Tuesday Muse - Blooming Lilacs

Joining in on Tuesday Muse this week with some photos of my mom's Lilac tree and bush. - I love how beautiful they are but oh that smell really messes with allergies.  Thank goodness I take medication as they can be intoxicating with their fragrant scent.

Click to enlarge:

What I like most about this shot is the "sun-flare" that I captured as well.  Can you see it?

Look at the size of these blooms.  This is not the common lilac you see most of the time.  This one is a French Hybrid called,  Agincourt Beauty.  It has the largest blooms of all the lilacs and is very fragrant.

Here is a close-up of one of the clusters of blooms.

A couple of years ago I read an add in a magazine about a lilac that bloomed in the spring and then again through part of the summer and into the fall.  I copied the information down and ordered her one from the White Flower Farm.  It's called a,
Bloomerang Lilac.  The first year it only had about 2-3 bloom clusters.  This year it's quite pretty with all the dainty little blooms.  They remind me of bursting fireworks.

This little cluster hadn't fully opened yet when I took this photo.

Same cluster just a couple of days later.  See how dainty the little blossoms are.

What's really fun is that this will bloom again in late summer and early fall. 

I had a little fun playing around with this shot.  I added a texture (Scratched Lens) from Pixel Dust Photo Art and Heart Bokeh and Frame on Pic Monkey.  Enjoy!

Cattitude Monday - Sleeping Beauty

It's been some time since I posted anything for Cattitude Monday so I thought today was a good time to share some fun cat photo's again.  Well I just realized I've never done Cattitude Monday on this blog.  It was a feature I use to do from time to time on my other blog (http://Faithartistry.blogspot.com) but since that is now strictly a stamping blog I'll just start posting my cat stuff on this one.

  I snapped a few shots the other day of some of our kitties sleeping.  So here they are:

This one is Captain Cuddles.  - I loved the way his tail is curved in this shot.

This one is Harley,  He loves the (dog bed) which is now his bed because the dog wouldn't sleep in it.

This is Miss Dottie.  She had her back turned but I liked the way the light from the window was shining on her.  Can you see why we named her, Dottie?

The others were off hiding somewhere so I didn't get pictures of them.  Don't they make wonderful Sleeping Beauties!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - April 28, 2013

Hi!  Welcome to my blog.  It's time to join in on the fun of Scavenger Hunt Sunday brought to you by the wonderful and talented Ashley from Ramblings and Photo's.  This weeks prompts are:  Walking, Yummy to my Tummy,

Favorite Toy, What I Did This Week and Anything.

So let's get started on the hunt.  Here are my interpretations:

WALKING:

 



I snapped a photo of these two ladies "walking" with a dog across the street today.

YUMMY TO MY TUMMY:
Bought something new from Jif this week,  Mocha Cappuccino Hazelnut Spread (similar to Nutella) -  Oh my it is so yummy to my tummy.  I spread some on Graham Crackers for a sweet treat.

 

 

 

FAVORITE TOY:  This isn't my favorite toy but I think perhaps it's hubby's and Coleen's.

 



 

WHAT I DID THIS WEEK:  Okay I did a lot of different stuff this week but buying and planting flowers seemed to be a big part of the week.  The beautiful hanging basket was an Anniversary gift from hubby.  We celebrated #21 on the 18th of this month.

ANYTHING:  Snapped this picture of a couple of ducks in a little stream just a few houses away from ours.

Tuesday Muse - How Lucky can you get?

Thought I would join Nancy (A Rural Journal) this week for Tuesday Muse where you can share any photo (edited, textrued etc...) that you want.

Found this in the yard yesterday.

So if a 4-Leaf Clover is considered Lucky...how much more luck does the fifth leaf add?  Off to bowling - Yep still bowling only now it's Spring League.

Have a great day.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - April 21, 2013

Welcome.  Won't you join me for the hunt.  You know the one:
Scavenger Hunt Sunday over at Ashley's blog, Ramblings and Photo's.

This weeks prompts:
Happiness, Spring in B/W, Family or Faith, Fuzzy, and Gathering or Provide.

I love to add quotes or sayings to my photo's so that's what I did with the prompts this week.  Click to enlarge.

HAPPINESS:

SPRING IN BLACK AND WHITE:

FAMILY OR FAITH:  I chose "Faith"

FUZZY:

Seriously that song was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the prompt.

GATHERING OR PROVIDE:  I chose "Gathering" - This is an archived photo from a few years ago.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - April 14, 2013

Welcome!  -  If you have stopped by to see my Photo Art Friday piece click on the link.

Now without further ado won't you join me for Ashley's Scavenger Hunt Sunday.

This weeks prompts:  Glow, Old, Shadow, Spring and Smile.

