My life is to make everything around me beautiful.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Studio Shelves Redo and A Bouquet of Roses

At the risk of sounding redundant, I'm partly done with the reorganizing of the studio (that's what I'm calling it from now on). There was a lot of stuff I've had to take to thrift stores, sell on craigslist and make room for with the garage sale Love Bunny wants to have in the spring. There is still more I can't find ANY room for in the house.

Redoing the studio this time has taken rather a long time—and I'm still working on it—because I want to take the time to stop and think about what I need and don't need and will be tossed out. Also I want to make sure it suits me this time. But I thought I'd give you just a small peek at what the shelves are looking like so far. There is much more to do throughout the whole room.





I found this little garland at Hobby Lobby, which is new to our area and the only one in Idaho so far. Then I got a 500 yard spool of curling ribbon because I want my area I am in the most to be cheery and girlie. I made little curls to hang along the 2 extra shelves Love Bunny put up in there for me recently. I want it to look like I'm having a party, girls! :-)



Oooh, and the little vintage clock is done and I shan't miss another bedtime pill taking from now on. The little pink roses on top! ;-)

And a bouquet of roses to take to our granddaughter. I may sell these as bouquets so stay tuned if you have any interest in them.

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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

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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Monday, March 29, 2010

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. ;-)
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Saturday, March 27, 2010

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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Friday, March 26, 2010

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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