The Girlies

Pasha Boat Texture Challenge

2009-07-17T09:15:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone, with Summer keeping everyone busy I apologise the delay in uploading your photos on my blog! But without further ado, here are the ones some of you submitted using Carol’s lovely photo!

Textures by Barb, Insan, Ishkamina

Textures by House of 3, Ghostbones and Princess of Shadows

Textures by Ghostbones, Boccachino, Pareeerica, Jenna Nelson

Textures by Princess of Shadows, Obsidian Dawn

Textures by Ghostbones

Textures by Lynne

Textures by Ghostbones, Mask by Lesley

Another bevvy of beautiful effects by everyone!

I fly to Italy for 5 days on Wednesday to celebrate my Dad’s 80th birthday. His birthday is not til October but as his sister and all our Italian side of the family gather together at summer we thought it would be a good idea to celebrate it in style with everyone over! My sister and nephews Garrett and Brandon are flying in from the US too so it will be a small family gathering of about 27! So I will be clicking away the whole 5 days!

Lisa asked if we could use one of my Wolf Photos for the next Texture challenge - so here is Torak - isn't he gorgeous! He is a Hybrid Wolf - North American and European mix!

And the link to download the photo is Here

Next Textures Challenge

2009-06-27T15:15:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone - Carol has supplied us with a great photo to use for our next challenge which I have uploaded to my 4shared site, so you can download it here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/114444757/fc54943c/pasha.html

If you want me to include your creation in my blog, please email it to me, or if you are doing it via a challenge on Jessica Sprague please upload it to the General Gallery. Remember to credit the textures that you use.

Timing : can I have your photos back by Wednesday 8 July?

Have fun and enjoy your weekend! It is a scorcher in the UK with more hot weather to come!

Oh yeaahhhhh and tomorrow at 11am I do my 5k Race for Life for Cancer run tomorrow!! Wish me luck!

It’s been a long time!

2009-06-24T21:18:00.001+01:00

WOW, how time has flown and I need to do so much catching up! As some of you may know, I went out to the US for 12 days to visit Lynne and we went everywhere – San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, Yosemite! Took soooo many photos that I will have to do a new blog entry to talk about the trip! But, it was FANTASTIC!!!

Soooo, I have a few photos from the last challenge that some of you worked on. The lovely photo was donated by Lynne – taken in Costa Rica (oh yeah I am back to the old way of showing the photos as you guys said the slide show did not open up big enough).

Here are your works of art!

Topaz Adjust Filters and Textures by Lynne and Liv

Textures from *Terry and Joe’s Sistah

Textures by Ghostbones

Textures by SomethingBlue, GroundStream, Naturewall4, Solstock, SheisPretty

Textures by Ghostbones and NinianLif

Textures Damask_02 Lillykins, Bittbox

Textures by Alice Popkorn

Textures by Boccacino, Ghostbones and SkeletalMess

Phew, so glad I got these uploaded and you guys did a fabulous job with Lynne’s lovely photo! Next photo has been donated by Carol so will email the details to you guys!

May Photo Challenge

2009-05-07T18:46:00.005+01:00

A bit delayed in posting this! Sorry about that! Pat provided us with a beautiful photo of a window in Florence for us to play with

Everyone's photos are stunning! And the textures we all used :
Carol : Grunge Set by Princess of Shadows
Jana : Photoblast Contrapop, Textures by Ghostones and LivE
Pat : Voyager by Eddie07
Marg : Alexis Miller and Ghostbones
Lesley : Textures and PhotoMask her own
Barb : JM, SomethingBlue Studios, DarkRose42
Lynne : JoesSistah and her own
Veevs : Liek and SolStock

Enjoy!

April Texture Photo Challenge

2009-04-18T19:08:00.001+01:00

OK, this was a tough one – lovely photo supplied by Terri! We all ended up with some wonderful colours and textures! Here is the original :

And below, in no particular order, your artistic creations!

Textures : Ghostbones, LivE Design Paper

Texture : her own

Textures : Pareeerica, Ghost Bones, Shelley Freedman, BB free textures and one of her own

Texture : Coffee Shop

Textures : Ghostbones, PinkSherbert Photography

Textures : Kiho-chan, Filthy diamonds, Darkrose42, Spiritcoda

Textures : Alexis Miller

Textures : Eddi07, Ghostbones

Textures : NinianLif, Groundfloor and her own

Textures : Absolute Cross, Brushes : Obsidian Dawn

Textures : ArtByChristy

WOW – amazing work everyone!!!

March 29 Texture Challenge

2009-03-29T16:04:00.001+01:00

Cant believe two week’s have gone by already! So best I post this week’s beautiful results from the photo that Kate supplied :

So here are your gorgeous creations, again in no particular order!

Textures by : Ghostbones, SkeletalMess, ArtbyChristy

Textures by : Something Blue, Golden Stream by Barb

Textures by : Adrisbow and Twentygreydays

Textures by : Ghostbones and Eddi07

Textures by : Essence of a Dream

Textures by : Something Blue Studios and Katie Pertiet

Textures by : NinianLif

Textures by : Les Braumes, Coffee Shop Inverse Grunge Frame
Paper : Gunhild

Textures by : Princess of Shadows, Ghostbones, Latz

Textures by : Sanami 276

Textures by : Ghostbones, Pareeerica and Lynne

Textures by : Essence of a Dream, Pareeerica, DriscollBros

Wonderful creations ladies! This is fun and it’s so lovely to see one photo with so many different effects!

