I went in to get my Allergy Shot (I'm allergic to cats) - Yes I know we have 6 of them living with us.  Call me "Crazy" but I can't resist them.  - Okay now back on track here ("Focus Girl - Go get another cup of coffee and get on with the task at hand.")

As I was saying when I went to get my Allergy Shot I happened to have my camera along (imagine that) and as Coleen and I were coming out of the Clinic we stopped to look at the little fountain/garden area at the entrance of the building.  There were still some flowers blooming and I decided to take some Macro Shots of them.  Here are my results SOOC except for resizing.

I love the delicate lacy look of these flowers.  They do seem a bit "pale" in color so as a bit of fun I uploaded the first picture to Picnik and gave it a bit of a color boost with the Orton-ish feature:

Ahh...Sunshine on a gloomy November Day!

Have a great week.  Don't forget to stop by and check out the other entries.  It's always amazing to see what everyone has come up with.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday-November 20

Hi! - Welcome back.  It's been a fairly quiet week here (whew!) - My mom's been doing well this week which makes me feel a lot less stressed.  So I had some time this week to play around and capture some photo's for this weeks, Scavenger Hunt Sunday

  

This weeks prompts were:  Mainly One Color, Around the Home,

Reflection, Writing and Water.

So here is what I came up with. 

Mainly One Color:

Once again I've captured one of the many squirrels that come to the feeder out back to eat peanuts everyday.  This little guy just sat there eating his peanut while I snapped away.  So cute!

Next up is, Around the house:  This is a pretty typical scene around our house on a daily basis.  You can always find one of them somewhere in this position.

My next two photo's have been editing using techniques on Picnik

Reflection: I wanted to do something different other then a picture of a reflection in water since (water) is also one of this weeks prompts.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do and then an idea came to me.  I must admit I actually took my camera with me in hopes of finding something just like this to photograph.  I also had my "model" with me as well since she so enjoys visiting the local Fabric/Craft Store.

This is my Granddaughter, Coleen looking at a Christmas ornament and her reflection in another ornament.

Writing:  This one was tougher but after some thought I went and got my old "memories" box out and found a letter that my mom & dad had both written to me while I was away at Bible College many years ago.  This letter was extra special because my mom always wrote me while I was there but my dad wasn't much of a letter writer so gettting a letter from both of them was very special.   I decided to give it a bit of a "vintage" feel since the letter is almost 40 years old. I added a Postage stamp frame around it keeping with the theme of writing/letters.

Lastly,  Water: This is a bit different because I decided to capture the stream of water running from one of our drain pipes into my flower bed.  I like the simplicity of this photo.

Hope you have enjoyed this little photo journey.

Be sure to stop by Ashley's blog and check out the other links as I'm sure you'll be delighted by visiting others blogs and seeing their interpretations of these prompts.

To all my US followers I wish you all a very warm, safe and Happy Thanksgiving this week.

To everyone else may you have a great week.

Peace and Love

Photo Art Friday - Pure Joy

It's Friday! - You all know that can only mean one thing...It's time for Photo Art Friday

on Bonnie's Blog, Pixel Dust Photo art.

This week we were asked to showcase one of our favorite techniques in Photo Editing and share what we did to get that effect. Since I'm still learning and have a "long way" to go before I can pick out a favorite technique I'm going to have to say that just about anything I am able to edit is probably a big accomplishment for me.  I love SOOC photo's but am learning that they can be a lot of fun and really unique when you edit them as well.
So for this week here is my SOOC shot: It's a shot I took of my granddaughte, Coleen playing in the leaves at the park.

Next I added a Texture (Autumn Grunge) which is a FREE texture offered by Linda of Sienna Photo Designs here:  I added the texture using the Gimp program (a Free photo editing program) found here: I used Hardlight at 85.1%.  Then I closed the photo and uploaded it on Picnik (I love this website) and used the Orton-ish effect, Bloom 30%, Brightness 50%. - Then I added a quote that I looked up by Emily Dickinson.  I used the Font, Bleeding Cowboy also in Hardlight.

Here is the results of my edits:

Well that's it for this week.  Be sure to stop by Bonnie's Blog to check out the other enteries for some fantastic photo art.

