purple vintage goodness

Yesterday I mentioned I had an ornament or two that is a non-traditional Christmas color. Of course it's purple! I just had to laugh when I unwrapped these little (and not so little) darlings. I love this little guy. And he really is little, and looks to me,  just like a purple cupcake.

Two more babies. They really are tiny sized ornaments.  

I think this is my favorite. I love the two-tone purple and little bit of green detail on it.

Oh, I know this isn't purple. But it's too sweet not to share, don't you think? It really is time to find a little Christmas tree to squeeze into the Cottage.  Do you have your tree up and decorated already? Are you a fresh or artificial tree family? I favor a fresh tree for my main tree, but I do have two small pencil trees. I may make one a happy purple Christmas tree this year.

Happy Purple Tuesday!

♥maureen

surprises, good and not so good

Happy Monday blog peeps. First up. I received a lovely surprise in the mail this weekend. Sweet Kat, from Kat Eye View, and fellow Muse, sent me a package from her home in Italy. How exciting to find an unexpected envelope in the mail box, hand addressed. Inside was this beautifully unique glass pendant and note from Kat on one of her beautiful photo post cards of Burano, Italy.  I am so blessed to have such sweet, thoughtful blog friends. Thank you Kat, I love it and will treasure it always.

What a fast and busy weekend this was. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Are you a Black Friday shopper? I'm not. I stay far away from the mall and stores on that day. I spent much of my weekend blog hopping {still have some to visit from the Mortal Muses blog hop} cleaning up around the house and putting away all my fall decorations. Since I moved into my little cottage, I've been trying to pare down the 'stuff'. So, some of my fall decorations will end up in the tag sale box for a spring sale. Then it was time to begin locating the Christmas decorations. This will be my first Christmas at the Cottage. Some of my vintage ornaments and decorations met with an untimely demise during my recent move. When I asked my boys if there were problems with any boxes during the drive to the new house, I was told one box did fly off the truck. "And you'd be surprised how many of those ornaments didn't break," was the response I got. *sigh* Yes, a box full of my vintage Christmas ornaments crashed alongside the interstate. Can we just have a moment of silence for them?

Luckily many did make it. As I took inventory of what was left, I decided to have a little photo shoot for a new blog header. I'm not really that much of a pink person, but I realized I had so many vintage ornaments in pretty pink and turquoise colors, I'd try it out. I really love the way they look together. I'm not sure where I'll fit a Christmas tree in my little house, so many of my ornaments may spend the holiday filling bowls with festive, sparkly color. How about you? Do you prefer traditional red and green Christmas colors? Or do you like pastels or bright primary colors for your holiday decorating?
I also found another non-traditional color ornament, in the boxes. You'll have to stop by tomorrow to see that one. {betcha can't guess what color it is :)}

thanks for stopping by,

♥maureen

gratitude

gratitude ~ gra- tə-tüd, n. : the state of being grateful: thankfulness

Like all of you, I have many things that I am grateful for. But always at the top of the list are family and friends. This year I am fortunate to add many new friends to my list. What a pleasant surprise to have made so many friends across the country and even on other continents!  Thank you for visiting me here, and for sharing your world on your blogs and in your Flickr streams.  Your friendship enriches my life and gives it a fullness that I appreciate more with each day.

I am also so very grateful for my little family. The photo above is a couple years old, but is such a sweet memory of time spent together. To get my boys to participate in a Christmas outing, we went on the Anheuser-Busch St. Louis Brewery tour, that's where we found the ginormous Christmas tree. If you plan a visit to St. Louis, you should add the tour to your list of activities, it's free and you get free samples after the tour.

Yesterday we gathered at my son and his fiancée's house, prepared once-a-year decadent dishes together, ate too much and enjoyed a relaxing day together. These are the moments I cherish and hold dear.

I also wanted to share this centerpiece made by daughter-in-law-to-be. Each year for the holidays she creates absolutely beautiful, unique centerpieces for our dinner table. This one may be my favorite.