March Tutorial Challenge

2009-03-15T19:09:00.001Z

It’s been so much fun doing these challenges! Barb very kindly donated one of her beautiful photos for us to use :

And, here are all the different beautiful takes on this! Again in no particular order!

Textures : BB grungy watercolor and Sanami 276

Textures : Seagulls by CliffordsAx, and NinianLif Textures

Textures : Lynne’s own

Bright light parrot, Fractal north pole, Paint Daubs – Deviant Art
Poster Edges, Blend modes, MCP Gallery Frame

Textures : SomethingBlue

Textures : Ghostbones

Textures : pareeerica, ghostbones, Shelley Freedman, Vancayzeele Olivier, somethingbluestudies, and Horses and Tigers.

Textures : N8 (?), Shelley Freedman, and 3 of LivE

Textures : Goam (on Flickr) and action - Nichole Van, apply texture

Textures : Lisa’s own, Frame by Vera Lim

Textures : Ghostbones and Lynne

Textures : carta mirada and alicepopkorn

Textures : Ghostbones, Pareeerica and Skeletal Mess

Another fab challenge ladies!! All of these are beautiful!

Dances with Wolves

2009-03-07T22:11:00.004Z

OK, not dances but spent the day on a photography event at a Wolf Conservation today! This is the place: UK Wolf Org

What beautiful animals! In the morning three of them. Mosi, Mai and Torak where let loose in an enclosure and we all stood behind some fencing to take photos of them! Not the easiest of jobs as they kept moving! Mosi and Mai are North American wolves and Torak is a hybrid - cross-breed European and North American. Click on the photos to enlarge them!

Don't know which is Mosi and which one is Mai!

Mosi, Mai and Torak are the youngsters, only 3 years old. Here are a few more photos of them :

Then after lunch we went on a walkabout with Duma, another beautiful North American wolf.

Her keepers had her on a long chain and we all followed behind. Then we were all able to go up to her and pet her, one by one! Had to approach from the front and let her smell my hand, then move to the side and stroke her belly! She was so gentle and never budged! Apparently she loves it!

She has a sister called Dakota who has lymph cancer. They have been treating her for a year and they are pleased with her progress. But because she is sick she has to stay in her enclosure.

There are 3 European wolves in a separate enclosure too but I haven't worked on their photos yet!

We were lucky that it didn't rain but it was blooming cold! By about 4pm I couldn't take any more photos! Got back home around 5.30 knackered! It was a wonderful day and I loved every second of it!

February's Textures Challenge

2009-02-28T17:51:00.006Z

As some of us are getting very (in some cases totally!!) addicted to textures - we decided to do a monthly challenge. I sent one of my photos for us to play with.

Well - OMG - what fabulous photos you have all sent! It is amazing to see everyone's different effects on the same photo and each of them is so beautiful! Feast your eyes on these works of art (in no particular order!)

Textures used : Ghostbones, Canvas Straw

Textures used : Sigmaman, Kjwphotograpy

Textures used : Hardcore Vintage Grunge by Princess of Shadows, Ghostbones

Textures used : The Veil - Playing with Brushes, Snowflakes Falling - Pink Sherbert

Textures used : Groundstream - Gray darkened Edges, Rosewell 04

Something Blue - Fresco, Princess of Shadows Vintage Grunge Texture 1

Textures used : Pareeerica, A N Other

Textures used : Andrew McConnochie, Ghostbones, Summerspot

Textures used : Skeletal Mess - New Testament, Ghostbones - Stone

Textures used : bb_freetextures (rust), icy_leaves and saab bonnet by lillykins

Text - Marcelle Script

Textures used : Amy Teets Paper, Leonora Sanford - Picture this Texture

Liv Photoplay Freebie, Acid Wash action (EZ Actions)

Textures used : Ghostbones, Horses and Tigers, Kaptain Kobold

Vancayzeel Olivier

Textures used : Ghostbones x 2, SwimmingintheEther, Pareeerica, RiotJane

Ladies, awesome work!! Thanks for playing and cant wait to see your take on the new challenge!

If anyone wants to participate in this challenge (which is just for fun) please leave me a comment! Or leave me a comment anyhow lol!

Textures!

2009-02-23T19:19:00.002Z

WOW, had such a fantastic response to my textured work and so many of you have now become addicted to them lol! I told you and warned you all that you would get hooked!! Aren't they fantastic?

If you grabbed my tutorial and found it helpful, drop me a quick line via the comments - would love to hear how you are getting on! I have seen so many gorgeous works of arts in the gallery!! Beautiful stuff!!

A few of us are having a textures challenge - watch this space - will post everyone's creations at the weekend!!

Photos with Textures

2009-02-03T07:41:00.009Z

After posting a few of my photos with textures on the gallery at Jessica Sprague, I got asked for a tutorial on how I do this. I created a onea ges ago which I am adding to this post. I really just tend to play around adding different textures to a photo, going through the blend modes, re-arranging the order of the textures, changing hue and saturation. That's all there is to it! Hopefully my tutorial will help you out a bit. Otherwise please contact me if you need further help! I find all my textures on Flickr - check out my page on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/veevs/ (username is Veevs3) as all my texturised photos are there and I list out whose textures I used.
Creating Artwork With Textures

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Other Manuals textures Tutorials

New Year

2009-01-04T09:33:00.004Z

Yep as usual I am so behind on blogging that I nearly gave it up! This is just a small entry to test out the slide show on Flickr. I am working on a Shutterfly book of my photos which have been modified with textures and they are uploaded on Flickr. Let's see if this works!

