Photo Puzzles!

I loved this idea from Impress Your Kids so much that as soon as I saw it on The Crafty Crow, I just knew we had to make it. Eleanor didn’t really have a gift to give her papa on Father’s Day. Seth, on the other hand, not only had a gift he had made at school but also knew a perfect gift to buy. Therefore, a craft for Eleanor was in order. A quick one that didn’t require shopping or a lot of set up. For that matter, it couldn’t require very much of anything on my part since I’ve been stretched so thin lately. This fit the bill perfectly.

Seth couldn’t resist joining in. As a matter of fact, he enjoyed the project so much he’s made more.

Even though all Eleanor did was line up craft sticks and slather glue on the back of a picture she was still quite proud to give her papa a puzzle with a picture of herself on it. In fact she must have re-wrapped and given it to him at least 3 times that day. Then she gave it to me a few times and the following day she “gave” the gift yet again to her day care provider. After all, wrapping and giving are awfully fun, you know.

sara+h

I was recently lucky enough to receive a couple of prints from Sarah. Actually it was last month. I wanted to wait until I framed them to show you but I can’t wait any longer as she’s having a giveaway and I thought you should know. The photos I took of them are horrible but I wanted you to see how fabulously they go with my wall colors. The squash is for the kitchen, the pear for the dining room. It’s hard to tell here as it’s difficult for me to photograph photographs, but the shade of my dinning room wall matches exactly one of the gradations in the pear. Amazing. How did she know, as at the time she had never been to my house before? See much better quality images of these prints here and here, respectively.

Sarah sell prints of her Polaroids and I’m coveting her Astrid’s Flowers print to put up next to the pear. Sign up for her 200th post give away, purchase a print from her shop, or just go enjoy her flickr stream. You won’t be disappointed.

Photo Meet-up

On Saturday I got together with some Flickr friends for an afternoon break of cupcakes and photography.  It was dreamy. I was going to resist the cupcake portion but one can only look at a table full of cupcakes for so long, no?

Pick out one of your own here. The conversation was just as nice as the treats. How could it not be with Martha, Sarah, Dana, and Julia? I’m sure we looked pretty comical; five women all taking pictures of cupcakes. I felt the silliest of all sitting there with my Olympus Stylus 1030 dinky point and shoot, surrounded by REAL photographers with REAL cameras. There were digital SLRs galore, rented ginormous lenses and vintage Polaroids. Although I had plenty of jealous moments, the session did make me realize that I still have some learning to do with my point and shoot. I should focus, pun intended, on mastering the point and shoot before whipping out the credit card for the SLR.

After the yummy cupcakes at Cupcake, we headed to Art + Architecture next door. It’s a nice little architectural salvage place. A little pricey but most such places are. We’re pretty sure the people who work there thought we were nuts. I guess I would wonder too if five women seemingly randomly walked in to my place of business and started photographing everything in site. At any rate, you can see a few of my shots on flickr, but here’s my favorite shot of the night.

I hope that we get together again so I can polish my point and shoot skills. Maybe by next time I’ll figure out how to use my Rolleicord. Even if neither of those items pan out I’d still enjoy the company.

Jack-o-lanterns

Just playing around with the camera settings and our freshly carved pumpkins. The candle light setting:

The possessed version:

Kids and Photography

My sister just sent these pics to me. Seth took them back in August with her camera. I remember telling him not to take pictures of my face. (I was in a mood.) I am of course biased, but I really like how they turned out. I’m enjoying watching the progression of his photography skills. He’s catching on much faster than me.

My New Toy

So Martha’s got me all excited about TtV. TtV stands for Through the Viewfinder and is basically when you take a picture with one camera through the viewfinder of another camera. I really want to try it, but first I needed to find an appropriate camera. For those of you that don’t know, my parent’s home is a treasure trove of goodies. I inquired about this Rolleicord I remembered and found it tucked away on a shelf. Here’s a triple exposure shot of me taken in the 70s in Tennessee. Most likely my dad took it with this camera:

Hubby thinks it’s creepy but I like it. The photo is a little crisper in person but still has that ghostly look to it. Like how I did a different pose for each shot? I might have been coached.