GLOW:

Took a nature walk around the neighborhood today while the sun was out (which wasn't for very long) and captured the "glow" of the sun on this lovely yellow flowering shrub.

OLD:

Hieroglyphic's are "old" aren't they?

Okay this is actually a chalk drawing that Coleen drew on our driveway today (see original below) but I made it look pretty "Old" don't you think!

SHADOW:  Not to creative here and the cooperation for the photo wasn't that great either.

It's the neighbor's cat, Fluffy (the pregnant, floozy, birdkiller) and her "shadow"!

SPRING:

Nothing says "Spring" like the Dogwoods in bloom.

SMILE:

My niece and her 2 boys (my great-nephews) sharing a "smile" for the camera.

Our spring started out so nice with a beautiful week during Easter and for a couple of days afterwards.  Now it's cold, rainy, windy and did I mention cold....Come back spring...we hardly knew ye!!!

Photo Art Friday - April 12, 2013

Hi,  I'm a little "late" getting my post up for Photo Art Friday but it's still Friday here so I guess I'm really not late at all!

This weeks theme was Light/Shadow.  I'm sharing a couple of pictures today.




First up:

I took this shot of Piglet the other day and really liked how the light was shining on just one half of his face.  I added a texture from Nancy Claeys ( A Rural Journal) I like how it added a softness to the photo.

Next up is a picture I took of Dottie last Summer for SHS (Scavenger Hunt Sunday) when the prompt was Shadow.  I left this as is but added a photo corner frame.

Have a wonderful weekend. 

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - April 7, 2013

Hi friends!  Hope you've been having a wonderful week and are ready to join in on the fun of Scavenger Hunt Sunday.  This weeks prompts were:
Outside, Chatterbox, Comfort, In the Kitchen and Trees.  - I must admit that I found a couple of these very challenging. 

Let's get started:

OUTSIDE:  - This one was pretty easy except I didn't want to just show a picture of flowers so I went with this photo of the next door neighbors two grandsons playing outside in their yard.  They had no idea I was taking pictures through the dining room window.  It was funny watching their antics.

CHATTERBOX: - This is one of the ones that stumped me.  I had hoped to capture some noisy birds but didn't and also didn't want to show Coleen talking so what else would qualify?....Well how about what we often refer to as the Squawk box...especially after listening to some of Coleen's (tween type) shows.

COMFORT:  Another challenging prompt which I interpreted a little different.

I think of my faith as a source of comfort.  While this isn't the church I attend I couldn't resist taking some photo's here today as it's really a beautiful building and the pretty tree added to the scene.

IN THE KITCHEN:  - Okay we have the worst kitchen to take photo's in.  It's long and narrow, has not so great lighting and most of the time there are dishes some place on the counters.  Today they were clean and I figured a shot of the groceries I just brought home would work.

TREES:  Okay you get 2 shots for this because I love both photo's and since both are just pictures from a single tree (not the same tree though)  I figure 2 shots equals...tree(s)!

We have a lot of flowering trees in town and this is one from the neighbors back yard.  I think it's their plum tree but I could be mistaken.

Saw this Tulip tree outside a church and thought it was very unusual in it's shape so I stopped and snapped a quick photo to share.

That's it for this week.  Don't forget to hop on over to Ashley's blog (Ramblings and Photos) and check out the other hunt participants.

Photo Art Friday - April 5, 2013

Welcome! - I hope you'll join me on an Artistic journey of awesome photo art.  It's time once again to join Bonnie (Pixel Dust Photo Art) for Photo Art Friday.  The optional theme this week is,  "Collage." -  I hadn't planned to join in this week since it's spring break and Coleen has been home all week.  I didn't figure I'd have time to put together a decent collage piece of photo art so I planned to skip this week.

This afternoon after coming home from taking Coleen to see (The Croods - fun, fun movie) I was inspired to create a piece after all.  Mind you my piece has nothing to do with the movie at all.

I started with the following photos:  Click to enlarge.

A picture of my white Bleeding Heart plant that is just starting to bloom.

The garden fairy statue that I've used before.  This time I cropped the photo a little and then used the Cartoonizer feature on Be Funky to get this:

There were a lot of different steps I took after this.  First I added a layer of Bonnie's texture (Chinks of Light) just on the photo of the flowers and erased the texture off the blooms.  Next up I added the cartoonized fairy photo as an Overlay texture.  I fiddled around with various effects on Pic Monkey including the Orton effect and added another layer of Chinks of Light, a layer of Bonnie's, (Fine Art) texture but erased most of it leaving just a portion of the texture.
I also added some lighting effects from Pic Monkey creating the little stars on the final piece you'll see below along with a quote.  This I think is one of my favorite pieces of photo art that I've ever done.  I hope you like it too.

Have a great weekend.