Scavenger Hunt Sunday - April 1, 2012

Wow it's APRIL FOOL'S Day...I have no joke or prank to play on you because quite frankly I "stink" at that sort of thing.

So how about we get right to this weeks Scavenger Hunt Sunday photo's.

This weeks prompts:
Clouds, Sun flare, Seven, High Angle and Low Angle.

I struggled with some of the prompts this week but I completed the set with only 1 slight "archived" photo from back on March 7th.

CLOUDS:  Well we've certainly had plenty of those this past month.  Lots of overcast skies, lots of rain, some snow and even hail.  I took this photo of some clouds outside of the Dentist office just before the skies opened up with a torrential downpour followed by a Hail storm.

SUN FLARE: - Took this shot under the fir trees out in front of our house after the hail had stopped and the sun came out. Weird day weather wise for sure.

SEVEN - I was so hoping to be creative with this prompt but just couldn't seem to think of anything really fun or original so I hope you'll settle for cute instead.  My granddaughter, Coleen who just happens to be age 7!

This was my "archived" photo.

These last 2 were the one's I struggled the most with. 

High Angle:  Took this shot of Callie-Jo inside a shoe box

LOW ANGLE:

Doesn't she look comfy!

Next weeks prompts: New, Life, Fragrant, Pink and Obvious



Photo Art Friday - March 30, 2012

It's Friday and time once again for Photo Art Friday over on Bonnie's blog, Pixel Dust Photo Art.  - Bonnie has a cool FREE texture over there so be sure to check it out. 

This week the options were: Any piece of Photo Art or Path/Roads
I chose Path for my piece.  I knew right away what I wanted to use.  I had taken a picture of a Path leading into the local library last fall and thought it looked pretty cool so I decided to go with that.  The problem was I couldn't seem to locate it on my computer.  After searching for about 1/2 an hour I finally realized that the photo was probably still on the old computer as some of the files did not get transferred onto the new computer.  I finally located the file and transferred the picture to the new computer so I could get started.

Below is my original photo SOOC:

It's an (okay) photo but seemed a little dismal looking. Yes, it was an overcast and cloudy day but I thought it needed to be brightened up a little so I did a bit of editing at PicMonkey (Very similar to the soon to be gone Picnik).  I liked how the edits turned out and then I wanted to add some sort of a quote - (Yes, I have a thing for quotes ) that would be appropriate for the word Path.  I finally settled on one and you can see the final result in the photo below.

Be sure to stop by Bonnie's blog and check out the other entries. Also send Bonnie some good vibes, prayers, words of encouragement as she has not been feeling well the past couple of weeks. 

Big Hugs to you Bonnie and Prayers for a speedy recovery.  Thanks for hosting this fun challenge every week and for offering the great textures.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

"Whatever" Wednesday - The Ladybug Edition

Welcome to "Whatever" Wednesday - This is my day to post photo's of whatever I want. I hope you enjoy them. - This week I'm sharing some Ladybug Photo's. I was outside looking at my flower beds (which sorely need cleaning out from the winter debris) and I happened to notice that there were ladybugs all over the place. So I hurried in and got my camera and took a bunch of photo's of them. These are all different bugs that were in various places in my yard and on the house.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - March 25, 2012

Hi! I hope you've all had a great week.  As you know (or maybe you don't) if you've visited my blog this week I celebrated a Birthday on Tuesday.  - It was a wonderful day and also the 1st Day of Spring.  Of course here in "Wally World" (aka Walla Walla, WA) we had rain for the first day of spring. - To top it off on Thursday we got snow! - It didn't last long though and was melted by the end of the day. - Back to overcast skies and forecasts of rain to come.

Last week I missed out on SHS  and I didn't want to miss 2 weeks in a row so I managed to take some photos for most of the prompts and a couple from the Archives to complete the set.

This weeks prompts were: Whimsy, Create, Dust, Seed or Sprout, Swing or Drop.

WHIMSY:
This is a mural of a local toy store.  It's quite controversial here as the owner of the building apparently failed to ask permission to have the mural painted and then the City Officials or someone got a burr up their (you know what) and decided to take him to court over it.  The doggone case has dragged on for at least 2 years now and he could stand to owe the city over $45,000 dollars if they eventually rule against him.  - To me the whole debate over this mural is just ridiculous.  - At any rate it's a very "Whimsical" mural none the less.












CREATE:

I wasn't sure what exactly I was going to use for this prompt and then this morning Coleen was helping her Grandpa with mud ding over some spots on her bedroom wall so he could paint it.  I loved the expression here on her face as she's concentrating on putting the mud on her wall. She looks as if she's studying a canvas like a painter would. (Don't you love that tongue sticking out of her mouth!)

DUST: - Okay I've seen Ashley's post and unlike Ashley, there is usually plenty of dust around my house.  It's one of those chores that often gets shoved off to the side (so to speak) until I get around to doing it.  I confess to considering finding some dusty area and writing "Dust Me" in the dust but then I decided to go with a different kind of dust. - I took some pictures last fall out at my husband's workshop and found this one to be interesting for some reason.  I give you.....