The camera was fairly dusty but it cleaned up well. There’s still a roll of film in it, if you can believe it. My mom also pulled out 4 rolls of film from the fridge dated between 1971 and 1989. I realize there a good chance it won’t work but honestly how can I not give the old film a chance? Not only may I be able to take some fun real film shots but what about the half a roll of film that’s been sitting in there all these years. There could be some gems on there. But first…… I need to read the manual as I’m still a bit baffled by the available settings.

Painting on a Picture

I just have to say I have one of the greatest friends EVER. Approximately 6 times a year this amazing woman not only has a party but a pARTy. Not only does she take the time to clean her house and pick up some nibbles to entertain us but she also organizes an art project for us to work on. I know this takes a tremendous amount of effort as I’ve thought through hosting one myself. She’s got to come up with a project, make samples, purchase and often prepare the materials and then patiently wait for us to catch on to whatever it is she’s showing us. This month it was painting with acrylics on a digital photo. We each supplied our own digital photos that she laser printed out for us. Then following her lead we created amazing pieces. Here are the two piece I did. On the left is the photo I used, the right is what I did with it, description beneath each piece.

This lovely penstemon sits in my native prairie garden like it’s been there forever when in fact I planted it last spring. Image mounted on wood block. Negative space painted out with green, flower petals left untouched. Strip of aspen added to side as an accent piece.

Image of an out building at my CSA farm. Image also mounted to a wood block. This time I painted over the teal and coral colors to make them pop. I liked how using the same color for the flowers, window boxes and door tied it all together.

I was a little nervous about working with acrylics as it was yet another new experience for me. But it was easier than I expected. See Jen’s fab tutorial to do one of your own or to check out what the others in the group did.

100th Post Giveaway

Miss me? I decided a 100th post deserved some reflection. You know, things like do I want to continue blogging and am I achieving the goals I set out to. In the end the answer is yes and so much more. What I need to do is find a better balance between reading other blogs and keeping up on my own posts. Not to mention flickr. I’m a flickr addict and need to control that a bit more. I’ve been rather surprised at the number of friendships that have resulted from joining this online community. I absolutely love it but I need to keep a grip or I’ll loose site of my original intent of creative motivation.

So, in honor of my 100th post and decision to keep moving forward – a giveaway! It’s not my best work and not my worst but I had fun making it. Ever since I saw Kathy’s post on Art Projects for Kids I was dying to try my hand at this. I love projects that combine digital photos with other media. Who cares if the original project was meant for kids? I want to try several more of these but I’ve decided to give this one away. It’s a digital pic of a float plane getting ready to take off from Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota. I’ve altered/enhanced/added on top of and surrounding the pic with watercolor painting. I’m quite a novice when it comes to watercolor and in fact this is my first real go with watercolor pencils and sticks. So if you’re interested, leave a comment on this post by end of day Tuesday, the 24th of June and I will randomly select a winner. Your comment can be as simple as “pick me!” but what I’d really like to know is what do you want to see more of on this site? Projects, tutorials, kid stuff, recipes… you name it. Alternately, you could let me know what posts I’ve done that you like the most. I’m very intrigued. Let me know.

Still Life

Here she goes again…

Yep, I’ve joined another photo group. But this time I’m worried I’m not up for the challenge. It’s a still life week long challenge started by Martha. Critiquing is encourage, which is great but scares me a little. Also a good still life usually isn’t stumbled upon. Especially in my lego ridden, over crowded little home. As I walked around today looking for a suitable shot I realized I wasn’t at all happy with the state of my house. There wasn’t even a good clear area to create a still life. Every surface is covered in clutter and I had no desire to photograph clutter or the plethora of toys that make up much of the clutter. The macro challenge was easy because I was just focusing on the one element of a close up shot. The food group is a little harder because I have a limited subject and trust me when I say you don’t always want to see what I eat. But still life involves multiple techniques, larger areas and infinite subject matter. All making for a design traffic jam in my head.

We’ll see how it goes. I promise they won’t all be of food using my macro. This one just clicked for me. Check out the other participants photos here. There are some amazing shots.

A World of Color

Hmmmmm……. I went macro again. Blue was harder than I expected. Maybe the world needs a little more blue? Of course, ask a potter and they’ll say glaze in blue if you want to guarantee a sale. Then why did I have such a problem finding blue items to photograph? As I look around I see a lot of blue, but it’s not stuff that I want to photograph. Maybe I need to do something about this.

Thank you to Curious Bird for a fun colorful week.