Doing a little catch up

A quick picture of a yummy quiche I whipped up the other night for dinner.  There was barely enough left for lunches the next day.  So here is my sad little story...time flew through November and  before I knew it December 1st came and went!  I have been busy and not able to get to my computer with my pictures in a very timely manner.  So here I am, well into December playing catch up with my little blog.

 This year I participated in a little gift exchange for Halloween, at work.  I really enjoy putting together little gifts and packaging them up in cute ways so this was right up my alley.  I got a little involved with paper clay this year thanks to a book I picked up at B&N.  "Glitterville's handmade Halloween", such cute ideas, I had try my hand at some of them.  Crepe paper festooning, a big black spider, a pumpkin head knob for the top of a gift box.  A candy corn figure to top a bottle of candy corn colored M&M's.  

 Skip through November where I made half a dozen pies and a big dish of sweet potatoes (no pictures, there just wasn't the time!)  Now into December, I've started a little project with bottle brush trees, the picture below is the bleaching process.  I wanted to get rid of the green so I can do some pretty pastels.  I'm still working on them but I will get pictures soon.

 I tried my hand at window painting and spent some time painting a snow scene on the windows outside my library.  It was very fun, don't know why I haven't tried it before.

I have several projects in the works and will be better about snapping pictures and posting them (I hope).  Now you're caught up on some of the things I've been working on.  I hope your holiday preparations are well on their way.  I'll talk to you again soon.

October Birthday

It's time for another birthday for my friend who loves purple.  This year I found a simple chip-wood box and painted it with a lovely purple metallic paint. (One of my new favorites!) drilled a hole in the middle of the lid and added the over-sized matching silk flower.  Then I filled if with lots of sparkly goodies for her to enjoy on her birthday.  I added a multiple layered tag with a special message just for her.

I found this bin of cool keys at Micheal's and purchased one to add a simple decoupaged message on the side. She can hang it on her Christmas tree or next to her bed to remind her that she hold's the key to her dreams.

Have a great day.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Last day of Balloon Fiesta

Mass ascension is an amazing site.  It's even more beautiful down on the field.  But, this year there was no wiggle in the schedule to get down there to watch it.  I stopped on my way to school and took these looking back toward the valley.  No I wasn't late, but I really wanted to stay out and take more shots!

These were flying past as I was making myself get back in the car.  I've been through 41 years of these fiestas and I still get a kick out of watching them fly.

Wow, state fair- over, balloon fiesta- over, book fair in just two weeks! This year is flying by.  I can't seem to catch my breath, but it's been good.  Have a great day and I'll talk to you again soon.

Girly onesies

I mentioned in my previous post that I'd put the pictures of Baby Cassidy's onesies up on my blog, so fun and girly! Here they are.  I used a combination of cutting techniques, my Cricut did most of the work but for some of the designs I used die-cuts or just plan ole drawing it and cutting it out.

 The butterflies have some embroidery on their antenna and the flight dashes.  Some have buttons that I sewed on and then added glue to the knots and stitches to hold them on good and tight.

 I had a lot of fun mixing and matching fabric to make the different designs.  I can't decide which one is my favorite.  I also made them in a variety of sizes to follow Miss C's growing.

 My friends said that the onesies for their first little one were one of the most used and useful gifts they got.  It was fun to make them more knowing that they could really use them.

There you have it.  A whole bunch of onesies!  Have a great week! I'll talk to you again soon.

 

Cupcake Onesies

Some good friends of ours are having another little one and I got a special request to make a few onesies like I made for their first little person.  The first was a boy and pictures of his onesies can be found here.  This time they are having a girls so I went wild with all the girly colors.  Then I packaged them up like cupcakes.  I got some girly baby washcloths to use as "frosting".  First I folded the onesie in to thirds long ways then poofed out the washcloth and rolled the bottom third of it up in the onesie.  Then I fluffed it up and  put it in a coffee filter then tied it up with a small ribbon.  I tried large cupcake papers first, but they were not quite big enough.

They turned out pretty cute.  I'll post pictures of the actual onesies a bit later.  Hope you have a great weekend.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Floral Friday

I've been snapping pics of flowers all summer, saving them for fall and winter when I need a little reminder that spring and summer are right around the corner.  I know this is only the fourth day of fall and so far the weather has been lovely, not boiling hot heat or freezing cold but I know the cold is coming....