Ohhhh yeyyyy, it works but not only for one set, it shows all photos! Oh well, no probs, that is cool too. Hope everyone had a lovely Xmas and here's hoping for a great 2009. I will have to play catch up with the events from 2008 that I didn't get a chance to blog!

Chicago, Sunday - sad day

2008-10-19T19:57:00.001+01:00

As I am on a roll I might as well finish up with the last day in Chicago. What a sad day - we were all leaving to go back home so that was so depressing. Everyone departing at different times of the day that we couldn't really plan anything. Just being there to wave goodbye and hug and kiss and cry! Before that we met up for our last breakfast together.

Some of us did manage a bit of a walk about.

But it was mainly waiting for the inevitable - everyone leaving!

Joan and I were the last ones to go (apart from Liv who was staying on a few more days). We shared a taxi to the airport - I was flying back to London. It seems everyone flying in the US got delayed, poor Joan didn't get home til the next day minus suitcase! I think I was the only one whose flight left on time.

What a weekend - what a wonderful bunch of girlies - what fun and camaraderie! We felt we had all known each other for years and we all got on so well. Just wish we had been together for a week because a weekend was too fast! I miss all my mateys - I know we all communicate a lot but they are all my wonderful friends, mateys, sistahs! Can't wait til we all get together again in Las Vegas next year - wooooohooooooooooo!!!

Chicago - Saturday afternoon and evening!

2008-10-19T19:23:00.002+01:00

Oh, hmmmmmm, ok - it's been over a month since my last post! Eeeeekk!! Where does the time go! I can't believe I am so behind and its October now and I am still blogging about Chicago in June.

So, where were we. Ahhh yes, we got back from the wonderful boat ride. We got told we had to go back to the hotel, not sure why. Tori, Laurie, Deb and Shell were supposed to head off to see Wicked but Shell had to get something from the hotel. Aha, did she though - nope! Coz the little plotter had been plotting a surprise, none other than Kari!! So we walk to the front of the hotel and Kari is there - well, you can imagine the screams - especially from Tori and Laurie! Yeah and everyone else! It was awesome! You know what, since being on JS I say awesome a lot - I never used to say that before! Here's Kari screaming with everyone!

Soooo Liv had mentioned she wanted to go to this thing called The Bean - which is That Big Shiny Thing in Millennium Park. We went yeah ok let's go there and took a long walk not knowing what to expect. Having a bit of a rest before continuing on!

But before getting there we stop at the Giordanos, the Pizza place where we will be eating in the evening to check it out and have a bit of a rest! Check us out!

As we get to the Millenium Park we bump into Liv's DH RJ and her 5 gorgeous kids!

OK back to the Millenium Park. What a fantastic place! And The Bean - amazing!!

Yep, loads of cool photos taken at The Bean. Then some went off to a museum and Joan and I decided to go walking and look for a bookstore. Took a while but we found it and had a nice drink and chilled out for a bit. Walking back to the hotel found a great arty type shop, of course we couldnt resist it and we shopped!

Got back to the hotel to be told we had 5 minutes to get ready to go have dinner! So walked back to Giordanos to have the most spectacular pizza I have ever seen! It was thick, it was

very deep-pan, it was very gooey and tons of cheese and it was soooo good but filling!

Onto more group photos! Todd, what a great guy, was the official photographer having to take photos with 16 cameras!! You did great Todd!

The food was great, the company even greater! We were supposed to go wandering off somewhere to watch fireworks, but think everyone was pretty knackered by then! So Jessica invited us all up to her suite for girly yakking and some free yummy desserts!!

Of course there were more speeches and gifts and laughing anc crying and more laughing!

Yeah, you get the picture. It was great fun! AWESOME!!!

Some of us disappeared to bed whilst others stayed up yakking! Sadly, that was the end of Saturday!

New Look

2008-09-11T15:38:00.003+01:00

I have a new look but I've not finished working out how to complete it and I've lost all my blog links so need to go searching! Sigh, nothing is easy these days!!!

Beautiful Chicago

2008-08-25T09:03:00.022+01:00

I was so impressed with how beautiful and clean Chicago is! To top it all we had wonderful weather so the sky was soooo blue, the sun was shining and the water was incredibly blue too! I took tons of sights photos, so before I continued with Saturday afternoon/evening post, I wanted to upload some of my photos! Enjoy! OK couldn't combine the slide show with the post, so the slide show is in its own post!
Here are layouts I have done so far from the Chicago trip :
I created this photo by combining one of my photos and using a couple of Ghostbones textures! I loved the result!

Here is a LO with all of us gorgeous girlies : Template 42 by Simply Sarah

Next on my LO list was this one which I loved! I used Simply Yin's Template 13 http://simplyyin.blogspot.com/ and she featured my LO in her blog! How chuffed was I!

Template is Heather's gorgeous template she created for DID - http://www.joyrevisited.blogspot.com/
Paper freebie from Sapdesbois Impression - recoloured. Ana Aspnes Magic Sparkle Overlay and 12x12 Page Overlay
And this one I did using beautiful paper and elements from http://www.chirpi.co.uk

And some of my photos:

Chicago - Saturday Morning!!

