Dimensional Details - week 7

Week 7's assignment was sewing on a layout. My layout has holes punched along the edge with a sewing machine (no thread), a stitched photo corner, and sting tied through buttons:

I also spent a long time editing this photo to give it a more dramatic look. I like the way it came out!

Great Photos with Any Camera - Week 1

I joined a new class starting this week. This class, as it's title implies, is supposed to teach us how to take GREAT PHOTOS even with a little point and shoot like I have. Here is my camera:

Yeah, it's new... Since I gave one of my cameras to my niece for her birthday, I'm feeling lost with only two cameras, lol! Not really... It's going to be a replacement for my big Olympus. It has the long zoom like the Olympus, but instead of being 3MP, it's 10MP! Plus the video has sound!!! I got a great deal on it. I work for Panasonic, and I won a coupon to the company store during the Spring Fever raffle! I'm looking forward to using this class to learn this camera better.

Our first assignment is on lighting. We are supposed to take a photo of the same item outdoors, in the same location, at 4 different times during the day and pick our favorite. Here are my photos. I used Chris as my subject (Cheryl is a pain because she has to keep fixing her hair and makeup, lol). The only photoshopping I did was to crop them so that they would fit on my screen. My favorite photo is the one at sunset. The shadows are softer and the color is nice and warm. My second favorite is sunrise-11am. The morning here was overcast, and the lighting in the photo is flat.

This was a pretty basic assignment. I'm hoping for more content this week!

Wild Weekend!

Hey, look! It's Jim's new friend...

Jim was out surfing this morning and felt a sharp pain in his foot. He surfed for about an hour before his foot started hurting so bad that he couldn't stand it. He went straight to the hospital. His foot was painful, black and swollen by then... They did tests and x-rays and they were in conclusive. The doctor thought it could be a nail/trash, sea urchin, or stingray. He started by soaking Jim's foot in hot water (the treatment for a sting from a stingray). Jim's relief was immediate. After x-rays to determine that the barb wasn't still in his foot, we got a perscription for pain killers/antibiotic, and went home.

When we got home, Cheryl asked if the hot water didn't work, would they have poured vinegar on his foot next for the sea urchin? "No vinegar is for jellyfish stings" You have to pee on his foot for a sea urchin! Ewwww....

After I picked up Jim's perscriptions, I took Chris to the passport office to convince them that they should still process his passport even though we were 3 hours late for our appointment. They were very accommodating... certainly NOT what I expected from a government agency. YAHOO! Both the kids are processed and should receive new passports in 6-weeks. I was talking to Cheryl... the next time she will have to renew her passport is when she's 30yrs, AND I'll be 60yrs!

Jim's foot is still sore, but better than it was... unfortunately he spent all afternoon throwing up from the pain killers. He still felt bad (stomach-wise) and missed going to the Galaxy game this evening. I went with the kids. Galaxy tied Toronto tonight 0-0. That means Galaxy is still undefeated! GO GALAXY!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Dimensional Details - week 6

This week at Dimensional Details we learned about titles... altering letters and mixing fonts. I used both of those techniques in my layout of the week:

It's not my best work, but I LOVE the photo of Chris. Tomorrow is a new week for Dimensional Details, AND the first week of a my new class "Get Great Photos With Any Camera." I'm so excited to learn how to use all those settings on my camera! YAHOO!

I'm following the directions that came with my Mother's Day flower bouquet. It says that today, I'm supposed to change the water and clip 1" off the bottom of the stems. Don't they look GREAT?!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! I was right down to the wire finishing up the Mother's Day gifts. I made some card sets for the moms in our family. I packaged up each set prettily in a clear box. I was very pleased with how they came out. This one is for my mom:


Here is the one for my Aunt Mary:


And one last one for Mima (my SIL's mom):



My mother's day was wonderful! Jim came home from surfing early so that he could make breakfast. THEN he got the recipe for the soup that I was supposed to take to lunch at my mom's and he made it for me. AND he ordered me a big bouquet of my favorite flowers online. It was a HUGE mixed bouquet of alstomeria (I didn't even know that he could spell alstomeria), lol! AND he and the kids got me a present. Here it is, a BIG Stradivarius Wind Chime! Mima had a BIG beautifully toned windchime hanging in her backyard at Easter. I mentioned how much I loved it.. I was so surprised! Jim hardly ever seems to listen to me when I talk about stuff like that! He was definitely listening, and I LOVE the windchime! It comes in different scales... this one is Mongolian... Chris said that his ears were ringing for hours after picking out the perfectly pitched chime! It's been nice an windy last couple of days... perfect for listening to my new chimes!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Card Share

I got the idea for these simple cards from THIS post by my friend, BETH. AND, Beth got the idea from THIS post by Jennifer McGuire. I just love the internet!

I love how they come out. They were so FAST and EASY, it would make a great gift set! TFL!

Our New Feathered Friends

One more little share for the week... We had some birds nest under the eaves of the patio cover, and they just hatched! Here is the daddy. I think it's some type of sparrow. If anyone knows kind of sparrow it is, please let us know!

I hope everyone is having a great week! I am looking forward to a GREAT Mother's Day weekend!

The Season Ends, and Dimensional Details week 5

Track season is over... Chris qualified for CIF Preliminaries as a Varsity runner this year! YAHOO for Chris! Runners are numbered with their regional ranking. There were two heats in the Varsity 800m, 15 boys in each heat. Chris was wearing #14. He tied his PR at 2:14, but that wasn't good enough to qualify for CIF Finals. He LOVES running the 800m and wants to do it again next year!

I'll finish off this post with a layout share. The photos are from last Fall (Cross Country Season):

Week 4: Dimensional Details

This week's project involves paint, ink, and sanding. I sanded the edges of my photo and painted on the background behind the photos to make them POP! TFL!!!

The Strike is Over...

... and boy is Chris bummed! lol!

We got a call at 7am this morning and was told the strike was over. From what I hear, the HS students were called starting at 5am. Kids were grumpy that they got called so early. Chris said some of his friends stayed up late last night because they thought the strike was still on. I'm glad we were already up and getting ready to go to school, or else we would have had to scramble to ready to be there on time. Chris said another one of his friends didn't get the call until after he left his house this morning. He had to go back to his house, get his books and go to school... real bummer for him! A lot of other kids didn't make it because their parents had already left for work when the call came in.

One of the kids in English class asked the teacher, "Did you get everything you wanted?" The teacher said, "No..." The student exclaimed, "Then what are you doing here? Get back out there and strike!" All the kids cheered in agreement, lol!

It's back to normal routine now. Oh, and track meet tomorrow!

Teacher Strike - Day 3

Since Jim was off work last week, this was my first day at the High School since the strike started. The teachers looked like they were having a party. We passed three teachers walking up the hill to the High School carrying 15 pink boxes of donuts, lol!

Chris's English teacher assigned an extra credit project when the strike started, so Chris took some poster board to school and worked on his project today. They also did a packet on how to buy a house... oh, and they did yoga. They combined another class in with Chris's class today, so they had 15 or so kids.

The boys tried to do a track workout after class. The security guard wouldn't let them on the track, so they ran over to the college and worked out there until the college threw them out. After that they snuck back to the High School and finished the workout there.

Tomorrow, we don't know if there is strike or not... We were instructed to check the web site in the morning.

I have a photo for today and I'll add it to the post (when I can find my cable).