Sawdust! - Hey, it's a type of dust. - Archived photo

SEED or SPROUT - This is my favorite of the set because it's both a seed and a sprout in one shot.

I happened to notice these in a neighbors yard so I went in search of one in our own yard.  These are the seed pods from Maple trees.  - We call them,
"Helicopters" or "Whirlybirds"    As you can see the seed pod is standing upright in the grass because a new little maple tree sprout has routed and is emerging from the shell of the seed.  Pretty cool!

I'm also entering this  shot over on Nancy's blog, A Rural Journal for her, Your Sunday Best Shot.

SWING OR DROP - This one is my other "Archived" photo.  Taken last Fall on one of my trips to the park with Coleen.  She loves to swing and you can see that from the joyful look on her face.

So the prompts for next week are: Clouds, Sunflare, Seven, High Angle and Low Angle.

Do stop in at Ashley's blog and view some of the other entrants blogs as well.  Lots of great stuff to be found by stopping by.

Photo Art Friday - March 23, 2012

Hello! - So are you ready for another great week of Photo Art brought to you courtesy of Bonnie at Pixel Dust Photo Art.

This week our suggested themes were:  As always any piece of Photo Art - Left open to your own interpretation of Photo Art

or

A piece of Photo Art that without using a Photograph of yourself is somewhat autobiographical in nature.  Now I'm not sure if what I've done is truly autobiographical of who I am as a person but I believe is does showcase a part of what makes me who I am.  So without further ado here is my submission for this week.

I have always loved cats and have had them since I was very little.  Even after I became "allergic" to them I just couldn't resist having one.  Now of course I have more then 1 since we have 6 of them living inside our house.  On top of that we feed neighborhood strays and neighbors cats as well.  This little cat collage showcases 5 of our own cats and 3 of the neighborhood cats. - You know you always hear about the, "Crazy Cat Lady" who lives in the neighborhood...well that's got to be me!

Just for FUN I posterized the collage as well using Picnik.  It gives the collage an, "Artsy" feel.

Cats appearing in collage:  Top Left, Miss Dottie, Top Right, Snickers

2 Small Photos on Left: Peaches (neighborhood cat), Callie-Jo

2 Small Photos on Right: Captain Cuddles, Harley

Bottom Left: Piglet (our adopted stray) and  Bottom Right: Fluffy (neighborhood cat)

Be sure to stop by Bonnie's blog and click on the links to the other entries.  You won't be disappointed.

Have a wonderful weekend.  Hopefully it's not going to snow here again.  More rain is fore casted but I'd much rather see sunny skies.



Rural Thursday - Hey it stopped raining...

I thought I might join in on Rural Thursday over on Nancy's Blog (A Rural Journal) today.

Good Morning! - Well yesterday I posted some photos about my birthday and the fact that the weather hadn't been at all springlike with all the rain we've had.  I guess one shouldn't complain because this is what we woke up to this morning...





"What on earth is happening - The 1st Day of Spring was 2 days ago, right?

Coleen on her way to school. I couldn't help but think of how when I was a kid I use to have to walk 5 miles, uphill in blinding snow storms, barefoot...Okay so I'm exaggerating a little!






























Poor little Daffodils...Every spring it's either rain or snow that arrives just after the flowers start blooming and they look so sad...

Snowball Shrubs!

Pull up a Park bench anyone?

Apple Blossoms.

Let me just say I could not get my Captions to line up under the photo's so I apologize for that.

I'm happy to report the sun is out, the sky is mostly blue, the snow is melting.

Forecast for next week.....RAIN!

"Whatever" Wednesday - The Birthday Edition

Hi,  I've been a little "quieter" this past week because I was celebrating my Birthday. Yesterday (March 20) was my birthday.  It was also the official "1st Day of Spring" here in the US, although in my neck of the woods it wasn't very springy weather. - In fact it's down right cold (still in the low 40's) and as you will see in one of the photos today parts of the area don't look at all like it's spring.

On Monday my mom, daughter and I went to the Wildhorse Resort and Casino for a little gambling at the slots. Wish I could say we all came away big winners but that just wasn't the case.  We did each bring back a little of what we took to gamble with so as not to make the day a total bust.  I had some people coming in to the casino snap a photo of us before we headed back home.

I took a photo of the New Hotel they built just this past year.

My daughter snapped this next photo for me on our way home.  It's a view of the mountains and as you can see they had a nice fresh dusting of snow - Brrr.....

Lastly here is a (bad) photo of me blowing out candles on the cupcakes we had last night. Yes I'm in my bathrobe and my hair is messy (it was windy out when we went to dinner) but I had a good time and a great birthday.

Ah , another year older and another year wiser (?) - Till next time,  Take care and Have a great day!

