big bird | little bird

i've been a little bit missing in action on my blogs lately, and thus, have not been visiting all of my favorite blogs. i have had some time to stop by a few, but i still have so much catching up to do with you all.

i've been busy. saturday morning i had my first gig as a personal shopper––it was for a friend of mine. oh, my! it was so much fun! we shopped from 11:30 until 3:00 and then went to have a late lunch, as all our shopping worked up an appetite. my "client" has already been wearing some of her new pieces and is getting compliments. i guess my work there is done!

then on sunday morning, i got up early to drive about an hour to meet lovely beth at the elkhorn flea market. it was a blast!!! we had a great time. i wish i had gotten more pictures, but beth took some and also wrote a little about it here {although many of you might have read it already}. everything she said was mutual to my feelings. thanks, beth! not just for meeting me, but also for the sweet things you wrote about it.

after that excursion, i went to chicago to visit my sister and give her the vintage lamps that i purchased for her at the flea market. they were the coolest lamps, and had she not liked them, i would have been more than happy to keep them for myself. but alas, she loved them, and i am so pleased. they look wonderful in her vintage apartment! i was there over night and enjoyed a wonderful stay. as always, it felt like i was a guest at a bed and breakfast. every time i go, she has done something new with the place and it feels more and more comfortable. i took hundreds of pictures and will post them from time to time.

and as usual, her chihuahua blanco was the best friend i could ask for. never leaving my side, he had me smiling and laughing almost the entire time i was there. he is just too cute for words. go here, and then just try to tell me he's not the cutest thing. :)

i took these two shots within minutes of each other while driving home from chicago yesterday. it's not something i recommend... taking pictures while driving. but it sure makes for some interesting shots sometimes. i opened them both in photoshop and applied a radial blur for effect. but the portion around the plane and bird remains unblurred. the plane in the first shot really did have a ghost-like nose, as it was entering the clouds and beginning to disappear. that was not a manipulation to the photo.

i will have a few more drive-by shootings tomorrow. but they will be from my race on the country roads to get to a nature preserve in time to take some sunset pictures last night. the clouds yesterday were absolutely out-of-this-world cool all day, and i knew it would make for a very nice sunset. so i set out early and spent over an hour taking hundreds of pictures of the sky as the sun began to go down and set. more on that tomorrow.

tonight... i will catch up on the rest of my blogs. thanks to everyone for stopping by, even when i don't get over to yours for a couple of days. see you soon!

every moment is a photo opp.

i love the tea at this restaurant.
they serve mightyleaf tea,
and it's mighty good.

my mom took me out to lunch here,
and everything was so colorful and picturesque.

poor mama. she can't even drink in peace.

"put the bloomin' camera down, georgia!"

{well, that's not what she really said.
but something like that.}
"sorry, mama.
you didn't realize you were taking
my camera out to lunch too, did you?"

maybe i should frame the first shot
and give it to her as a gift?
then she'll take me to lunch again.
{wink}

antique store browsing and photoshoot

{antique storefront window reflecting the historic theater across the street}

{miss chris also taking pics of the antique store window}

a few weeks ago, i met my friend chris for a photoshoot in st. charles, illinois. we went there knowing there were some great antique stores that might be fun to take pictures at. we were right. it was so much fun. so many little treasures and trinkets. so much color and sparkle. i love to see the things that were once in someone else's home—making their lives just one bit more special—or so i like to think they did. you can see the rest of my shots here.

tomorrow, i'm meeting beth at the flea market in wisconsin for some more photo opportunities, as well as a chance to meet in person for the first time a friend i've made in the blogsphere. i'm looking very much forward to it! {i think it's outside—i hope it doesn't rain!}

i wish i had this view every evening.

{a farm a few miles outside of town—taken from the side of the road}

but i don't.
oh well...
other than a few view-obstructing rooftops,
mine's not bad.

