Tuesday Macro Day!!!!

So a couple weeks ago I said we would go over macro photography and Ooooooh I am so thrilled for it.


Macro photography is the art of photography on a close up scale. I am a huge fan of this. I use a Canon 10 D SLR and I have a little macro lens that screws onto the front that gives me these gorgeous shots. You can do the same thing with the macro setting on your camera. It is the little symbol that looks like a flower.

Alright, some things to remember when doing macro photography. 
1. Generally you have a small focus area and then the rest will be fuzzy, so try to get something of interest into that little field of focus.
2. I like to shoot my photos in the morning or early evening so my lighting is low, so I use a wider aperature which gives me even less focus in the background. I like this because then my background is a color rather than any objects or shapes.

3. Flowers are a lot of fun to shoot with macro because they have amazing details and lines, they are like a small work of art and you are trying to capture that perfect moment.

4. Practice Alot! If you have a digital camera then take as many photos as you can, it will teach you what you like and what you want to change.

5. Try to find an interesting angle, look at it from all sides so you can catch something that someone else might not have.

6. Last but not least, Have Fun!!! If you don't like it then don't shoot photos of it, find something that interests you. Ever since I had my daughter thats all I want to take photos of, so use your skills on something you love.

Garden Monday Success!!!

Finally......


The Fruits of my Labors!!!!

Mind you, they're not very big fruit but BOY HOWDY are they tasty!

This is the absolute best thing about gardening, it is like magic. You plant this little stick in the ground and then you get these tasty bits to eat and if you have never had a tomato fresh off the vine,

Oh My Gosh!!! So freckin' tasty!

You wouldn't think that warm tomatoes are yummy but yeah, warmed by the sun and juicy. MMMmmmmmmmmmm.

Plus I love that these are bite size so you just pop them in, a little bit of sunshine in your mouth.

Sooooooo if you don't have a garden, next year.....Get One!!!

It doesn't have to be big, heck it could be one plant, but if you are growing something you can eat then that is a garden. 

Happy Gardening!!

Sunday Happy Day!!

Wow, What a Week?
You ever have a bipolar week? Where everything just keeps going up and down until at the end you feel like your going to puke? Yep, one of those weeks.
But thats Ok. Because now it is Sunday and things are Much Better. So, lets think of some things to be grateful for.


Family- hung out with them last night and they all said how much they loved my blog which empowered me (along with my reader who left a comment) to get back in the game.


Movies- Got to go see Despicable me, (Hilarious and very sweet), and Eclipse (Waaaayyyyy better than the first one, still very teenage drama, so funny) Which I really love movies, because they take you out of your ho hum life and give you a moment in something amazing and different. I think that is the magic of them especially now with all the incredible things they can do with computers, the ideas are limitless.


My friends- Sometimes I don't feel like I have friends because we are all so busy that we hardly ever hang out, but then we get together and everything is better.


Pools- In Las Vegas these are a necessity whether it's your pool or a friend's pool or a city pool, they make you forget about the insane heat for a while, which is always a great thing.


Books- I absolutely Love to Read and I totally support our local library, and this week I found some Truly awesome books, mainly "Simply Green Living" by Danny Seo, which I will feature later on in the week in my craft day so you should try to find it at your local library or even buy it because it has that many great tips.




And last but not least. Puppets- my daughter loves them and they make her laugh which in turn makes me laugh. 
So go out today and be grateful for what we have, even the little things, because they make the world better and who doesn't need that?

Some Days off

Well, we went to the beach this past weekend and it was tons of fun. I came home and I was able to put a visitor counter on my blog and lo and behold.....No one is visiting my blog..

Sooooo I got a little depressed and said "why the heck am I doing this?" I mean, I do it for myself sure, but it is nice to have some visitors and if I have no visitors then that means that my blog isn't that great, so I took a break. I also thought, how can I possibly compete in any way with all these other awesome blogs that I love looking at. So I am taking a break. If I make something awesome I'll post it on here but I'm not going to wear myself out about it, especially if no body is watching, then my whole drama is just with myself any way. Laters..

