Forgetting Time

Two problems have cropped up recently. One is I've been forgetting to take my pills at night and the other problem is my finger tips are splitting and raw—probably from so much crafting and dry winter conditions here in the desert. So I bought a box of these latex free gloves and just love them. I can do just about anything with them on except hand sewing. Just can't quite get the hang of the needle with them, but all other tasks are done with almost as much precision with them as without.

So when Love Bunny came in last night to get me for bed at 10:15 pm I couldn't believe the time. He mentioned that I have an alarm on my iMac but I don't use it anymore. Don't know why, just don't. So, I asked him if I could use the old clock on his office desk to use as an alarm. It's electric and still works great. Since I'm usually in the studio or my office, which are at different ends of the hall and I wouldn't hear my computer alert in the studio I thought we could put the clock midway—the entrance to this side of the house.

Now, this is a truly vintage clock, at least 50 years old. Plain and dull. So I decided to froufrou it up today while LB is out at a model RR train meet today. Here's what I've come up with.

Mod Podge fabric on top and side and leave the back alone since there are 3 knobs back there.

Then paint the plastic around the front Pop Pink! Love the new look. Hmmmm, maybe a few roses on top also. :-)

And you KNOW it's old because it's made in the USA!
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Mosaic Monday Around My Studio

Join in with Mosaic Monday at Mary's Little Red House and visit all the other mosaics.
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Just a few things around my studio. Being lazy today. ;-)~*~

Puttering With the Camera for Pink Saturday

Happy Pink Saturday. Please go visit with Beverly at howsweetthesound to view all the participants and get your fill of PINK. Ooops, almost forgot to put in the names of the new bloggers I visited last week. Actually, there are 4 of them and darling blogs: Postedfromhome, Rahrah, Comicallyflawed, and Lookinthenook. Go check them out and have some fun, sweet chicks.

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First of all, these are the first pair of shoes I made for Miss A, our great granddaughter due in May. Squeeeeeeal, she's going to be a very fashionable and pink little sweet chick. "Baby's got a new pair of shoes!" ;-)

Flash off:

Flash on:



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Hopping around the blogs as I do and being an amateur photographer, and I do mean amateur, I notice photographs more than anything. They're the first thing that grabs my attention. I've seen them so dark I could barely make them out, and I've seen them so small when I'd like nothing better than to see them magnificently large in all their glory. That's one of the reasons I changed my template recently to the stretch one. I wanted larger photos. That's also one of the reasons I purchased a Canon Rebel XS. I wanted the best photos I could take with a camera that wasn't going to start a war with Love Bunny. But I've told you the story about that. ;-)

Anyway, since I'm by myself tonight I've been puttering around the craft room even though it's in such disarray I can barely get a space to craft. I wanted to make some more ribbon roses. And since I made it, I thought I'd share some more tips on the cameras. After all, don't we all want beautiful photos?

These are in sequence from the first one I took to the last one I took and just about all of them were different setting for light on the camera.

This one was taken with flash off, incandescent lights on in the room. See how yellow it is. I've cropped every single one and we'll go into that later.

This one was with the flash off also but the little arm lamp over the table was off. So no lighting in the room. I had this setting on auto and let it adjust itself. Not too bad.

The flash was on with this one. But the setting was on auto so it also adjusted itself.

With this one the flash was on also, but the light was turned off and the setting was auto so it turned out rather blue.

Flash off but the swinging arm light was on casting it into a very orange-ish color.

Flash on and setting was auto also on this one. No lighting was on in the room. BTW, I took these about about 7:30 pm so it was dark.

Flash off and lights on in room.

I think this one is probably the best. Flash on, backed away a bit from the table and snapped it. You don't want to get too close or too far when taking closeups. Let the camera work for you.