I took this picture and thought it would be a good candidate for more Photoshop actions play.  So here are a couple of my attempts.  The actions can be found at blog here.  The lady who puts these together is so nice to share her creative ideas using Photoshop and I've had fun trying them out.

More later.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Playing in Photoshop

 The month of September has been crazy busy and full of fun photography opportunities.  This past weekend I spent 2 full days photographing my sweet niece as she competed in the State Fair Queen's competition.  She didn't win but we are all so proud of her, she did a great job representing her county.  These are some pictures I took late Saturday afternoon while walking around the mid-way. 

I recently found this great blog with some very fun and free Photoshop actions.  She actually has almost the same picture as the one at the top of the page on her blog.  You can check out her blog here.  The action I used for these pictures is called "Carnival".  I'm slowly teaching myself how to use Photoshop elements a little at a time. For me, it is very slow... I learn one thing and then the next time I open up the program I've already forgotten what I learned! *Sigh* My brain is not as young as it used to be.  I'll keep plugging away at it though.

The start of school has just sapped all the energy right out of me so my little blog has been neglected.  I'm hoping to get in the swing of things soon.  Thanks for stopping by and I'll talk to you again.

Butterfly Bouquet

 More paper butterflies.  I started making these with no real idea as to what I would use them for I just thought they would be pretty.  I used several different inks so that I could get a variation of tones on each butterfly.  Then one day a couple of weeks ago, I was browsing around some of my favorite sites on the web and I saw this post at Saucy's Sprinkles she used feather butterflies but it gave me the idea to try it with my paper ones.  I still need to make more to really fill out my bouquet but, here is the start.

The peacock green is from Tim Holtz's special addition "Spring collection" I'm hoping he makes it a permanent color.  I also used CTMH colors of sunflower, dutch blue, sorbet and sunset.  They work great because just like TH's inks you can layer the colors and they won't get all muddy, you get tones from each of them.  It's still a work in progress but I like it so far.

Have a great weekend, we're supposed to get more rain, Yay!  Love the rain.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Back to School

 When it get's to be the end of July I start thinking about the first day of school.  One of my first thoughts is school supplies.  For the last few years our church has collected new backpacks filled with school supplies to pass out to children in the community who's families are not able to purchase everything they need to start school.  I have so much fun picking out a couple of backpacks and filling them with supplies, of course everything is color coordinated!  This year though, they found a place that would help with filling the backpacks so as a family, we just donated a couple of packs with money in the pocket to help pay for the supplies.  Since I didn't get to shop for school supplies this year I put together a little school supply cup for my library aide.  She loves all things purple.  The butterfly theme happened by accident or serendipity I guess.  I found the cute polka dot cup in the dollar bins at target and then just started collecting purple supplies.  When I went to put it all together I had the tape with purple butterflies, the hand sanitizer bottle has butterflies all over the label and I had been playing around with an idea for butterflies on stems.  So this is how it came together.

 I was inspired to try making some butterflies after I visited this site in addition one m 
Her butterflied just fascinated me I wanted to try to make something similar.  I used stamps and ink and scraps of newspaper for my layers.  I kind of like how they turned out.  I wrapped the wire with floral tape so I could use these in floral arrangements too.

Well I'm off to school, the second day,  hopefully to inspire and encourage more kiddos that reading is fun and the library is a great place to be.  Have a wonderful week.

I'll talk to you again soon.

July highlights

July has come and gone, it flew by so quickly I can't believe it's over.  These are just a few of the highlights from the month.  Mornings were lovely and mild with beautiful sunrises, then the heat arrived and the only thing I had energy to do was sit in front of the fan and drink tall glasses of iced tea.

I practiced with my new camera and long lens taking pictures of the fireworks.  The city puts on a really nice display practically in our backyard.

I did some photo shoots for friends, these early risers watched one of my morning shoots in the park.

I played with paper and stamps and die cuts in the studio and participated in a card exchange.

We took the train to Santa Fe and wandered around the plaza and thru several galleries.  We had a great lunch at The Shed and rode the train back home.  I'm back to school in just a few short days but July was fun I am sorry to see it go.

Have a great week and I'll talk to you soon!