no butterflies in this post...

...because there are a lot of other things I took photos of at the Botanical Gardens, too. I tried out my new camera and lenses while we were there, and took a ton of pictures. I took about 200 photos in just a few hours! Of course, not very many of them turned out, but still... there's no way I could show the good ones all in one post. So, this post is selected photos of animals, minus the butterflies- I'll post them separately. 

(and a reminder: click on any photo to enlarge it for a closer look.)

well, all animals except for the Chihuly glass sculptures at the entrance. I had to include a photo of those! We missed the special Chihuly exhibit when it was here in 2008, but apparently these three sculptures are now a permanent installation at the garden. (and I just Googled and found out that there will be another Chihuly exhibit in the Garden, starting in November 2013- yay!) 

there is an animal in this picture, if you look closely. There's a dove balanced on top of this odd-looking plant, which is a boojum tree (a succulent related to the ocotillo). 'A remarkable looking plant, often compared to an upside-down parsnip, it naturally occurs only in Baja California and in a restricted area of Sonora, Mexico. Long-lived plants, some are thought to have lived over 500 years.' (this info was taken from the Desert Botanical Garden's website.) They are 'summer-dormant,' which means they lose their leaves during the summer, but they bloom  during this time. They're really strange looking plants, but somewhat compelling at the same time (and they're kind of expensive to buy, too; we've seen small ones at the nursery, in pots).

there's a lot to look at in the Botanical Gardens, but I didn't forget to look up into the trees! Of course, it helped that I heard this hummingbird chattering away... for a tiny little bird, they have a really large voice.

We were just walking down a trail, happened to look off to the left, and saw this guy having a snack just a few feet off the trail!! He didn't seem to mind us at all- just kept munching away. 

I caught him mid-chew in this photo... lol! A little farther down the same trail, we happened on some bathers--

a couple Gambel's quail, taking dust baths underneath the trees. They were a bit difficult to see at first, till we saw the dust flying!

this one was very energetic!!

I've only just started figuring out how this camera works, so right now I'm still using the 'full auto' setting, which lets the camera do the choosing-- but I really like how it works so far!

this fellow was quite industrious, but I managed to get a couple decent photos of him while he was working on making his nesting cavity in this Saguaro cactus.

it looks like making a nesting hole is messy work.

here's a closer look at the dove on top of the boojum tree.

the dove wasn't alone on the boojum tree; farther down, I saw this bird, presumably keeping an eye on his nest. (see photo below)

this plant actually is full of stickers-- smart bird!! The nest looks pretty safe to me. I don't think it's a cactus wren (they would be more brown-and-white spotted) but I can't remember what the poster at the garden said about bird species, and my Google skills are failing me. I really do need that bird book! Wait, I think I remembered it! I believe it's a 'curve-billed thrasher.' (still need the bird book, just to be safe.)

as we walked back toward the entrance, we happened to hear this fellow from up overhead- he was roosting up in the shade of a tree. I managed to get a couple good photos of him, although it was from a bit of an awkward angle. As we left the garden, we heard one more strange 'clacking' noise... I was looking at some plant or another, and said to Tom, 'I wonder what's making that noise?' He said he saw what it was, and told me to come look-- when I did, I was really excited to see this guy:

Although they don't look much like the Looney Tunes character, this is a desert roadrunner! Before this, I've only ever seen one from pretty far away (along the road, lol). I had no idea they could be up in trees, but this one was just hanging out-- the sidewalk went over a wash, which meant we were pretty much at eye-level with him as we walked past. He was quite noisy, too-- the clacking sound came from him banging his beak together. I got a few so-so pictures of him, then switched to the longer camera lens (he was obliging enough to stay put) and got a few nicer close-ups, like this one:

I had no idea they have those orange and blue patches behind their eyes! I don't know much of anything about them at all, I guess, except that they're chased by coyotes in cartoons. This photo really emphasizes the fact that birds' ancestors are reptiles, though, doesn't it?? He's 'interesting' looking, but not exactly handsome. Still really cool, though, that he sat there and let us take pictures of him!!

I have more photo-editing to do, and then I'll post pictures of the butterflies. And also some plants, too.

Sweet Salvage

this past weekend, I headed out to Phoenix to do some flea-market shopping. (Well, 'flea market' isn't exactly the best term for it- you'll see what I mean when you look at the photos- but it's the best I have...) Once a month, there is a 4-day antique market hosted by Sweet Salvage in the Melrose District of downtown Phoenix. It's a once-a-month 4-day antiques shopping event, basically one weekend a month, Thursday - Sunday, with every month having a different theme. That way, the merchandise always changes (and if you wnt something, it might not be there next month!) 