2008-08-18T17:56:00.002+01:00

As its taking me ages to compile my blog, thought it best to break it into little chunks! So here comes Saturday morning! A bit bleary eyed and tired from a very late night on Friday! We met up for a fantastic breakfast around 9.30 at the hotel! Jana (the hostess with the mostest) had organised tickets for us to go on the boat tour on the lake. Before that we did our posing for photos and you can imagine posing x 15 cameras took a long time! Got on the boat and it was just simply spectacular! Blue blue sky, blue blue water, lovely and hot and beautiful sights! I think it took about a couple of hours but what a trip! Of course cameras clicking right left and centre! Jana, totally naughty girl that she is, paid for all of us! Wouldn't let us give her any money, in fact she kept throwing the money back so at one point I thought the cash was going to fly off into the water! But we got our own back later on and treated her to dinner and some pressies as a surprise when we got back! She is amazing! Love you GF!! It was such a relaxing time, all of us together enjoying the views and of course yakking, yakking, laughing and more yakking the whole time. Oh yes and did I mention taking photos too! This next lot of photos I put in a slide show! If it stops playing just click on refresh on your pc. I'll try to upload some of my sites photos later on before the next post!

Chicago!! The Friday!

2008-08-16T13:07:00.031+01:00

Where to start with such a fantastic weekend I had in Chicago with the most amazing group of girlies! This weekend had been planned for so long that we had been counting the days for like 6 months lol! Jana was our hostess for the weekend and organised everything - negotiated great room rates at the Hyatt Regency and made sure we were all ok. She was AWESOME!!

Soooo, I flew in to Chicago and got there around 11am on the Friday morning and went to look for Joan who had arrived 20 mins before me! Of course we spotted each other straight away and it was just so amazing to see her in real life! We hugged and kissed and chatted away whilst waiting for Susan who was next to arrive! Same with Susan - all 3 of us hugged and kissed! Amy was the next to arrive but she was getting into a different terminal so we got into a taxi to go pick her up! She was waiting for us and it was amazing to all be together. The taxi driver must have thought we were total loonies because we chatted the whole journey lol! Got to the hotel and checked in and went to find the others who had arrived Thursday night and earlier on Friday morning. Of course we spotted them - they were all huddled in a circle yakking and laughing! Never heard us as we kept shouting for them lol so we approached them and stood right behind and said "Helloooooooo"!!! OMG - the screams and laughing and talking and hugging and kissing!! They were Jana, Jessica, Liv, Deb, Laurie, Tori, Jeanne, Lisa (Latz) and Shell! It was like we had all known each other all our lives! What an amazing reunion!

All 14 of us decide to go walking to get something to eat. You can imagine 14 women cackling and laughing and loaded with fantastic cameras taking photos of everything and walking at snail pace! And not to mention making sure we didn't lose anyone! I wish we'd had a video camera to capture the atmosphere but as we didn't here are some photos! Remember to click on each photo to enlarge it!

Soo, walking, yakking, laughing, taking photos, stopping and taking more photos we ended up in a Mall! Some went shopping, others just window shopped! Then headed back to the hotel to get showered and changed ready to go out for dinner to a beautiful restaurant called Fultons on the River. But before then we all met up for a drink in one of the bars of the hotel, courtesy of the lovely Shell who got the round! Oh yeah, Lisa and her DH Todd arrived in the evening too!

Dinner was delicious and such a beautiful place - thank you so much Jana for organising it! We then headed back to the hotel and all got together to talk and some lovely speeches with a lot of tears (nice tears). Jessica gave us each a beautiful goodie bag, Liv also had some lovely pressies and I gave out some London and Windsor key rings, and Laurie gave us each a Green Chillie Stew pack!

OK, that's it for the first installment! Next post will be Chicago Saturday's events! Ohhh yeah, some of the photos are mine but I have borrowed photos from the others for this blog - hope its ok, if not shout!

Red Bull and my Birthday

2008-08-03T09:51:00.022+01:00

Next on my catch up list were two events in June, the Redbull Flugtag in Hyde Park and then my birthday! The Red Bull Flugtag is "Flugtag (Flying Day), is an event organized by Red Bull that has taken place in over 70 cities around the world and the second Red Bull Flugtag London day is happening on Saturday 7th June 2008 in Hyde Park.
Flugtag involves competitors constructing man powered flying machines and launching them and their pilot or pilots off a 6m high ramp and into the water below, which in London’s case will be The Serpentine in Hyde Park."

So we applied for tickets and got 8 in the second ballot and my neighbour Mike gave me 2 more. What a fun day we had, we took a picnic and watched all these so called flying machines jump from the ramp and try to fly - more plopping than flying although one did fly for 39 metres!

Here are some of the "Flying Machines" (Click on images for larger view)

And gorgeous Lolita having a fantastic time!

So that was on the Saturday and on the Sunday we had an early celebration of my birthday with my family. My dad hosted the event and he and Kate did a wonderful lunch and I was totally spoilt! It was so lovely to have everyone together and have such a lovely time. My family were amazing, they gave me some money (including my sister Franca in California) towards my Nikon 18-200 lens, a gorgeous camera bag and tons other presents. Here are some photos of my lovely family :

And a layout I did for one of the challenges

The Tuesday before my lovely friend Di took me to the theatre in Richmond to see a musical show called Shout "this show takes its inspiration from the fabulous hazy days of the swinging 60’s, capturing the amazing fashions, sexual liberation and great fun of the times. this show takes its inspiration from the fabulous hazy days of the swinging 60’s, capturing the amazing fashions, sexual liberation and great fun of the times." Everyone was singing away - great show!

Two days before my birthday I went our for dinner in Richmond with Di, Valerie and Samia which was lovely, and on my birthday Mark took me out for a yummy curry and gave me some cash, which I have splashed out on a Wacom Tablet which is winging its way over to me!

OK so that takes care of June with one major event which happened on 27th of June which was our Spraguefest in Chicago - so that will be the next post!

Catch up!

2008-08-01T18:26:00.011+01:00

So many things have happened since I last blogged that I think I am going to do short posts, otherwise it will take about 5 pages! So this one is to update my May Photo a Day photos!

