Sunday, July 31, 2011

It Was A Hot One Today!

Goodness today it was a hot one in Saskatchewan! The thermometer on my Mom's deck read 42C - yep, 42C but the "official" temperature was 35C with a non-existent breeze. We luckily had the very fortunate opportunity of spending much of the afternoon at a neighbour's pool! The girls spent the afternoon diving for these cool diver guys with propellers that I picked up at Superstore, squirting each other with the noodles, dunking each other and cannonballing into the water. For myself, I swam lengths and also dove for those silly diver dudes! Anything to keep cool! This might just be one of the THE hottest days we have had this summer! (I am not looking forward to going back to the usual tepid summer of Calgary! LOL)


And tomorrow is an equally beautiful and scorching day! Yippee!!!! We have been invited to a pool party and bbq - let's just say I am SO looking forward to it! :-)

Thanks for dropping by! (My blog posts have been sporadic as we have been away almost every week!)

Friday, July 29, 2011

Club Got Sketch #6

Do you have as many playground, play date, swing and slide pictures as I do??? Well, let me provide 2 recommendations - (1) Club Sketch - sketch #6 and (2) Echo Park's Playground collection. Both are AMAZING!!!!!!

The fanciful border stickers, whimsical alpha fonts and the adorable clouds make every layout/project perfect!


Supplies:  Close to my Heart (red and navy cardstock); Echo Park (pattern papers, border sticker, die cut stickers, alphas); Fiskars (border edge punch); stitching

Thanks for dropping by!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Club Got Sketch #5

Just finally getting around to posting my interpretation of Club Got Sketch #5 - it's a tad late but I loved this sketch nonetheless :-)

This layout documents the new earrings my Mom bought for Danielle who love love loves anything sparkly! My uber practical girl while loving all things sparkly is also conscious of not wearing earrings that will hinder her movements :-)



Supplies:  Echo Park (pattern paper, die cut stickers, mini alphas); American Crafts (glitter alphas); Prima (butterfly); Stampin' Up (notebook edge punch)

Thanks for letting me share!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Lifestyle Photography

The old adage "Time flies when you are having fun" definitely applies to my time with you Brooke :-) These last 4 weeks have been dynamic, revitalizing and informative.

For the last assignment, my theme was a Family Walk on the pathways in Fernie, British Columbia. (Gosh, Fernie has a plethora of photo ops - the textures on their walls and the mountain backdrop is breathtaking. Now getting my family to cooperate is a whole other story *rolling eyes*)

Fernie's pathway system hugged the river and wound itself through various grassy fields. This particular grassy field was inundated with wild white daisies. In my mind, I wanted a shot of each girl running through the field but my youngest didn't want to crush any of the flowers so we were at a stalemate. After listening to her arguments of not crushing the flowers, I agreed and she jumped up in glee. This picture is of her jumping in glee. I happen to be kneeling at the time and lucky me captured her expression against the mountains.


Here she continued to jump up in the air but I like the cute toes peeking out from under her dress.


Not to be outdone by her younger sister, my oldest decided she wanted a shot jumping in the air too! ;-) Technically I like that her face is evenly lit in contrast to the above pictures where is a shadow on the face. Despite this, when I see these pictures, it evokes a real emotion in me and my husband.


My hubbie shot my self-portrait after Danielle opened her birthday presents - not sure if I like the photo but considering I can't remember the last time I had a photo of me taken, this is a step in the right direction! I will definitely make it a point to create a "self-portrait" of some sort in my Project 365!


Yes, I see the backs of the chair and the island in the background but I am willing to overlook it considering hubbie rarely takes any pictures :-)

Thanks Brooke for a great class! So what is next for us? :-)

Monday, July 4, 2011

Lifestyle Photography

So here we are at Week #3 - wow! I can't believe it! Taking a more creative expression photography class has really been helpful to me. I love photography. I love seeing life through my camera. This class is teaching me to REALLY see life from different perspectives and that in itself has been a liberating experience. Up until now, I have really been beating myself up about the technical aspects of photography. I am certainly capable of learning all the technical jargon of shooting but it isn't something that wow's me - it's wrong I know but feeling exhilarated when taking these creative photos has rejuvenated my passion and  has paired the technical lingo with the creative. I love this!

Enough rambling - here are my submissions for the Contrast component of the assignment.

In these 2 photos, I snuck up to take a picture of my Mom holding Danielle's hand. My Mom has a special relationship with each of my daughters. The relationship she has with each girl is unique and mutually exclusive from the other. I love that and so do my girls because they are the loved for who they are and "lumped together."

What I could not decide is...is the photo emote a strong emotion taken slightly above or below? I looked at these shots for a long time. I like each image for different reasons - from slightly above as it symbolizes an elder/wisdom relationship and the image from a slightly lower vantage point seems to symbolize a guiding relationship. I just don't know; what do you think?

When I snapped these images I consciously chose to not crop at the joint, to focus my image on the hands, to show aspects of the forearm and to blur out the background. I hope I did it justice.



My other images for contrast are below. Originally I wanted a photo of my husband and daughter's feet in a jumbled mess but my daughter was being an uncooperative turkey!!! I thought it would be interesting to take the photo from a low vantage point with their faces blurred. Now that I look at the image, I think it may have been more interesting it I had taken it from above behind their heads; again, I am not sure?


And I will readily admit here that this may be a lame image. My intent was to contrast the petite size of the leaves against the larger green leaves in the background but this seems somewhat of a train wreck to me. My original intent was to photograph a bee in a flower but could I find one when I needed it??? Of course not!


Ah, we have now arrived at the Decisive Moment submissions with 3 measly shots. Sticking to 3 shots only was a real challenge for me and I'll be the first to admit that I failed. The timing of the shots is hard for me to coordinate with 2 wiggly jiggly girls. What I will say is I shot much much MUCH less than I normally would and that is a huge improvement for me. (Does that count?)

Here is my Mom and Danielle tossing the ball around in the backyard. I tried to keep my focus point on the ball as I loved the splash of red against the muted background colours. I wonder how I could have removed some of the distracting elements in the background by standing in different locations??? I was limited by the available space in the yard.


For these next 2 shots, I stood beside Madison as she cannon balled into the pool. I tried to move what I could from the background but I see the small slide snuck into the background. Hopefully it does not look like some strange horn growing out of her head! However I do love seeing her suspended in the air!

In this image, I like it from above but again my question is...which image is stronger? Here all I see are the funky shadows from the sun on her. I had scoped out how I wanted to take the photo but again I see the pool noodles in the background...aaaack!


Lastly, here is Danielle who seems to enjoy the skateboarding moves - not entirely sure where she gets this but it does make for interesting photography! Once again, my eye is drawn to the harsh shadows and image seems somewhat under exposed. What do you think Brooke?

This was a fun assignment and really had me thinking about point of view alot. Thanks!

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Club Got Sketch #4

OK have you ever created a layout or a card that you didn't like, well maybe didn't love would be a more accurate phrase? I created this layout for Sketch #4 of Club Got Sketch. I loved the sketch but I just don't love my layout. Part of the issue is I always seem to scrap differently when I am sick and when I created this, I was definitely sick. These papers are BasicGrey's Lime Rickey - I love love love the papers and the embellishments but there is something about this layout that I don't love. When I look at it again, I think it may be the background pattern...however I do love the colours in this layout and all the other elements.


Supplies:  BasicGrey (pattern papers, chipboard accents, alphas, border stickers); American Crafts (pen for "stitching); EK Success (circle punch)

What do you think?