A simple Nicole inspired layout...

Just a quick post to post a layout I actually finished during the week using an old photo from early high school, that I have had edited and printed for a little while now:




This layout was inspired by this layout of Nicole Southworths:



As you can see, not just 'inspired' but really quite 'copied'! Hope Nicole doesn't mind.

I love using Nicole's layouts as a base for quick and easy layouts, that look sleek and classic while still getting the story and photo down. It was Nicole who first started me in 8.5x11 scrapping, and then Ali Edwards who made me realise that you don't have to scrap exclusively in one size.

I decided to follow Ali Edwards' lead and make some of my own digital 'extras', which is where my journalling block came from. I've done this quite a bit with some of these 'older' photos - printed out my journalling on a 4x6 photo using colours from the photo itself (although obviously this one is just black and white). Hopefully if I get to scrap this weekend you'll see some more in the next week or so where I've done this. I've also created some other types of little journalling spots with various flourish brushes that I've found on the net, different colours, with scallops and without, etc and printed a few on a 4x6 photo for me to fill in with one of my AC slick writers when I do a page that needs a little spot of journalling. I've saved each of the files that I make as a .png file as well as a brush, so that I can drag the entire 'thing' over into a new file and do whatever I want with it or I can just 'stamp' it in. If I'm feeling motivated enough over the weekend/this afternoon I might post some examples here, so that if anyone is interested just let me know and I will send them to you.

I've also followed Cathy Zielske's lead and made some of my own simple overlays to place over photos. I went a little overboard and started making one in black and one in white, in each of the different standard sizes, with various differents sayings and words on them! I then realised that I should have just made each one as I actually wanted an overlay for a particular size and colour! Again, if I'm motivated enough I'll post pics of them here soon as well.

Ok, maybe not such a short post after all, but those who know me know never to really expect that!

Be back soon, hopefully with some pics of some cooking I need to do tomorrow for a neighbourhood bbq we're going to to celebrate a friend's birthday. I'm making mini quiches and ice cream bars. Yumm!

A lazy weekend

These have been coming around far too often lately (not the weekend part - just the lazy part)! I do love my weekends though, and by the time the weekend comes around I generally feel so pooped from the week that I don't really want to 'do' anything.

This weekend was spent catching up on some sleep, doing a bit of reading, going to the Mackay Home Show, seeing the movie 'Fame' and a little bit of around the house stuff. Here is the weekend in pictures:

Making a camera strap cover out of the lovely fabric I bought during the week (and thinking that I made it a little too narrow). My sewing machine is not working, so I used the overlocker for most of it, with some hand stitching for the 'hem':





Making some tuna, pumpkin and spinach patties to have on some rolls for lunch during the week:





This little guy is a regular in our backyard, and is quite unafraid of us. Him and his mates are so funny to watch - they're just like children sometimes:







The view of the dust hanging over the city for most of today:







I also made a birthday card to use next weekend, which I'll post a picture of after I've given it to the birthday lady.

Back to the grind tomorrow, and I hope to start back into a regular exercise routine this week.

Playing the Wii - Wilson style

A little while back (not long after getting the Wii) Mum, Dad and Na came up to Mackay for the weekend and they came over for dinner. We spent a good deal of time playing the Wii, in true Wilson style. Mum and Na were the most frequent players, and really got right into it! By the end of the night I'm sure the neighbours wondered what we were up to in our little house, as I'm sure that the guffaws and squeals could be heard down the road!

You can see from this sequence of photos the concentration that is involved in 'tandem bike riding'!



The syncronisity between the two of them couldn't have been posed better!

On the subject of the Wilsons, I haven't yet posted any photos of the new man in my Mum's life - little Eddy.





Mum is just so head over heels for him, and I can see why. He is really wonderful - especially for a 'boy' dog! (Just kidding - Mum has always said she only likes 'girl' dogs so it was quite a shock to hear about Eddy.)

I'll finish off with a photo that I'm thinking of entering into the next competition for the photo club, with the 'Shoot It' topic being Sports.



Wow, two posts in one day! That's a definite record for me! (And I'm sure my four blog readers will be happy...!)

A trip to the beach

I just thought I'd post a few photos that I took when John and I went for a quick trip down to the beaches around Sarina a couple of weekends ago. I used my polarising filter to try to capture the true colours of the water, which was just the most sparkling turquoise - truly beautiful.







In my last post I mentioned that it was my Mum's birthday a few weekends ago, and I realised that I didn't post a photo of John and my celebrations for her that day:



I decided to make some home-made sausage rolls, using some of my 'MasterChefing' skills! Well, if adding various herbs and spices and sauces counts as 'skill'...

I've bought some lovely material to make a neck-strap cover for my camera, based on a number of tutorials that are all over the web, but started with this. Of course my fabrics are mainly pink, and I got some fusible wadding to make it nice and 'squishy'. Now to just get my sewing machine working again! I would never recommend anyone ever buy a Brother sewing machine - this one has barely worked a single day in its entire 3 year existence, despite many services, being fixed under the manufacturer's warranty, being fixed again by a repair man who is an ex-Brother agent, and other numerous 'fixings'.

Can't wait any longer!

