Friday Finds and Random Five April 4

This week I was excited to find Pussy Willows at the grocery store! Every year I want to buy some and never do. Not this time. They don't grow anywhere near here. I do remember having some around growing up but it might be that my mom purchased them also. I never saw any as I explored the countryside as a child. I had such fun photographing these.

Dip-tic template by Kim Klassen from our Sart2Finish Class, Lesson Eight. 

I altered it to make the top trip-tic.

All shots with my 100mm, except the far right on the top group was with my 50.

This photo contains a Random To Do list from Wednesday of this week.

1. Print a photo for the Gallery Exhibit for the local Arts Festival.
2. Plant my purple potatoes that are growing without dirt.
3. Make tuna salad.
4. Change the registration on my car windshield. (Yes, that's a razor blade.)
5. Plant some poppy seeds at work.

How many got crossed off? Three. Those are good odds since there was a lot more on the written list.
Linking up with Kim for Friday Finds.
And Nancy for Random Five Friday. (Well Nancy's on Spring Break this week but you can visit her lovely blog anyway.)
Hope everyone has an awesome weekend!

It's Friday!

It's Friday Finds and Random 5 time again! Gosh the weeks go fast!

1. A new class I'm taking is Title Express by Tiffany Tillman over a Scrapaneers. This girl knows her fonts and everything about fonts! I've learned some pretty cool things and have been quite inspired. Here is the first page I did for week 2 homework. Originally I didn't have any embellishing on it but I've recent purchased Simply: Embellish by Captivated Visions. (I love her stuff.) So I added the edge and elements. All the brush work with the fonts are mine. Dirty Lines, Dirty Circles, Fragments Too, and Watercolor Brushes available HERE.

2. Have I mentioned we have a plane? Well it's been in the shop since mid January for some avionics work that didn't get finished right last fall. Just got it back yesterday. The good part about that is no one spent money on gas while it was there. And of course this meant a trip to Amarillo to pick it up and see my girlfriend and hang out in the antique shops on 6th St. I don't know why they call it 6th St. because the map says 6th Ave. I'm sure that must be confusing to tourists. One cool find was this fluted white plate from England. It wasn't cheap but I didn't dare pass it up. I'll have to ask Viv about it.

3. If you've been reading my blog for awhile you know I like to do drive by shootings. With the camera that is. I was part way back from Amarillo as the sun was setting so I reached into the back seat and grabbed my Canon, (Nifty 50 was still on it, oh well. I'm driving. Blake's flying.) Try to crank the aperture up and it looks like I've got it on 18 so I'll go with that. Stick my arm toward the passenger seat window and start snapping away. There are few trees and buildings between here and there, so there really wasn't much to pull over and stop for. But I got a few cool shots and heres' one. (It was actually set on 1.8, 'roll eyes')

4. Baby took her dog for a walk on Monday. I got some video too I'll be needing to make a little movie. Her words that day were 'walk' and 'windy'. Yes, we had another dirt storm. It's crazy this year. I heard we made the national news again.

iphone, Snapseed, Mextures.

5. The first day of spring I trotted down the alley to photograph the blooming apples. A new neighbor lives there and he isn't very friendly. So I felt like I needed to hurry up and get out of there.

iphone, Waterlogue, iColorama.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone! we are hoping to fly somewhere for a $100 hamburger. Bunless no less…..

Friday Finds Feb 28

I'm 'finding' my way back to doing a little homework this week.

The trouble is sometime I get carried away and can't stop. Just having too much fun I guess. Awhile back Kim had lessons for (1) logos in Beyond Beyond. I had made sketches a couple weeks ago and this week finally played and played and made some into brushes and then actions and started making Watermark presets in Lightroom to export with…. If you make one for the left, then right, and one in black , then white…. you could write a song…. It will take me forever to get all those presets made. I must narrow it down to my most favorites. Here's a shot of all of them. Since I do design work too that's really what started this. I was needing a new logo. That one's been decided on but, you'll be seeing a few random ones on my photos for awhile.

I've been watching (2) Creative Live Photoshop Week as much as possible this week. Loosing sleep to see missed parts. :( But if I don't try out a few things they will not stick in my brain. So I've been editing a few pics and that is also why I've been making watermark presets.

 Some more homework for 2B class. (My wonderful valentines present.)

(3) I love shooting flowers by the kitchen window. They always look like they want to go outside.

I should have cropped more off the bottom of this one. Funny how they sometimes look different after a few days.

