Promise of Beauty

I just couldn't resist adding one more flower picture from my class last week! This time, however, I am also working on a technique from the blogging class I am taking from Kim Klassen and Xanthe Berkeley. If you hover over the above picture with your mouse, you should magically see the picture before I edited it. I love that! ......and it only took me a couple of hours to get the code right so that it works! You can find out more about Kim and Xanthe's class by clicking here.

Dahlia With a Twist

I attended an awesome seminar by Denise Ippolito yesterday. We began just before sunrise at the Swan Island Dahlia Gardens in Canby Oregon. The flowers were abundant and gorgeous and I took tons of pictures. I learned a lot about operating my camera and actually took almost all of my pictures in manual mode, which was new for me. After several hours, we headed to the Portland Garden Club where we took a quick look at our pictures and listened to a program by Denise about her post-processing work flow. Her photos are definitely inspiring and her love for her work in contagious.
The day was rounded out with Denise directing some specific assignments to expand our creativity, at the International Rose Test Garden. I ended up with a lot of pretty flower pictures, but the one above was my favorite. I love the way the petals flow and curl. I think they look almost like a sea anemone. The original picture didn't quite capture the scene as I saw it in my head so I played with it a bit in Photoshop.

Six Months of Sweetness

I was privileged to take photos of my great niece at six months. What a happy, adorable little girl she is! I asked her parents to make a list of some of her milestones and likes and dislikes. These are the little details that we are sure we will remember forever, but alas, we don't!
The other advantage of these pages, is the joy of watching the child as they look at it again and again when they are older. My granddaughters love to hear and see stories from when they were little. I think it reminds them of how much we love them and treasure all the little things about them.

Columbine Black and White

I love the graceful shape of the Columbine flower. I love the long delicate spurs flowing from the bottom and the way the petals unfold on the top. Since I especially wanted to highlight the shape and lines of the flower, I found a black and white version to be most successful.

Hints of Fall

I wandered through Cooper Mountain Nature Park last week looking for inspiration. For the most part, the pretty spring and summer flowers are finished blooming and the grasses and leaves are brown and brittle due to lack of rain. Fall is definitely in the air. I love the colors that will come in a few weeks with the changing season, but this in-between time is not very inspiring. The golden, early morning light however, illuminated this almost hidden treasure tucked into the oak leaves. I doubt I would have even noticed it if not for the way it was lit. I must make an effort to look for the light more often....

I've Been Published!

I was excited to have one of my layouts chosen for publication in the Adobe Photoshop Elements Techniques magazine! It is in the September/October issue. I was playing with a tutorial by Liz Ness in the previous issue, that created a stacked look of several photos on a page. This was a photo shoot of sorts, that I did with my youngest granddaughter as I was experimenting with natural light portraits. These are her ideas of how to best pose for me and I think her personality really shows!
I have been creating a series of background papers to go with my pages lately and the one above is one of my favorites. I think I might make a template from this layout also, because I can see myself using it again soon!

First Day of Second Grade

From the time my first child entered school, I have always tried to take a 'first day of school' picture. I have continued that tradition with my granddaughter. It is so fun to see the growth and changes in each child as they mature- although I must admit, I am kind of sad to see them growing so fast!

Summer's End

I wanted to create a couple of pages for my granddaughter's scrapbook that captured all the fun we had during the last week of her summer vacation. I made sure that I left plenty of room for journaling so that I could list all the things we did. I think we tend to believe that we will remember all these fun, happy times but they fade so quickly as new memories and events fill our days. It is important to me that my family has reminders of how special they are to me and how much I enjoy just being with them! I am a very fortunate grandma to get to spend many of my days with such sweeties!