90

Just a quick shot from a 90th Birthday party that I was asked to come in to do the family photos today.

 Tomorrow is the other side of the spectrum and shooting stills at a 5th Birthday Party.

 September is THE birthday month!!  wink wink. Annie's and mine is this month too. And this very special friend is on Sunday

the birthday party

Annie turns 8 next week and with Kym being away then we had her  Birthday party today.

Plan A was to have it out at Koppio Smithy Museum. I was there a couple of weekends ago for a Camera Club walk and my kids loved it. They have a new function room there now and can assist with Birthday bookings. Annie had me booking her show there, not that I need much encouraging lol.

Mother Nature had other ideas. With a constant deluge of rain today made our already soaked soils, totally saturated. It was just not worth the drive out there on those dirt roads. (I should know as that is right where I went off the road only a couple of months ago.) And I don't need someone having an accident because of our party out there, on my conscious.

Plan B kicked into gear about an hour before the school finished for the day. Thank goodness our local bakery '5 Loaves Bakery' were able to accommodate some 15 odd kids and parents with very little notice. 

The big Treasure Hunt that I had planned became prizes for games instead. 

Thank you to all Annie's friends. You are all fantastic people.

Thank you to the Bakery for being so wonderful.

Thank you to Sandra for taking my camera in hand and donning the paparazzi hat  :o)

Thank you to all the parents for agreeing that not going to Koppio today was the most excellent idea.

reap what you sow

one to keep my man sweet.

;oD

x road

A quick one tonight. Gotta love templates!!

I'm not able to show much of the LO at all due to lots of children's faces in the photos. (Photography by Sandra btw) and I've smudged the couple you can see on the little bit here.

Journaling says   Xroad is a Christian based Club for kids to come and enjoy learning about God in a non threatening environment. It is filled with Faith, Fun and Friendship. 


From a parent's point of view, Xroads is safe. A great group of leaders and volunteers are with the Xroad kids all the time. They create a lot of craft, sing and dance a fair bit and touch on religion in a light hearted way. 


X Roads is very very popular here. At last count I think there was just over 70 kids going. That's huge!!! So I take my hat off to the core group of leaders, volunteers and the parents who help out too.


The snippets of the LO will be in the Twiddleybitz Gallery too.

pink blossoms

Plum tree flowers I think at a guess.

Just playing around and learning stuff.

:o)

Thanks Mary!!!!

Hope they bring a bit of colour to your day.

sunset over Mt Greenly

This is the magnificent sight Maryanne and I witnessed on Sunday from Nth Block. Not a breath of wind and clear as a bell.

Untouched except for a little sharpening. I used HDR to get all the tonal range of colour.

gpa smart's photo wallet

Its my Dad's birthday in a few days time and as he's currently in the top end of WA I need to post this photo wallet ASAP to him. Choosing colours for a bloke who's red/green colour blind ruled out all my stripy papers as they all had those two colours in them. So I settled on the faithful brown/blue combination with a dash of orange for the spot of colour. I'm really pleased how these turned out.

Please excuse the background that the wallet is against. As this must go in the mail Monday I had to take the shots tonight so I just had to do it on the floor in my office rather than something nice and contrasty. Not to worry as I'm sure you get the essence of it all. :O)

t

ps. D.O.D. is an acronym for Dear old Dad. 

the runaways photo wallet

Funny how a good thing always keeps turning up.

Meredith taught an OTP class at the E2C retreat earlier on this year. Her inspo for it came from here. I have seen several of these wallets being created since then. 2 more only last week in fact.

When I saw what papers Nat had used on the one she made, they reminded me of my Mum. Mum's into pink and roses so how perfect is the Girls' Paperie Range. And Mum loved the vintage photos of the kids 'running away from home'.   I changed mine a bit to include pockets to slide in the tags the kids had written on for her.

With things about to get crazy busy in the photography department, now was the time to make one for her Birthday. Its not until December, but if its going to be anything like last year, I wont have time to scrap at all!!!!

If you see Mum, shhhhh, she has no idea so don't spoil the surprise


t

click on the images to enlarge them.

your eyes are so mesmerising

A challenge answer...albeit very late for E2C -June colour challenge, large picture and vertical title. I've added powder blue to it as it was looking fairly bland until then.

adding a bit of colour to the day

What a dull, grey, wet and cold day.

I thought I'd throw a little bit of colour in it for you.

;oD
t

portable

final sneak peek that I know of for a while..... believe me I will be glad to show you a whole page too in the not to far future.

I've just been asked to do a photography assignment that means having a very tight seatbelt, no fear of heights  and the wind rushing thru my hair..... and seeing that I do like an adrenalin hit now and then, this is right up my alley!! Can't tell you yet, but believe me you'll be hearing me squeal when I get it in the bag.

a vision splendid

I headed up North Block today with a couple of challenges in mind.