Mosaic Monday and Macro Monday - Signs of Autumn

Happy start to a new week! -  Things here are going okay.  Still worried about my mom. She's still having issues with her BP and now I'm trying to learn to cook low sodium menus which is not as easy as it sounds.  Do you know how much Sodium is in foods.  Far to much!  But you didn't come here to read about that so lets move along to something more pleasant.

I thought for a change I join in on Mosaic Monday on Mary's Blog, Little Red House.  This is my 1st time participating but I love the idea of putting together collages/mosaics of different subjects.  For my Mosaic I chosse, Autumn as my theme.  I went out last Friday with my Granddaughter, Coleen on a walk and took a bunch of pictures of different things.  Here is the mosaic I created:

I used Picnik to upload and collage my photo, then did a little editing with the Orton technique and Vigenette. 

It's also Macro Monday over on Lisa's blog, Lisa's Chaos.  Now all of the above photo's were shot using the Macro feature on my little Canon Power Shot camera but I am going to share another photo not in the collage that I took the same day.

These are the seed pods of what I believe to be a Maple tree of some type but I am not positive.  ETA - Thanks to Stewart of Paying Ready Attention I have since learned this tree is a type of Sweet Gum ( Liquid Amber (Liquidambar styraciflua)) - If you do a Google search you can learn more about this tree.
You can see one of the leaves in the mosaic above.  Aren't they cool looking!

Be sure to check out both links for other fabulous mosaic and macro shots.  You won't be disappointed.  Have a great week.

Veteran's Day in Review

Thought I'd share a few photo's from yesterday's Veteran's Day parade. - It wasn't a huge parade, nothing super fancy, very few bands but still nice.  I took my granddaughter, Coleen with me. - I felt the Veterans there, especially the eldery one who came out from Nursing Home's to ride in the parade deserved to know that people still care & appreciate what they did for our Country and also to support those who are still serving.

The local High School Color Guard with the presentation of the Flag followed by the Sponsor Corp. Drill Team

The Valley Transit Trolley carrying some of the Veteran's along with Wheatland Village Veterans

One of the Bands that played in the parade.

One of the Antique Cars in the parade followed by one of the Muscle Cars from the parade.

Coleen being goofy. They were passing out Frisbees, Key Rings, Bottle Openers, Pencils, lots of candy etc...along the parade route and she decided to put this on.  Naturally she was looking the other way instead of at the camera (she does that a lot these days, it's hard to get a good picture of her).

We met another BIG dog at the parade too.  This one is an, Irish Wolfhound.

Lastly a lady offered to take our picture together.  Forget that we're both "squinting" and that my "double chin" (Ugh) is showing. 

We had a good time and that's all that matters.

Photo Art Friday - The Frog and Seed Pod

Welcome! - Did you all have a nice week.  It wasn't to bad of a week here.
I'm still battling a bit of a cough from the Cold I've slowly but surely been recovering from.  My mom had to go off her Cholesterol medicine as it was causing her joints to hurt and she was in a lot of pain.  She's feeling better day by day though.
My bowling this week went well (156-145-179) so I was happy about that.  Coleen has been good all week, hubby is doing well and staying very busy, and weather hasn't been to bad so I can't complain.


Now it's time to show off my work for Bonnie's Photo Art Friday




Last week I played around with a photo but forgot to write down what I had done to it but I've decided to share it along with another one that I did write down the edits.

First up is my original photo:

This is the seed pod of my Oriental Poppy.  I think it looks beautiful just as it is, SOOC but I did play around with the photo and came up with the following.

Again I am not sure of the edits I did on this.  I do know that I used one of Bonnie's textures,
Acceptance and added a frame around the image as well using something in Gimp.

So now on to my 2nd Photo:  See below.

This is a Frog Statue that sits on a corner in the down town area.  It's called, The Thinker.  I really think it's a fun little statue all by itself but then I did some creative editing and love how it turned out.  This time I managed to write down the things that I did to my photo.  (Hip, Hip, Hooray!)

First up in Gimp I edited the Brightness/Contrast of my Original photo.   Then I added Bonnie's Texture, Happy Day at 55.4% Soft Light.  Next up I went in to the Picnik programs and used the feature called, Lomo-ish, Blurred the edges 50% and Faded 30%.
Then I added the text.

I'd love to be able to do more things but figuiring out how to use Gimp is challenging to say the least.

If  you'd like to see more great Photo Art be sure to pop on over to Bonnie's blog where everyone posts their work.  It's pretty awesome.