I had never used textures on my photos before, so when I played around with them with an extremely boring photo, WOW!! I am so pleased with this one
Because this is what the original photo looked like :

What a difference! I used a couple of Textures from Ghostbones, played around with the blending modes and out came a work of Art! (click on images for larger view)

Another one I loved, but didn't use any textures, was this one :

I didn't quite get to take 31 days worth of photos - managed about 23 I think. But it was a great experience and was lovely to find new things to take photos of! So here they all are in the slide show.

May Photo a Day

2008-05-06T20:41:00.002+01:00

I am on a roll so who knows when I will post again! Flying off to Hamburg early tomorrow morning for the day so wanted to get some of the photos on here. We are doing a Photo a Day in May - I am loving it! The UK weather was not playing along until today when we had blue blue sky and it was warm!!

Some of the photos are straight out of the Camera. The freaky weather one was amazing - I was on the phone and stood up and the sky was incredible! It was raining so dark clouds mixed with Pink and Orange! I took photo whilst on the phone so camera was on Auto. The flash went off which is why the flowers look so bright! May 2 and 3 photos - as the weather was naff, I ended up using a lot of different actions to get the different effects. The Mexican plate photo I took indoors again because there was no sun! Used some actions on it too. Went walking in Richmond yesterday and took a photo of a plaque with information on the old Richmond Palace. And today's one combined a storyboard. Top photo I took this morning at 8.30 am from my office window. At 4.30 the river floods (it's normal as Richmond is tidal) so took another photo as a comparison!

Blogging??? What's that??

2008-05-06T19:32:00.005+01:00

Oh dear, I cant believe I haven't blogged since 23 March! Where do I start! Well most of April was DID so that put me way behind, in fact I am still so behind I wonder when I will catch up! The challenges - hmmmm, missing to do 3 of them! Visiting all my friends blogs - feel soo bad because haven't done that either! Hopefully I can start to catch up one of these days!
So what's been going on? I will try to keep this short! DID is what happened, plus travelling a lot for work, away for a couple of weekends!
Oh yes, did my challenge which was a scraplift and blending Layout. Slide show below shows some of my DID layouts, plus the scraplift and Lola's May Calendar.

Once a week

2008-03-23T20:52:00.004Z

OK, haven't done too badly as only updated it last week, so here is another catch up. First of all, thank you so much to all of you who have sent me lots of love and hugs and prayers for my mum. As you know I had to rush her into hospital last Sunday night at midnight. She is still in hospital but is doing much better and on Tuesday we are moving her to a rehabilitation hospital for another week and hopefully on 31st March she can go home. But she moves from her house to a flat on the 8th of April, so Hayde and I will be doing the move.

Guard Cat
Little Lucy is the guard cat of my flat! She does not let any other cat through the cat flap (apart from Gingerblokeycat coz he was twice her size lol). So here she is after having seen a black cat in the patio approaching the cat flap:

and here is her view (sorry its blurred, it was not an easy photo to take!!)

Challenges
I am really enjoying our weekly challenges and I am one behind (the home one). Did the white space one of Lucy which I loved :

But then realised that I had totally forgotten to use the colour swatch! And as Lisa pointed out, I needed to do a layout of Honey so that she didn't feel left out, here it is, using all the colours in the swatch (Liv, Lisa, do I get a prize??)

Introducing Barney!!
My best friend Di lost her cat Zac to illness a week ago, we were all sooo very sad - he was a lovely cat and so loved. They decided to visit a cat rescue place and came home with Barney!!

Isn't he cute??? He is 10 years old and a Persian and wasn't treated very well by first set of owners. Passed him on to a new set of owners who could not keep up with brushing him daily and his fur ended up all matted and bad and they shaved it! Then took him to the cat rescue place where he has been since January. No one wanted him because they thought he looked horrible! I think he is adorable! What do you think? So Di and her DH took him home on Friday and he is settling in well!
Oh yes, and doesn't he look like Animal from the Muppets!!

Catch up - warning long post!!

2008-03-16T09:25:00.012Z

Eeeek, can't believe it's nearly a month since I update my blog! How time flies! What have I been up to? 3 weekends ago I went to babysit gorgeous Lola for the first time, as Hayde and Mick had a party to go to. It was a bit nervewracking and I kept checking every half an hour that she was ok lol! She woke up once and cried for about 20 mins but I managed to get her back to sleep. I got home at 3am lol! But at that time its an easy drive home and it only took me 20 mins, as opposed to nearly an hour with the traffic (its only 12 miles away but its a bugger of a route).

I uploaded some photos to Photobucket and wow, Photobucket has some great cool things now!! Check out this photo of Lola - I went to the Photobucket Edit and gives tons of goodies :

And for one of our challenges, I did this layout (havent edited in Photobucket)

Talking of Lola, I have completed 4 pages of 2008 Calendar which I am doing for my sister Hayde! Here is a slide show of them - as usual bright and colourful!

OK next on the list was the wedding last weekend at a beautiful palace (no Liv, not my palace!!) in Woodstock - Blenheim Palace! Shame the weather wasn't that good to take a good walk round, and also we couldn't go see the main tourist bits of the Palace - but I did manage a few photos!

Not sure why one of the photos didn't show up in the video, so adding it here :

ACK (a la Liv!!) now I see the photo in the slide show! oh well, you got to put it with it twice!

Ahhh, also, I had a go at creating a template, and did a layout with it :

So there you have it! Of my huge list of things to do I have only completed one - updating my blog! I need to to visiting the blogs of all my lovely mates and leave some love, haven't done the Home challenge nor started the new one!! Weather is crap today so maybe might be able to tick some more things off my list!!

