Life In Color

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Bj (as Nick Nolte's mug shot) This was a huge hit at the party we went to last weekend. Hosted by my fabulous friend:

Reid (with the spiders) and her boyfriend Eric (the vampire with his arm around Bj). I also enjoyed Martin's 'dot com explosion"

(that would be Tex, bent over and laughing so hard at Bj, who kept playing up the part). And now I need to do some last minuet things to get V's costume ready then it's sleepover time up in Portland so I can trick or treat with her. I'm so excited!

Oh and if you sent me an email before Tuesday I can't respond to it because we installed Leopard (um, amazing!) and there is no plug in for hotmail for Mail yet. So all my messages are stuck in the computer. Boo Hoo. I'm not ignoring you, I just can't get to them! Hopefully soon. Hotmail sucks and I would ditch it all together but I've had the same email address for 11 years. I tend to like to hold on to things like that.

CR-V (no I don't know what it stands for either)

Look at me, I'm a grown up with a brand new car!

It's one of those CR-V's (but 2007 kind). I know, I know, you're shocked and a half that I didn't get the green one. The thing is I love the color of the green element, but the green CR-V didn't hold my heart as much, and I wasn't really that thrilled with the beige interior. So since they had this on, I got it! Yeah! I've never had a new car before.

I find it very, very pretty.

The inside is so nice.

I picked it up, and then picked up Emilie from school, as per usual. She loves it. Then I had to go get grandpa to take him to a doctor's appointment. He thought it was very nice, so much easier to get in and out of than a normal car (which is what we were going for). I still miss my car, but I think this will help ease the pain (hehehe). Now I just have to wait for the crater lake license plates. Also there is a new Bones tonight, whoo hoo I love that show. It's the simple things that really make me happy.

Big (wide) Love

oh my yummy goodness. My dad hired me to take pictures for a condo project he is involved in. He wanted me to take shots at what is going to be the third, forth, and fifth floors from a lift so that people can get an idea of the view from their balconies. Um, okay! 1. I got to go up on lift 2. take pictures on the nicest fall day in history 3. I got to use this amazing 12-24mm lens. Oh heaven. Have you seen these things?

hehehe, I am literally less than a foot from his face right here, isn't that unbelievable?!?! No distortion. Crazy. This will give you a really good idea of it's wide range:

It's a mess, try and ignore that, but it's my whole studio; floor, ceiling, both walls, crazy. One more fun shot:

Those were right in front of the lens. Okay I need some one to take a picture of me taking a picture so you can get a good idea. The only bad thing is the lens is kinda a light hog (maximum opening is 4), and you can't use an on camera flash because of the shadow, but I have the 600 speedlight, so it's not a big problem for me. Now what I was "hired" for:

View to the north east.

View to the west.

View to the south east.
 
Great ability of a wide angle lens for holding-camera-in-front-of-your-face-shots.
I haven't edited any of those yet, but I'm going to.... because I got the totally rad actions!!! I'm going to use them for this so it was my payment.  Okay I might have started to play with it a little:

Mmmm. Oh and also my first time doing a portrait session (for the company website):

What do you think? No, please tell me. There was severe sunny overhead light so I opted to walk around a bit and took this in a shaded alley with my 50mm. I think it worked out well. Thoughts?

Now what to take pictures of before I have to give the wide angle lens back? Hmmm everything!

Christmas Come Early

Made up my little Christmas gift list thing early as I am going to try to be a little more on time with gifts. And I'm going to try and make up a majority of them so I have to start early right?

The front. Lots of my yummy, yummy ribbon. mmmm

I don't have everyone in here yet, but it's a start. It's tiny so I can put it in my handbag when I go out. I'll squeeze them all in.

And the back. I so love making little things. Ribbon: Ribbon Jar, Paper: Basic Grey, Anna Griffin, Designer's Library tags, 1/4" Dymo labels, and I finally used the Jolie's by You I've had in my stash, um, FOREVER.

