Day 11 - On Reflection

Todays assigment was to photograph a reflected image. So, out came my trusty PartyLite Mirror and I whipped some decorations off the tree.

I'm really pleased with this one - might have to find some nice shiny wrapping paper for the pressies this year :)

Day 8 - Camera Artistry

Day 8 was Camera Artistry - the assignment .... to produce a Seasonal Macro Triptych - photographing one subject in three macro abstract 'sections'.

I love triptych pictures - we've all seen them for sale as canvas prints in the shops. You know, the ones with three canvases that make up the one picture.

Here's my attempt. Unfortunatley PSE is on the other computer, so they are individual photos at the moment, but I will put them together as one later and re-post them.

Day 10 - Clear Visual Definition

Caught up on another couple of assigments this morning, and managed to get todays done.

Day 8 was Clear Visual Definition which focused on ..... differential focusing. We had to produce 2 shots using single point focusing and a shallow depth of field. The first shot was focused on the background subject, and the second on the foreground subject.

I had a lot of fun playing with this one, with different subjects, but it was the Santa ones which I really liked. The lighting isn't fantastic, but at least I got the technique! I can see my Christmas photos being SOOO much more artistic this year!

Day 9 - Blinded By The Light

Christmas would not be complete without candles! And today's challenge was to photograph some .... EASY you say???? NOT!

It's really difficult to get the focusing right, and not lose the flame in the flicker. I also found the lighting levels a bit difficult to come to terms with, but I'm fairly pleased with what I've got so far. I've left everything set up so I can have another play tonight when it's dark (and Ian's retrieved the tripod from the loft lol).





I think the first one is my favourite. All PartyLite products, of course ;-)

I can't believe it ......

My Festive Self Portrait joined a shortlist of 20/74 to be voted on to win a prize! There will be three winners ... the poll closed at midday today, so I'm now waiting with bated breath to find out the results!

Day 6 - Custom and Practice

Had to skip day 5 but I'll come back to that one later :)

Day 6 was to get some practice in ready for those all important 'traditional' shots like unwrapping the pressies ...... but taking a different slant on things with composition.

James had ANOTHER day off school because the water pipes had burst, so he became my test subject ... and very well he did too.

I took lots of photos, but here are my favourite three!

12 Days of Christmas - Day 4

Due to the snow and school closures, I didn't get around to doing days 2 and 3 yet, but here is today's assignment.

We were challenged to take a festive walk and take photographs while we were out. I went into the garden to take mine, and I'm so glad I did otherwise I would have missed the gorgeous icicles outside our bathroom window!

Here are just three of the photos I took.

12 Days of Christmas - Day 1

Today we were playing with our White Balance! Now lift your mind up a few feet out of the gutter - it's a setting on the camera which changes the way the camera sees light.

It's amazing the difference the right settings make - the following pictures are the same, just with different WB settings.

In order of appearence:- Auto White Balance (AWB); Cloudy; Daylight; Daylight Colours - Florescent; Daylight White - Florescent; Flash; Shade; Tungsten; White Light - Florescent.




I've taken another set of photos with my bear sitting on the dining room table, so I can see the difference between natural lighting and tungsten lighting (I'll post those later).

12 Days of Christmas - Self Portrait

Our pre-workshop homework was to take a festive self portrait - so here's mine.

12 Days of Christmas!

Well, it's started :) Cheryl Johnson is running a 12 day workshop called The 12 Days Of Christmas ...... and I got a place!

Had a small hic-up before I even started :( Ian took my camera to work with him a couple of weeks ago ..... and forgot to bring home the download cable! So, I've got to wait until tonight before I can get any of my photos off the camera. But, it'll give me a bit longer to play around with the first topic - White Balance :) It's about time I learnt how to use my camera properly :D

Watch this space lol

12 Days of Christmas

I've just signed up for a freebie workshop over on Cheryl Johnson's photography blog - starts 1st December and is titled the 12 Days Of Christmas. Hopeing to learn how to take some fantastic festive shots this year :)

I've Been Playing With PSE!

I've used Photoshop Elements forever (or so it seems) as my photo editing programme, but only ever really used it to crop photos. So I thought it was about time to learn how to use the other tools properly.

Step 1 - went out and bought a copy of Digital Photo Magazine with a DVD of PSE Tutorials (actually, it was the 40 border templates that caught my eye)

Step 2 - had a play with some of the tutorials on the free DVD following the instructions in the magazine.

