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.

Is it a Dog or a Small Pony!

Yesterday I took Coleen to the park after she got home from school.  It was a lovely Fall afternoon and I wanted to do something fun with her and naturally I decided to take my camera along.

We were getting into the car to drive over to the play ground area when this man and his pony  or rather his dog walked by.  The dog started to poke it's head inside the van and when I turned around to look I was shocked by what I saw.  This was no small dog.  We got out and talked with the man and he let Coleen pet his dog.  His named turned out to be Adonis (a fitting name) and he told us the dog was a, European Great Dane.

Coleen was a bit "aprehensive" about petting the dog but the owner said he was a gentle dog and he told him to sit and told Coleen to take ahold of his collar so I could take her picture with him.

Can you imagine feeding a dog that size.  The man said his wife had recently had knee surgery and she normally walked the dog so he'd gained some weight and now he was having to take him for walks to see if they could get some of the extra weight off him.
What was really funny was there were some other people walking their dogs, a small Scottish Terrier and a small Poodle and when they saw this dog was loose they quickly started to head off in another direction until the man assured them that his dog wouldn't hurt their dogs.

I mean if I was a small dog and I saw that "horse" of a dog heading in my direction I'd be a bit scared too but he turned out to be a very well mannered dog.

Watery Wednesday and a Blog Award

Found a new challenge (well new to me) called Watery Wednesday and decided to give it  try.

Here is my photo:

This lovely little bridge and waterfall is located in a yard around the block from our house.  My granddaughter and I often walk past it on our walks.  She likes to drop leaves, twigs etc...into the water and watch them float under the road.  It's such a peaceful little piece of scenic beauty.  I hope you enjoy it as well.

I was given this wonderful award by Nancy over at A Rural Journal -Thanks so much Nancy.

I need to tell you 7 facts about myself that you may not know.  I find this hard to do at times but I'll give it a try.

1.  My very first job was picking Strawberries and I started in the fields when I was 11 years old and my last summer of picking was my Senior Year in High School.

2. My most embarrasing High School moment was walking into the men's room by mistake.  All of the bathrooms in the High School except one had the women's room on a certain side of the building.  Naturally the one building that didn't would be the one I walked in on while a bunch of guys were inside.

3. Most people know that I'm a "Cat Lover" but my very first pet was a little dog named, Bandit. 

4.After High School I went to a Bible College in Canada but only stayed one Quarter as I got Home Sick and had to move back home.

5. I'm a hopeless "romantic" and love watching shows like The Bachelor and Bachelorette.

6. I resist "change" of almost any kind and often fear trying new things.  Once I won a Free flying lesson and a White Water Rafting Trip but turned them down out of fear.

7. I've always been interested in Photography but never thought I could do well at it until I started participating in various photography blogs this past year.  I love it!

Now the object is to pass this award on to other bloggers so I am going to pick out 5 blogs that I've started visiting within the past year.  You are NOT required to participate back unless you would like to.  I just want you to know how much I enjoy your blogs.

Evelyn at Within My Focus

Darcy at My 3 boybarians

and

Laura at Happy HomemakerUK

Thanks for inspiring me with your wonderful blogs and photography.



Macro Monday - November 7

Oh my goodness I almost forgot to post my pictures for Macro Monday on Lisa's Blog.

It's always amazing to see the world up close and personal through the camera lense. 

Today I'm sharing a few pictures of a little Spider that I became rather fond of after spotting it on one of my rose bushes.  It camped out on one of the blooms for several days until the wind blew off all the petals one day.

My first shots are the spider and it's "catch of the day"

I love the detail on this as you can see the Spider looking right at me with those little "beedy" eyes!

Now he's mad because I'm intruding on his meal time so he's moving the bee off.

Okay a couple of days later I took a few more shots of my little spider friend.

By this time we were becoming pretty good friends as far as Spiders and Humans can be.  Normally I am scared to death of spiders but again after shooting this little guy so many times it was becoming less frightening to me.  Although I do admit when it started to rear up on it's back legs I backed off rather quickly.

So are you tired of my Spider friend yet...I hope not as I have two more shares.  These were taken a few days later and I actually got the spider out of the rose bloom and onto the stem so I could get some shots of the wonderful color and markings on him.

Sadly after the rose petals fell off he moved on to green pastures (or rose bushes) as I have not seen my little friend since.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - November 6

Hello and Welcome - It's always a pleasure to have you stop by and see what's new here on my blog.

It's time for Scavenger Hunt Sunday over on Ashley's Blog Ramblings and Photo's.
I didn't get to participate last week but am excited about sharing my photo's this week.

The "Themes" or "Photo Prompts" are:  Food, Purple, In Disguise, Shapes and Photographers Choice.

So let's get started:

From my "Archives" - Cotton Candy - Macro Shot
Below a current photo:  Cinnamon Shredded Wheat

Purple: - I only have 1 purple photo to share.  - Took this shot of some Pansies blooming in my mom's flower bed.  The weather has turned pretty cold but some plants are still blooming and this was one of them.  So bright and cheery.

Next up:  In Disguise.  With Halloween just past I couldn't resist showing a photo of my little Granddaughter, Coleen all dressed up in her "Ladybug" costume.

I also have another "Archive" photo taken earlier last week that I really like and thought it would be fun to share.  This is a "promotional" Horse/rider for a Wine :Headless Red.

Shapes:  - I'm sharing two different photo's of patterns on some old bridges here in town.

This one is my favorite of the two:

Lastly it's Photographers Choice.  For this I'm showing my Original photo and then an "Altered" version of the same photo.

To alter this I went to Picnik and used the Vignette and Neon features.