Okay, with that being said and explained very basically, the one other thing to get closeups is this: set the "Quality" of the photo to the absolute highest you can get. That will allow you the biggest pixels in width and height. My Rebel is set at 3888 x 2592, its highest setting for quality. So when I crop my photo to just show the rose it comes up really close. Every single camera has that on it. You just have to look at your "menu" and figure it out. There are a lot of settings on the new digital cameras and it is NOT as hard as it looks. When you get the camera just play around with it for a day or so. Then read the instruction book! READ IT. Then play around with the settings. As you play you'll want to reference the instructions and they'll make more sense to you after that. I can't say that enough: READ THE INSTRUCTION BOOK. It will help you get beautiful photos. Plus youtube has videos for just about any camera and they have been very informative for me in getting to know this new one. After all, you want the best you can get if your family is in the photo, right?
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Around My Home with Some Random Thoughts 3/26/2010

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Random Thoughts:

I recently read a novel where the grandma said, "I love corn but it gives me flatulence. I used to care but I'm not obliged to anymore. The golden years rock!" My kinda woman. Who cares when we reach the age where more important things take precedent?
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Love Bunny and I were standing at our bathroom sink recently attending to our morning ablutions. I was putting on the new wrinkle cream, Boots No.7.
She: Look at this wrinkle.
He:Which one?
Need I say more? Not a good way to start my day!
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During Valentines day I was going around the blogs and noticed many were posting on their blog a valentine greeting to their loved one. Why do we say happy valentines day to our hubbies on the blogs when they never read them? Love Bunny never reads mine. Curious.
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Along about the same time, hubs was making cocktail sauce for some shrimp we were having for dinner—just shrimp and coleslaw. I love shrimp for dinner—any way I can get it: panko breaded, plain with cocktail sauce or tartar sauce. But this night he was making the sauce. Well, I came into the kitchen and it looked like he had had an explosion. He upended the bottle, lost control of it and it landed in the bowl of cocktail sauce and sent it all over the kitchen. Looked like an explosion in a catsup factory! Now you know why I allow him in the kitchen so rarely. :-)
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Recently I went to a friend's house about an hour away for dinner. I was eating some lettuce and started to choke. It just would not go down and I was really having a difficult time. Quietly got up, went around the corner to their bathroom, threw up (absolutely knowing I was being heard), went back to table and ate. Smiling. The best way to do some things is to just ignore they happened. ;-)
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Bumper sticker on a car I was driving behind lately: Save your ta tas. Aptly put for a Breast Cancer Awareness sticker, huh? I thought it was cute.
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Another Day In The Life Of....3/24/2010

First of all, some eye candy for ya because it ain't purdy after this, chicks! Still experimenting with paper roses.

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Have you ever had one of those days when nothing goes as you've planned? Ooooops, sorry, I know that's a silly question, but this was one of those days and when it happens it just feels like you're the "first and only" woman in the universe to have experienced it. I know, I know, it happens all the time to moms. I said I was sorry! Oh well. So a scheduled trip to the chiropractor for a monthly adjustment turned into a day spent out and about and not home doing the things I wanted: changing sheets and crafting.

Since we were right next to a new optometrist and optical shop new to the 'hood, Love Bunny and I decided to stop in and get new glasses. A new exam was in order since it had been a 12 to 18 months since our last exam and glasses. This total today cost us $475.00 total for both of us. Do you see little dollars flying out of my debit card at this point?

Luckily I had my new camera along to photograph this happy event for posterity. ;-) The first photo shows the "retro" tray I was interested in.

This is the pair I selected. Look at my photo on the "About Me" page and you'll see me sporting almost the same glasses about 40 years ago. I loved those glasses and things cycle around every 30 or 40 years, so what the heck. I'll model them soon.

This is the pair Love Bunny decided on with a little nudging and much flattery from me. He looks darling in them. Not so old-manish.

Now, we all know how thrilled LB gets when I drag th' cam along to record for posterity my daily activities. Bleeeech is pretty much his attitude. See the darling man smiling for me below. Uh huh. Yeah, ya got it, chicks. It took a lot of coercing just to get that good a picture of him. Actually, I think he was trying his best to ignore me after chucking him under the chin. I promised I'd crop his "waddles" out of the pictuuuuure....DUH! Isn't he caaaauuuute, chicks???? :-) And he's all mine, at least he was before I started the picture taking. We'll see later if he forgives me, but he knows how I am with my camera. Sigh.....

