Arteypico Award!

I am absolutely honoured that a very dear friend has picked me as one of the 5 peeps that inspire her. I'm so flattered in fact I had to blog it straight away (my poor neglected blog....LOL).

Karen has awarded this to me and now I have to name 5 peeps that inspire me.

That is an immense task as I'm lucky enough to have many inspirational people in my life but as I can only pick 5 I will go for:

Jules in Tasmania. He doesn't have a blog unfortunately or an online gallery that I'm aware of but his work can be viewed by registering at Toggers a photography forum. He photographs the most amazing landscapes and he lives on the beautiful island of Tasmania.

For scrapbooking it has to be Caroline Her work is truly fabulous and at last she has picked herself to be part of the design team for her kits (not before time either)!!

Another photographer has to be David Worthington Unfortunately another that will not be able to keep this award going but he is pure inspiration for portrait and wedding photography. I have been lucky enough to attend one of his seminars and it was fantastic and to be honest, you couldn't meet a nicer guy! Oh....and he's got an MX5 too so that always goes down well in my book...LOL!

For resiliance in the face of adversity has to be Joanne, I think you know who you are lovely! A true inspiration and a damn good card maker.

Last but not least is my hubby Tony. He has inspired me to do many things in my life and together we have achieved more than we ever thought we would.

Thank you Karen for the award *insert huge grinning smilie here*

Bit of mooooosic!!

Went to a friends 50th birthday party on Saturday and they had a fantastic live band playing.

I was also asked to be official photographer for the evening, nerve wracking, but really pleased with some of the shots I took.

Anyway, I'll post up some of the band shots for you.













These are notoriously difficult shots to do as there is low light and lots of movement. I didn't fair too well with my kit lens last time so I tried with my 50mm 1.8 on this time and boy, what a difference. I had to up the ISO which the D80 doesn't cope with particularly well at ISO 500 and over but I ran the images through Neat Image to help out a bit.

Over on the Photography forum they suggest I go a bit grainy so here is an alternative.













I actually quite like the grainy effect.....but as another alternative Alan on Toggers also edited a couple of my RAW files and got a more natural skin tone version here:


















Anyways, a bit more practice in Photoshop me thinks!

Catch you soon peeps.

Bubbly Funk March kit

Bit late posting this up peeps but this is the little album I did for the Bubbly Funk March kit.



















Went to a friends party on Saturday night and they had a fantastic band there. I'm just editing the shots and I'll pop a couple on here later this week.

Take care peeps.

Sorry peeps, been an age.

Not made very much apart from a couple of cards so I'll pop one of those up in a min. Been very busy at work and too tired in the evenings to do much.

Took another photo of my new baby, it was taken at dusk and I used my 50mm 1.8 lens. Testing it for a band I'm seeing this weekend.

Here's the card, made for a very good friend over on Bubbly Funk.


















And here's the shot of my car


















I also bought the Neat Image software, very impressed so far. The D80 is a fab camera but at ISO 500 and above it does suffer with a bit of digital noise so this new software really works wonders on that The other alternative of course is to buy the D300 at £1200 (yeah right) or the D3 at around £3k (okay choke in my tea), so I opted for the £30 software....LOL!

I've just remembered some other stuff that I can post up too but I'll save that for another day.

Catch you later peeps.

CJing!

We're doing a Circle Journal over at Bubbly Funk at the mo and I've just finished my entry in Kathy's lovely book.

This is only the second circle journal I have participated in and they are lovely to do. We're over half way through now so I'm starting to look forward to getting mine back.










The theme for Kathy's cj is Stash Attack and we are to use our favourite stash. I have so many faves it was really hard to narrow it down but I ended up with just a small selection in the end.

Had a long day at work today so I'm a bit tired now....started at 7 this morning!! Not sure what creativity I'm up to next, I'll see what the week brings.

Another church

A quickie post. Another shot I've just finished editing, this is another church at Iping. Exposure was great on the church but the sky was overexposed. The beauty of RAW shooting is the ability to change the exposure effectively in Photoshop so I adjusted the exposure to bring out the detail in the sky, layered the two shots and erased the overexposed sky to bring out the detail underneath.

Of course, the proper way to do it is to take more than one shot at different exposures on a tripod,......I just cheated a lil bit.














Laterz peeps.

Mum's Day!!

A lil spot of cardmaking just for the mums.



















As most of you know I'm not the worlds most enthusiastic card maker but I do enjoy a little dabble every now and then. Hoping to get some more creative time in soon......too many hobbies.......not enough hours, roll on semi retirement eh!!!

Keep smiling peeps!

St. Marys Church, Iping, West Sussex

Went for a walk last weekend and came across this beautiful church. It's built on an old pagan burial mound and although the original building was erected some time before 1086 the church was rebuilt in 1885.

I decided to turn it mono but then give it an aged sepia feel. I took alot more shots on that walk but I've been so busy I've not had time to process them yet.














Very seriously thinking of turning our conservatory into a small photography studio. We get loads of natural light in there......I just need to find some willing models to practice on......ha ha!!

I'm in the middle of making a couple of mums cards for Sunday so I'll blog those when I'm done.

Old baby, New baby!!

Good news today.....Essy passed his MOT so he's now living with a friend of ours...so....here's my old baby. Had him for 9 years and he went like a dream (most of the time bless him). He's been all round the country with us and I hated the thought of him going to the scrap heap but he's had a reprieve and now in his new home.













Picked up my new baby today too. Weeny and cute and goes like a bullet!!













I'm looking forward to getting to know this little babe!

Take care one and all.

Ok, own up.....who pinched February then!!!

Hmmmm, well that month just flew didn't it. Soooo much going on, work has been busy and my scrapping mojo completely disappeared.