{more pictures of the same view...}

{clouds through a green glass bottle—it looks like i bottled them up, doesn't it?}

what about you?
what do you have the pleasure of seeing outside your window?

florida 8: umbrellas

there were so many umbrellas of all different colors on the beach in florida. every one was begging to be photographed. so that i did. and then some. are you sick of beach umbrellas yet? most of the above shots are s.o.o.c. or slightly adjusted {color}. i obviously made the last one black and white, too.

but the below shots are ones that i played around with. i couldn't even tell you what i did. i was just playing until i liked what i saw. mind you, i have a dull and faded old monitor. i just hope i did not overdo it on some of these.

this last one was my favorite. here it is with no edits, too.

a {not-so-rosey} rose

roses are red
violets are blue
unless they're made sepia
by me or by you

{click on image to see better}

i was at my friend mary's house last night. i went to pick her up for a night out with the girls. tapas and sangrias––doesn't get much better than that.

anyway, mary always has the prettiest flowers in her yard. her roses were in bloom, although most of them were on their way out for the year, but still pretty. i took a few shots, but the color was not quite right. and the edges of the rose were starting to brown because it had been there for quite a while.

so i thought this was a good opportunity to play some more with textures and vintagization. {that's my new word.} i made it sepia, added texture and played around. i was recently on a blog that posts a lot of vintage photos. {it's called toadberry––you should check it out.} it inspired me to try something neat with this photo. i love how many of the old photos had that little date on the edge of the photo where the white frame is. so i recreated that on my photo to give it that extra old feel. kind of neat, hah?

finally, i just added some text with a script font to give it the appearance of an old photo that had had a caption written on it by someone's grandma or something. wah-lah!

this one is for you,

miss mary-mary-how-does-your-garden-grow!

day and night . . .

with...


or without...


you've been in my thoughts.

macro monday {+ mosaic monday}

{click on image to see detail}

i was going to say "today i'm taking a break from macro monday to do mosaic monday." but then i realized that most of the shots in my mosaic were taken with the macro setting on my little camera. so i can still call it macro monday. {by the way, when i had started my macro monday series, i thought it was an original thought. but i should have known someone else already thought of it. i'm not even sure who started macro or mosaic monday, but regardless of who it was, i'm joining in on the fun.}

i tend not to do a lot of mosaics or collages, because the column width of my posts is somewhat narrow as is, so i feel like the photos would be too small to see after being shrunk down even smaller to fit in a collage. but i forget that you can click on the image to see it better if you want––see the caption under this collage.

the big clock shot is of the giant clock in the center of the historic downtown where i live. the rest of the shots are my husband's stopwatch and a wristwatch {bottom right} that i gave him for his birthday one year.

here is another shot of the stopwatch.

i really liked photographing this piece. it was so much fun to try it from all kinds of angles. i like stopwatches. i wish men wore them more. they just bring me back to a simple time––when i was a little squirt. my dad used to wear one. i can still remember him taking it from his little suit vest pocket on sunday to check the time. it just seems so old fashioned and makes me think of the good old days.

speaking of dad, how was your father's day? mine was nice. my husband's parents came over for dinner. they were here from florida for a wedding in buffalo, but made sure to stop through to see us. i was so happy to be able to spend father's day with my other dad––dad-in-law. he calls me "cutey" and that always makes me feel special. while we sat and ate, i put on some al hirt in honor of my dad {who was a huge fan}. because of that, i had to fight the tears from welling up while we sat talking and eating together.

a lot of people have said a lot of nice things regarding my dad and what i wrote about him over these last few days because of his birthday and father's day. if you were one, i thank you. i have to say, reading this e-mail from a friend before i went to bed last night was just about the best thing i could have seen after a long, difficult day. it said this:

"hey george {that's me}- wanted to encourage you this day as i thought about your dad and the way he touched the lives of all around him- looking forward to seeing him in Glory."

wow. that blessed me beyond measure. thank you.

okay, back to our night––after dinner the hubby and i played guitar and sang {respectively} for his parents. that was a lot of fun! {note to self: next time, wait at least an hour after stuffing your belly with tacos before trying to sing if you want to sound half-way decent.} i hope your father's day was good.

happy {macro + mosaic} monday.

~ ~ ~

oh, and this too. i keep forgetting to post this for kath over at soeurs du jour in response to this post. this is my play along shot.

mine was not an intentional blur like hers, and the face is not in focus, but i still loved how this shot turned out. i love the way it captured color and good times––laughter and dinner with one of my friends and her kids in the back yard on the deck on a warm summer-like evening.

there you go, kath. thanks for the invite to play along.

vintage photo album

remember when shutter sisters did that post about photos with nostalgic moods created through processing? it was that post that made me realize i want to do more with my photos than just post s.o.o.c. shots. having photoshop, i should not let the opportunity of doing something fun with my photos pass by. i don't want to do this all the time, but that post really inspired me to begin to experiment with making some of my photos look aged or older.