Feast or Famine

2008-02-17T12:19:00.002Z

Yep, that's me - I either don't blog or scrap for ages, then do loads in one go! Weather is really sunny here but blooming cold, so decided to catch up on doing layouts and blogging! I promised my sister that I would do a calendar with photos of Lola so I finally finished February! If things go well I might even get March done today (yeah, that's pushing it!!). Also wanted to try out slide.com so I went and found a few of my layouts and converted them using slide! See what you think!

I scrapped I blogged!

2008-02-16T15:55:00.004Z

Where does time fly!! Never enough hours in the day to do everything! But, I scrapped thanks to Lisa's great weekly challenges and Kimi's lovely Orton Effects for Photos and Liv's fantastic multi-photo template!

So first layout completed (boy it felt good) was one of my beautiful gorgeous and precious little niece Lola (and me!) combining Lisa's first challenge plus I used the Orton Effect on all the photos! Oh yeah, you can click on the photos to display them larger if you want!

Next up was another challenge about our Town! So I did photos of Richmond which is close enough to me, 1.25 miles away!! Need to do a second layout of my Town, this time of photos of Lima!

And finally completed today was last Sunday's quote challenge! I had downloaded the quote a few days ago and lost it! Took me ages to find it again today! Liv created a wonderful multi-photo template which I used. So photos of my lovely girlies Honey and Lucy. Not forgetting the beautiful little Simba who as you remember, is the rescued little blind cat that I sponsor. I also sneaked in a photo of the hunky Custard (was Mark's cat and now lives with Mark's parents) who used to stay at mine a lot! Love the photo I took of him with a mouse on his head, he didn't even budge!

Talking about cats, here is an update of Dexter aka Gingerblokeycat - this is the write up at the Cat Rescue place

I'm sure Liv will have a few comments to say about the wording "His Highness" lol!! Anyhow, I do hope he gets found a nice new home soon!

Right, I am out tonight with my best friend and we are going for a few bevvies to Windsor (popping in to my castle naturally - hehehehe!!!).

Simba

2008-02-01T18:48:00.000Z

I got an email today with the details of Simba, the little cat I am sponsoring! As soon as I got the email of course I burst out crying, but when I read it again, I was happy to know that I am helping this little cat, who has now settled in his foster home and being so well looked after! So the money I send once a month will help towards him. Anyhow, here is what the Cat society told me about Simba :

"Here is some info and photos of Simba, I hope you don't find them too upsetting, they certainly upset me, so be prepared before you look at them, unfortunately this is the reality of people's neglect.

Simba is one of the lucky ones, he's no longer in pain and has quality of life now.

No detailed story as such, but this is what we know.

He was abandoned at a vets in very poor condition with total blindness in one eye and rapidly diminishing sight in the other. After a period of treatment (at the vets) his discomfort escalated and glaucoma was diagnosed after he came into HAWS care. One eye was removed by our vets immediately to ease his pain. The second eye has just been removed for the same reason and he is now beginning his recovery. Despite what he's been through he's a happy, purry cat, and very settled in his foster home. His foster mum sometimes forgets he is blind as he gets around so well.

Thank you so much for sponsoring him."

Hope you like his photos! I think he is absolutely gorgeous!

A week behind (oops nearly two!)

2008-01-20T20:53:00.000Z

Don't know how I manage it but I am always behind! Actually, I did take these photos 8 days ago and forgot about them! So these are the photos of Lesson 1 of Two Peas in a Bucket - 12 Weeks to Better Photos photography course! This lesson was learning about aperture and I did learn a lot! Struggled with the weather over here to get decent photos! Lesson 3 starts tomorrow so guess I better pull my finger out and do the exercises for Lesson 2!! Photos below were taken walking in to Richmond with a tiny bit of sun that came out!

5.6

9.0

22.0

How do you get a huge cat into a cat box!!

2008-01-18T17:39:00.000Z

Ok yesterday was the day gingerblokeycat left. I took him to the vets in the morning where he was going to be checked over, then the Cat Society foster person picked him up in the afternoon. As you all know, this cat was huge so I was in a dilemma on how I was going to get him in the cat box on my own!! So didn't feed him too much when I got up so that I could tempt him into going into the box on his own at around 10ish. Yeah right, he started going in but he is so big I couldnt close the door of the box with him in there eating! So by then he realised that no way would he go in the box on his own, no matter how hungry he was.

OK, went back into the 2nd bedroom and locked the cat flap and closed the door, I grabbed a towel (otherwise he would bite and scratch me to pieces) and tried to put him into the box. Bad idea - no way would he go in that way! By this time he is not happy and I dont want to stress him! Then I remembered my box also opened from the top! So, grabbed him again and put him in, he just fit! I pressed him in and closed the lid! Phew!! Done!

Turned around to grab my stuff and I hadnt locked it properly so he was out! AARRGGHHHHHH - or )*)B%$£!&^^"&!!! And he went and hid under the sofabed. By this time I'm thinking how the hell am I going to get this cat in the box on my own! So I thought I would try one more time. OK, first move sofabed out and get him from under there. He aimed straight to the cat flap which of course luckily, coz I am clever, I had locked! Sooooo, grabbed him again in the towel and with a bit of a struggle got him back in the box and locked it properly this time!! PHEW!!!!!!!! Covered him with a blanket because if I spoke cat speak, I am sure I would have been shocked at the language coming from him as he was not a happy chappy!! Vet was about 15 mins drive so took him there. The receptionist at the vet nearly had a hernia lifting the cat box!! Ohhh I was so sad by then I didn't even see him as they took him with the blanket still covering him! I got to the car and cried my eyes out! Why am I soo soppy!!

