Saturday, September 26, 2009

LOVE is a Nikon camera

Have you ever had a day where everything seems to go wrong and then...just at the last minute...you discover MAGIC! That's what happened to me today. I've blogged before about my computer crash in late August when I lost all of my photo files. It seemed like a total disaster at the time and still makes me cry when I think about it for too long. Today I was supposed to get word if the image file drive could be saved. Alas when they tried to access it, it came up corrupted...again!!
So today I spent some time on flickr looking for inspiration and new ideas. I've been playing around with Photoshop and textures/overlays and on flickr I came across a young mother and photographer who works magic with her Nikon D700 and sells the most incredible textures to use with your photos. Shana Rae has a lovely website called Florabellacollection.com (click on the title of this blog and it will zip you over there).
Just spending time looking at her beautiful work has left me feeling hopeful that maybe I NEEDED to lose the old so there is room for the NEW. I'll always miss all of those thousands of photos I lost BUT I do believe there are some amazing photos waiting in my future!

Blog Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Jamie Lyerly who won those beautiful fabric scraps I blogged about last week. Jamie shared with me that her friend Starry who also left a comment will be receiving some of the scraps to play with as well! Have fun girls.
I'm a bit late in posting as I had to undergo some minor surgery to remove my chemo port on Wednesday. I'm doing well and the pain is minimal. The best part is that it's out and remission continues!!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Vintage Kodak Slides

I've spent a fruitless evening surfing through eBay looking for vintage slides to use in making my SX70 and TtV images. I lost all of my photographic images (10,000+ images) when my computer crashed in late August so I've decided to scan and use my father's old slides to alter in Photoshop. Sounds like a great idea but I've come to realize that I'll need a lot more than Daddy's photography if I plan to keep on working. I always thought he had a camera at his eye but I've not been able to find more than 75-100 slides. *sigh* I love my great ideas but hate it when I can't find a way to carry them out!

So here's an appeal to all my readers. If you have vintage slides you'd like to sell.. I'm interested. If you'd rather do a 'loner' thing I'd be happy to trade with some of my work. Just leave a comment and I'll track you down. Thanks for any vintage images you can dredge up for me. I'm devastated to lose so much of my work. A hard lesson learned, always back up your computer even if you think you've got top of the line virus protection!

Friday, September 18, 2009

eHarmony.com

Who says that dreams never come true? Not my daughter, not anymore. I told her back in July to go on eHarmony for the 4th of July weekend. She tried it, liked it and I told her to join and I'd pay $60 for one month. I told her if she didn't meet the right guy in 30 days that was that. She went on a few dates with guys that were ok and had possibility but on the very last day of her membership they matched her with someone who was close to being perfect! That was five weeks ago and they have been together every day since.

I asked her if she didn't miss the 'thrill and excitement' of going out on dates to fancy restaurants and the movies. She said "been there, done that and this is better". This takes me back 40 years when I met my husband on a blind date and we've been together almost every day since ourselves. I guess the children really do learn by example.

Here's the happy couple earlier this evening when he gave her that lovely necklace for her 30th birthday. Thank you eHarmony!







Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Blog Giveaway

Be sure to see the previous post for my latest blog giveaway. If you like to sew or create pretty little things you'll want to win this fabric stash!

UFOs

We all have them. Those unfinished objects that sit in a closet, on a shelf, in a box...somewhere we don't have to look at them and feel the pain of not finishing what we started. I've got hundreds of them around here. After 40 years as a photographer/artist/crafter/seamstress I've got so many UFOs it could drive a sane woman crazy. Since I think that would be a rather short ride for me I've decided to start clearing out those UFOs and passing them along to someone who can make something spectacular OR just keep them in her own UFO pile :)

How this all came about is quite simple. I was looking for some vintage slides the other day and came across a bag in my linen closet. Since I rarely explore that area of the house other than to refill the towel shelf I just had to see what was hidden away in that tempting white bag all tied up in a bow. Now I wish I hadn't because I came across some of the prettiest materials that I'd been stashing away for that special day when I would need them. I've long realized that those 'special' days rarely arrive and if they do it usually comes with a preset agenda that doesn't include hidden treasures I've so long been collecting.

So I'm having a giveaway for these jewels. To win all you have to do is leave a brief comment with a very short description of what YOU would do with these gorgeous scraps. Be aware of the fact that these are just what I said...scraps. None of the pieces are over a half yard wide and most of them are smaller than that, perhaps 10" x 18" and up. No fat quarters, sorry. I salvaged these from brocade jackets, silk shirts and dresses and a couple of acetate skirts. But the grape, teal and gold mix is much prettier than my cheap little digital camera displays.





Hope you have something special you can use these for because they're ironed, folded, bagged and ready to be delivered to the lucky winner. BTW...ironing was never my strong suit...consider that my daughter used to call it Irun and you'll get an idea of just how domestic I really am. Drawing will be Tuesday, September 22nd at noon EDT. Good luck and God Bless.