2016 Calendar Toppers

In Kindergarten my son learned to mark off the days on a calendar. Last year I threw together a Shutterfly calendar for him, and he seems to really enjoy having family pictures on his wall. This year I've been using the Scrapping with Liz Calendar Templates each month. I'm a little behind since I haven't done August yet. For September, I'll wait until the month is over, so I can pick from all the September photos. Here is what  have so far.

Anywhere Elements and Papers; Wired No. 2 Alphabet by creashens
2016 Calendar Template 7 by Scrapping with Liz

Strawberry Bliss by creashens; 2016 Calendar Template 6 by Scrapping with Liz

Live Free and Dapper Kits, and Silver Wire Alpha by Digital Design Essentials;
2016 Calendar Template 5 by Scrapping with Liz

Colors of Spring by Anita Designs; Wired Alpha No. 2 by creashens;
2016 Calendar Template 4 by Scrapping with Liz

Sprung Papers by Karla Dudley; Let's Go Outside Elements by Sugarplum Paperie;
Wired Alpha No. 1 by creashens; 2016 Calendar Template 3 by Scrapping with Liz

This Weekend by Anita Designs; My Story Papers by Mari Koegelenberg;
Glow Papers and Wire Alpha 1 by creashens; 2016 Calendar Template 2 by Scrapping with Liz

Clueless Collection by Anita Designs; Wire Alpha 2 by creashens;
2016 Calendar Template 1 by Scrapping with Liz

Now that I see them all together, I'm starting to worry they are too girly for a 3rd grade boy. Oh well. They are what they are.

Some Recent Scrapbook Layouts

I've got a bit of a creative block right now. I have a scrapbooking project I'm trying to put together for a Christmas gift, but it hasn't been coming together. I'm having trouble putting it aside to focus on other pages. But here are a few that I've done.

This page has pictures the scientist took at a garden in China during one of his work trips.

Every Family has a Story Templates by Sabrina's Creations and Soco

This page is about a game we got last Christmas, and it has become a family favorite. Qwirkle is deceptively simple looking. An eight year old can play against an adult easily, and it is fun for all. The kit and template I used here were neither game-themed, but I thought the funky shapes played off the tiles from the game.

Triangles, Triangles, Triangles Templates by Scrapping with Liz; Daddio by Allison Pennington

These were pictures from a local favorite nature area ... how to scrap the same ol' place yet another time? I ended up going with a change of season theme.

Watercolor Whimsy Collection by Dawn Inskip; 2 in 1 Triangle Templates by Scrapping with Liz

Some fun summer pictures.

Recyclables 40 by Scrapping with Liz; Cardstock Essentials 3 by Karla Dudley; Summer's End Titles by Just
Jaimee; One for the Album by One Little Bird; Sprinkles 26 by Valorie Wibbens
various Straight Line White stitches by Anna Aspnes

Back to school day pictures with some thoughts about the new year.

Tell Me About it Template 1 by Scrapping with Liz; Bright by Allison Pennington
Heimili by Pink Reptile Designs; Documentary by Sahlin Designs

Pictures from a trip to the zoo. I was inspired by several photographs with animal backdrops. I wanted to do something very graphic with them, and ended up with the large extracted photo. There was one more with a tarantula backdrop, but the expression on his face and the harsh shadows weren't very flattering, so I left it out.

25 Days of Templates by Tiffany Tillman; Cardstock Essentials 3 by Karla Dudley

Bird Report

I got a new hummingbird feeder last Christmas. It is really cool - it has suction cups and adheres to windows.

This is cool because the birds look right at you through the window. This is also a very easy-to-clean feeder. It is basically just a bowl with a hinged lid.

You can set up a tripod right inside the window in hopes of getting a really nice close up of a bird. However, if your window happens to be shaded by a balcony, as mine is, you might not get that great play of colors that is so desired.

But I happened to get this one pretty good shot (out of about 30 - I was using a remote so that I could stand far away, and I didn't realize that the focus point was set too low). I am now feeling inspired to attempt more hummingbird photography.

This is the same picture, just cropped in and saturation bumped - I couldn't help myself.

I was wondering if the hummingbirds would stay resident all winter, or if they would migrate. They stayed, but they did not seem as interested in my feeder. I think they kept to more natural food sources. Maybe their diet varies over the year.

So, stay tuned for future bird photography, and thanks for stopping by.

Displaying My Own Photography

Every once in a while I take a photograph that I really love. Eventually I had enough of these "great" photos that I thought I should display them on my walls. I had a couple of large frames that were not being used, so I threw out the old prints in them, and designed some displays of my photos.

I used Photoshop to set up simple templates with several photo spots on large canvases (I believe they are 16x20 and 16x16 inches). I had them printed and slipped them into my frames. And here they are on my entry wall.

The frame on the left has several different nature photographs: mushrooms, a western fence lizard, a cuttle fish, and a hummingbird.

 

And here is a funny, or maybe not so funny, story about that. I was so pleased with my photo gallery and was anxious to show it off to the scientist. I think he was out of town when they arrived. Anyway, I cornered him in front of the pictures and said, "I love how my pictures turned out." He said he loved them too, and it was ironic that most of the pictures were actually taken by him. Oh, really?! Exactly one of the four pictures was taken by him - the mushrooms. The other three were all mine! Now, I guess I can kind of understand how he might think the cuttle fish picture was his because he took similar pictures of cuttle fish when we were at the aquarium. I could even understand how he might think the lizard picture was his because he often caught lizards with our son and he sometimes took pictures of them, although they were all out of focus. The scientist specifically said the hummingbird picture was his, which I cannot understand at all because I have never known him to take a single picture of a hummingbird. So that's the story: how a scientist who took 25% of the pictures quickly came to the conclusion that "most" of the pictures were his. Is that funny or disturbing?

The other collection of three photos was a series that I had been wanting to do for quite a while. It is three pictures of a weed that I remember fondly from my childhood. They start as little pink flowers. Each flower grows into a long, multi-segmented spear.

Then as the spears dry out, the segments separate into several seeds with long tails. The tails twist into a really tight spiral with very fine hairs sticking out. They stick to you when you walk through them. These were the least painful of stickers you could get stuck to your shoe laces when I was a kid (the painful part is removing them). I guess that is why I remember them so fondly: stickers that were easy to remove. Or maybe it is because that spiral is so cool.

Thanks for stopping by!