Let's See Where the Road Takes Me....

Good Morning!

It's a little chilly this morning, but still a great day.

On Tuesday I decided to take myself off on a jaunt around the countryside. I'm very lucky, as living in the North of North Lincolnshire {or to some, South Humberside, but that's a whole different story}I'm actually in the countryside, and also it's nice and flat so no humongous hills to climb!

I took a short drive to Kirmington, as I'd heard from a friend that there was a lovely walk on one of the public footpaths, and I thought I would be able to get some good photographs. In fact I found three or four footpaths, so I'm not exactly sure which one my friend was on about, but still I wasn't disappointed. I took the one that led me into Kirmington village.

This is the 'Marrowebone and Cleaver' - what a great name for a Pub! They serve great food and the welcome is always very warm.

I just love finding things like this! What a little gem. I have no idea what it is, but I love the rustiness and character of it. You would think that living in the country I would come across things like this all the time, but no!

This is the church in Kirnington. What a beautiful sky!

And finally some flowers from the church yard, what a gorgeous sight!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed our stroll around Kirmington as much as I did...I plan to do it more often! x

More Letterpress Love!

Hi there!

Did I mention I ♥ the Letterpress?!

Here's another project I put together for the letterpress hour I did on Create and Craft many moons ago. To make this card I used Everyday Printing Plates Set 4 (for the numbers) and the plates from the Letterpress Starter Kit. I stamped the 'on your Special Day' greeting also using the printing ink to make sure the card fully co-ordinated {watch out if you do this though, the stamp is a little more slippery than usual!}.

The background gold flourish is also from the starter kit, and was created by simply moving the cardstock around and passing through the machine a few times. I then cut the heart using dies, and finished the card with burgundy organza ribbon and gems. I also used a little punched heart to cover up a little smudge too!

Joe and I had a lovely day today. We went to the cinema to see 'Gomeo and Juliet' and we treated ourselves to pop corn! Then we went into the amusements on the seafront, and I let Joe loose {or lose, which wever way you want to look at it!}with 50 pence worth of 2 p's.

Afterwards, Joe had his first doughnut! I told him of when I was a little girl and we used to visit Bridlington, I used to have doughnuts made freshly, and I used to love {and still do} watching the machine plop out the doughnut into the hot oil,  turned over, then move along the chain until they emerged all golden and lovely! It was then I realised he had never had one - and as you can see he thought they were 'yummy!'

 Well, that's it from me for now - off to fold more flower petals! Thanks for coming to visit! x

My Sea{t} of Tranquility

This is the life...this really is the life! I've been busy all morning zhushing up the garden with my new pur-chases and now I'm enjoying the fruits of my labour.

I've planted some more pots and given the table and chairs another coat of furniture oil, filled up the bird feeders and given the bird table a good clean, cleaned out my glass lantern which were filled with wax after the children got hold of them after a Bar-be-Q we had in April, got out the chimnea from the back of the scary shed so that we can actually use it if we get cold, and put up my lanterns, fairy lights and got out my cushions and throw for when there's a chill in the air in the evenings.

This is where I'm sat right now typing this! Isn't the wonders of technology amazing - thirty years ago you would have had trouble to fit a computer into a space the size of an average family living room, and look at me now, sat with one on my lap. Whatever next - flying cars?!

I LOVE my new swing chair/seat/bench {delete as appropriate} it's so comfy - I'm laid the length of it right now as it gently swings to and fro. All I need now is the sound of waves lapping the shore - I've got a water feature - does that count?

This is to the left side of the swing appendage {If you were sat on it, not if you were looking at it - I don't want you to get confuddled} with the array of pots and plants that I bought yesterday. I also dragged the large one in the corner around from the front of the house, and nearly gave myself a hernia whilst doing it. We've only used the chimnea once, although we have only had it since April, so I can see it getting used lots now it's outside. And it's a lot more environmentally friendly than those calor gas patio heater thingies.