1. Bracketed shooting.
2. Learning HDR in Photoshop (which is a snap in CS5 by the way).

And as a bonus I pulled out my macro on the heaps of native flora up there (on the lee side of the hill out of the breeze.)

I hope to head up again with a couple of shutter sisters on the weekend so today was a bit of a reccie as well.

 One thing I did learn was to carry a lens cloth in my pocket to wipe the drops of mist off the lens. Oh, and to wear some sort of jacket/parka so I can throw it over the camera when a scud comes over. Doesn't matter if I get a tiny bit damp but it does matter so much more with the camera!! I nearly treat that tool better than I do Kym ;o)

Looking North West.  Lake Greenly overlooked by Mount Greenly

Looking north. Lake Malata

Looking South West. Marble Range

Looking South. South Block on left. Marble Range on right. Rain Scud moving thru the valley.

I've learnt so much today and with the peace of nature all around, really soothed the soul.

upon reflection

I've been eyeing of this view for a while since its been raining. So on the way into town tonight the kids very kindly agreed that I could stop, set up the camera, tripod, remote trigger, slip on the sexy purple rubber boots and shoot this shot.

Did cost me an ice cream each tho. Bless 'em.

Thank you to all the car honkers and tooters
;o)
t

vanishing point

just mucking around today while the sun was warm and the breeze was light.

Trying out different things in CS 5 and Bridge. Learning every day!

crabs

second to last sneak peek.

Thanks for bearing with me. This one was so much fun as I tried to put a bit of humour into it.

all will be revealed soon enough. *wink*

And a huge thanks to Karola. I have been admiring her beautiful works of art for a while. So amazingly colour  coordinated and delicately stunning. (No wonder she's on the Webster's, Prima, Melissa Francis, TwiddleyBitz Design Teams to name a few). I've been eyeing 3 punches that she has used extensively for a while. I've been looking in different shops for a bit but I didn't know the name them. I did Google Image Martha Stewart Punches. Have you?? There are sooooo many. Anyway I ended up emailing Karola to ask if she kindly let me know the name of the punches that took my fancy. Not only did she email me back so very promptly, she even located an Australian online shop that had all 3 of the ones I desired. Go here. Great prices too!!

Thank you so much Karola. You are a gem.

ps. She has just launched her own range of papers too.

I've used the Doily Lace Trim punch along with paper doilies within this LO

mateship

sneak peek.

Brrrr. Been chilly hasn't it. 

hair yesterday. gone today.

chop chop.

'tis done.

am so much happier with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Janice for the photo shoot. mwah.

curl or cut

the back story.....

Just on 2 years ago I had my annual perm. Yep. That's right. A perm would last a year in my hair. Up until this particular perm I had no hassles at all.

Well then disaster struck with VENGEANCE! Every hair that the cotton wool rested on to absorb the drips, broke off, right down to the scalp. I lost so much hair it was scary. And to make matters even worse, at one point the cotton wool dropped onto my eyebrow and I flicked it back up to my hair. It wasn't even on my eyebrow for a second, but that was enough. I lost half my eyebrow too. It didn't happen overnight. It took a week, my brush was overflowing with hair and my eyebrow thinned out and half disappeared.

I have always had curly hair, never had it straight. So after the year when the perm grew out I didn't get it redone. It was so thin with new hair slowly growing back into it and I just didn't dare.

I've always want boob length hair every since I could remember. Now that its there I detest it. When my hair is down it gets caught under my arm or I'm pinned by it when i sit in a chair. Its thin, flat and lifeless. It does look healthy, shiny and I haven't found one grey hair yet (YET!!) but it gives me angst.

I've been debating what to do with it all. Curl it again (with caution) or cut it off.

The front story....

So today I had a test curl done. Totally different chemical base, and the softest solution they had. No cotton wool. And it was disaster. Half of the hair rolled onto that one roller is gone. Disappeared. Just like that.

SHIT SHIT SHIT

Thank goodness that it was only one roller.

So now I'm looking at the second option.... to cut it off.... something that I'm determined to do, but need to find a style that I like and dig deep for courage.....

I can't be stuffed using curling tongs or heat rollers. I'm just not into fuss with my hair. I'm more a wash- and- wear- it type of chick

hay hay sneak peek

another assignment done. another sneak peek.

I'm such a teaser pmsl.
;op

the bee's knees

We had such lovely light this arvo for taking photos. So while Kym and Sean played with trucks and planes (spreading fertilizer by plane) I into it.

I should have worn knee pads to save me getting green knees, but my first serious Macro attempt was so worth it. This will be my bench mark to see where I can better myself.

***Edited to add***....I've been playing around with the original image and I like this one better. I'm getting bloody fussy these days!!

I also want to give a BIG shout out to Laura (one of the girls I've been shooting with) who has just won the Centre State Photo comp with her very worthy image of the Kapinnie Lakes. Wahu to girl. So deserved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!