This is Love Bunny "smiling." Can ya see th' smile? Trust me, it's the best he could muster up for me. I think murder actually came to his mind during this excursion.

Aha, there it is: the smirk. He's warming up. These are the new glasses. Rounder and most in fashion.

And another smirk that turned into a smile. Yep! He's back in his good mood.

Now, not to be done embarrassing him, I proceeded to take photos around EyeMart to his further mortification. Aren't these little eyeglass cases adorable? How could I NOT photograph them, hmmmmm?! Fuchsia polka dots! Whooooooa. Darling.

Leopard.

Black and white polka dots. Perfect fashion accessory for spring.

Yellow retro.

Soooooo 1960s lime green retro. Gag me with a spoon.

Orange and black retro for that halloween look. Gag....... But cute!

And it was all I could do to not buy this little red eyeglass caddy. Squeeeeeeeeal!! But I figured I'd done enough damage to our bank account for one day and LB wasn't looking too lovingly at me by this time. I think I embarrassed him. Nuuuuuuu, couldn't be.

Here is the optician tech that helped us. AND LB actually invited her to go to lunch with us at Olive Garden which was just a short walk from there. I'd have certainly welcomed her to go along but she refused. I think I'll go knee-cap him for sure tonight.

Okay, I finally took a shower and got this picture of the new glasses. Ain't I caaauuuute?!?! *Wink* and *Grin*!! And if you think getting a flattering photo up close like this is easy, guess again. *Sigh*.....Either I need to brush my hair again or I need a haircut. Sheeeeesh....

Okay, this is even better when I took it as I was getting ready for church another day. Full blown closeup with all the wrinkles showing. These glasses are almost like the ones on the 40 yr. old photo on my profile page. Maaaaaan, have I changed or what!!
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Mosaic Monday 3/22/2010

Behind my dryer in my laundry room are these letters: IRON. Aren't they cute?! All made with wood and fabric. You can have a set also if you'd like, just contact me.
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Fabric, Paper and Ribbon

Just wanting to mention to those of you who haven't seen my laundry room that the new "Pages" at the top of my blog just under the banner and entitled "My Home" includes the photos of my laundry room, which you just might find interesting. ;-)
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On th' rose kick again, chicks. Just trying out different things I can do with them really. These are what I've come up with. I may try selling them on etsy though. Every single one is a different rose unless I mention that it's NOT or they are in groups. I don't remember how many I've made the past few days. DUH!

Back of the above lolli. I love pink and red together.

I call this one my "grunge shabby froufrou" lolli. ;-)

Backside of one above.

I call this one "majesty." Pink ostrich feathers and a rolled fabric rose. I also put a pink crystal on it.

The back has another rolled rose made of iridescent fabric.

And this one is another paper rose I'm experimenting with at the moment.

And one in pink.

Again, these are made from coffee filters.

My absolute favorite one so far. It's really beautiful for a paper rose.

These are NOT really orange but are simply too close to the camera but I've got to hold it while taking the picture and that's pretty much CLOSE.

Now, these are the ones I dipped in food coloring but later I added yellow watercolors around the edges. I just dipped the brush in the watercolor and dragged it around the edges. No right or wrong way to do it, just practice to get the effect you like best.

Two with the yellow edging. Each one will turn out differently.

This one I edged in darker pink—almost magenta edging. Gorgeous in person!

This one I painted with acrylic paint around the edges. It turned out really lovely.

This one came out blurry and I knew it would because I was taking it in my studio (I've decided to call my craft room my studio) without much light plus I sort of moved when I clicked the shutter button and the settings were too low but after I downloaded it to my iPhoto I liked the soft ethereal look of it. I thought I'd just show you along with the better photo of it. Call me silly. ;-) But this one I used acrylic paint on it.

Here's the one where I didn't move.

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