One minute whilst I switch to the other side of the chair and get a swing going...That's better - I was burning one arm and I don't to get lop sided! OOo, and it is a little red too! Silly me - you'd think with having dark hair I would tan easily but I take after my dad - one look at the sun and I'm like a lobster! Will be slapping some aftersun on that tonight me thinks. Anyhoo, I digress. This is the right hand side of the swing. Again a similar set up here, sans le chimnea {Ooo, get me!}

Mmm, look at my gorgeous pinky pink lantern! And I love the daisy flowers (real name Osteospermums or something like that). Grass is a bit neon glow-in-the-dark...you see, I didn't use RAW!!!

Just look at them, aren't they stunning? I love the blue centres with the touch of orange around the edge. Wish I'd got the orange ones too now :( Will go back at the weekend and get them :)

Finally, here's a couple of the lanterns. I just love candle light in the evenings! and I ♥ ♥ ♥ my new decking area!

Well that was a little like 'through the keyhole'! Promise this is not turning into a gardening blog - papercrafts is still my first love. Normal service will resume shortly!

I want it RAW!

Good Tuesday to you all!

I cannot believe it's Tuesday already - where did the weekend go? David was a way all week with work - and he returned Saturday just in time to fix together my new Swing Seat/Bench - call it what you will. As you can imagine, he was so filled with joy at the thought of that! I explained to him that as I had bought it, he would have to pay 10 pence per sit (which I think is quite a reasonable amount), but then he said he would have to charge me £1,000 for fitting together (daylight robbery) so I think we'll call it quits.

Completely taken by this gardening malarkey, I nearly gave myself a hernia shifting play sand that had some type of triffid plant growing in it, and I decided to try and remove some ivy off the fence; boy -have you ever wished you'd never started something? Then on Sunday I went to the tip three times getting rid of garden detritus (LOVE that word!) such as an old lawn mower, clippings and ivy, etc etc. I was like a Tasmanian Devil - nothing was safe to stand in my way! The Joe and I took a trip to buy some cushions, a throw, lanterns etc etc to make my decking a la swing seat/bench look lovely - alas they have not made it outside yet, as I have had no time to sit there! Today I have more cleaning and treating of garden furniture planned and jet washing the algae off the concrete. MY lovely neighbour is even paining my side of the fence - how great is that..."that's when good neighbours become good friends".

Now enough of this waffling, I have something completely wonderful (well I think it is) to show you - and I'm not talking about the card (although it is pretty spiffing even though I do say so myself). A few weeks ago I was given a great magazine from the people at Future Magazines - namely Photoshop Focus Guide - there are different guides around Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, and this one focused on the use of RAW images (issue 80). I've been meaning to have a go with RAW files on my camera, Lousie Jolley - the super talented photographer at docrafts uses RAW all the time and recommended it to me, but I've always been a bit scared - don't know why - it's weird how we're sometimes daunted by something different from the norm - but now I'm so glad I have!

So firstly, let me explain what RAW is (in very basic layman's terms, which I may also get wrong - I'm certainly no expert! ). A RAW file is an untouched image caught by the camera - there has been no in camera processing such as in a JPG, where most of the tonal and colour detail has been lost as soon as you take the picture. Put simply, a RAW file is like an old fashioned negative, which you then process on a photo editing program such as Photoshop elements with a free plug in download from Adobe. You can usually capture RAW files on any modern D-SLR's. Now, please don't think you have to be a computer or photography whizz to do this kind of thing, as I certainly am not - sometimes I even have trouble using Facebook!

If you have RAW on your camera, why don't you give it a go? I'm so glad I did. I wanted to show you the difference in your finished picture from unedited, JPG Photoshopped and RAW.

Above we have the JPG unedited version of a card I've made using some scraps of Forever Friends Pink Parfait Collection, and one of the free stamps from a back issue of docrafts Creativity! Magazine. The photo is okay, but the white is not really white, and the colours are a little washed out. Even though I set my camera for the conditions, sometimes the lighting is not just right to capture a good representation of the image. And remember, being a JPG, a lot of the quality of the picture has been lost.


So, above is an edited version of the first photo. I changed the lighting levels, changed the white balance and increased the saturation slightly, the white is looking better, but the not perfect and the pink is just not right! Now....wait 'till you see this!

