Looking for Inspiration

I am going through one of those creative slumps at present: rthe bronchitis has almost gone which is just as well as I am booked in for an arthroscope on Friday.

 I am sure the endless coughing and of course difficulty breathing results in a different mindset.

Survival mode kicks in and there is no energy for anything else.

 I have spend some time this evening photographing some of our garden and the improvements we have made to the house over the past year or so.

The birds were starting to settle for the night and it is interesting to watch them vying for the best position.

It is quite noisy and busy and then it all goes quiet when the sun has gone.

Yesterday I bought these two little cabinets  to keep my current craft projects in.  This little space between the kitchen and lounge has been a bit bare lately and I think this is a great solution.  I could have bought one large cabinet but I like the fact that I can move these around whenever I want.  By next week I think there will be Christmas decorations on them.

Painted by mother nature

Melbourne is notorious for its weather: it is very changeable.

The last few days have been a great example.  Saturday was hot - 30 degrees and since then each day has been wet, windy, hailing, cold.

The garden is enjoying the water - although I am constantly having to deal with snails.

I picked these leaves up from under the orange tree.  They look amazing and I couldn't resist sharing them here.

The garden is a constant source of inspiration.

Altered Image - Begonia

I am not sure where the days are going lately.  

There has been little time for stitching but I thought I would just play with this photo of a begonia from my garden.  I used adobe photo shop - filter - plastic wrap option.  It gives an interesting depth to the pic but I think I like the original better.  It is hard to improve on nature.

This week has been particularly busy with the little twins I mind suffering from a nasty tummy virus.  This has meant that my usual babysitting has not happened but there has been lots of intermittent childcare needed and attendance at appointments and other help required.   

Everything seems to have settled down now but the lack of routine and the concern have rather messed up my week.

I will post in a day or two to let you know how I went at the Frankston Waterfront Festival last week.

In the meantime it is Australia Day today and also my youngest daughter's birthday so there is much to reflect on and celebrate.

The weather is continuing to challenge many of us with floods in parts of Queensland as well as the most unusual occurance of tornadoes up that way too.  Fires are still burning in areas of our state of Victoria as well as other parts of this vast land. 

I notice it is cold and snowing in parts of the UK, Europe and USA with many suffering as a consequence.

My thoughts are with those who are distressed and suffering, although these thoughts seem so inadequate.

Take care, keep safe and create something beautiful when you can.  

 

I have been trying to create a collage and the result is what you see here.  The pics are taken in my garden with a few altered images included.   

old books and fresh flowers

As promised I will be showing some more pics of the plants I saw during the week.  I have to edit them so they don't take up too much space.

The pic here is something I created from one of the orchid photos.  

 

Isn't this flower just exquisite:
it hasn't fully opened yet.

The altered picture was created using adobe photoshop.  In the standard edit page I went to Filters and then Distort and selected the Polar Co-ordinates option.  This is one of the more simple alterations I have done but it is very effective.

Now to the question of old books.  I have noticed of late a tendency to use old books for various kinds of arts and crafts - altered books, collage etc.  Personally I have a problem with cutting up books; they seem to be too precious.  I wonder how others feel about this issue.  I bought a book from the op shop recently with the intention of using it in a creation I am planning but I find it impossible to cut it up.  It is not an important or particularly special book and cost me just $2.


Well that is my quandary at present.  Any help would be appreciated.

 

hidden treasures

Earlier this week I found myself wandering around an op shop.  I know you will find that hard to believe!

Anyway I bought quite a few treasures including a flower press.


It is not particularly old or interesting but I have always just used books and tissues when I wanted to press some flowers so I though I would buy this little treasure.  Imagine my delight when I discovered the roses and grevillea and other flowers pressed between the leaves.

I have scanned them and will print the image onto some silk and then after that I will try to create something else with them.  Once it is done I will show you what I have done.

In the meantime I shall endeavour to explain one of my photo altering techniques as I have been asked how it did it.  
I use adobe photo shop for my pics.  It is easy to use.  First I select a pic and send it to  the standard edit page.

