Finally Finished!

Back at the beginning of March I had the pleasure of joining the lovely ladies at the Frozen North Crop in Holystone for the weekend. 3 of the LO’s I started but didn’t manage to finish finally got done last week. I hate having unfinished LO’s laying about, its so not me.

These first 2 LO’s were done using the photo’s I took of Amy during a recent photo session so that I could practice my new acquired skills in taking portraits. I love the results I got that day although I still have a long way to go.

And this one of Tony showing off his new Moustaches . . lol!  He has the most adorable eye lashes (its always the boys who have the best lashes isn’t it) and people are always complimenting him on them but he would rather everyone notice what he calls his moustaches. Yes if you look close enough you can just about see the start of a moustache. I had to take this photo to prove that he is indeed starting to grow facial hair . . lol  if he is anything like his brother though, he will soon get tired of having to shave when it really grows in!

The cute little moustache sticker was a gift from Heather and I placed it on the top of the tag which holds the journaling. Thank You Heather x

My crafty MOJO has been gone for so long now, I need a kick-start to get it back. Tomorrow is the reveal date of a new group I have joined called Scrap-A-Sketch and as of yet I havent stuck anything down on my page. Its a work in progress as I did gather a photo and papers but thats as far as it went. The weather today is not so great so maybe that in itself is incentive to stay in the craft room and play.

52 Walks Weeks 12 & 13 . . . .

I’ve not blogged for a while, I’ve not done any crafting for awhile either. Life has a habit of throwing you a bombshell every now and then just to remind us of what's really important in this life so I have been spending lots of time with my family doing family stuff. The unseasonably great weather we have been having here has helped as we have been outdoors so much enjoying the beach and the beautiful woodland area’s we are surrounded  by.  I always have my camera with me what ever we are doing so the one thing I have been doing lots of lately is taking photographs.

I have my weeks 12 and 13 of the 52 Walks to blog today but as yet I still dont have a LOST photo for week 11 so Im a little out of sync, but hey thats life right?

So, Week 12 and 13 were done during the same walk. We headed out to the beautiful Ness Woods Country Park last week (there are photo’s on my Flickr page) and had the most relaxing day in the woods. The weather was perfect and the sky was crystal clear all day long.

Week 12 – Awakening

Spring is the time of awakening, so many new shoots were emerging from the woodland floor and the trees and shrubs are all starting to awaken. I love these blooms, Im not sure what they are as I am terrible with horticultural stuff but I know they are so pretty. A few blooms had appeared from what looked like a load of dead wood. Im going to go back in a few weeks to see these area when its wide awake!

Week 13 – Nest

When I saw this weeks prompt from Cheryl I immediately thought – great! This is going to be easy, there must be nests everywhere – boy was I wrong. We didnt see one all day long, I had everyone on the lookout.  We did spot a few nest boxes but that wasn’t quite what I wanted. Then we came across this old farm building in a clearing just off the woodland walk full of crows. Wow! So I was very happy to get these photo’s of a very large nest:

Long may this wonderful weather continue!  Somehow, I think I am wishful thinking, but a girl can dream.

Chinese Whispers–The Reveal!!

For the past 7 months I have been playing a game of Chinese Whispers with some of the team mates from The Rik Rak Ravers on UKScrappers.

We each started off by doing a LO to send on to the next person in line for them to interpret. Its been fun to do and even more fun to see them all finished and how much the LO’s have changed as they rounds have gone on.

As the game is now over I can share my LO’s that I did during the game:

This was my original LO to start off the game:

My version of a LO by Suzy

My version of a LO by Heather

My Version of a LO by Lesley

My Version of a LO by Julieann

My Version of a LO by Debbie

and finally . . .  My Version of a LO by Lisa

Im pleased with all my LO’s – they were quick and simple to do and the game has been great fun.  So I wonder what’s up next for us Ravers to play ??  Watch this space.

Snap 2012 – all caught up!

3 weeks photo’s to blog all at once means I am all caught up with my Snap 2012 project.

First up is Week 9 – Home

This theme coincided with a trip back to London to see my sister so I thought it only fitting but to get some photo’s back where I come from. Im a stronger believer that home is where the heart is and my heart is firmly set here in Donegal but I suppose London is my hometown. Im a Bermondsey girl, hence the Welcome to Bermondsey sign! 

Week 10 – Green

Now living where I do the ‘green’ theme should be really easy!  Yes, I am surrounded by green fields but I decided to go with this pretty lone snowdrop instead, nestled in amongst the grass on the roadside just outside our house.

Week 11 – Relax

Not something I get to do much of lately!  So my chosen subject for this theme fell to the adorable Miss Lola La’Finkle who loves the sun – cant you tell ?

Suzie, our host for Snap 2012 also gave us a link to Pixl-r-omatic to play around with different borders, frames and effects. Now I love my Photoshop Elements but this was so much faster and easier to use!

So, there we go all up to date. I cant believe we are well into March now and I am still keeping up with this and my 52Walks projects.

52 Walks–Week 10 Stretch!

This week’s theme ‘stretch’ had me thinking. Originally I was going to go to Lagg Beach and take a photo of the long stretch of golden sand but the weather has been very wet here (again!) so I had to have a rethink.

The dogs love their run on the beach regardless of the weather so I got this shot (and yes it was ‘staged’ to fit the theme . . lol) between showers. Out of the 7 dogs we had down there Sam was the most willing to stretch for the glove. If we had thought the plan out a bit better we would have taken treats with us then they all would have stretched!!

