Project 365 - weeks 2 & 3

As promised, here are the photos from weeks 2 and 3 of 2011.  I warn you, not all of them are great, but the idea is to force me to take a photo each day.  It is, at times, quite the struggle to find something to photograph.  I ended up taking pics of the different crafts I did the past couple weeks.  So, with out further ado...

Week 2:

1/8:  Banana bread

 It was quite yummy.  I actually made some more tonight (which is why this post is so late tonight).

1/9:  My new coffee filter wreath

 I finally got around to making myself a coffee filter wreath.  I really like it on my old window frame.

1/10:  Pom-pom "flower" centerpiece

 This was a fun and simple craft.  I just hot-glued the pom-poms to skewers and stuck them in some floral foam in the vase.  Easy peasy!!!

1/11:  Snowy magnolia buds

 I took this one the same day as the photos in this post.

1/12:  New hooks for our upstairs

 It was pointed out to my by one of my friends on FB, that this one looks like a prim lady.  Now whenever I walk by them upstairs, I can't help seeing the face...oh well.  I like having hooks there.

1/13:  A touch of pink

 A pink, Valentine's Day-ish centerpiece I made for the kitchen table.  The flowers and such are actually clearance Christmas ornaments from Jeffrey Allens.

1/14:  Love

A bit of wall art made with large chipboard letters from Hobby Lobby.  I needed something to replace the Noel sign I had had there for Christmas.

Week 3:

1/15:  A new old bulletin board

This was an old bulletin board that I found while helping to clean out my grandparent's old place.  I just painted the frame, and covered the cork with various papers and some lace.  I wish the picture had turned out better, but oh well.  I will post a better one once I have my craft room all decked out.

1/16:  Smile!!

 I had my brother's family over for dinner, and my niece, Kara, hammed it up for the camera.  Isn't she adorable?

1/17:  Button heart

 I will post a better photo of this later, when I do a post about my Valentine's Day decor.  This was a fun, easy project to do, though.

1/18:  A work in progress

 Some paper-mache hearts getting a make-over.

1/19:  Scrapbook paper on my wall

 I attached this mesh paper file to my wall and filled it with all my scrapbook paper.  Now they are easier to access, and they're a constantly changing decoration.

1/20:  Bowl fillers

 I finally finished those hearts from earlier.  I also decoupaged some dictionary pages to some styrofoam balls.

1/21:  Ingredients for bread

I made bread in the bread machine today, too.  This last one is a bit abstract, but I wanted to try out the new film filter from Hipstamatic.  I like it.

So that's it, and I got it posted with 7 minutes to spare.  It is still Friday.  Woohoo!  Have a great weekend!

Madeline's Rose

I needed to edit a photo this evening, so I searched through my my massive amount of unused photos on my hard drive to find one worth editing.  I found a photo I took of the rose I was given at my Baba's funeral.  ("Baba," by the way, is Ukrainian for grandmother, although literally it means "old woman.")

I'm not sure I want to go into all the emotions I had editing this, or the unresolved issues I have with her passing.  Maybe someday, but I'm not certain how personal I want this blog to get, at least right now.  Suffice it to say, she was very special to me and I miss her dearly.  I owe much of who I am to her influence.

So, anyways, the photo.  It's a simple one.  I did have to edit the heck out of it.  It was a horrible shot.  But, I think it turned out all right.  What do you think?

It's Friday!!!  I will post my Project 365 photos for the past two weeks later this evening.  (I forgot to blog about last week's, but I did take the photos.)

Snowy day

So, I went out and took some photos today.  It was cold...very cold.  My poor fingers nearly froze off!  (OK, so I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but still, I don't like to be cold.)

It was so pretty outside, though, I had to go out and ruin the pristine snow in our backyard.  I felt bad doing it, but it was worth it to get some photos.

This is from our magnolia.   I loved all the little flakes caught in the "hairs" of the bud.  So pretty.

A leaf filled with snow.  This is from the same magnolia.  I took way too many shots of this tree.

A couple more from the same magnolia, yet again.

I don't know what type of tree this is, but we have two of them.  They have gorgeous blooms in the spring and berries in the late summer/early fall.  They're quite pretty...I just have no idea what they are.

 

One of our pine trees.  I love the little pine cones forming on the branches.

Well, that's all for now.  Remember, though, to find beauty, often you only have to go as far as your own backyard.  :)

Rainy Day

OK, so actually, it's very snowy here.  We're supposed to get 3-5 inches by 6:00 this evening.  No, the title refers to the photo I am going to share with you (actually, I guess I'll be sharing three separate edits of the same photo...).  Maybe I'm already wishing for spring, and that's why I was inspired to work on this particular photo, yet again.  Whatever the case may be, it was a fun project to work on.

Rainy Day

This is actually the most recent edit of this photo.  I took this photo over three years ago on a photo outing with my Dad and sister.  It started to rain, and she was prepared with her cute umbrella.  I was thrilled to get the shot, it was so pretty.  Unfortunately, this was taken with my first ever digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix L6, a tiny point-and-shoot.  It was a Godsend at the time, though, since I couldn't afford anything better.  It was tons better than the little hand-me-down film camera that I had had before.  Definitely a step up.

Since it wasn't the best camera ever, the photo was a bit noisy.  Luckily, noise can be solved easily with texture!!!  It just blends right in.  (Part of the reason I love playing with textures in my photos.  It hides a lot of mistakes.)  And so, for all three versions, I have added texture of some nature.

If you are curious, here are the previous two edits of this photo:

In the rain

In the Rain, revisited

As you can see, I changed quite a lot in the third edit.  I desaturated everything, tinted the photo to a blue-green color and changed the umbrella to a red color to contrast with the background.  I added a lot more texture this time, and kind of went nuts with it.  I did a quick search for quotes about rain and found that perfect one in a couple seconds (got to love Google).  The quote, by the by, is from Rachel Carson, who I know nothing about, but she gave us at least one good quotable quote.

Anyway, that's that.  I hope you enjoyed my rambling post of repetitive photo edits.  :)  Until next time!!

One week of 2011

Hello!  Sorry I haven't posted since Christmas, but I've been relaxing a bit.  Christmas wore me out this year.  Today I took down my Christmas decor (sigh) and the house looks a bit bare without it.  The only good part about it is that I have to decorate again!  Yippee!!

So one of my New Year's Resolutions (and the only one I haven't completely blown already) is to take a photo a day for all of 2011.  I've been wanting to do it for years but have never gotten around to doing it.  My camera is a bit big and awkward to take with me everywhere.  But, my wonderful hubby got me an iPhone 4G for Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!  So...I've been using the camera on it (I love it!) and have purchased Hipstamatic for it (I highly recommend this app if you have an iPhone...I'm in love with it).  So taking a photo a day has been much easier and a lot of fun.

So every Friday, after I take my photo for the day, I plan on posting all the past week's photos.  So, here is week #1:

1/1/11:  My Christmas tree

1/2:  What I did instead of taking down Christmas decor

Laundry day!!

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to eat more fresh fruit...

Tons of birds (I know it's hard to see, but there were hundreds of them...they were quite loud, too)

Downfall of the day...

Snow flakes (taken with my actual camera, not the phone)

 Enjoy!!!