On a roll

Still working on my wedding scrapbook. I'm trying to use things I have, so I'm making it in one of those Scrapworks albums that have different pages in them. I need to get more 12x12 pages for it though, I'll have to search for some. I thought I had like a ton of empty albums, but turns out though I scrapbook sporadically I've still managed to fill seven albums. They are so completely random sometimes too. Making me want to do this next. I did four pages in separated pages, so they don't photograph well, but I thought this was a good one to put up here. Remember this?

I basically re-wrote the blog journaling. I never think to do that, and I should more. After doing four so, so, just want to get them done layouts I did one for fun.

My knitted skirt deserves its own page I thought, as I love it so.  Other things I love, love, love?

Sciarrino whipped this pair of fetching fingerless gloves up for me. Okay so she didn't, but they were too small for her so I got them, yeah!  She also brought me  a paper sample packet called "recyclopedia"  I have serious paper sample love. The two squares I punched out in the layout above are from the set. It is just the most fabulous thing knowing people who just get you, you know? Thanks Sciarrino!

He asked for it.

So yesterday after picking Emilie up from school we stopped at a local scrapbook store to pick up Ali's new book. I haven't had a chance to do anything but flip through it at a stop light, but just going into the shop made my scrap mojo start to come back. We got out all my goodies and I took Nancy's recommendation and started on my wedding scrapbook (about time right?).

I've decided that I am never scanning/stitching together a scrapbooking page again. I hate it, I've always hated doing that and so you're going to get photos of my pages from now on. :) So title page, simple. I have these huge stencils that Sciarrino and I spotted last year at a sale (S, "Dude one of us has to get those). Painted with making memories paint, then some simple basic grey covered chipboard letters. Magnetic Poetry and Lil Davis wooden numbers.

A page on our save the date cards. "love our save the dates. We were so lucky to have an "in house" graphic designer: Sciarrino. Her & a co-worker came up with the clever wording. They were customized based on the recipient - only a few people got all the tickets." The date page is from an old diary, 7 gypsies transparencies, sassafrass lass, basic grey, and SEI paper. I wish knowledge of scrapbooking product was some kind of great skill to have. It is one of the only things I've ever managed to memorize!

So no big pages yet, no pictures, but a good start, I think. And I have a big mess going on, so good things are sure to come from that.

In other news: I'm selling my computer (!). I know my computer (Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5) is so so beautiful and wonderful and everything good. But Bj also has one and it's a bit newer so we're downsizing, and upgrading at the same time:

Bj is getting a MacBook (the sexy black variety). The goal is that hopefully we can get our act together on getting a window seat in the studio and he could be up here with me while I blog/craft/knit/surf/etc. So I'm getting his computer, well we're sort of sharing both. But his computer will be up here with two screens and hooked up to our big Epson. My computer has a ton going for it (besides being a super sexy mac, have you seen the insides of these things?), and it was my first mac (I got it right before I started the blog).  Now that Bj's  MacBook is here we're going to start backing up files, and shuffling things around. So I'll post more about my computer later if anyone is interested. And if you use the computer like I do, yes, it can handle watching a movie, editing photos, and surfing the web simultaneously no problem. hehehe.

You should scrapbook

Bj and I went to visit his mother and step-father this weekend... almost five hours away, lots of time to chat in the car. And knit. And chat.

Bj: "I'm burned out on knitting"

me: "how can you be burned out on knitting, you don't knit."

B: "But it's all over, you knit in my face, you took pictures of all your yarn and put it on the computer so other people can see it. Don't you think that's weird?"

A: "That's like me saying I"m burned out on you talking about computers."

B: "I don't have hard drives or transistors lying around."

A: "Do you want me to stop knitting?"

B: "Could you just scrapbook or something?"

LOL well there's a way to get your husband to beg you to scrapbook more!

It's the little things you do.

I started this post way back before my trip to Alaska. I've never been one to really save a post as a draft and post it later (partly because it does this weird spacing thing). So I forgot about it, and it got lost a bit. But I found it today after thinking about this kind of thing all day. I watched my brother recycle his drink holder from Burger King, and used my bags (two weeks with out getting a single bag who hoo!) and thought that's all good. Hey did I ever post that post? Anyway I know some people are really not into environmental issues, (my dad: "who cares I'll be dead") so if that's you just skip it and please no nasty comments.