I got an email today telling me "Ginger boy is fine, passed his MOT with flying colours and they've estimated his age at maximum 18 months, all the vet nurses thought he was very handsome!" Oh yes before I forget, I gave them 2 names to choose from - Auburn or Rusty!

Anyway, I want to do my bit to help the cat society so I enquired about sponsoring a cat and when I spoke to the lady who I have been dealing with, she went to find out which of their "elderly" cats could do with sponsoring. This was her reply :

"A cat which we think would be nice to sponsor is Simba, he is in his early teens and completely blind. Even though he has no sight at all, as both eyes were diseased and had to be removed, he still enjoys wandering in her (foster person) garden and is able to climb up on the sofa or wherever else he fancies having a snooze. She says he finds his way around in the house so well, that she sometimes forgets he can't see. He is very happy and purry, enjoys his food, and loves to go and sit in the sun (when we have some !!) She will never rehome him as it would be too unsettling to put him in a strange environment."

So now I am crying and sobbing at work reading this so I told her that is the cat I want to sponsor! I will be setting up £12 a month towards Simba. They will send me photos of Simba and put his photo on their website as a sponsored cat!!

As soon as I have a photo I will post one in my blog! I have rambled on far too long!!!

Byeee byeee Gingerblokeycat!! I hope they find you a nice loving home where you will be very happy!!

Gingerblokeycat

2008-01-16T17:51:00.000Z

He goes tomorrow! Well, that is if I can catch him and work out how to put him in a cat basket without him scratching or biting me!! I am supposed to take him to a vet so that he gets checked out and then the Cat society http://www.haws-animals.org.uk/ will collect him from there and put him in a temporary foster home and try to get him rehomed. So fingers crossed he finds a lovely home and lovely new owners where he will be happy! I cannot understand people abandoning pets. He has been around where I live for I guess a year and I guess whoever owned him upped and left, leaving him behind. I would love to do more to help animals, but working full time I cant. Its something I should look into at some point, even if I can do a little bit! Only problem is that I end up crying buckets with anything to do with animals, be it happy or sad!! I bawl my eyes out!

A few of you have come up with some lovely names, and now two names that I am thinking of are Auburn (thanks to Heather!), Rusty (thanks Cindy) or Toffee!! Hmmmm decisions! Help choose one!! Will take some more photos of him before he goes and maybe do a layout!

Testing the Mosaic Programme

2008-01-09T22:37:00.000Z

I scoured through the messages in the MB coz I remembered Susan had posted information regarding the Mosaic Maker at BigHugeLabs, so I just wanted to try it out! Sorry if you have seen some of the Richmond photos before, there are a few new ones! Thanks so much for the information on the Mosaic Susan, it works a treat! I love learning all these cool new things for blogging!! Should have really had 20 photos for this set, but I will know better next time!

I also learnt how to make my post area wider - thanks so much to Kari for her information on the MB! So next thing to play around with is to redo my blog header and make it wider!

The real photographer!

2008-01-08T19:04:00.001Z

My sister Hayde (Lola's mum) is the real photographer of the family! She doesn't do digital photography (yet). She has such an eye for photos and sees things that I would never see the same as her! When I went to her house for Lola's birthday on Sunday, when I was leaving she grabbed my camera and took these :

I bet you cant tell where the reflection is from! Have a look at this one :

Any guesses???

Honey loves lying on the radiator! I dont know how she balances and doesn't find it uncomfortable! I put a cloth on it for her but its not too thick but it doesn't stop her! She has a knack and knows when the heating has come on and jumps on the table to the side of the radiator and walks to her spot! She can lie on it for ages, eventually jumping off when she gets too hot!! If she gets any fatter she wont fit on it!

January Calendar

2008-01-07T20:44:00.001Z

I bought a lovely calendar kit called "ccalendar Temps" by Windgefluester designs so, in honour of Lola's 1st birthday - she is January's page! The paper is our lovely Kimi's Kreations Paper 4 recoloured!

Isn't she gorgeous!!

2008-01-06T19:47:00.000Z

We celebrated Lola's first birthday today (but its not til Tuesday). Can't believe a year has gone by! She is growing so quickly and is so beautiful! She played and smiled the whole time, loved eating scrambled eggs and beans too! She crawls so fast and is nearly walking! I had a chance to have a play with my new camera too but there is so much to learn!!

This photo was taken at Xmas - isnt it a great one of my Dad and Lola??

Since I havent had my EHD and I haven't done any digiscrapping nor photo manipulations, actions etc in like 4 weeks (!!!!) I think I have forgotten everything!! Hhhhmmmmmmmm!!! So starting tomorrow I am going to go through everything that was covered in the two classes and keep practising! Blimey, that is scary - hope its a temporary lapsus of memory!! Definitely need to get up to speed again!

Ginger cat is still here! Yeah ok I know its Sunday. But I really hope they come to get him next week so that the girlies can get back to their normal routine! He spends the whole day either asleep on my futon or wanting to eat!!

Ginger Cat

2008-01-06T00:09:00.000Z

OK, I know, its been donkeys since I last blogged!! No excuses except blooming busy with Xmas, New Year etc, and I dropped my EHD (DOH!!!!) and couldn't access the data (panic, panic, panic) so took it to the bloke (=man) that fixed it before so I hope he can work miracles and fix it again!! Luckily I did have nearly everything backed up on DVD, but its a hassle if I've lost the data. Cant bear to think about it. Still waiting to hear back from him if he can fix it or not!