Garden Monday-Watch out for this guy!!!!

The Infamous Green Horned Caterpillar

Yeah, so these are the guys you have to watch out for on your tomato plants. They are tricky too because if they know you are near they stick out like that and try to look like a branch. If you see a bunch of bare branches then you know you have one because boy, do they strip them.

So I caught this guy before I went on vacation for the weekend, I thought there was a little too much damage to be done by just one guy, but this was the only one I could find.

Then I come back from my trip, look out my window and like half my plant is bare and 

THIS GUY was having a Buffet!!

Yeah, so he had a real nice time eating my plant all weekend.

Here is my husband, doing the honors. I hate grabbing them when they are this big because they will wiggle like crazy. So we just trimmed off his branch and threw him over the wall! 

Sayanara Sucker!!!

So keep an eye out for these guys, luckily once you get rid of them the plant will bounce back.

Happy Gardening!

Sunday

I'm grateful for beaches,
family,
babies,
and sunblock.

Saturday Kid Fun Day!!!

Alright!!!

Teaching art for two years I had to come up with all kinds of projects. I really loved working with the younger kids because they were so much more enthused about the activities. So one project we did was a watercolor book where they had to try out all the different water color techniques. Here are 3 techniques that I find, kids really like.

Watercolor
Supplies:
Brush
Watercolor set
Watercolor paper- this makes a difference, if you just use regular paper it will break down and squish all over the place.
Salt-regular salt and rock salt work
Paper towels
Masking tape- just a little bit to hold down the corners of your paper
Plastic wrap
Water Cup

Technique 1- Plastic Wrap
Ok- Tape your paper down on the corners, you don't need very much tape, just a little.
First we are going to do a wash on our paper. A wash is a smooth layer of either water or water color. We are going to do a wash of water. You want to dip your brush in the water and smooth water all over your paper till you have a nice layer.

 Now you are going to pick a couple colors. You want to stick with colors that are friends with each other. Like Red and blue make purple so they are friends. We don't want to use enemies, those are yellow with purple, blue with orange, or green with red. Those colors when you mix them, make brown which isn't very fun on your paper.

So I started off with red. Then I added blue. Here are a couple water color tricks.

The more water you add the lighter your color. So if you want a nice strong red you just add a little water to your color in the box other wise if you keep dipping your brush in water and then dipping it in the color it will come out really light.

When you already have a layer of water on your paper your colors are going to mix and bleed into each other which can be a lot of fun because you can't control it.

So once you have a lot of color on your paper then we need to pull out our plastic wrap and get a piece that is a little bigger than your paper.

Lay the plastic wrap on your paper.

With a pinching motion you want to lightly grab the plastic wrap, pull up in the air a little and touch down so you have some air underneath the plastic wrap but it also touches the paper. Do this all over.

Now you need to leave that to dry, you can put it outside if it isn't windy.

Make sure it is really dry, and then you can pull off the plastic wrap.

This is your finished product!

Technique 2- Salt

Tape a new piece of paper down.

Again, put down a layer of water.

Pick a couple friendly colors and do some swirls, dots, and lines. Make a cool abstract composition. Abstract is something that doesn't look like anything real. Composition is the objects, colors, and movement that is your drawing.

Once you have your whole paper filled up (no white areas) then you want to pull out your salt. You can use rock salt or regular salt or a little of both. Sprinkle it on your paper, not all over, but in spots. The salt will suck up your water color and leave a crystalized effect that is really cool. 

Then leave it to dry......

Ta Da!!!

Fun huh?

Technique 3-Crumpled Paper Towel

Make a wash of water on your paper and choose some bright colors to add in.

Now, Crumple up a paper towel so you have some nice corners and bits poking out. If you have one of those natural sponges that would work too.

Then dab your paper towel onto your picture.

Keep doing this until it looks the way you want.

Ta Da!!!!

I love to combine these techniques into pictures. An example would be a blue sky and you use the crumples paper towel to look like clouds. Or you could do an outer space picture and add the salt to really give it that feeling.  You could always do a background like this, modge podge over it and then add some images on top. Have Fun!!