(4) I found these cool dancers while driving through part of town I hadn't been in awhile. Shot from the car. I just happened to have my camera in the car and was stopped at a long red light. Note to self: go back.

(5) My poor artichoke's leaves all froze this winter, but while cleaning dead stuff away I found not only new growth but a covered up old flower that was full of seeds. Yes, it was time to dig out the Olloclip. Edited in Snapseed.

Linking up with Kim for Friday Finds and Nancy for Random 5 Friday.

Friday Finds Feb 21

This morning I found that it had been 8 days since I last unloaded my camera. (Normally that's not unusual but these past 2 months I had been more on top of this.) There were some interesting goodies there, however I don't have time to process them before I head to work. So I'll bid you a fabulous weekend with some of my favorite 'reds'!

Linking up with Kim for Friday Finds.

Texture Tuesday Feb 18

Time for Texture Tuesday and I'm still not done with red. I did some pastels yesterday however, in case you missed this iphoneography post.

Canon 50mm, f2.8, 1/750s, ISO100

I used this Lightroom Preset on my photo. Colorful HDR Effect 1. You can find it HERE.
Textured with Kim's kk_waterfront10 screen 32%, kk_waterfront28 linear burn 100%.
Elements from Organic Red.
Linking up with Kim for Texture Tuesday.
I've just finished a video on making custom shadows in Photoshop for you are interested HERE.

Crazy Red

There is a definite attraction when it comes to red. It's powerful, intriguing and passionate.
For my Friday Find, I'm finding a real love for red. Deep rich blood red. Soft fragile pale red. And every red in between.
I'm not a 'red' person. Being a redhead, I cannot wear clothing in any shade of the color.
When I chose the 'red' mixed media box that Amy had put in her Etsy shop I thought I might be stretching myself a bit. I have absolutely no red in my stash of photo props and antiques. But the more I played with it, the more thrilled I was.
You will be seeing a lot of red this month. I don't know if I'll ever get sick of it.
Shot with with my Nifty Fifty and edited in Lightroom. It's too hard for me to pick a favorite so you get to see them all.
Linking up with Kim at Friday Finds.

50 MM Play

Happy February everyone!
I looked around the house to see how my 'one room' per month was going and I got distracted. Maybe this weekend I'll do a little more organizing and cleaning out and catch up.
In the mean time...
After a little frustrating time with my Lens Baby, I pulled out the 50 again.

Lightroom

I really do like dead plants!

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Texture Tuesday Jan 28th

Not sure if Kim will be up and running yet as she's just moved back home. So happy for her…. Texture Tuesday
But here is a photo of Miss Hallie with a touch of texture and a few others from the week.

kk_cora from the Downton Abby Collection.

The original taken with my 50mm.

50mm

I actually managed to get a couple with the Lens Baby last week.

Unfortunately her lashes were a bit blurry in this one.

I haven't decided if I like that Lens Baby or not. You have to manually focus and I hate doing that! (My eye-sight just isn't that great apparently. I end up bracketing 4 shots hoping one turns out. Of course that doesn't work on a moving target. When the evening light is good most of my dead garden plants aren't in it. At least not the cool ones. I have a few I like that I'll post later. They are not all sharp but I like the artsy-ness of them.

Friday Finds

It's Friday and time to link up with Random Five Friday and Friday Finds.

1. What a thrill to find an envelope from Amy of Four Corners Designs in my mailbox this week! Her repurposed stationary caught my eye on her blog and she was having a give away. I will write myself a letter on the one that says 'rediscover'(y) since that is my word for the year. How cool is that? You can read the amazing story about my word here.

2. I also found a few Christmas goodies that missed the 'put away' last week end. I'm still in love with this tiny stocking I made four years ago when I was feeling tangibly creative.

How did I miss these?

3. Hubby had enough 'points' to cash in so we helped ourselves to a carpet cleaner (baby girl makes messes) and a bread machine. We are beginning gluten free (mostly free) eating habits. This is our first loaf. It's quite good since I added rosemary to it. Makes it yummy but it doesn't go to well if you want to put honey on it.

Makes good toast.

4. I'm making another attempt this year to work through one room a month, whether it's just cleaning out junk or redecorating. I'm picking up where I left off last year. Feb 2013 Room #2. I found this 'dripping candle' that we brought out every Christmas until we weren't able to buy the candles any more. I'm guessing that was about six years ago. I through it out. But not before I took a photo of the bottom. Very cool. I'll need to mess with that on my iPad. I think my wing-man word for this year is 'purge'.

5. Back to food. I cooked purple potatoes this week. Very tasty and they came with a little love.