Stealing an Idea!

Wendy had a great idea, which I've stolen from her! We're going to do a 365 Project, where we take a picture every day for a year. When it's done I'll put mine together in a book, as a keepsake. My plan is to post the pics on the blog once a week. Wendy & I will share our ideas, and hopefully provide some inspiration for each other (and motivation to keep doing this!). I'm hoping to challenge myself at least once a week to do something different, to challenge myself to try something I maybe normally wouldn't. I suspect some of these things will work, and others won't, but by the end I hope I've learned something.

Thanks to Wendy for the idea!

Here are some of the themes I'm thinking of tackling. Some of these are from Wendy, some are my ideas, and some are from others who have done this previously. I think I may choose some as weekly themes to keep focussed.

nudes/body parts
micro
industrial
hands
mirrors
colour
inside
black & white
water
transportation
animals
food (fresh or prepared)
my jewelry
on the street
about town
flora and fauna
seasonsself portraits 
shadows/light
focus
bridges
lines
doors
people
movement


If you have any suggestions, pass them on!

Kind of Cool

We're home from our quick trip to Ontario over the holidays. I'll post about that later. In the meantime, when we got up this morning, I saw the yellow vase we have on the bar was casting a neat shadow on the wall behind it. I had to try to take some pictures of it. They didn't come out exactly as I had hoped, but are still pretty cool.

Last One for Now!

OK, so I really need to focus on finishing my thesis, but I had to make one last necklace before Christmas. This one started because of the pinch bail. I saw it and loved it. So, I had a bail, but no stone for it. That led to searching for something big and dramatic - how about a 50mm Swarovski pendant in Bermuda blue? Worked for me! I had the focal point down, but then what to use for the rest of the necklace? I stuck with the Swarovski theme, and used their pearls in pale blue and a metallic, separated by matching blue stone spacers. The closure is a neat heart clasp, which finishes the whole thing off. It's definitely a statement, but I'm OK with that!

Here is the finished product:

Too sick to work

Ugh, I have another sinus infection, plus a throat infection this time. It's the 3rd time this semester that I've gotten sick, and I'm not very happy about it. I think it's an indication that I need to start exercising again, and losing weight to improve my immune system. Hopefully once I'm over this I can start again.

In the meantime, because I'm too tired to do much else, I've been making jewellry. At least I can sit on the couch and not expend any real effort doing this.

Mom had chosen the colourful pendant ages ago and I haven't had time to make anything with it until now.

When I was in the bead store a couple of weeks ago I found two gorgeous glass elephants. I bought one for me, which I haven't done anything with yet, and one for Mom. I think she'll like him, he has a lot of personality. I made her a fairly simple necklace so that he takes centre stage.

Ages ago I bought some lava rock, which I like because of the texture. I made a necklace when I first bought it, but didn't like it when it was done. I took it apart today and started from scratch. I threw in some cloissone for colour. I think this one is better.

Beautiful Morning

John commented that it looked like it would there would be a nice sunrise this morning, so I took my camera with me when I dropped him off at school. I walked into the coulees a bit to see if I could get some pictures. I was glad to get my camera out because it has been far too long since I've taken any pictures. Here are the results.

Dogs are Good

Wendy recently took some pictures of our friend Bobbi's dogs. Her older dog Sophie hadn't been feeling well. When I saw the pictures I cried, because Sophie reminded me so much of Molly near the end of her life. Here are the pictures Wendy took: http://pawsontherunphotography.blogspot.com/2010/11/sophie.html 

Sadly, Sophie died last night. I feel so badly for Bobbi and her family. Having been through this recently I can empathize with how they must be feeling.

Dogs bring so much to our lives. The void that's left when they are gone is difficult to describe. The comfort that a dog can give just by being near you is amazing. Our house is so quiet without Molly here. Just listening to her breathing was nice - and her snoring was adorable. Wendy & I were talking about how you get used to your own dog's idiosyncrasies, and having other dogs around is nice but just not quite the same. I'm looking forward to when we get a pup, whenever that is. We're waiting until we're feeling ready, and clearly we're not there yet. We're still too attached to Molly right now.

The Bridge in Lights, photoshopped

One thing I didn't mention in my last post is that at one point while we were out, a flock of birds flew over the bridge. Because the lights shine up, the birds were illuminated, turning them completely white. It was one of the most amazing and beautiful sights I've seen. I had no way to take a picture of it, although I know I wouldn't have been able to capture it anyway. Wendy & I just stood there for a minute speechless. Sometimes it's the small things that matter.

Here are some pics after being photoshopped for fun.

Soft

Fisheye

Cross screen

Light Soft

Black & White

The Bridge in Lights

For Remembrance Day the High Level Bridge was illuminated again. Wendy lives near the bridge and has access to it, so I met her and we went out for a few hours to take pictures. It was really amazing. We spoke to only 2 or 3 other people. I was surprised how few people were out - I expected many more. It was kind of nice though, especially as we were laughing & giggling much of time! Here are some of the better pictures from the night. Sorry, a lot of them look a like!