Tag: hipstamatic

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Sleep, Perchance To Dream

Well, as you may recall, I left off last week on somewhat of a sleep deprived note. Take your average, busy life and throw in a few nights of being up every 1-2 hours to comfort a crying baby, and well…it isn’t pretty. Trying to create something (let alone something even remotely inspired) is challenging enough on most days – try doing it when you can barely remember your own name! But, enough complaining. Suffice to say I was brutally tired and feeling rather dejected about the whole creative blogging experience.

Sleepy Girl

Bouncing back from a long night was much easier in my youth.

Luckily, by then the weekend had rolled around and with it, two days of self-granted blog-free living. The way I figure it, if I allow myself these weekly pressure valves of “non-creativeness”, I will come back on Monday refreshed and eager to contribute something new. Kind of like the way an evening away from the kids or a vacation works. Plus, if I feel like I absolutely HAVE to create something on the weekend, then I can…but only if I really want to. So, yeah. Go, me.

Well, Saturday morning arrived and we decided that it was high time to get out of the house – to do what exactly, we couldn’t decide, but we packed up and headed out anyways. Maybe it was my husband’s incessant positivity (his battle cries of “Woooo!” are still ringing in my ears), or the beautiful morning sunshine after a previous cloudy day, or the mere act of leaving the confines of the nest, but it wasn’t long before I started feeling those tinges of excitement again. We ended up driving around a few nearby neighbourhoods scoping out garage sales, and in doing so, we eventually stumbled across what appeared to be somebody’s store liquidations.

Garage Sale Goodies

$1 and $2 felt bags, a $7 canvas tote, $0.50 ornaments – bargoons!

It reminded me of Christmas craft fairs, and all the good things that go along with them. Pretty soon I was thinking about the aprons I could make and the bags I could sew and the frames I could decorate and so on and so forth. PLUS, as I was leaving said garage, I noticed the coolest garden angel that I may somehow have to try and duplicate. Except for the hair, I don’t like the wire at all. (Funny thing – I have a very similar looking angel atop our front door, likely done by the same artist even. How crazy!)

Garden Angel

Adorable garden angel that I want to chase away my rabbits.

Anyway. The other thing I picked up at this particular sale was a stack of wooden letters that spell the word “dream”. Now, I have had a bit of a fascination with wooden letters such as these ever since we went on a quaint cabin vacation where the owners had the letters for “eat” in their kitchen. Far too much fun was had rearranging the letters to spell “ate” and “tea”, and with the addition of other paper letters, a whole host of things. Remind me to do a post on our names shelf one day, will you?

As I have mentioned, I don’t have much wall space in my current studio to display my pretty new letters. What to do, what to do? And boom – there it was, my idea for the day. A little reminder to dream.

Dream

Dream a little dream with me, my little one.

At bedtime, Beautiful South’s version of Dream A Little Dream plays. Aw, I love my little monkey boy. And have I mentioned how much I adore Hipstamatic photos? In the future, when I have more time to run around taking pictures, I would love to take these letters and put them in unexpected places – like a grungy alley or hanging from a tree. But for today, I am happy just to dream.

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Friday, June 18th, 2010

But It’s A PHONE, People!!!

I’ve got to admit it, I’m something of a photography snob. Well, maybe “snob” isn’t the right word exactly, but I certainly do have some steadfast opinions about photos and cameras and the like. Which is why I’ve been avoiding getting a cell phone with a camera in it. I mean, come on! It’s a PHONE, people – how can you expect to take good quality photos from a phone?!?! I’d seen pictures taken with my husband’s iPhone, and they were okay…in a pinch, but certainly nothing to write epic poems about.

And then…there was the iPhone Hipstamatic ap with the whole  Toy Camera thing. And suddenly, I had to rethink everything I though I knew about camera phones. Hipstamatic photos started appearing all over Facebook, and in spite of my internal snobbishness, I *Loooved* them! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Kodak Instamatic X15-F was my first camera ever, but the fuzzy moodiness of these camera phone photos makes me weak in the knees. I don’t know whether they give “Average Joe iPhone User” bragging rights as an “artiste”, but I do know what I like.

Hipstamatic of KateWares Studio

A “hip’d up” corner of my studio, taken with my husband’s iPhone.

Still, it’s probably just the “exception to the rule” phenomenon…right? Well, then my bottom-of-the-line, use-only-in-case-of-emergency cell phone exploded from within, and my husband encouraged me to get something a little more advanced to replace it. While I balked at getting an iPhone for myself (I don’t need even more instant distraction capabilities, plus I can always borrow his to take my own Hipstamatics), I agreed to upgrade to the Sony Ericsson T715A, with it’s 3.2 megapixel camera/video recorder.

Sony Ericsson of KateWares Studio

Hmm. Not bad for an unaltered “catching the light” photo.

So, as I was heading to the bank the other day, I was thinking about my next crafty project (a sign for KateWares) when I noticed the storefront of a quilting establishment. I loved the lettering on the quilt and wanted to “bank” it (pardon the pun) for future inspiration – but alas, I was without my trusty “spy cam” (my awesome Nikon Coolpix S10). *heavy sigh* Oh, wait! I had my phone. My new phone – with a camera in it. (How crazy is that?) Well, I snapped a few shots and I’ve got to say, I was reasonably impressed.

Storefront Taken With Camera Phone

Taken through a glass window and then cropped for detail.

Not that I’m going to start shooting ALL of my photos with my phone from here on in, but it’s sure nice to know that there’s photographic goodness within. Isn’t it funny how often you end up in places that you didn’t at all intend to, when you’re willing to be open to new experience? Take this post, for example. It started out being all about collage and letters and making my new sign…but somehow I got completely sidetracked. Ah, well. I guess there’s always tomorrow. ;)

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