This weekend I am heading ‘home’ to the UK to spend the weekend scrapbooking with friends in Newcastle before visiting family in London & Essex next week. My camera is packed and I’ll be logging on the find out what theme Cheryl has in store for us for Week 11 of the 52 Walks. It will be great to be away and get a chance to take some photo’s in a different area.

I Heart Faces . . . . Black & White

The new format competition is up and running on I Heart Faces and this month is all about Black & White.  The photo’s submitted to their challenges are amazing so I feel a little intimidated about entering mine but Im giving it a go! 

I love this photo of Tony taken at Culdaff Beach last week. He was watching his dad playing in the waves with the dogs so didn’t see me turn the camera on him which resulted in this very natural smile.

Click on the logo above to visit the rest of the entries!

52 Walks – Week 9 New

Our theme this week is ‘New’ and I have interpreted that as New life using a Ewe and her adorable twin lambs as the focus of my attention.

Yesterday we had crazy weather here, Icy morning, sunshine and showers in the afternoon and snow in the evening! Despite all that we still managed to get out for most of the day to Kinnego Bay where the boys spent the afternoon kayaking while I took photo’s (I got some great ones of them kayaking which I’ll share in another post!)  At the top of the steep road which leads down to the bay there are some fields where I spotted a flock of Ewe’s with their new born lambs. I set my lens one particular Ewe as she seemed interested in me and didn’t take her eyes off me for a second, even though I was using a zoom lens and I was quite a distance back from the hedge she know I was watching her.

So I took a few photo’s but wasn’t happy with them as I wanted both the lambs to be looking my way I got lots like this:

So I am waiting patiently for the two lambs to look my way, clicking away so as not to miss the opportunity when this Magpie decided he wanted in on the action:

Just as the lambs were starting to cooperate with me they got distracted by him flying in. I love how they both look round at their Mum. I can just imagine the lambs saying ‘Hey Mum you have a bird on your back’ and the Mum replying ‘I know, but will you please smile at the lady with the camera so she’ll go away and leave us alone’ . . lol, me and my imagine!

Eventually though Mr magpie flew off and my patience paid off as I got the photo I wanted with both lambs and Mum posing perfectly for me:

A love seeing the lambs around the fields at this time of year as it’s another sure sign to me that Spring is definitely on the horizon.

Whoo Hooo!! I did it . . .

. . . . . .  finally!  Why am I so excited you may ask, well its all because of this:

Smokey Water

Now its by no means ‘professional’ or even completely ‘in focus’ but by my previous standards it fantastic!  I  have been trying to get this smokey water effect in my photo’s for ages.  The art is all in the exposure time to capture the movement of the water.  This photo was taken at the Glenevin Waterfall just outside Clonmany the other day and I do admit to letting out a little squeal when I saw the preview shot show up on the back of my camera. I really have the taste for this now and cant wait for the weather to brighten up a bit so I can sit on the beach with my camera and tripod and take smokey water photo’s all day long!

Catching Up with 52 Walks – Weeks 6 & 8

Lately I have been so consumed with online courses, reading forums and generally messing about with my camera that I have had not time to blog my 52 Walks photo’s although I have been taking them, so here I am catching up with 2 weeks photo’s.

In Week 6 the theme was Silhouette. Now I have seen some fabulous silhouette photo’s and I can taken some myself over the years not by skill but by pure chance . . lol.  I had some great idea’s for this theme but the weather was totally against me in the week the photo was to be taken and to be honest the weather has not been much better of late, so this is the best I can do at the moment. Silhouettes is definitely a skill I want to master as this doesn’t really come anywhere near close!

This was taken during  a beach walk with the dogs in Culdaff.  Do you like the funky frame ?  I cam across these in PSE the other day whilst I was following an online tutorial. I’ve had PSE for the best part of 3 years and only ever played about it . . I didn’t even know there were frames available within the software!!

The next photo was taken from the top of Bambers Crown in Malin Head and is my selected pic to represent the theme for week 8 which was ‘My Way’.  I had a few ideas about this theme, one of them being turning the camera ‘my way’ and doing a self-portrait . . .that idea didn’t work too well .  .lol! Instead I settled for this . .  the view around my way. Quite beautiful isn’t it ? We are very lucky to live in this part of the world.  I love sitting up at Bambers Crown on a summers day with a picnic and watching the ocean. We have Seals and Basking Sharks along this coastline and we also get the occasional Dolphin!

My Way . . . . .    Malin Head

So, there we go all caught up! Week 9’s theme is ‘New’ and I know the photo I want to get I just need it to stop raining for 5 minutes so I can go out walking.  Cheryl will be posting the week 10 theme tomorrow so I’ll probably end up doing ‘the double’ again.

Sketch & Scrap - Cookie Munching!

Its the first of the month which means time for the Sketch & Scrap group reveal. This month our sketch was chosen by Alison:

I used a few of the elements to inspire my LO rather then sticking to the sketch as it was as I didn’t have four photo’s I wanted to scrap together.  I took away one of the photo spaces, moved the circular title up and turned everything on a slight angel and came up with this:

The JoMo Guide to Cookie Munching

These papers are all from the My Minds Eye Kraft Fun Day range. I used many different fonts together as I read somewhere whilst blog-hopping, that this is a good way to create interest on a LO. I like the way it looks.

The tag at the top pulls out to reveal my journaling which reads ‘ Always the Joker, Always the Clown!  I couldn’t resist this set of snap shots of you messing about at the tea table. Nov 2011’

Thanks for stopping by!