Country Living

I was really pleased with Sian’s comment on my last post where she referred to the photo of my poor potato harvest as a ‘country living’ shot lol. Daft I know, but I do like to make the shots I post as pleasing to the eye as possible. I don’t always manage it (often just don’t have the time) but I had secretly been rather pleased with this one even before the comments. And so I thought it might be a nice idea to share how it was achieved.

The photo was taken on my phone in landscape. The original shot was fine but lacking in something.

I then used a photo editor (Photoshop Express for android in my case) to apply the effect ‘vignette blur’ to the shot. Starting to feel a little better here.

This was saved and loaded up to Picnik where I added the ‘polaroid’ frame (choosing to straighten it rather that leave at a slant), I also then added the text. You could add a frame in Photoshop or another editor but to be honest Picnik is so quick and easy to use its not worth it. The choice of the polaroid frame cuts the shot into a square which had the pleasing effect of reducing the ‘vignette blur’ in the bottom corners. Voila! My Country Living shot – now if only they would employ me ……..

Do you like my flowers? This basket and pot set has sat, empty, on the windowsill at The Hovel for a few months now. I found it in TKMaxx at a fraction of the price I’d have paid elsewhere but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to put in it. I had a vision of something like ‘mind your own business’ I think they’re called. A mass of tiny green leaves with little orange ball fruit. I think I may be confusing two different plants though and suffice to say, I didn’t find any. I did however, come across these campanula’s in Sainsbury's and I knew immediately that they would look good. What do you think?

Now I just need to see if my watering solution of house bricks in a bowl of water with the plants stood on top (apparently the house bricks will wick the water to the plant) works for the period we’re not there.

Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to leave a comment, I love to hear from you.

Wendy xx

Mystery Veg & Photo Challenges

I’ve mentioned previously that we have deliveries of organic veggie boxes from Abel & Cole. The first was actually part of Pete’s Christmas present as I knew it was something he’d fancied trying for a while. They are very well organised but because of this you do always know what you will be receiving in each box. Also because of this you can opt to never receive particular items or skip an item for a box.  This week I’d chosen to skip yellow peppers as we’d already got some. This meant that there was going to be one item in the box I wasn’t expecting. Well, when I first looked I didn’t even recognise the blooming thing and so I emailed this piccie to Pete at work.

Mystery solved, it is Salsify. Now I look again I do recall seeing it used on Masterchef  by the great Monica to test one batch of professional chefs. Thankfully that meant that we remembered that once peeled the white flesh darkens very quickly if not placed into a bowl of slightly acidic water. We’d also added Wild Pheasant Breast to our order for this week and so you can guess what our main course consisted of last night. I can also report that my crumble was truly delicious. It went in the oven for approx 30 mins and was then served with a little dollop of farmhouse vanilla ice-cream – yummy. I also snuck in an order yesterday for this little beauty to store all my camera paraphernalia in. I didn’t order till yesterday afternoon and the Royal Mail man got me out of bed this morning to sign for it, how efficient is that?. All my stuff is now safe and sound, tucked way and protected so I am a happy bunny.

At home over Christmas Anthony took the plunge and purchased himself a DSLR. He’s lusted after one for a while and always has a play with my Canon when he’s home. After checking out the prices on line he treated himself to the Canon 550D from Jessops. Similar to mine but the next level up it really is a smashing camera. Now he’s home I thought I’d set him the occasional challenge to keep him on his toes.

The first challenge was to create a multiple exposure shot like this one of mine which I’d done for Pete on his birthday – more a Photoshop challenge than photography really but I knew Ant would enjoy it. I know that at least one shot of mine is out of focus but this really was a quick and dirty first attempt:

Ant rose to the challenge and although his creative process differed to mine (he used masks – note to self, I must get into these) he created a wonderful shot:

The latest challenge issued to him was to ‘make like M&S, this isn’t just any food’. I always seem to rush these things and consequently when I look back I spot things I perhaps should have done differently. In this shot, for example, the fruit on the saucer needs to be off centre slightly – too late now though, was eaten up last night lol

It will be interesting to see how he tackles this one, almost too easy really he may have too much choice and struggle to focus, we’ll see.

Thanks for dropping by.

  Wendy x

Catch Up – could be a long one!

Friday saw work stop on the extension for the long weekend and we were left with a good idea of how it’s going to look. At various stages I’ve thought that it just didn’t look big enough but now I think it will be spot on. Thankfully the weather held for them and so there were no hold-ups. Not so the weather on Saturday or, indeed, today.

Saturday dawned grey, miserable and wet – just right for a trip to Alton Towers. Not to be put off we just got on with it and I have to say we had a pretty good day. I think it was the quietest I’ve seen it for a while and so the queues weren’t too bad (apart from Sonic Pinball). We managed to get on most of what we wanted without getting very wet at all and so it was a good day all round.

I decided yesterday that I really needed to get this layout finished, it’s been hanging around for a couple of weeks and as I have a deadline to meet on the next one, I needed to clear the space. The layout tells the story of our recent trip to France which should have been Ibiza but the ash cloud put paid to that. It focuses on the last place we stayed – Chateau Monhoudou near Mamers and the gorgeous Blue Room that we chose. Our room key had the most enormous tassel attached to it and so I used the thread in ScrapaGoGo’s April kit to re-create one for the page. Not liking to throw anything away I used up some scraps to create the swirls you can see below.

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with one photo from Alton Towers, it’s had a bit of a Hipstamatic treatment in Photoshop and I just love the effect.

Thanks for dropping by.

  Wendy x

Just a quickie

I have finally managed to get a little scrapping going. It started with me creating some photo collage template in Photoshop and then slotting photos of our recent trip into the them. I printed three out and have a layout on the go with one of them. For now I thought I’d post one of the collages here, it will feature at some point in a layout I hope. These are some of the snapshots I have from Richelieu and I love how they sit together in this collage.

I’ve also added another page to my blog. This one to record my ramblings about my latest readings. I think I've rushed it a little but hopefully now it’s there it will allow me to record my own thought, just for me, about each book I chose to mention.

Thanks for dropping by.

  Wendy x

OMG I so WANT this…….

Spotted a post over on UKS talking bout CS5, with a link to this on YouTube, OMG, I don’t need this at all but I so WANT it. At first there were some comments that it was a hoax but since then it has appeared directly on Adobe’s site. The only word I can find to describe it’s capabilities is AWESOME. Enjoy ……

Thanks for dropping by.

Wendy x

Photo Shoot

This is my sixth layout with this months kit. I'm really pleased because I don't normally to get this many layouts done before the next kit arrives.  I think I'm turning into the 'Queen of Thrifty Scrapping' though, no idea why.  I've used up all the plain cardstock (and one from my stash) and I've still loads of patterned paper left. As you can see from this one, I often use very little pp per layout.  This photo goes back to March 2008 when I was practising group shots for a photography module I was doing.  It has been grunged up a little in Photoshop and I quite like the look its achieved.

Poster plays

I'd forgotten how easy it is to create these posters like the one above.  I was messing about adding a gadget to my blog and followed an, almost forgotten, link to a small online gallery of mine.  It reminded me of the Photoshop templates I'd created to enable 'posters' of this nature to be created quickly with my photos.  So I thought I'd try this photo of the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.  On it's own (not in the template) it somehow doesn't stand out but like this I think it's quite effective.  I think I prefer the dark background but this just shows how the simple task of changing a colour can make a dramatic difference.