I've been thinking about all the little things I try to do to make the world a better place. I thought I would make a little list and see if any of you had things you could add to it.

-Keeping a bucket in my shower to catch water (I water my flowers with it)
-We don't water our lawn
-We use a push mower (okay, okay Bj does most of the pushing)
-Energy saving light bulbs in most of our fixtures (some of the older ones don't take them, and you can't put them in dimmer lights)
-Buying lots of used things instead of getting everything new
-Using as little plastic as possible (glass food containers, etc)
-Always carrying a little bag or basket with me so that I can use it when I shop (have had the Mini Maxi Shopper L for a while, recently got the Mini Maxi Shopper as well - super tiny. I've blah blah blahed about Reisenthel before, but I do just LOVE this company).
-Using more paper to pack my orders instead of all bubble wrap
-Currently knitting this for my produce (I have soooo much freaking cotton yarn after Sciarrino and I went crazy buying cones of it from Elmore Pisgah.

-Using bar soap instead of pump soap. Ugh I don't like pump soap anyway and this uses way less packaging.

-This might be weird to say, but using O.B.s also way less packaging than normal tampons.

 

-getting things from the library instead of purchasing another book. Like this super cute Candy Tots Kristin told me to check out. How cute is this?

 

Would like to get better at:

-riding my awesome bike (dude what is up with these stupid spaces?)

-getting winter ready (storm windows need to be put on and I want to make draft stoppers do you use beans or rice for those? Anyone made one?)

Care to add to the list, I'd love to hear your ideas!!!

Fall in Salem

Salem is seriously pretty right now. Driving back from the post office I passed the park and a million pretty trees. So I decided to grab my camera and walk around a bit. Check this out:

Some of the trees look like they are actually on fire.

Oh that green color swoon!!!

Those are just starting to change.

These are also everywhere. The ones in my back yard are as big as my head (and no you can't see my knee-high-weeds-backyard). Sciarrino and I met up at the park (she walks to work go Sciarrino!) and sat on the swings for a while. She snaps some shots of me (and me of her but she tends to be very particular so I'll let her proof them first :) so you get to see my fabulous skirt that I am in love with.

I think this is my first knitted skirt I've ever bought. I love it. Like wearing a blankie. Then we walked back to Sciarrino's to pick up her knitting. Along the way:

Mmm I love moss.

Then I grabbed a gourd from Sciarrinio's stash and set this on her steps. Mmm fall. Not my favorite season, or second, or third, but hey they are all pretty close for me any way :) Spent the night knitting, great day.

By the way I really want to try some totally rad actions on these (and some other photos). Right now I really don't process my photos at all, I sometimes tweak them a little in Aperture, but I haven't tried any actions. Any one have the rad actions and have thoughts? Other sources of actions you love?

Much Better, thank you.

Ah I think I'm out of my funk. Still have a bit of cough, but I've moved on to mitered squares, so I think I'm better. :) Still haven't gotten to the scrapping (tonight maybe?), but I did get to be extra crafty today. I put on my mom's reject sweater:

(She made this Debbie Bliss sweater for herself, then decided she didn't like it. Happy accident for me!) And headed over to Sciarrino's with my neighbor Tracy for a happy little knit party. Which goes perfectly with how I've been spending my weekend, hanging out on Ravelry. Here is a link to my page, if you're signed up you should be able to see it, I'm "squeekie23" on there. I've added my stash, projects, books, needles, ohhh it is as fun as everyone said it would be!

And on another knitting related note, you must check out Pushing Daisies. The show is absolutely brilliant, narrated by Jim Dale (yes, the guy who reads Harry Potter). The lead was one of the characters from Wonderfalls (which was an amazing short, canceled too early show). Anyway the PI in the show knits when he gets stressed, it's so fantastic. The whole show is shot like a movie and I really want you all to watch it because weird/special shows like this always get canceled before they should, and I would cry if that happened to this show.

edited to add:

his  knitted office things.

knitted gun cozies!!!!

saving the day with his knitting needle. So cool.