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Team-up Thursday: Water

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Nancy’s been on a trip out west so this is our first post in a couple of weeks. This week’s prompt was “water,” and Nancy sent me a photo she took last week in Yellowstone (bottom). Since I didn’t have any brilliant ideas for water locally, I went to the photos we took last summer in Yellowstone and found this one (top) of water spilling over a falls in the Yellowstone Grand Canyon. This was originally a landscape photo but I cropped it so it would be portrait like Nancy’s. I think it improved the photo overall.

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Friday Challenges

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Just by coincidence I was responsible for posting two challenges today. The first one was for the Scrap-Mart blog. My challenge is to create a layout or a card using only cardstock and papers from just one manufacturer/line. If you’d like to play along, you can post a link here or on the Scrap-Mart blog. One of my favorite paper lines right now is PinkPaislee Starlight which I used on this layout about the importance of being in the photo yourself.

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All the papers and the alpha stickers are from the Starlight line. I used my Slice to cut the stars and the brackets and stitched around the photo frame. I did another layout last week that meets the challenge and uses papers from the same line.

I consider myself fortunate to belong to a very supportive group of women on a photo board, and it’s my turn to post the challenge there as well. I decided on the word “fresh” since we’ve been buying the first fresh strawberries and wonderful fresh asparagus, lettuce, spinach, and radishes from the local farmer’s market. I put a few strawberries in a lovely cup I bought at Antropologie a few weeks ago. I knew I’d find some photographic uses for it.

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Creativity Boot Camp: Smooth

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Still stymied by “Hush” and although I have a good idea, I don’t have the needed prop!

I’ve been cooking and baking today as a group of neighbors are coming to dinner this evening. Eggs seemed to be a perfect answer for today’s prompt: SMOOTH.

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This is one of three beautiful seagrass baskets I’ve purchased on our trips to Kiawah Island and Charleston.

Like several other blogging friends, I took advantage of Shimelle’s early registration and signed up for her new course. I always enjoy them. I was away for nearly half of the last class so I’m looking forward to keeping up a little better with this one.

 

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Jessica Sprague is also offering a new class that is FREE. She’s really the best I know when it comes to digital scrapbooking and photo editing classes. I’ve never been disappointed in any of her classes. This one is on cardmaking. I’ve never done anything digital with card making aside from printing a digital paper once or twice, so I’m very interested in what she’ll be teaching in this class.

Creativity Boot Camp: Full-Bodied

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I was gone most of yesterday and last night, so I’m a day behind with this prompt. My first thought when seeing “full-bodied” was red wine, but that seemed too obvious. Tracy suggested coffee, remembering some commercial where they talked about the coffee being full-bodied. So while I was grocery shopping I checked out all the coffee brands. None said “full-bodied” on the label, but one of the bulk coffees used the term in describing the coffee so I took a shot of it with my point & shoot. I also bought a few beans so I could compose something like this. Sadly I couldn’t get both words, “full” and “bodied,” into the frame

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But this morning when I was setting the table for guests tonight, I looked at the hydrangeas on the table and thought, “Wow, full-bodied flowers!” So here’s the one I’m posting on Flickr and two others. I’d be interested in which of the three you like the best.

  
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This is the one I’m posting on Flickr. I ran Pioneer Woman’s Lovely and Ethereal action on it.

Here’s a version just sharpened, not a big difference.

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And one with the Soft and Faded action. Makes me think of dried hydrangeas.

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Today’s prompt “hush” is proving to be even more elusive.

Creativity Book Camp: Drizzle & Final California Layouts

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This proved to be one of the most difficult prompts. I didn’t want to photograph rain (although it was forecast for today), and this morning decided I use honey drizzling into tea. Easier said than done. I took a ton of photos (and needed Tracy’s help to hold the honey dipper). I got only three decent shots. This one is my favorite:

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I have finally finished the California album. I still need to do a little piece for the album cover, but the last of the layouts is finished. Here’s the title page. I couldn’t decide quite what to do, but ended up using a Cathy Z. digital template to do a summary layout.

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Cardstock: BoBunny; patterned paper: Queen & Co.; epoxy button: Queen & Co.; digital template: Cathy Z’s “Monthly”; digital paper: freebie from Katie Pertiet of Designer Digitals

This is the last of the “story” pages. When we were in Pleasanton one afternoon, I bought Sadie a new ball. To say she was disinterested, is putting it mildly. Then Sarah got the idea to put some peanut butter inside the ball. Well, Sadie’s interest certainly perked up!

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I love these little dogs from a piece of Basic Grey “June Bug” paper. All the rest of the papers are Scenic Route as are the alphabet stickers.

Creativity Boot Camp: Ornament

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As soon as I saw the prompt I thought of our friend’s amazing city garden. When you’re in their garden it’s almost impossible to believe you’re in the middle of the city, but you are. Rick has collected quite a variety of ornaments, made the columns that support many of them, and built all the stone walls by hand. It’s truly an amazing place. Marcy is the keeper of the flowers and plants, and they are just as wonderful.

