Team-up Thursday: Doors
This week’s prompt was Doors. Mine (on the left) is a photo of a local garden store’s front doors which I have always loved. Nancy’s shot is from her trip out west in June of an abandoned house in Two Dot, Montana.
CHA: Part 1
I’ve taken 250 photos in the last two days, but don’t worry, this post is photo heavy, but not nearly THAT heavy! Being at CHA is like being a kid in a candy store. There is so much to see, and lots to learn. My understanding is that this is a smaller show than the winter one, but it’s plenty big for me! Yesterday the show opened with a bagpipe parade. This is a traditionally done for the manufacturers before the doors were opened, and we were lucky enough to be inside to see and hear it.
One of the first booths we went to was Spellbinders. Their Nestability dies are my favorites and the big new product is large format dies. They are fabulous, and can be used in scrapbook layouts as mats, as books, and as cards.
One of the best things is seeing all the samples by the manufacturer’s design teams. Here’s a layout using one of the large format dies.
Learning some new techniques has also been one of the benefits of being here, and I’ll have more to show you in the next post.
The American Craft booth had fabulous new papers, embellishments, and Thickers. Some of my favorites were from the new Dear Lizzy line. We got to meet and talk to Elizabeth Kartchner who couldn’t be nicer.
Laura, Eva, me, Elizabeth, and Katie
I love these new Thickers.
Next stop was the Making Memories booth. These wonderful butterflies are just one example of the great decorations, hard work, and thought that goes into creating these booths.
The Slice now has a new cartridge that cuts appliques. How cute are these?
They were doing Make & Takes with their new Vintage Jewelry line.
Here’s Katie’s.
This was my first opportunity to meet Katie and Eva who are on the Scrap-Mart Design Team with me. They are, of course, just as nice in person as they are online!
I even bumped into Sharon Klima, the owner of Buffalo Stamps and Stuff. We were both watching a fabulous demonstration of Art Parts by Wendy Vecchi. Wendy’s coming to Buffalo to teach a class in September and I hope I’m able to go. I loved her work.
But the best part of today was winning not one, but two raffles. First I won the Martha Stewart Cricut Cake machine which I handed over to Laura since I’m not ever going to be a professional baker.
That was at 11:00 and at 2:00 I won a Slice machine! Can’t beat that kind of luck!
Tomorrow we set up the Scrap-Mart booth for the consumer show on Friday and Saturday. I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to run a business in this industry (and it ain’t easy!), and tomorrow should be another learning experience. I’ve got more to share as soon as I have time to get the post written.
Colored Pencil Class
On Saturday I was lucky enough to attend a class in colored pencil technique taught by Dave Brethauer, creator and owner of Memory Box. I first heard of Dave many years ago when I visited Impress Rubber Stamps in Seattle. Before he opened Memory Box, Dave worked for Impress. When I heard he was coming to Buffalo Stamps and Stuff I knew I wanted to attend. Two of my friends rode up with me, and none of us were disappointed. Dave is a wonderful teacher. He gives clear directions, demonstrates techniques, and makes sure everyone in the class has the individual attention they need. We made five cards in class, all of which I like since they are definitely “clean and simple” cards. My technique needs some work, but I know I’ll enjoy the practice. One thing I learned is that it will be better for me to do work on tiny images without wearing my contact lens which is for improved distance vision. At home that won’t be a problem.
Here are the cards we made.
I’m writing this post on the porch of the cottage Tracy’s family has rented on Consesus Lake for the week. It’s just a perfect day, sunny and warm, but not too hot. Tomorrow morning VERY EARLY I leave for CHA from Buffalo. It will be a very early morning, but I’ll be in Chicago in time for breakfast. I’m really excited about the chance to attend CHA, something I never thought I’d do. I’ve broken down and decided to take my computer so if there’s time at night, I’ll try to post some photos from the show.
Team-up Thursday: Silhouette
Here’s this week’s Team-up Thursday diptych. I love silhouette photos, and Nancy’s of the horses is so lovely. The sky was just perfect.
Photos and Textures
Between exercise class and heading off to another busy day away from home, I thought I’d tried another of Shimelle’s prompts. This one was to try using textures with your photos. I’ve played around with textures a few times, and see lots of examples on blogs that I like a lot. Shimelle’s directions gave me some new ways to play with them. Before today, I usually just played with opacity and levels to get the look I wanted. Today I played around with the blending modes, and it certainly gives one a lot of options! I’m not totally happy with any of these but would like to hear your thoughts about improving them.
Here’s the first image I played with from our trip to Vermont a week ago.