This month's theme was Boho / Industrial Chic, I think... I bought a few small things (we don't need any large pieces of furniture, and this theme does not fit with our Southwestern decorating scheme), but took photos of some of the booths while I was there. The individual vendor spaces were accessorized so beautifully, it seemed like they could easily be vignettes straight out of an interior decorating magazine. Next month's theme is 'Sweet Retreat' so I'll definitely be going to see what the vendors can do with it!

love the red lockers!

tablescape with dog figurines and vintage silver

this booth was full of gorgeous vintage religious items

mother-of-pearl and vintage rhinestones-- beautiful!!

tablescape with vintage Santos figurine, angel wings, and coral, among other things.
I really tried to figure out what I could do with those
wooden wings, but ended up leaving them there.

painted hutch
with architectural items, figurines, and more

dogs and cigars- love it!! I really like this decorative bottle,
but there was no compelling reason to bring it home with me.

this booth had a shabby-chic front porch feel to it.

this booth is definitely 'industrial chic' style, with the
rusty car grill on the wall, straight out of American Pickers!

Check out the Sweet Salvage blog and website for more photos of interesting and unusual merchandise. (since I didn't go till Saturday morning, I'm sure I missed out on seeing some of the best stuff-- although what was there on Saturday was still pretty amazing.)

22nd Annual World Championship Hoop Dance Competition (post 1)

I took over 200 photos on Saturday (it would have been more, but I forgot to charge my camera battery!), so I have lots more than one post's worth of photos from the Hoop Dance competition and the Heard Museum. 

I'd say we saw about half the day's line-up of dancers, and we also saw two of the touring exhibits inside the museum- 'Native American Bolo Ties' and 'More than Child's Play: Native American Dolls.' (I just wish I had remembered to charge my camera!!)

(fyi, you can click on any of the photos to make them larger, to see more of the details.)

 a pile of colorful hoops waits their turn in the competition ring.

 

 some of the youngest entrants enjoying the Grand Entry parade.

 all the dancers take part in the opening dance.

 color and pattern everywhere.

 a member of the next generation of dancers 

listens to the Opening Prayer with his parents.

 this dancer is getting a little help from her Dad 

during the 'tiny tots' round of dancers.

This young competitor is getting ready to kick the hoop 

up with his foot so he can pick it up. 

He's quite skilled with the hoops, already! 

He was quite a showman, and definitely got the crowd involved in his performance. (one of the judges is off the the left with his arms crossed, watching the performance with eagle eyes.) 

This is such a unique sport: artistic and athletic, colorful, 

and full of cultural traditions and symbolism.  

I hope you're enjoying the photos so far; I'll be back with more!

street art SB page(s)

I knew when I took the graffiti photos a few weeks ago that I wanted to scrapbook them, and very quickly, I found the exactly perfect paper for it- yay! love when that happens!! (the skyline paper below). I knew that somehow I wanted to get the urban, paint-y feel to my pages, too. And I also knew I had a lot of pictures I wanted to use but didn't want to crop them at all, so wasn't sure how to do it. Enter the 2 peas in a bucket website, and their monthly class (with Shimelle Laine!), 4x6 photo love. This layout is the result- sort of a "page-and-a-half" layout, with a sneaky trick to it: it looks like just one page, doesn't it?? But look closer-- it's not!

It's really a 2-page layout (almost), as seen above. (the page protectors are supposed to be sewn together on the edge, too- I just haven't gotten my sewing machine out yet.) The link to the class is here: August 4x6 photo love: how to get (8) 4x6 pages onto a layout. (besides being useful, the classes are fun to watch; there's always a couple layouts along with a video for every month, which I love-- it's always fun to see someone else's process for making a scrapbooking layout.)

Close-up of the skyline with title. I cut the skyline out of the patterned paper and applied it to my base paper. After trying the title stickers out, I decided it was too dark for the red stickers on by themselves, so I lightened it up with a bit of gesso as a "background" for title.

I also tried out my spray inks on these pages, to give them sort of a "messy, gritty" kind of look. Not sure how successful I was at it; I think I may have overdone it a little, but it looks okay. (I really need to remember to stop right before I add that last thing, to let the layout percolate a little before I keep going with it.)

I do love the papers I chose for this layout; gray cardstock, and patterned paper from the Basic Grey Wander line; usually I think their patterns are somewhat overwhelming, but I think it totally works here. The staples work, too... and the fact that I had problems with the stapler just adds to the "urban" feel, right? lol!) I quite like the way this came out; the fact that the "title" area" is above all the photos and tricks the eye is a lot of fun... even though I did ruin a couple page protectors (okay, three, actually) trying to trim them down to the right height, I think I'll definitely use this layout idea again.