Had great fun - not sure I totally understand why/how it worked, but as long as I can achieve the effects I guess that's the important part.

Here's a couple of piccies of my results :)

Lith Printing Technique

Before After

Mono Handprinted Look

Before After

I'll post some more later :)

I've Learnt Something New :)

Been playing around tonight, and learnt something new ...... extraction!

No, nothing to do with teeth - it's removing the background from a picture so you can superimpose the image onto another background ..... you know, like putting your head on a supermodel's body (that's my next project LOL).

I'm quite pleased with this layout - pretty simple (I'm still learning and loving every minute!).

Ooooh - I do love a FREE class!

It's over at Elle's Studio Blog, and is a THREE WEEK Journalling Class featuring twelve wonderful designers:-

Ali Edwards
Becky Novacek
Christine Middlecamp
Debee Ruiz
Dina Wakley
Jennifer Johner
Lisa Dickinson
Marcy Penner
May Flaum
Melissa Mann
Stephanie Howell
Tara Anderson



Who else will be joining in???

Yayyyyy - PAY DAY!!!

July's Pay Day is FINALLY here, and I'm so excited - because now I can book myself on a couple of online workshops :)

I just can't decide which ones .....

Inspiration Inspired

Moving Into Manual Mode

Adventures In Scrapbooking - Use Your Stash

Book of Stories

and Me - The Abridged Version - all over on Big Picture Scrapbooking.

I'd love to be able to do them all, but as I'm also hoping DH will chip in towards (or even buy me) a Cricut Expression (£300ish) I better not push my luck too far LOL

Tigers Two!

Well, the school holidays have been a bit mixed so far.

Had a great day on Monday at Paradise Wildlife Park - first layout below :)

Then spent Wednesday evening at A&E with James :( - he had a bite on his neck, which turned into Impetigo. So, I'm now pouring antibiotics down his throat 4 times a day (he's being really good though).

We've also got a houseguest for the weekend - he's about 8" long and squeeks a lot :) He's joined us because he had a bit of a scuffle with his flatmate and came off worse! Got a lovely lump of skin taken out of his back ..... and I have the pleasure of putting his cream on twice a day. Be fine ... so long a I don't get him and James mixed up LOL.

Can you guess what it is yet???? LOL

Started my Paris Album!

We had a fantastic time last weekend on our trip to Paris, despite arriving 3 hours late because of an alarm in the tunnel :( Still, we had plenty of time to sightsee before heading out for an EIGHT course dinner at Helene D'Arroze Restaurant, and then a leisurely stroll round the Jardin de Tuileries and along the Seine on Sunday morning. All that food, and I STILL managed to lose 2 1/2 lb!

I've made a start on the album .... here are the first few pages - I'd love to know what you think :D






Kit is Oh Shabby by RandiOh Designs and the last page uses a template by Jen Caputo

Altered Buildings & Blog Hops

I have had SOOO much fun this evening with the Altered Artspirations Challenge over at Scrapbookgraphics - the challenge was to alter a building, monument or landmark.

I watched the Dome being built, as the Dockland Scout Project base is directly opposite - in fact, this picture was taken from the Blue Bridge at the entrance to the dock.

It took FOREVER to 'colour' in the roof, as I've lost the pen to my graphics tablet so had to use the mouse (which is why it looks a bit raggedy). But I'm really pleased with the finished results.

I'd LOVE to know what you think!



The flowers came as part of the kit which is being given away FREE from the Digital Design House on their Blog Hop. Check it out - the kit is absolutely gorgeous!!




To join the hop, start at Kate's Blog - have fun!

Weekly Verb Album - Weeks 12 and 13

OK - so they are now a bit out of order as I still need to get the parcels for weeks 7-11, but here are weeks 12 (Learn) and 13 (Comfort).

I did consider using FOOD as the subject of my comfort page, but as I'm trying to lose weight and NOT use food for comfort, I decided to go with HOME instead.




I printed out the front cover today onto white Bazzill Cardstock, and the texture on the card gave the page a totally different look which I loved - so I've decided to print the whole album on white Bazzill (note to self - buy more cardstock LOL).

More AJC Mini Album Pages

Finished a few more tonight, and changed the layout on a couple as I suddenly realised I hadn't thought about the BACKS of each page. So, here are the pages for weeks 2-5 .....