Here’s the first adaptation. I used a texture called “branded” that I downloaded a while ago. Sadly I have no information on where I got it or who created it. I decreased the opacity to 61% and then ran the Pioneer Woman Lovely and Etheral action on it.
The next one uses Kim Klassen’s Simple Things texture at 51% opacity.
Lastly, I played with the photo I took of the rope at Shelbourne Museum.
For this I used a texture called Brown Paper with the opacity at 82%.
Hope to be back with some layouts, but it probably won’t be until tomorrow since our book group meets tonight at our house. I have the photos chosen, just need to get them on the paper!
Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Layout for Prompt 11
One of Shimelle’s sketches featured a page-wide panorama-style photograph which I liked a lot. Amy created one that I loved, but I wanted to scrap some of the photos from our recent road trip and couldn’t choose just one. So I modified the sketch by using one of Cathy Z’s templates (#8) turned sideways. It worked perfectly. I thought I would have Prompt 10, 11, & 12 completed by now, but it’s been a busier weekend than I anticipated and scrapping is rarely a quick event for me. I couldn’t find any place for the journaling so I’m putting it on the back of the layout with a brochure from the Shelbourne Inn.
Cardstock: Bazzil; Patterned paper: October Afternoon & Basic Grey; Alpha stickers: Jenni Bowlin; butterflies cut from a sheet of Graphic 45 tags, Botaniabella; Stamp: Vintage Label 4 Waltzing Mouse; Journal card: MME; template: CZ Designs #8
Photographic Challenges
First of all, our Team-up Thursday post. The prompt this week was Where We Live. Nancy and my interpretations couldn’t have been much different. I considered the house, the front door, the new light and house number, but finally decided on the mailbox. I liked it with the Vintage action from Pioneer Woman so settled on it. Nancy’s bright, summery photo taken on her deck is about as opposite as it could be!
During Picture Spring, one of the prompts was “The Grass at Your Feet.” I took a photo I liked a lot of tiny blue flowers, but I wanted one of the grass with dew on it like Cheri took during the class. Yesterday’s prompt from Shimelle for Love Your Photos, Love Your Pages was pretty much the same. So off I went again. I started out with my DSRL set on aperture priority mode. This is the setting I used for nearly two years, but for the last year I’ve shot in full manual almost all the time. I also wanted a shallow depth of field. Let me just say with a sunny sky, it’s a very bad combination. However I took two of the shots into PSE and used the Pioneer Woman’s Dim the Lights action on them. I ran the action twice and although these were certainly not the photos I intended to take, I find them pretty interesting.
Then I pulled out the trusty point and shoot and got what I was looking for during Picture Spring.
Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Skies
Today’s photos are a bit of a cheat. It was a busy day. I went to Essential Stretch, followed by my first Aqua Zumba class. Then I spent some time trying to get organized for a trip to CHA in just two weeks. I’m really excited to have an opportunity to go to the trade show. I got my airline ticket last night, and today Laura sent me the bar code for my vendor pass. I’ll be staying with Katie who oversees the design team at Scrap-Mart as well as meeting Eva. I’ve met Laura and Howard, the owners, but haven’t had the chance to spend much time with them. I’ll be there five days. I’m sure it will be exhausting, but I think it will also be a lot of fun! This afternoon I had two appointments and by the time I got home we had a downpour so extensive streets were flooding. I do like to take photos that feature skies, and I knew I had several
from the last couple of weeks. So here they are.
These were all taken with my point and shoot, Canon Power Shot SD3500 IS, that I bought before our trip to California in March. I love this camera, and it’s almost always in my purse.
We were on the NY Thruway enroute to Ithaca, NY when I took this shot through the front window of the car. I just loved the look of the clouds.
Taken the same day on the Cornell campus.
This was taken about 10 days ago on my first venture out on the sailboat this year. It was rough on the lake and the spray from the lake water was so chilly, we decided not to put up the sails and to motor down the river instead.
Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Playing with Depth of Field
I love playing with aperture and depth of field. For some reason when I was learning to use my SLR my understanding of aperture came pretty readily. I didn’t have as much success with shutter speed. I understood the concept but it took me a long time before I could get the settings the way I wanted them. I recently bought a new box of crayons specifically for photo practice so I decided they’d be a great way to play with depth of field. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the photos, but they may come in handy for a layout or something some day. I had a good time regardless.
f/1.8
f/1.4
There’s not much difference in aperture here but just the slight change puts more crayons in focus in the first photo.
We had a great day today. We took a good friend sailing, and it was perfect weather for it. I’m really a fair weather sailor. I don’t like the water to be too rough, and I don’t like to be cold. The winds were coming out of the south today so it was just wonderful.