It was Mum's birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't yet given her her present. It's sitting here screaming at me, and I can't wait any longer! I can't send it to her in the post (you will see why in a minute) so I'm going to have to wait until I visit her in a few weeks. I'm too excited to show her what it is though, so here it is (sitting on our couch):



I don't know if you can tell easily, but it's a canvas! We had a photo shoot with the gorgeous Ali Russell in June, and this is Mum's favourite photo of her and Dad. The canvas is 16x20 inches, which I think is the perfect size for hanging on the wall. The photo is so gorgeous, so thank you Ali! I truly love the photos of our family, which can be seen here. Ali is a very talented photographer who has started her own photography business - Live Laugh Love Photography.

So Mum, I hope you think the wait for your pressie will be worth it! I don't think this photo of the canvas does it justice, so I hope you like it! (You can replace some of the dodgy canvases I've made for you over the years with something worthwhile now!)

That's about it for now - just a quick one.

Another photo club meeting...

I'm getting quite slack with my blog posts - which is going to really disappoint my four readers!! I'm hoping to follow in Fiona's footsteps blog more often, even if they're only small posts about little things that are important to me at that point in time. Gee, I'm saying that 'I'm gunna' about a lot of things lately...

Last night was another meeting for the camera club that I'm a member of, Creative Shots. And guess what? I won second place for this photo:



I entered this photo in 'Enhance It' where you can make enhancements and improvements to your photos. I was quite surprised when it was announced, as there were so many wonderful photos in it.

Next month are the normal comps of Pure Talent and Enhance It, but also 'For Arts Sake' where we can do all sorts of enhancements to make it into 'artwork'. I'm thinking of entering a photo I've got of John's Dad out in the paddock where I've applied a texture and some typography to the photo.

I've been doing some editing of the photos that I took at Jamie and Ally's wedding. None of them are anything special (I'll blame that on my old camera...) but it's something to document that day in any case. I'm not finished them all yet, but here are a couple:













Like I said, nothing special, but something! This obviously isn't all of them, and there's still a few I need to edit before I send the finished product to Jamie and Ally.

Not too much else very exciting happening - John and I planted some plants in our front yard on the weekend. They will eventually become hedges, but at the moment they are very small and look absolutely nothing like a hedge! All in good time, John keeps telling me. I don't know if this gardening is quite for me... :)

Fiona and I are thinking of starting to organise the next GSG (Get Scrapped Getaway) for a weekend in November. I love the organisation of our weekends!

To finish off, I'll leave you with some random pages that I've done (some not so recently) that I don't think I've shared yet.


(My graduation ceremony in 2007.)


(John bungy jumping in New Zealand.)


(John and I at Australia Zoo in 2006 I think... I scraplifted this one from one of Fiona's pages - about Jesse's crimpy ears I think.)

I hope to be back again in the not too distant future with some more posts.

PS - Mum, the photo of John and I above show my hair - I think this might be the first time you've seen it since I've cut it this short?

What a great weekend!

Well, this past weekend I was lucky enough to attend a Steve Rutherford workshop that the camera club arranged, and what a learning experience! I just absolutely love Steve's photographs and can only dream of ever taking photos like that! That said, I was a little disappointed with the photos I ended up getting, both due to my lack of creativity when seeing the photos, and I guess a small part due to the locations that we went. The technical aspects of my photos though I was happy with, which was the whole point of the workshop - so that's a positive!

We spent the morning at the Mackay Botanical Gardens just taking photos of 'stuff' while learning about exposure (exposing for highlights vs shadows etc). None of my photos are very exciting, but I was working towards correct exposure so I was happy with the outcome in that sense.



We then went to the Mackay Marina and ate lunch on the boat of two of the attendees, which was great! We then spent a few hours down amongst the boats trying 'tell a story' with the composition of the photo, while also concentrating on the exposure. It was the middle of a very hot, sunny day by this time, and the sunshine was so bright! Because of these conditions, I was happy with my exposures of the photos, but not so happy with my 'story telling'.







The afternoon was spent at Lamberts Beach taking photos of the beach, which I thought a little boring to be honest. A beach is a beach, and there was just an expanse of sand and some waves. I found a few interesting pieces of driftwood that I latched on to! Apart from that, I was playing with my polarising filters to get some pretty colour into the water.











The evening was photographing the sunset at East Point, which again I was a little disappointed with. The sun was setting over Mackay, but from that vantage point, there is really no points of interest except for the bit of sand that was between us and the sun. Again, I found a piece of driftwood that gave me some fodder!





The second day was spent indoors speaking with Steve and learning about Adobe Lightroom. I've been thinking of upgrading my Photoshop (I currently have version 7) so that I have RAW editing capabilities, but am not looking forward to shelling out the $1400 for the latest Photoshop!! I was impressed with Lightroom and thought that it would complement my current Photoshop version, but with a $600 price tag, I've still got some thinking to do about that too!

Life is very busy at the moment - work has picked up an unbelievable amount and I don't have time to scratch myself from the moment I walk in the door in the morning. It's getting me quite stressed at the moment actually, but I need to let it go once I finish for the day. Because of it, my lifestyle has gone downhill - I haven't been to the gym for a number of weeks now, and I'm not even walking home inthe afternoons. I need to make conscious changes, and I need to make them now. I saw on Fiona's blog about her challenge. While I'm not going to do anything 'formal', I need to set my own goals that are achievable and work towards them one by one, or things will never change.