Altered Artspirations #52 - Altered Woman

Had a look round the Scrapbookgraphics Forum tonight, and spotted the Altered Artspirations Challenge - ALTERED WOMAN. The ephemera picture is GORGEOUS, and eventhough I'm too late to enter mine into the challenge (it finished on the 12th), I still had a go.



The challenge was to use the "Mysterious Woman" ephemera on a piece of altered art. I loved the mysterious element, so played on that.

All the other elements come from the Altered Journal Caravan Provisions Parcels 13 and 15 by Tangie Baxter and Amanda Sexton.

Art Journal Caravan Update

Hmmmm - I'm SOOOO far behind with this :( But I did manage to transfer all my digi kits from the laptop to the EHD last night, and rewarded myself with a bit of digi-scrapping time. I also treated myself to a couple of new downloads - the Basic Grey Templates (1) from Wendyzine Scraps being one of them, which I'm using to put together an AJC Mini Album. I decided to use all three styles, alternating them to make the book more eclectic - a bit like me :)

I did a few pages tonight, and hope to catch up with the rest over the next few days.





All the papers and elements were taken from the Studio Tangie AJC Provisions Kits.

Not sure yet whether to just print them off onto cardstock and use that as the pages, or whether to buy the chipboard albums and stick the pages to that. Not sure if it would make it too thick though, as it would be 52 pages plus covers :O

Been playing again :)

I've been having a play with my new PSE8 (yep ... another night when I can't sleep, although this time it's through PAIN! My whole body aches after only 3 evenings as dresser for the Gang Show, and there's still 3 performances to go!).

Bearing in mind that I've jumped from version 2 straight up to 8 (note to self - don't leave it so long to upgrade next time LOL), I managed to work most things out. However, I'm buggered if I can find my Magic Eraser tool! Think I'll hunt for that one when I'm a bit more awake :)

Here's the fruit of my labour - I absolutely adore this photo of Joe, as it really shows off his personality.



Papers from LivEdesigns Summer Sun Fun - Playground, Stripeys, SurfsUp and Sidewalk. Journaling Block from Jessica Sprague Home Away From Home kit.

Ooooops - long time, no post!

Where did the time go??? Still, I'm back - and DH has been up to his wonderfulness again and bought me a 1TB External Hard Drive to store all my photos, digi-kits and digi-layouts on. I transferred what I had on my C-drive last night, and have used up a miniscule amount of space on the EHD! I'M IN HEAVEN ..... looks like I'll have to buy some more digi-kits LOL.

Got a busy week this week, as the boys are in the local Scout Gang Show and muggins here volunteered to help as a dresser :) and yes .... I'm having SOOOO much fun, although it is really tiring having to pick clothes up off the floor for a bunch of pre-teen girls LOL. I WILL get them hanging stuff up by the end of the week :) So glad I've got boys LOL.

Been Pooter-less Again!!!

Yes, my faithful old PC died last week :( She's been a loyal and faithful friend for 7 years, but this time, she'd had enough!

So - I'm sitting here blogging on my new (well, new to me) PC with a NINETEEN inch screen!!! I feel like I'm at the control panel for NASA LOL.

And it's arrived just in the nick of time, as we're running a Cyber Crop over at FaithScrappers UK this weekend. It starts a 7pm on Friday, with classes and challenges being posted all through Friday evening and Saturday. Sunday will be class-less, but we will have a Bible Study during the day.

Our CCs are pretty relaxed - there's no pressure to join in with the classes or challenges, you just pick the ones you fancy having a go at. And if you want to do them all ...... FAB! It's a chance to learn some new techniques, create some meaningful projects, chat with other crafters and have fun. The theme for this Cyber Crop is The Power Of Prayer!

Come on over and join us - if you're not already a members you'll need to join. Just register for membership (let me know you've done it babsm316@yahoo.co.uk and I'll approve the membership asap) and then let the herma fly!!!

SEEK - Art Journal Caravan Page

Here's another one I worked on in the wee hours - the parcels of supplies for the AJC are just SOOOO scrummy, I can't wait to play with them. Really should start downloading them during the day instead of the evening though, then maybe I'll get to bed before 2am LOL.

When I saw that the Verb of the Week was SEEK, this verse from scripture sprang instantly to mind. It's one of my favourites, and has a special place in my heart.

All the elements come from Tangie Baxter's Parcel 6 from the Art Journal Caravan. If you love these parcels as much as I do, then join the Caravan and you'll be able to buy each weekly parcel for half price!