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And three more views of their garden.

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Creativity Boot Camp: Fly

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The truth is I hate to fly. My family will attest I am not at my best on the day of a flight. I fly because it gets me where I want to go, but I would much rather drive—even across the country. That, of course, is not often practical and is, in fact, as expensive as flying. One way I entertain myself as we take off is to take photos. Once we’re in the air, I rely on compelling books (must be a page turner) and crossword puzzles.

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The New York City Harbor in March.

I like the horizon and the deepening blue sky in this one taken over the Rockies on the same flight. 

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There was an inspiring post on Write, Click, Scrapbook this week that I finally got around to reading this morning. Since I had a little time before I went to the retirement luncheon, I pulled the photos from my photo walk into a template and finished the layout this afternoon. I decided against any journaling, but put the class title and date of the photo walk on the back of the layout. It doesn’t get much simpler than this.

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Paper: Ambrosia (Basic Grey); chipboard letters: “Licorice” (Cosmo Cricket); chipboard camera: “Mama Razzi” (Bo Bunny); digital template: Pri Rocha Designs

Creativity Boot Camp: Fluid & Photo Walk

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Here’s my take on fluid:

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It was a really nice day so I got to Park Ave. for a little photo walk. I took a lot of photos, but here are my favorites.

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One of the first things I saw was this fence which reminded me of Charleston.

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The windows on this old building had been covered with metal. It’s now rusted, and I liked the contrast of the ivy.

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This is Oxford Street and these are all magnolia trees which are stunning in the spring. I love the streets that have the malls down the middle. Our first house in the city had one, but not this nice.

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This made me smile. It’s in the window of an optician.

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I loved the lines of this bench and the brick sidewalk.

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I’ve never been in this deli, but it certainly appeals to me.

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And last, I loved the reflection of the trees in the table tops.

Creativity Boot Camp: Grow, Baby, Grow

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Today’s prompt was an easy one. 

Here’s a shot of the first tomatoes in our garden:

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Typically I take my point and shoot to the garden, but today I took my SLR with the Tamron 28-300mm lens. This was shot at 120mm; f 5.6; 1/200, ISO 100. The zoom on this lens really takes pretty decent macro shots. Close up you can even see the “hairs” on the tomato stems.

I was happy to see that the slugs seem to be gone, but found two snails attached to the new lettuce plants. We read in our organic gardening book that both coffee grounds and ashes repel slugs and snails so we took some of both and spread them around the perimeter of the bed. They warned not to use too many coffee grounds as they are quite acidic.

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We also got a fence up around our plot today. You can see the tall “plants” beyond our plot. They are weeds! There are only three plots that haven’t been claimed in the community garden and two of the three border ours. I’m hoping the mulch around the plot will help keep down the spread of weeds, but each time we go we need to dig out a few. If the plants have as deep a root system as our weeds, they will do well!

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The only thing ready to pick were some tiny arugula leaves, two kinds of basil, and some cilantro. We used the Thai Basil in a shrimp and tomato pasta sauce tonight. It has a lighter flavor than the typical basil, but is quite nice.

Creativity Boot Camp: Heavy Metal

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My first thought when I read the prompt was the heavy metal rock bands, but since I know nothing whatsoever about them, that was out. I’m a day behind getting this posted because it rained all day yesterday, but late in the day I ran out to Home Depot since I thought I might find some heavy metal there. I did, but it took until today to get the photos organized for the post.

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On my way home, it stopped raining and I had to drive by an ongoing construction project near our house. All the workers had gone home, so I parked the car in a nearby medical center parking lot and hopped out to see what I might find. I took a lot of photos, but ended up deciding on these three, all taken of the same piece of equipment.

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I used the Colorize action on the last of the photos.

But my favorite photos are of this little red wagon that was “parked” alongside the road. It’s obviously being used by the crews to haul cement or some such substance. Not exactly heavy metal, but I like it anyway.

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The first photo was simply sharpened, the middle photo is the Seventies action (again), and the last one is the Pioneer Woman’s Heartland action. I increased the contrast on the last one after I ran the action.

Got to say, I’d never have taken any of these without the prompt!

Multilayered: Take Two

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Part 1:

The prompt for Creativity Bootcamp today was multilayered. After a bit of consideration I decided to photograph the roses blooming right outside our dining room door. My first inclination was to play with light today, so I started taking a photo every hour or so. I had to take a break for a dermatologist appointment and while I was driving had another idea:  to show how the multilayered rose unfolds. So here is the triptych I came up with. I tried a few actions, but decided I liked the simply sharpened photos the best.