I have a whole day of creativity planned today so perhaps that will spark me off. I have been taking photos though so here's some of my recent stuff.






















I will have more to post over the next couple of days but I'm sitting here at silly hour writing this post.

Take care lovelies.

Been a bit busy......ho hum!

No update for a couple of weeks....sorry! The lead up to the end of January was manic work wise so I've been too tired to do anything in the evenings!!

Anyway, been taking some photos so here they are:

A mono conversion of Bramber Castle in West Sussex,



















Another mono of a tree....taken last summer when we were on a bike ride.


















One of the lavendar fields taken in Provence last year.....yeah I know, only just got round to editing them:



















That's about it for now, not much chat I'm afraid, work talk is a bit dull eh!!

Photography Seminar

Well I went to the seminar on Sunday and it was fantastic.

It was run by David Worthington and Martin Stembridge, both very accomplished photographers.

We went up to Coventry to a place called The Beechwood Inn, very nice indeed. Tony and I stayed the night there on Sunday too so we enjoyed a lovely meal in the evening after the seminar had finished.

Zoe was the model for the day, however, the shots were all pretty much taken outside and it was FREEZING!! Poor Zoe had to endure the cold with no sleeves for over 2 hours. How she kept smiling I'll never know.

Anyway, here are some of my efforts for the day.























They have already organised the 2nd seminar for the northern part of the country, way up in Cumbria. I'd love to go but reckon that one may be a bit too far...ha ha!

Catch you later peeps.

OMG, another card!

Yup, you heard right folks.....I've made another card!!

This one is for my sister, thoroughly enjoyed making it actually, probably because it went well.













Had a fab day today getting creative, although I am a little tired so I think an early night is on the cards.

Take care lovelies.

Bubbly Funk January Kit

The January kit has been released this week and here are my creations.

This one was specifically made for the kit and I designed the whole alphabet to use, jpg's for hand cutting and gra/gsd files for the Craft Robo.













I also made a word book for my neice for Christmas so, although I didn't use supplies for the kit, I took some piccies to use as an alternative. This one is a little different as the letters have been joined to make two rows of text rather than one.













The inside has lots of little extra pages to add journalling and some little vellum pockets so she can add a lock of hair if she wants to.














Right, onward and upward, seez ya laterz.

Been promoted!!

And all because of this photo.....























Nah, just kidding really! I use a photography forum quite regularly, they're a great bunch of peeps and many are very talented togs.

In my signature line I described myself as being a Very Novice Amateur. After posting this photo it was suggested by Chris, a tog who's work I admire very much, that I should drop the Very Novice!!....so....I've been promoted.

Yup, still grinning....perhaps I'm starting to crack this photography malarky!!!

Not much else to report, one or two issues going on right now that I'll explain in more depth another time.

Ooh, and I am keeping up with my Art Journal, I'm on my 3rd entry but it has developed into a kind of personal diary so, in the main, I'll keep it private for now.

Started my 2007 Christmas journal too and I have finished the front cover but there are one or two little bits I want to add so I'll post a pic in time.

Take care one and all.

xx

I've been a scrap, scrap, scrapping!!!!

First 12" x 12" layout I have done since April last year.......phewy!!























This is from fabby sketch Caroline set on the Bubbly Funk forum. I was just what I needed to get my bum kick started into gear as I really should start scrapping a bit more!

I've used paint on the layout, really getting into painted stuff right now and there is a bit of hidden journalling on the tag behind the photo with a few heartfelt sentiments about my dear mum.....love her to bits!!

I took the photo down in Cornwall at bro's with my new 50mm f/1.8 lens, it's fab. I've just got to get used to using it though, it's so different from the kit lens that came on the camera.

I have so many other projects I want to get going on but so little time ha ha.....either that or I'm just sooooo slow.

Catch you soon hopefully.

I made a birthday card!!!!!

Now don't faint.....I know I'm not hot on making cards but I thought I'd give this a go.

Completely different from the stuff I normally do, this little fella has been hand drawn and painted in those fabby glittery water colours from The Works...you know...the one's they don't sell any more (along with their brill metallic acrylics)....tsk!

Anyway, the lettering was done on Robbie so all in all a very simple card, just how I like them LOL!






















I've also done an entry in my art journal but it's a tad personal so I won't show the page this time but I have made up some rules for my journal, them there being that I must always try to
"Use scraps of paper only",
"Hand Write Everything",
"Include a Favourite Photo taken recently" (to encourage me to get the camera out),
"Make a Weekly Entry",
"Doodle or Draw each time"
and the last one being "Don't spend too long".
I have done this one because I tend to take an age doing anything creative, I dither about and I really need to learn to get a flow going so the entries in this journal are not going to be long winded affairs. I probably won't like some of them because of it but hey, thats life.

Righteo peeps...onwards and upwards.

New Year Resolutions

Mmmmmm, I wonder if I can keep the ones I make??

I have a few resolutions, the main one being to get more organised. I'm a fairly organised person anyway but I forget things so easily so I need to be more vigilent. I'm good at keeping lists so I just need to expand on them to cover other stuff instead of just work.

I must also lose weight, I have put on a few pounds over the last few months and I feel fat and frumpy so I must make a big effort otherwise I will get depressed.

Another is to scrapbook more, I spend alot of time making mini books and things like that, I haven't done a 12" x 12" LO for months and I have some lovely albums that are crying out to be filled.

I'd like to improve my photography but that's not really a resolution as such cos that will happen when it happens. I have a fab one day seminar to go to soon and I'm hoping to learn heaps there.

I so want to do an art journal for 2008 and I have taken the plunge and covered a watercolour sketch book in readiness. I would like to do an entry each week if I can but each fortnight at the very least.


















Well, we'll see how I go. Ciao for now peeps. xx