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Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Looking Back At 2011

Well folks, it’s been a year. Let me start by wishing you all a Happy New Year!!! And, by thanking you for popping by my little corner of the interwebs when you did. As with every new year, I like to begin by taking a look back to see how far I’ve come. And let me just say, last year was quite a ride…

In January 2011, I took things quite easy on the blog as I was a) doing a lot of solo parenting (the hubby was directing a show), b) had visitors in town, and c) had two Monkeyboys to plan birthdays for. I started posting “Creative Inspirations” links (see also the list at right) to share with you some of the sites “out there” that inspire me. Of course, times and tastes change, so I think we may be due to overhaul the list… but I’ll have to see how busy January 2012 looks first.

February 2011 saw the return of some more time to create, and as a result it seems, some of my most popular posts. People apparently want to know all about iCarly Penny Tees and birthday parties, and Angry Birds crocheting. But I think my favourite creation blogged about that month was the fat quarter hostess aprons, which I both gave instructions for and created for myself.

March 2011 saw me going on a trip to LA, which led to some fun suitcase personalization, and was followed by me crocheting the cutest little Poko hat for Monkeyboy Junior Jr.

In April 2011, I got busy in my garden and made only a few blog contributions – like the quilty critter cards I made as thank you cards, a few yummy recipes, and the IKEA dog revamp.

May 2011 involved even more gardening and lots of spring cleaning in preparation for the garage sale, which meant little time to create “stuff”. But there were a few nice photos as I recall… like this, of my favourite flowering plum tree.

In June 2011, I was a ~~little~~ lot too busy with life – the garden, the kids, the house, etc. – to blog about much. But I made up for it in July 2011 by posting about tons of stuff – like making the backyard cabana, the gorgeous summer blooms in my garden, putting up more art, my temporary rock cozy crocheting addiction, and my favourite of all, painting the Kelly Rae-inspired “Love” girlie.

August 2011 saw me participating in Susannah Conway’s August Break once again, but with a new twist – the use of online editing programs like Pixlr-o-matic. Which <ahem> I have become quite happily addicted to. =) It also saw me starting on the Dancing Mermaid-inspired Words On Bodies project, taking some gorgeous photos of some gorgeous ladies (see Day 5, Day 9, Day 17, Day 25, and Day 31). I shall have to find some more “guinea pigs” for this project once the weather warms up again. Yup. August was a great month for my photography…

In September 2011, I finally purchased PSE9 and started playing around with it on some baby photos for a friend, but I really didn’t have much time to explore all of it’s offerings. Instead, I continued to play with the quick-and-dirty online presets I had grown to love, and began using my photos to create more mosaics for the “These Moments” Flickr group, and to pepper my new gratitude journal.

In October 2011, I continued to take lots of fun photos and play around with them in editing. But I also tried my hand at some embroidery (for the first time in years), completing the Alicia Paulson-inspired alphabet sampler and creating some “Naughty Stitches” of my own.

I also learned a bit more about PSE9 and created a wacky composite self-portrait.

Thanks to the arrival of my replacement spy-cam (woohoo!), I spent November 2011 and December 2011 mostly blogging with photos. But I’m afraid I was too preoccupied with working on tidying up the house, preparing for Christmas, and various travels and whatnots, to do much else. Except maybe make a few gifts, but I haven’t posted about them yet…

So, yeah. Even with just the highlights, 2011 has been quite a year. Not to mention all the stuff that I never got around to blogging about! Whew. Talk about ebbs and flows… As for 2012, I am looking forward to carving out even more time to get the house in shape, and to create some more fun goodies to share with y’all. Peace and joy to you! =) K

Tags: 2011, 2012, alphabet sampler, Angry Birds, art, August Break, baby photos, birthday party, blog, blogging, blooms, cabana, creative inspirations, crocheting, fat quarter, flowers, garden, gardening, girlie, gratitude, hat, hostess aprons, house, iCarly, IKEA, instructions, journal, KateWares, links, looking back, love, mosaics, naughty stitches, organization, painting, penny tees, Photography, photos, Pixlr-o-matic, Poko, PSE9, quilting, quilty critters, recipes, revamp, review, rock cozies, self-portraits, spy cam, suitcase, summary, thank you, tidying, words on bodies

Posted in Musings | 6 Comments »

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

August Break 2011 – A Review

Last year, I finished off The August Break with a review of both my photos and my experiences. I thought it would be a nice way to wrap things up again, so I started cropping my images into squares and trying to arrange them into mosaics. I found this to be a much more difficult process than it was last year. Hmm…

The first thing I noticed is that I had edited/posted far fewer images this year. Part of that was because I didn’t want to spend as much time as I had last year sitting in front of the computer, so I just didn’t. I think others were in the same boat as it seemed a lot quieter in the group – not as much “chatter” as last year. However, for me part of it was also due to the whole “online editing” learning curve. As I had decided to dedicate this month to exploring how to alter my images using various online tools (instead of just posting daily photos), it took a while to figure out what programs were out there, what each offered, and which one would be best for the photos I chose. There were a lot of options, and the resulting photos reflect that – which may also be part of why it was challenging to try and unify them. Still, I did spend some time at least looking at the over 5,000 images submitted to the Flickr group, and while a lot of them were merely snaps of some random happening of the day, there were also quite a few gems to be found, contacts to be made, and inspirations to be had. Woohoo!