I do have quite a few more graffiti photos I want to scrap, so you'll be seeing more of them soon. (not sure about the spray ink, though- that might take some practicing before I break it out again!)

street art- a day out

I braved the heat today and went into downtown Phoenix with my camera. (and a large bottle of water)

This is a few pics of what I found, all of it within an area of just a few square blocks in the Roosevelt Row arts district.

Some is political, some is "tagging" (the artist's name, initials, etc), and some is pure art. (because I was in the arts district, I'm pretty a good bit of it is sanctioned by the property owners.)

Mary? modeled after a Da Vinci? not sure. found in an alley- I love the details on her!

"Police Navidad" spray paint on the sidewalk this building reminds me of stained glass.

"Bird is the Werd"

building along Roosevelt.

"Build Up Not Out" (on a large dumpster)

I love how the plates on its back are skyscrapers! (and the tiny saguaro cacti at the bottom)

...more to come!

Scrapping Saturday!!

I spent all day yesterday, National Scrapbooking Day, in Phoenix at this lovely place: the newly opened Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage!! I was lucky enough to be one of the winners of a free 12-hour crop at this cute, cute, cute bungalow cottage yesterday, for their grand opening weekend. This was a great opportunity to get some pages scrapped, since I haven't scrapped for quite a while (sad to say it's been well over a year, since the last post I wrote about scrapping!) so I packed up my paper, printed out some photos, and headed into Phoenix. The proprieters are a very nice duo of women who had gone to scrapping retreats in San Diego, and decided to bring a similar weekend getaway idea to the Phoenix area. The house is available for weekend getaways, Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon, or for 12-hour day crops. (You can even tack on a Thursday or Monday, to extend your weekend even more!)

This is the dining room with its beautiful built-in china hutch; it's now the tool center, containing a huge selection of stamps, ink pads, idea books, and tools, including a Cricut cutter and a computer with a wide-format printer. (That's Kathy there, one of the very nice owners.)

I took a little photo tour of some of the rest of the house, too, while I was taking a break to stretch my back. This is one of the super-cute bedrooms: pillow-top mattresses with 300-thread count sheets! So, if you get exhausted from all that scrapping and working, you can actually sleep, in comfort.

These two pictures are the upstairs bathroom-- it is gorgeous!! There's a second full bath on the first floor, which is just as gorgeous.

( I had a claw-foot tub like this in my very first apartment, but it didn't have a shower. ) This renovation is a great way to update a bathroom and still respect the architecture of the room; you can still enjoy the window in the room, and the shower head is beautiful.

These are a couple of my fellow scrappers-- we each got our very own 6-foot table with our very own Ott light! I've been to a number of all-day crops back in Illinois and Wisconsin, and lots of times we had to share one of these tables with someone-- that makes for some cramped quarters, for sure. (imagine sharing one of those tables in the middle of the room, so you couldn't even back the chair away from the table, either! not fun, especially since I tend to spread out when I work, as you can see below.)

Here's my workspace-- pretty messy, and the inspiration was coming rather slowly-- It actually took me a couple hours to get into a groove; this picture still shows the first page I was working on, and it was about 1:30 in the afternoon. In my defense, though, I did have to unpack and get set up, along with having to cut and crop my photos before getting to work. (The first finished page is below; it just needs the journaling printed out, which will be folded and tucked into the library pocket.)

This is the picture of us that was taken at our 7th anniversary brunch; I think it's one of the nicest pics of us, and wanted to showcase it.

This page was a fun one to do-- this pic of Tom was taken a few years ago when we were in Seattle for a long weekend. I bought the paper specifically with the idea of using it for this page; I loved the hearts and fun colors. (scrapbooking paper is somewhat addicting, but shopping for it can sometimes lead to pattern and color overload.)

The pics above and below are from a trip we took a few years ago at Christmastime-- we stopped at the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch , which was certainly a memorable experience! The ostriches were kind of scary to me, actually, and the lorikeets (pic below) really did feel a bit like a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds. I knew I wanted to play up the colors of those birds, which are really vibrant. (these pages took a couple hours to do, actually, because I kept thinking of more little details I wanted to add: I really need to work on my speed; plus, I am a bit picky-- it took me at least 1/2 hour to get the ribbon tied the way I wanted it on that first page.)

The pics below are from the same trip, taken when we took a day trip to Tombstone, but they're not quite finished yet. I finally got into my scrapping groove about 8 pm, but then had to start thinking about picking up, since the crop only went till 10 pm. I did already make a reservation for a weekend getaway, though; that way, I can work as long as my inspiration (and my caffeine supply) holds out!

Well, hopefully it won't be another year (or longer) before I show you a new scrapbooking layout, although I can't promise anything! And if you want to plan your own crafty getaway, for scrapping or other crafts, I highly recommend the Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage... maybe I'll even see you there! (I'll be the one with the paper scattered all over, looking for something I just set down and misplaced-- lol!!)