It doesn't need to be a special pic but if it has texture and colour that is better.  I chose this because it was already on my computer and I thought it would work ok and would show how the alteration works.

I next select the Filter option and this opens a drop down menu and I select Render.  From there I choose Lighting Effects.  Now this is where it can be complicated.  Near the top of the page you should see another drop down menu which in my system says default but if I click on the arrow I have a wonderful array of options.  From there I choose five lights down.  Lower on the page there is a light type option - choose spotlight.  Now the image is ready to save before the next step.

Now I open the item again and follow the previous steps except I now choose 5 lights up and that is that.

I usually do other things to the image as well to play with the light but I wanted to keep this simple.  I do hope it is easy to understand.

I find with photo alteration it is a lot of fun to just play with the options available - I would like to see what others do.

images and imagination

This image is quite strange 
and mysterious.  I did have fun with this one.






 

As our disappointing summer comes to an end I thought I would take a few photos of the garden

The garden has lapped up all that extra rain and I must admit it has made gardening easier.

A few more really hot days would have been welcome though.

yesterday was particularly gloomy and grey as you can see by the picture to the left here.  

We often see the planes practicing their formation flying before special events or  air shows in the city.

 You can see the planes in these two photos - and in the one above you can see the  helicopter behind them.  I am not sure why the helicopter was there but it was interesting.

Oh and here is another one of our garden.

Images

It is cool outside so I am playing with photos on the computer.

The first pic is of some flowers I received some time ago,  They are so pretty and bright.

I added some texture to the pic first.

This is the "cling wrap" effect.  I love this look.

And I can never resist a spiral.   Isn't this interesting.

I really do have lots of other things to do - for instance 3 baskets of ironing but today is a kind of day off.
We are out visiting friends again tomorrow and as I find socialising a bit of a strain I need today to relax.  

Sunday Evening

The school holidays have started and we have our four grandchildren sleeping over tonight and again tomorrow night. They are at a really good age although the 7 year old finds himself excluded from some games.

Tonight they cooked spaghetti bolognese and served it with a garden salad and grated cheese.  Very tasty indeed.

This week has been quite productive - I have managed to dye fabric &make some bookmarks, using my embellishing machine.

I made this little pouch out of some of the fabrics I dyed some weeks ago.  The grandchildren say it is "cool" so I guess it is ok.   The button just seems to finish it off nicely. 

Spring is well under way now and their are new shoots appearing everywhere.  We have had more rain this past winter than we have had in more than a decade so the garden is looking gorgeous.

Of course the weeds are growing fast and there is lots of pruning to do but it is worth it when everything is growing so well.

Wednesday Morning Sky

I couldn't resist taking pics of the sky this morning.  I love the way the shapes of the clouds reflect the shapes of the trees.  Just fabulous.

WINTER SOLSTICE IN SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA 2010

MID WINTER SUNSET AT CANADIAN BAY, MOUNT ELIZA

Today is the day we consider to be the winter solstice here in Victoria, Australia.  It is the shortest day of the year and it has been quite bleak here most of the day.  We had a foggy morning and it was about 6 degrees when I struggled out of bed.  As the day progressed the sun peaked out for a little while but the temperature didn't rise much.

The sun was setting when I drove down to the supermarket at about 5 pm.  It is only another couple of minutes drive to the beach so I couldn't resist taking a few photos while I was out.

More fabulous photos

The last few days have been rather taken up with my daughter, who was unwell,  3 of my grandchildren and of course that sore thumb. Fortunately we have plenty of spare beds: unfortunately they are in my sewing room/office!!!

There has been no time for hand stitching although I did a little bit  of free machine stitching while the grandkids were painting.  

They have all gone home now and I have had an afternoon nap.  It will be any easy tea and lots of television tonight.

My son-in-law came to pick them up and brought their little dog Jack for a visit.

I am frustrated at not being able to stitch - the thumb is healing well though, so I have been messing about with some photos.  Just changing the lighting effects on photoshop gave marvelous results.