This is the edited RAW image. By changing things such as brightness, temperature, white balance and exposure, I can get the image from my camera to look as close to the actual card as I can. And I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to make your photos look better with editing - after all that's what we take photos for, isn't it.

Anyhoo, I hope I haven't bored you with all this waffling - off to go some gardening now....move over Alan Titchmarsh!

Strolling and Snapping

Yesterday I went for a lovely walk around the local town after taking Joe to school, and I decided to take my camera along for the ride. You may be wondering why, all of a sudden I'm able to post on my blog so regularly after such a long absence, and how I'm getting out and about more than Ant and Dec, well, you see I'm having a couple of weeks off work. I'm having my treatment this afternoon (by the time you read this I should be well and truly doped up and hopefully out of it!) and I just need some time to get back onto the World. It has been really great - firstly getting to grips with mundane things such as cleaning and shopping, but also wonderful to take time to enjoy the world around us...and that's where these photographs come into the story. Sorry for waffling!

I noticed this stunning flower on the way back from walking Joe to school, so on my way to town I couldn't resist stopping and taking a couple of photographs. I love how the water droplets have fallen on the petals and the colours of the flower are gorgeous!
Once I got into town, I popped into the local coffee house for my favourite non-alcoholic tipple - latte! I had taken in a couple of photography mags with me, and I was overwhelmed with the need to take this photograph. I love taking pictures like this, and the wonderful thing about digital photography is that you can keep snapping away, getting the lighting, aperture and composition right until you're happy! This is not exactly right, so I've just contradicted myself, but there was a fella in the coffee house trying to talk to me all the time, so I was distracted!

Then on I went to St. Peter's, an Anglo-Saxon Church in Barton Upon Humber which dates from the 10th Century. It's not used as a place of Worship (there is another church about 200 yards from St. Peter's) - it's now a National Heritage property, and therefore open to the public. However, not on the day I visited. Just my luck!

I don't know whether I mentioned it before, but I recently (well, December) joined the local Amateur Dramatics Society (Southwalk Players) and we run the local Barton Ghost Walk. I play the Ghostly Midwife and I tell my story in St. Peter's Grave Yard. I stand just by the grave stone (to the left of the street light, if you can make it out) and tell the story of the 'Woman that no one knew). Oooooo Spooky! It really is in the dark. The Ghost Walk usually runs from October to March (we need it to be dark), but we're doing a one as part of Barton Arts Week on the 28th June. It starts at 9.30pm from Baysgarth Museum (if you know Barton). Why don't you come along if you live close by and fancy being scared out of your wits?!

So, this grave stone is the centre of the story I tell. It reads "Doomed to receive half that my soul held dear, the other half with grief, she left me here. Ask not her name for she was true and just, once a fine woman, now a heap of dust." Nice. If you want to know more about the story, you'll just have to come on the Ghost Walk!!

Then I went home, and did boring homely things. Hopefully tomorrow, if I feel up to it tonight, I may have a card to share. Have a great evening, won't you!

Just a Bit of Sharing...

Hi there everyone!

Thanks for stopping by, I really do appreicate it seeing as I have heavily neglected my blog over the last few months - things have been pretty hectic what with one thing and another.

I'm really enjoying the Ideal World Experience - I love going there - everyone is so friendly and helpful, and it's really great to see Leonie again! By the way please stop me if I repeat myself, I have a habit of doing that - my memory is terrible!

On the health front, I have had my results, and without going into too much detail, I do have to have some treatment, but once that is out of the way, hopefully that will be it. Still feeling very tired and worn out though! I'm still having investigations for the blood results things look good. Thank you again for all your well wishes, it really means alot!

This week, I've been making cards for Creativity! Magazine, and Creativity! TV, so unfortunately I can't show you those, but I wanted to share some photos I took using one of my new lenses, a 50mm 1.8. Katy Godbeer introduced me to hers at the Christmas party, and a love affair was born! I love the combination of the colour of the walls in my living room, and the flowers - gorg!

Anyhoo, maybe I might have a card tomorrow, as I'm going to make one just for me tonight!

Love and best crafty wishes,

Clare x