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Part 2:

Last night I finished a layout for the vacation album that was an “out of the box” design for me, but one that I see frequently on blogs and admire. When I finished I was quite pleased with the final product. This morning during my coffee/blog browsing hour I came across Layle Koncar’s article at Ella Publishing. She’d read a pamphlet about decorating that suggested three things to consider when mixing patterns. Layle boiled it down to this:

  1. Have an odd number of patterns
  2. Include a solid
  3. Include a stripe

I was curious and checked. Indeed, that’s exactly what I had. Perhaps that was why I liked it so much. See what you think:

In&OutLO

Cardstock: American Craft; patterned paper from scrap drawer; chipboard embellishment: “Mama Razzi” (BoBunny); pin: unknown (purchased at a stationery store in Ithaca a couple of years ago); digital frame: “Framed no. 3” (two shutter sisters)

It fits the multilayered prompt as well. A bit of serendipity.

Creativity Boot Camp Day 2

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Today’s prompt is picnic. Merriam-Webster defines picnic as “an outing with food usually provided by members of the group and eaten in the open.” For this prompt, I set up a still-life outside, tried  various settings, played with different apertures, and took about 40 photos from different perspectives. These are the two I liked the best. Both were taken with my 50mm. lens at f 4.0; 1/100; ISO 400. The diptych frame is from Katie Pertiet’s Vintage Storyboard Frames. I used a new (to me) action on both photos from Noel Joy called “Picture Pop.”

  
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Creativity Boot Camp Day 1

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Today’s prompt for Creativity Bootcamp was “Ivory” and the piano keyboard was the first thing that came to mind. One thing I decided to do with this class is to play with some new techniques. Today I used a photo mask for the first time and played with some of the Pioneer Woman Actions.

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Define and Sharpen Action; Katie Pertiet “Stamped Blocks No. 7”

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Seventies Action

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Vintage Action

Love is in the Air

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We’re off this evening to the wedding of one of our long-time friend’s daughters. I sent the gift to their home in Colorado, but made a card to take to the wedding.

WeddingCard 

Cardstock: American Craft & Aqua Mist (PTI); embossed cardstock: Creative Imaginations; dies: Beautiful Blooms (PTI); ribbon: Paper Source; gems: Memory Box; stick pin: Making Memories

And the inside of the card:

InsideWedding

Dies: Nestabilities Label 4 & Beautiful Blooms (PTI); sentiment: Delightful Dahlias (PTI)

A daughter of another dear friend got engaged a few weeks ago. Tracy was able to get to the party, but I had tickets to the RPO so missed it. I made this card to send to them.

4x4Congrats 

Cardstock: Dark Chocolate and Lemon Tart (PTI); patterned paper:  Letter Box (American Craft); die: Flower Layers 3 (Sizzix); embossing folder: Swiss Dots (Cuttlebug; Flair Badge: American Craft

About six weeks ago, I got an email from Tamron announcing a two-hour workshop “Eleven Secrets to Improve Your Photographs” at our local photography store. Since I own two Tamron lenses and the cost was minimal, I decided to sign up. The class was this morning, and although the first half of the material was familiar to me, I picked up enough tips to compensate both my time and the cost of the workshop. I also got a chance to try out the 60mm 2.0 macro lens that is on my wish list. The most helpful information for me was about lighting, filters, and using your flash. I have a lot of things I want to try out, and hopefully, I’ll be able to incorporate them into the projects  for Creativity Bootcamp. The workshop pretty much solidified my choice of medium to photography. I’m looking forward to the first session tomorrow.

Wow & Wow Again

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It was a big mail day here. First the UPS man brought my prize from Making Memories. I’ve won a variety of wonderful prizes in giveaways on blogs but this is the biggest prize I’ve ever received.

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I think they sent me the complete line of Pitter Patter (both pink and blue) and Panorama (including an album kit). I got paper, alphas, and embellishments for both lines. There were two packages of the new Vintage jewelry line, ten packages of Design Shop stickers (these are great & you’ll be seeing them on cards and scrapbook pages), and five packages of beautiful metal embellishments. Now I need to find a place to put it all!

Then the mail woman delivered my package from Papertrey Ink. I only ordered a couple of stamps, but I did purchase some dies I’m anxious to use. It will be awhile, however. It’s been a very busy week. I’ve been out every night and gone the better part of several days. I did get some work done today in the perennial bed and it is looking better.

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We did our last cultivating at the Community Garden bed as well today and are ready to put our plants in as soon as we find time. Tomorrow I’m off with two friends to the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Buffalo. I’m taking three classes. One is a scrapbooking class with Basic Grey papers, and the other two are Making Memory Slice classes. I’ve started using my Slice more often but I know there is much more I could do with it.

After the convention we’re going to our favorite stamp store to look around and pay our fees for a colored pencil class we’ll be taking in July with Dave Brethauer (the owner of Memory Box stamps). After dinner at Pano’s we’ll finally head home. I’m really looking forward to a day of inspiration and good conversation with friends.

This morning Cathy Zielske debuted a new set of templates for a monthly scrapbooking project. I love the way she has it laid out and think this may be the answer for my Project 365 and Week in the Life photos. I love her clean and simple style.

Brenda Weaver has a great post about getting inspiration from a magazine cover. It’s geared to card makers, but definitely worth a look.

And lastly, a photo of our beautiful azalea:

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