As for the online editing component, my favourite and most used site by far was Pixlr. I love the simplicity of the Pixlr-o-matic – just upload your photo, click a button (or two or three) to alter it, then save it to your computer. QED. Next up was Picnik - which, although it has fewer “instant filters” that I like, has adjustable effects and regular editing features all in one place, so you can better control what you do to your image. Then there was the Polaroin site which will always have a place in my heart because of my love of Polaroids. And lastly, there was Rollip, which because of it’s more difficult process (choose a filter, then upload, then preview, then download, then try to figure out what you did so you can track it…) was my least used. Though, I think with a little more exposure to it (pardon the pun), it may still have some goodness to offer. Oh, yeah. And LunaPic, which I think I used once or twice. While these are all worthwhile options for a quick ‘n’ dirty edit, ultimately I found that I had little control over the final product. Or that they just couldn’t do what I had in mind. So. Last night we downloaded Adobe Photoshop Elements 9… eek! Wish me luck with that.

Now, when looking at my photos from this year (vs. last), I see that they are much darker… moodier… less “romantic” in nature. I know this can’t be because I’m sleeping any less than I was last year, so I think it’s because I’m trying to do more on the same amount of sleep deprivation. Plus, the weather’s been crappier, it’s now been *two* years since I’ve had much “non-mommy” life, I’m disgruntled with the chaos of my home and garden (a.k.a. my usual subject matter), and yes, I think I may be going through some sort of mid-life “WTF?” crisis. Of course, I can still see my “style” coming through them, just maybe in a harsher way – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If looking at all the other photos in the group has taught me anything, it’s that different people like many different kinds of photography. Shots I though would be popular weren’t necessarily, and visa versa, so diversity is good. But this brings me to one of the things I didn’t like about participating – my increased desire for “approval” (views, comments, visits to my blog, etc.) Once again I found it really hard not to get all wrapped up in the popularity factor. Silly girl. And… I’ve got to admit I wasn’t thrilled about looking at hundreds of mundane images. But hey, that’s part of the “break” aspect I suppose, isn’t it?

At any rate, I am really glad I participated in August Break again, as it was a great way to document the month, see what was going on around the world, and it got me off my butt doing something creative on a daily basis once more. I think I’m going to have a really hard time going back to “straight from the camera” images again though. Especially now that I have Elements to play with! I really like what editing can do to an image – how it can give a photo more personality or convey something you just couldn’t capture with the given conditions. Although, I think I’ll have to be really careful not to let my photos get too cliche or dependent on post-production to be interesting – again, there has to be a “why” to justify altering it. I also like that all these effects encouraged me to stretch beyond my usual photo taking – like trying the whole “painted words on bodies” thing. The self-portrait of me with “make magic” on my neck wouldn’t be nearly as effective without all those sparkles. I am excited to see where that project ends up. Thanks again to Jen Lynn, Kat and Jennifer for helping me out with this!

So, yeah. August Break was awesome as usual (thanks Susannah Conway!), and online editing rocks. That pretty much sums it up. But I have to say, I’m ready for a little more breathing room. This whole daily producing and posting thing is very exhausting, plus I’d like to get back into some projects that take a bit more time to create. Anyway. Thanks for joining me on my journey and I’m sure I’ll see you sometime soon. Have a great fall, y’all! =)

Tags: 2011, August Break, Flickr, LunaPic, online editing, Picnik, Pixlr-o-matic, Polaroin, review, Rollip, summary, Susannah Conway, wrap up

Posted in August Break | 4 Comments »

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

The August Break – A Review

I cannot believe an entire month has passed with me participating in Susannah Conway’s “The August Break” project! It’s one of those “it flew by so quickly” … and yet “I remember each and every day SO well” kind of contradiction thingies. To commemorate the experience, I thought I would wrap the month up with a bit of a summary. Woohoo!

The Good – SO many good things about this project!!! Primarily, it “encouraged” me to be disciplined about trying to take good quality photos on a daily basis, and yet gave me the freedom to just “fire one off” if I was having a bad/busy day. A month was just the right amount of time to commit to a “theme” too – long enough to make me have to “stretch”, but short enough that I didn’t get too frustrated or bored with it. And just look at the great stuff I created!!!