Anyhow, back to Ginger Cat. I think this cat has been abandoned as it has taken home in my spare bedroom so I have been sort of looking after it for about 3 weeks (it's eating me out of house and home!!!). There is a wonderful animal rescue place near me so I rang them just after Xmas and they contacted me to tell me they are waiting for spaces to free up in their foster homes so that then can then take him in and find him a nice home. I cant keep him because : a. Honey and Lucy would not be impressed, and b. My flat is too small for 3 cats!! In the meantime its warm and comfortable and fed all the time. And I call him Ginger cat (original or what!!). This is him :

And Lucy has taken to getting drunk out of shock!!

So many more news to post about so will try to blog again tomorrow!!

UGH, Ebay

2007-12-06T19:14:00.000Z

I have just spent two hours uploading 12 items to sell on Ebay!! But, that's not all the time it took! My friend Di came round to mine yesterday afternoon so that we could take photos of all the items, do all the measurements, write up descriptions, etc etc etc! So that took about 3 hours yesterday, in between fits of giggles and messing about! It is good to use Ebay to get rid of stuff but I hate doing it!! As usual have left it a bit late so hope some of my things sell before Xmas!! I have a couple more items to load up tonight (coz I'd had enough for the moment) so will go make a huuuuge bowl of popcorn, chill out, then upload those two!

Was at my mum's this afternoon and my sister and the gorgeous Lola were there too! Tried to take some photos of her but at 11 months she wouldnt stand still!! Definitely want new photos as she is growing so much and is as lovely and happy and smiley as ever!

Guess who is holding Lola!!

My mum has given me a bunch of wonderfully beautiful old photos of her, my grandad, etc! Tons of them! So I am going to scan all the best ones and add them to my list of Layouts to do! Might have to get help in how to do vintage type layouts as Im sure my usual bright and colourful style wont go with the photos!

Bon Jovi - yeeeaahhhhhh!!

2007-12-03T19:39:00.000Z

I saw that Bon Jovi is playing in Twickenham on the 28th of June 2008!! I've always wanted to see them and now they are playing 2 miles from me! Wooohooooooooo!! So I bought 2 standing tickets £55 each - blooming Nora!! And they were the cheapest! I dont mind standing, I'm sure the atmosphere will be great plus I will be dancing! Hope I can find someone that will want to come with me!

We started the PSF challenges again - love doing them! Here is the layout I created! Finding really good use for the Richmond photos - still got to create layouts with photos from Honk Kong, Sydney, Wellington, Peru and Las Vegas!! Paper from Diamante - Lori Wiley - Glamorous Midnight Rain Kit, Frame from Manuela Zimmermann Waves of Life Kit. Small photo blocks from Christina Renee - Old Proof Sheets.

Blog Header

2007-12-02T14:47:00.001Z

Created my blog header! Not totally sure if its ok but cant be bothered to change it right now! Weather is horrendous here today (so what's new!!) and am debating whether to go to a Pilates class or not! Or stay in and organise ACDSee as I am way behind, or create another Walk to Work layout, or be totally lazy and watch a film!
There was a lovely sunset the other day and I'm lucky I face the river from my office window - this is the photo I took of the sunset reflecting on the water!!

My first walk to work Layout!

2007-11-30T23:50:00.000Z

I was so happy with the photos I took I decided to create a layout with them. Used template and kit from Manu. As you know my layouts are usually so bright and colourful, so this one is totally calm! Loved how it came out so will continue to make some more with all the photos I took! No photos taken today - all its done is rain rain rain! Ugh!!!

Photos Slideshow

2007-11-27T22:00:00.001Z

Playing around trying to find out everything that I can do on Blogger! This time I have all the photos coming through as a slide show! Cool!!Next thing I would like to know is how to add my own fonts to the Blog Template and how to add a header and nice paper! So if any of you experts out there can give me any tips, I will be sooo sooo happy!!

Walking to Work

2007-11-26T23:15:00.000Z

OK, I've got to get to grips with posting in my blog! Totally forgot about it! Anyhow, had to walk to work last Tuesday and its was blooming freezing! It was just before 8am and it was a beautiful morning, frost everywhere and sort of steam and fog coming off the river! As I now carry my little Canon with me everywhere, I took some photos! Froze my hands off!! But was so pleased with the photos!

I might try to do the scrolling display another day! And I forgot, a couple of weeks walking home just before 5, the light was amazing so took photos of the office building (we dont have the whole building, just one floor!) WOW, I'm pretty amazed I have been able to upload these photos!

EHD Woes!!

2007-11-16T21:02:00.000Z

Well, as you all know, my EHD stopped working on Wednesday night! Aaarrgghhhh!!! It powered up but wasn't being picked up on the laptop! Spent the whole evening trying to sort it whilst chatting to Liv who was so kind and trying to help me even though it was 4am for her! And chatting on MSN/Yahoo with Tori and NanaJeanne too! Anyhow, took it yesterday evening to my hairdresser's brother in law and he very kindly has helped me out. He called me today to say the data is all ok, just something not working with the USB connection but was going to buy something to fix it. So hopefully I get it back tomorrow and I can check everything is there intact! What a scare! Dont want to go through that again! I am so behind on scrapping because of this! Well, thats my excuse and Im sticking to it!!

I think I have figured out how to insert a video, you have to watch this, its fantastic! And that is so like my cat Lucy!!

Hello!

2007-11-13T18:48:00.001Z

Oh well, time to learn something new!! Not sure how much time I will be able to spend updating this, but will give it a good try!