Pink Yarrow

Fall color week on Elsie Marley. Pretty sure there's some Burnt Sienna in all the reddish-brownish-orangey goodness of this flower.

Brick Red for Fall Color Week on Elsie Marley. This is a Doily Stretcher I picked up for $3 at a garage sale in Shawano, Wisconsin. I have no idea how it was used, but I love it's graphic beauty.

I had driven past this park many times, not knowing that it was even a park. I thought that it was some sort of promotional display for one of the museums in the area. Well, one day we happened to park across the street from it during a visit to the Milwaukee Art Museum. We decided to stop and explore... and we were pleasantly surprised!



The flags (?) make a rustling noise in the wind, like leaves on tall trees in a very large forest. They sparkle and wink in the sunlight and you can turn them with wheels at the bottom of the poles.




We were really surprised to find that the benches had drumsticks tied to them! They are musical benches!




And the "sculpture" in the middle has a sign on it to drop in pebbles. The pebbles make music on their way down.





Probably one of the coolest parks we've ever visited!

Last weekend we went to Wehr Nature Center, not far from our home here in the Milwaukee area. The last of the snow was melting in the heavily wooded area and we brought the camera in search of signs of spring!


There's a hanging nest in this tree! If you click on the photo you will go to my Flickr photostream where I highlight the next with the note feature.


Red berries - not sure if this is a sign of spring, or leftover from winter?



There's a goose landing on the ice!

From Birds On A Wire

We went outside today in our small urban yard and I tried to find something beautiful or inspirational to photograph. A difficult feat in Wisconsin during a minor winter thaw. Most plant life is dead and the snow is dirty. I did manage to find a few things that I might post later, but the most inspirational image was that of doves on telephone wires (in the alley, no less!) The photo quality is not good, the doves were too far away for my camera to get a decent focus. But I found the composition to be quite good and fun with it in iPhoto when we came in. Here are some of my favorite "new" looks for what started as a mediocre photo. Enjoy!
Above, enhanced with color boost and cropped.

Below, the original:




Next, sepia with color boost:




Black and white with matte:




Color fade vignette:




Antique with high contrast:



I think it would be fun to make note cards or calendars with images such as these...

This year I came up with a new idea for the annual Valentine's Day card exchanges for my girls' classmates. In years past we have bought Valentine's cards, but it always seems so impersonal. We've also made cards (with glue, doilies, colorful paper, etc), but my daughter is usually bored and/or frustrated by the third card and I end making all the cards. This year I had my 8-year-old draw out her designs with marker and artist crayons on 5.5" X 8" paper (a regular piece of paper, cut in half). For my 3-year-old, I drew hearts on the paper and had her color them. I scanned the artwork into the computer as JPEG files, cleaned up and added text (if needed) in Gimp and imported them into OpenOffice. I then resized them to fit 12 on a page (really easy, you just grab the "handles" and move to the correct size). I made them each approximately 2.5" X 3.5". I am printing them on card stock and cutting them apart with a box cutter. The girls will write names on the back. Handmade artwork without the "production line" frustration! (and of course, I had to get in on the act as well, I used stencils for the lettering on my "crossword" Valentine!)

I'm very late on posting this (I'll blame it on The Fabric Shopper!) Here are some gifts received (and given) for Christmas!



Handmade (or homemade?) calendars given by us to family. I took pictures the girls had made throughout the year, scanned them into the computer to clean them up (and color them, in some instances) and put them into a calendar template I made. (I have a Mac and used all freeware applications from the web - Gimp (is like Photoshop) for the pictures and OpenOffice (like MicroSoft Office) for the calendars. I printed them on cardstock (2 to a page), cut them with a box cutter, cut the corners with a nifty corner cutter found in the scrapbooking section of JoAnn's (bought with a nice 50% off coupon!), punched holes in the corners and added a keyring.



Beautiful Gifts Received:

A hand-knited washcloth.



Handmade ABC books using family (and blog!) photos.




A lovely, non-plastic, reusuable water bottle.



Orange (!) measuring bowls.



Memory game.



Charley Harper flashcards/floor puzzle.

Photos of the trees outside my father's home. Snow fell after rain had turned to ice on the trees.

I feel as though one might encounter a faun if she wandered this white forest long enough...

I came home from work Saturday night (I work as a waitress, so it was late) to find these beautiful paper dolls sitting on the dining room table. I quizzed my husband, "was she bored and you told her to draw something?" "No." "Did she find the idea in a book?" "No." "Was she looking at pictures of people in costumes?" "No, she just sat at the table and made them." Amazing... (the one on the far right has leaves for hair and on the bodice of her dress)

My 7-year-old was bored and demanded that someone suggest something fun to do (because, of course, most of my original suggestions involved chores). So I told her to go outside and gather some leaves. When she came in, I showed her and her 3-year-old sister how to do leaf rubbings with crayons on paper, as I had seen on this post on maya*made. (we skipped the watercolor part)

Well, little miss 3 didn't have much patience for this rubbing sort of craft, and soon settled on making something completely of her own imagination involving two of her very favorite activities in the whole entire world - gluing and cutting. She created quite the work of art, I believe. It had to be put in the window, too, just like big sister's leaf rubbings!

My 3-year-old drew her first ever (recognizable) face - on her pumpkin Friday night. She then checked it against the face her sister drew on her pumpkin...

and returned to make the eyes bigger on hers as well.


Then she sat down and drew her first ever, umm, human figure. Of course, I think she's a prodigy ;)