I’ve got to admit, it was a huge relief to not have to spend hours mulling over my blog posts – my brain definitely enjoyed the the end of summer more this way! Plus, a lot of exposure to other cool blogs over the month means I now have a better idea of what I want my own blog to be like. Yippie! I just have to figure out how to pick and choose between which ones I want to keep up with, as I now have dozens in my list that caught my eye this month.

I also “met” a lot of amazing people who were also involved with the project. We connected because we were commenting on each others photos every day, which was awesome! Ultimately this led to my “discovery” of what I really like in photos. Not that I didn’t know this before, but now I’m even more consciously aware of it when I’m composing an image. I also now have a list of techniques and tricks I’d like to try when I get the chance, thanks to the inspirational efforts of my peers. And as “enlightened” as I would like to be, the ego-stroking (via comments and homage photos) was a definite plus too.

The Bad – Now, to be fair, it wasn’t all “sunshine and roses” (though there were several photos of these as well). The biggest downside by far was the time commitment – I still ended up spending waaay too much time computer-bound! First, there was the sorting through all the photos I had taken (on average, about 100 per day!), then the editing, then the blog posting, then the linking to FB, then the posting to Flickr…and THEN, the going through all of the other posted group photos…and commenting! As a result, I felt I didn’t have time to do other creative things when the mood struck – like painting or sewing…and I actually missed doing them, but felt I had committed to a month of photos, so… I don’t know how I’m going to wean myself from this routine, but I’m going to HAVE to if I want to get anything else done!

I also found it really challenging to do this project while minding the baby (who is at that “needs near constant supervision” phase). If I restricted myself to nap-time photo taking, the light was harsh and hard to work with, or alternately the weather was crappy. If I tried to work around nap-time, I was limited to quick “point-and-shoot” images taken on the fly so I could keep one eye on the wee trouble maker. And trying to take photos anywhere beyond our baby-proofed house? Well, you can imagine the chaos that ensued. Plus, I knew it would be lame to shoot a whole month of family photos, so after about a week, the confines of my house and yard were feeling a bit claustrophobic. Yes, it’s been a challenging month, to say the least, and I am really looking forward to more time-flexible projects.

The Ugly – There really is no nice way to say this, and I don’t want to come across as mean or anything, but… one has to admit there were a lot of bad photos taken this month – many of my own included. The reason I can now clearly define my own tastes better is because I looked at hundreds of photos that made me ask “Why?” Yes, I know this wasn’t a photo competition, and yes, I understand that there were a lot of novice photographers involved…but still – even the mundane can be beautiful, people! Of course, the flipside of this is that I now try to find the “So what?” (something my favourite photography teacher was fond of asking) in my own work. Universal appeal. Timelessness. Meaning. Of course, there were many amazingly wonderful photos as well, so it was totally worth the wading through.

At one point I came across a photographer who firmly believed that taking an image directly from a camera was a “photograph”, but the minute you altered it in ANY way, it became a “digital artwork”. Hmm. This started me thinking about all of the techniques and processing being used nowadays with digital photography – a lot of it without purpose, in my opinion. I also came to believe that even the choice of camera/film used is actually akin to a treatment that you apply to an image – it absolutely needs to support or enhance that image somehow. And so, even though I enjoy a lot of Susannah’s Polaroid images, I saw enough less-than-inspiring Polaroids this summer to prevent me from pulling my own out and giving it a spin. At least not for public consumption.

The Verdict – So. Am I glad I participated? Heck, yeah! As I said, I learned a great deal this month and am totally inspired to “step up” my photographic efforts when the opportunity arises. Was it what I expected? Nope, not at all. There were way more participants and a lot more interaction than I had anticipated, so it wasn’t terribly relaxing – but that’s totally my doing. Will I continue with the group into September (“August Break Continued”, as has been suggested)? Um, no, I don’t think so. Next month will already be stupid busy with school and travel and solo parenting and getting back to some of my other creative loves (I hope)…so I’m going to have to say goodbye for now.

Bottom line – would I recommend it or do again? YES-YES-a-million-times-YES! And I will do it again next summer, for sure! Not that I’m going to totally abandon the group and the connections I’ve made until then, but I definitely won’t be checking in or posting daily. And who knows, maybe by next summer I’ll be ready to take it one step further (like some of this years participants did) and dedicate my photos to a month of “Strangers” or “Diptychs” or “Post Production Techniques” or some other funky theme.

Finally, I would like to say a HUGE thank you again to each and every one of you that took the time to comment on my work, whether here or on Flickr! I really and truly appreciate it, and am very excited to see where we all end up going to from this! Happy snapping, peeps!