the only thing is, i did not quite know how. i received some tips and some links to sites that would help me do that in different ways. but i wanted to learn how to do this myself––whether using texture or playing with the color or both. i love to add the white borders on my photos––just that one step alone can give it that little vintage kick. i had also used the polaroid photoshop action here and there on some of my photos. and then there are my sepia shots. but i wanted to do more.

if you know me, you know i love actual vintage photos. i try to pick them up when i go to antique stores––for making cards or just hanging up in my home in some fashion. there is just something about them that i love. i've also begun to frame and use some of my family's and my husband's family's old photos––parents, grandparents, even great grandparents. and let's face it... i'm getting to the age where even my childhood photos could be considered antiques. {sigh}

so with the recent popularity of "vintagizing" photography today, i thought i would join in on the fun. i love vintage anything. i love photography. why not marry the two? just a couple of days ago, i realized i had some actions that came with my photoshop that would help me achieve this {like the one i used on yesterday's post}, and i did not even realize it. i could have been doing this all this time! oh well, better late than never.

i also purchased a few textures and frames and downloaded some sample actions to aid in my photoshop play and experimenting. so i've been playing for the past couple of days. it's so much fun!

i added some texture to this daisy picture from a previous post and changed it to a sepia. then i added it onto this frame file {that actually looks more like an album} to create my little sidebar button image for my new tag series called "vintage photo album" any photos that i play with to create an aged or vintage feel will get tagged and added to this new series.

what do you do to age your photos {if you are into that sort of thing}?

{speaking of vintage photos, i posted more old photos of my dad for father's day on jorjah-b. but these are the real deal. no aging effects used there––just a scanned old photo from my mom {{thanks, mom!}}. just promise me you won't laugh at my hair.}

a slice of...

see the rest of this series here.

i serenade you {old blue eyes sang it first}

i wish you bluebirds in the spring,

to give your heart a song to sing,
and then a kiss,
but more than this,
i wish you love.

and if you like lemonade
to cool you in some lazy glade,
i wish you health,
and more than wealth,
i wish you love.

~from i wish you love

{yay—it's friday! i'll be around here from time to time. but i'll be busy, too. i'm helping at the barrington antique and garden show. it's supposed to rain, but i'll be working with my friends kellie and jodi, and i'm really looking forward to it. i will have left by the time you read this, probably. but i'll be back tonight and i will catch up on all your hot bliggity blogs! then it's off to the show again on saturday. have a wonderful weekend, y'all!}

where are you right now?

ifxyou are able . . .

and look around.

sing . . .
try blue skies smilin' at me.lay on your back . . .

and look up.

go for a walk . . .

and look down.

take time to notice the little things.

tell everyone you can what they mean to you

at the first chance you get . . .

every chance you get.

laugh . . .

and be like a kid again.

oh, and one more thing . . .

take lots of pictures.

{are you busy running around "doing life", forgetting to stop and take time to breathe? are you neglecting to just listen to or watch what's going on around you?

one of my favorite quotes by emerson is "we're always getting ready to live, but never living." how true. i know it's easy for me to say all this—i'm not working right now. but even if i was, i would want someone to remind me. working hard is important, but we can easily let life pass us by if we work too much. life is short, but full of so much if we let it be.

the last night that my father stood and breathed a waking breath on this earth, i stayed at work late for four extra hours to finish a project that was in dire need. i was supposed to be at my mom and dad's house with my two sisters helping them pack up the last things before they moved to springfield. i ended up not going because i stayed late at work instead. i thought i would have the chance to see them both the next day to say goodbye before they moved. but i only got to see my mom that day, for my dad passed in his sleep early the next morning. i would have had one last night to see him—his last night here on earth.

i'm not living in "woulda, coulda, shoulda". but i am a different person when it comes to working overtime now. sometimes you just have to know when to pack up and go home. believe me, i understand the need for the extra money or the importance of being a valuable asset to a company or to clients, especially in this economy. but i urge you to find the right balance if you can.

my mom has said this to me for as long as i can remember—"you only have one chance to live june 18th, 2009." well . . . she changes the date each time she says it, of course. but you get the point. let's start living and take a break from getting ready to live. if you already are, i applaud you.

have a blessed day.}

{ps. don't forget to take the lens cap off your camera—see last photo above. heehee. that's my good friend who is also a photographer. she actually does know what she is doing. i think she was just viewing the lcd screen here.}