Photo Art Friday - March 16, 2012

It's time once again to join everyone over on Bonnie's Blog for Photo Art Friday.  This week the options were: 1. Any Piece of Photo Art
2. Continue with the "hidden in plain sight" idea or
3. Go with the Color, Green - because after all St. Patrick's Day is close at hand.

Can you guess which theme I went with?



Here are my starting Photo's - Click on them to enlarge:

The photo on the left is some moss growing on the side of a concrete wall and the photo on the right is some clover (shamrock) in our yard.

Here is what I did with the 2 photos:

For this version I rotated the Moss photo 90 degrees right and then over-layed the clover photo using Hard light at approx. 64-74 %  Then I used a Filter feature in Gimp called, Illusion to create the circular effect.  I added the Irish Blessing and the Frame with features on Picnik.

Still playing:

For this version I used the same 2 photo's as described above but then used a feature called, Mandelbrot Fractal Elements in Gimp to create all the different swirls of clover.  I added the Text (Lucky) and a sort of hidden in plain sight element...can you guess what it is?

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY -  I'm not Irish but I've always dreamed of going to Ireland and someday I hope that dream will come true.  In the mean time I'll just enjoy being Irish for a day.

Have a great weekend and be sure to visit all the other great entries for PAF.

"Whatever" Wednesday - Kids Rodeo Edition

Welcome! - I'm a tad late getting this up as I forgot it was Wednesday and I hadn't yet put anything up for my "Whatever" Wednesday post.  But as they say,  "Better Late, then Never."

Last Saturday Grandma and Grandpa took Coleen to the Cowboy Breakfast and Kids Rodeo that the local Community College holds every year.  She went to the actual Rodeo the night before with her mommy but I don't have any pictures of that to share.

At the kids Rodeo they have things for them to do like Ride a Horse, Rope Cows (not real ones), Get tossed around in the Clowns Barrel  etc...

First let me show you Coleen's Pancake from the breakfast.  They allowed the kids to decorate their pancakes with various items.  Here is Coleen's

For her toppings she chose,  Strawberry Syrup, Whipped Cream, Nerds Candy, Blueberries and a Gummy Worm!  - Doesn't that sound yummy! (NOT) - but she ate the entire pancake.

Here she is inside the Barrel with the Rodeo Clown.

Petting one of the Goats

Riding the Horse - This is her favorite thing to do.

Lastly a little Video of her Roping.  Be sure to have your volume on and watch her face after she High-Fives the Cowboy helping with the roping.

That's it for this weeks edition of "Whatever" Wednesday.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - March 11

Hello and Welcome to this weeks edition of Scavenger Hunt Sunday brought to over on Ashley's blog, Rambling and Photos.   Don't forget to stop by and see the other entries.

 I missed last weeks hunt so it was great to be able to join in again this week.

Here are the prompts:  Water, Light, Chocolate, Animal and Crowded.  - I will confess to using 2 "archived" photos this week.  Mainly because I really like both the photos and they've never appeared on my blog at any time.

First up, WATER:  I was experimenting using my husbands little Kodak camera the other day and took a photo of one of the little waterfalls (if you can call them that) on the river that flows through the local High School campus. 

LIGHT: - This is 1 of the "archived" photos.  I was going through my photos the other day and happened upon this one that I took of some candle holders last fall on our (fake) fireplace mantle.  It was so pretty I decided to use it for the prompt.

CHOCOLATE: - Oh yum! What a great prompt.  I confess to going out and buying a chocolate mint brownie to take photos of and yes I did take pictures and I shared the brownie too.  However in the end I decided to use a photo of a mini-Hershey bar instead (I ate it too!).

ANIMAL: I'm excited about this one.  - I bet you think you are going to see a picture of a "Cat" because what else would someone post who has 6 cats in their house and feeds neighborhood cats/strays and is referred to as the "crazy cat lady" by her friends post. - Well guess what?  It's not a cat.

This is our dog, Cricket.  The thing that excites me is that I "finally" got a decent picture of her.  She's normally very hard to photograph because she never sits still long enough to take her picture and if you do happen to get a picture of her she generally has her tongue hanging out of her mouth as well. And before you ask...no she wasn't born with 3 legs.  For those who don't know the story shortly after we got her as a puppy she fell off our back step and caught her right front leg in the chain link fence and broke a piece out of the growth plate that could not be repaired here and was far to costly to repair elsewhere so we opted to have it amputated.  She's never missed it and can run/play with the best of them.

CROWDED:  - This is my other "archived" photo.

I discovered a bunch of bees one day on the trunk of a tree while out walking and hurried home to fetch my camera before they disappeared.  They apparently had built their hive on the inside of the tree and were all crowding around outside waiting for their turn to get inside the small opening in the tree to their hive.  I'd say it was probably just as crowded on the inside as it was the outside.

That's it for this week.  Next week the prompts are:  Vintage, Word/Quote, Nature's Own, People and Photographer's Choice.