Another pet peeve of mine is all the motor boats that create large wakes and make our little sailboat (one of the smallest on Lake Ontario) tip and bump. Today this sailboat in the distance was about our only company. Fine with me!
And one last photo for today for Amy. The stuffed zucchini was excellent. Tracy is a very reluctant zucchini eater unless it comes in the form of bread or cake. Even he ate all of his and said he’d be willing to have it again. It’s not a great photo because I forgot to take the photo until we’d already dug into it. Thanks for the suggestion, Amy, we’ll be having it again.
Sunday Scrapbooking
I’ve managed to catch up with the assignments for Love Your Photos, Love Your Pages. The first layout is based on a sketch from Prompt 4. It’s quite simple, but it took a really long time for me to finally arrive at an arrangement of paper I liked. The photos are two that I took for an earlier assignment.
Cardstock: Bazzil; patterned paper: Jillibean and October Afternoon; butterfly button: Flair (American Craft); journaling circle: Jillibean; alphas: Nerdy Glittler (Sassafrass Lass) & Mini Market Stickers (October Afternoon); date stamp (Staples)
As soon as I read yesterday’s prompt about adding text or a title to a photograph I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Here’s the layout I did once I got the photograph done.
Patterned paper: Paper Loft; cardstock: from scrap file; chipboard sticker: Mama-Razzi (Bo Bunny)
I forgot to upload the layout so it can be enlarged so here is the journaling:
I have always had a good eye for color. Once I started making cards and scrapbooking my sense of design and space really improved. But nothing has improved my eye as much as taking photographs. Now I see things I would have missed totally before I started taking photos every day. I love this quote because it has been so true for me.
And last, a layout of our garden with photos I took this evening. The garden looks fabulous, and we are enjoying lettuce, zucchini, and cucumbers as well as lots of basil. There are even a couple of pepper plants that are looking much better and have developed some flowers. If all the tomatoes survived, I’ll be doing a lot of canning later this summer! The pole beans have crawled up the poles and attached themselves to the sides of the fence as well. As I was catching up with blogs this weekend I came across a series of posts on Write. Click. Scrapbook. by Moon Ko. There was lots of inspiration but even nicer, a set of free templates. As soon as I saw this one I knew it would work perfectly for a garden layout. I’m planning to go back and do one for May and June as well.
Patterned Paper: Bo Bunny; Journaling spot: Scenic Route; template: Moon Ko
Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Inheritance Layout
This layout is based on one of Shimelle’s sketches and a wonderful digital layout by Amy. After I took the photos for this photo prompt, I knew I wanted to scrap one of them. I decided that the photo with my sewing machine and my mother’s tools best supported my “story.”
Patterned paper: Basics by Basic Grey; Sticker border & tab: Basics by Basic Grey; Cardstock: Smoky Shadow by Papertrey Ink; alpha stickers: Scenic Route
If you click on the layout you will be able to read the journaling more easily. The last line seems to have been distorted by the photographer. (sigh)
Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Three
The third photo prompt this week was to photograph a group of three. My mother died when I was only 20. She didn’t have much jewelry, and I have very few things that belonged to her. My favorite is her sterling silver thimble which I have used for sewing for the last 40 years. The scissors also belonged to her as did this wooden spool of thread. I thought I had several of the spools of thread from her old sewing box, but I can only find this one. It just occurred to me that the needle might count as four objects–oh, well. I decided to try some different arrangements, all with different light.
The first one was taken in my craft room on a piece of white foam board that I use when taking photos of paper craft projects. The daylight florescent lights were turned on. I always have to do some color correction and levels corrections because the light is very poor here even in the morning. Other than that, it’s SOOC.
The second photo was taken in our bedroom which has light from the same direction as my craft room, but there are three large windows rather than just one. Nonetheless, I had to turn on the lights to get a good exposure here as well, so I set the white balance on tungsten. Our yard is almost completely shaded and light is always at a premium in the house. I set the three objects on an old hymnal that belonged to my grandmother. She inscribed it in 1881.
The last photo was taken in our den which is in the front of the house and has two small windows. Since one window faces east I didn’t have to turn on any lights here. I arranged the three objects on my sewing machine, and except for sharpening didn’t make any adjustments to the photo.
I’m quite sure I’ll be scrapping one of these photos this weekend.
Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Photographing Florals
I was away for the first four days of Shimelle’s class, and it will take awhile to catch up. It was a lovely morning here and rain was forecast for later (and did, indeed, arrive) so I decided I should get the outside photo prompt of florals done. My Shasta daisies are beautiful right now so I decided to work with them. Shimelle suggested taking the photos from different angles and perspectives so that’s what I tried to do. None of the photos were altered in PSE except to sharpen them. All were taken with my 50mm 1.4 lens. I’m including the aperture settings for my friend, Nancy, since she and I had a discussion about them earlier today. As always, I’d be interested in hearing which ones you like the best. Here are eight of them in no particular order:
1. f/1.8
2. f/8.0
3. Having the bee arrive was truly a lucky accident! f/8.0
4. f/1.8
5. f/6.3
6. f/8.0
7. f/1.8
8. f/2.2
Road Trip
Tracy and I arrived home from a five day road trip Wednesday night. Yesterday I took off with three friends to Auroa, New York for lunch at Pumpkin Hill and a trip to the MacKenzie Child shop. Today was equally busy: my botanical drawing class, visiting a friend, and then grocery shopping. I managed to get one of the three photo prompts completed for Shimelle’s class which I’ll post as soon as I have them edited. I hope by the end of the weekend to be caught up with the class.
Our first stop was in Hyde Park, NY to visit my brother, his significant other, and my two nieces. We started out with a great Thai dinner, did some hiking (in incredible heat!), and celebrated the Fourth with a cookout. I didn’t take many photos. Maybe it was the heat, but I did take a few on our hike through Poet’s Walk near Red Hook. There are some great views of the Hudson River and the Kingston Bridge.
My niece, Stephanie, Kevin, and Rocky
Water for Rocky
From Hyde Park we drove to Woodstock, NY. I hadn’t been there in over 30 years, but it hasn’t changed a lot. We had a lot of fun browsing through the little shops, and had lunch at The Garden Cafe.
After lunch we took off for Lenox, Massachusetts and the James Taylor and Carole King concert at Tanglewood. It was well into the 90’s when we arrived at 2:30 and folks were already lining up for the show. The gates didn’t open until 4:00 so we continued into town and found a great deli where we picked up sandwiches and a bottle of wine for our picnic on the lawn. We got back to the grounds around 3:30 and once the gates opened, found a decent spot in the shade without much difficulty. Although we were a long way from the stage, the video screens and fabulous sound system made it seem as if you were right up front. This was the third show of the weekend, all of them sold out at 18,000 folks per concert. It was a sea of people, but a very warm and friendly crowd. We had great conversations with “neighbors” both before the concert and during the intermission.
The concert itself couldn’t have been better. I saw both James Taylor and Carole King in concert when I was in college and they were just as great as ever. They’ve assembled a great band (Jame’s original) as well as backup singers and they sang all the old favorites. The special treat was a guest appearance by YoYo Ma who came on twice after intermission to accompany them on Sweet Baby James and You’ve Got a Friend. What a fabulous surprise!
On Saturday we drove to Vermont, had breakfast at Up For Breakfast, our favorite breakfast spot, and spent quite a while at Northshire Books. I picked up a copy of Allegra Goodman’s new book, The Cookbook Collector, which I am thoroughly enjoying. Also added several more books to my Amazon Wish List. If only I could read as fast as I can find new books! Tracy and I laughed when we saw this sign in the sidewalk outside the book store. I’m not sure how we’ve missed it before.
We had lunch in Middlebury, VT and were in Burlington by late afternoon. Our niece, Jasmine, had made reservations at the Blue Bird Cafe for dinner and it was fabulous. I failed to take any photos, however. The next morning we had reservations for breakfast at the Shelburne Inn at Shelburne Farms. What an amazing place! Here are a few of my favorite photos:
The view from our table; because it was so hot, the view of the lake and hills beyond in New York were covered with haze.
The view from the road.
Shelburne Farm is a working, sustainable agriculture, farm. They have a herd of Swiss Brown cows that they milk to create wonderful cheeses. They have daily tours, many children’s activities, and opportunities to participate in the working of the farm.
The barn and cheese making facility is almost as beautiful as the inn.
Unrelated to the farm, but also wonderful, is the Shelburne Museum. It was too hot to take in all it has to offer, but we spent quite some time at the Ansel Adams exhibit which was air-conditioned. This is the third Ansel Adam’s exhibit we’ve seen in as many years. Each one has been wonderful with a different focus. I had never seen many of the photographs hung here. About a third came from the collection held at Mount Holyoke, a third from the Johnson Museum at Cornell (I had no idea they had a collection of Ansel Adam photographs), and a third from the private collections of the Wallace Stegner family. We did take some time to visit a small collection of Warren Kimble paintings and to tour the steamboat “Ticonderoga.”
The staircase in the Lighthouse where the Warren Kimble exhibit was hung.
I always envision documenting these trips and posting day by day, but it never seems to happen. So thanks for hanging in there on this long post!
Team-up Thursday: Water
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.