This year I tried a new recipe for the dessert table. I made pumpkin bars, and they were a big hit. It's a simple recipe, with ingredients that you have on hand {except for the pumpkin perhaps} and can be mixed up quickly. You can get a copy of the recipe here.

For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a wonderful holiday.


♥ maureen


Be sure to visit the other blogs participating in the
Mortal Muses Thankful Blog Hop.
Just click on a thumbnail below and start hopping!

a remette, purple woozie and a blog hop

Another shot of my new typewriter. I just love this sweet little Remette. I used Kim Klassen's textures and a recipe from her Photoshop Recipe Book, with special a ingredient of my own added in for good measure.




It's also Happy Purple Tuesday. That's my purple woozie. Yes, there really is such a thing. My purple woozie was a gift from my kids, along with my happy birthday wine glass. How fun is that?


I'm musing today at Mortal Muses for our thankful theme, stop by and say hello.

Don’t forget to join us on November 25th, Thanksgiving Day for the first "We Are Thankful" blog hop with the muses, and giveaway. You can find all the details, including how to link up with us here.

before and after, baby brownie love

I have a small vintage camera collection and was recently given two very cool cameras to add to my collection. Isn't that just the cutest little camera? What a sweet gift, no? I couldn't wait to do a little photo shoot with it. I've only had time to do this one shoot, and play a bit with Kim's textures.

Added a gradient map layer, brown @58%
A slight bump up on the saturation
Added Kim Klassen's cool grunge texture layer, multiply at 57%
Also added a text layer, baby brownie. I don't have my fonts moved from my old computer, so I was limited on my font selection.
Below is the other new-to-me vintage camera. I used Kim's texture magic scratches on it. The processing steps are pretty much the same on each image, the only difference is the texture used.

I really love Kim's scratches textures, I've used them quite a bit, and see them used on many images on Flickr. They work really well on all kind of images. You can get the set from Kim here, they are at the very bottom of the page.



magic scratches texture pack by Kim Klassen

I'm linking up at Monica's Pixel Perfect for the Before & After blog hop.

Be sure to visit the blog hop for some amazing before and after photo fixes.



♥ maureen



bokeh and my nifty-fifty

I guess this is a good time to point out a new tab, just below my header, in case you hadn't noticed. Nifty 50. To celebrate my love for my nifty-fifty {my 50mm camera lens} and turning 50 this year, I have begun a photo project. I'm posting my favorite photo taken with my 50mm lens each week for a year.  It's just my favorite photo from the week, sooc {straight out of the camera}, no stories or explanations.  
The photo above is of a vintage typewriter I scored this week, thanks to a friend who has connections. *smile* It was totally inspired by my muse buddy, you can see her photo here.

Today I'm musing at Mortal Muses about bokeh, and my love for my nifty-fifty lens, come on over and say hello. 

♥maureen

veterans day

Today, take time to remember those who have served, those who continue to serve and those who paid the hightest price. Remember today to thank a veteran.           

                                     

        thanks to Jim Bauer for the use of his moving photo

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky

♥maureen

a trip to the garden

If it's Wednesday, it's time for some bokeh. And have you visited the Mortal Muses blog this week? We have just begun to muse on bokeh, you'll find some beautiful images there and in the flickr pool.

Bokeh in the grass.



This is the yellow you can see in the background of the shot above.

I had some time to kill yesterday between an early morning appointment and going to work. It was another gift of a fall day in the Midwest, warm with a beautiful cloudless  blue sky. I decided to stop by the City Garden in downtown St. Louis to get some photos in the daylight. You may remember I did some night photography there recently. What a fun place night or day. All of these shots were taken there yesterday.

And you might remember this shot from my night photowalk.

If you make a trip to St. Louis, the City Garden is really worth the time to visit. It's a large multi-block park in the heart of downtown. Lots of sculpture, green space, water fountains (to play in!) and seating. It certainly was beautiful at this time of year.

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Mortal Muse Flash 

Join us Thanksgiving Day for the first "We Are Thankful" blog hop with the muses. We will be linking up to our personal blogs, where we will share our thoughts on the day. Watch for giveaway items for those that link-up and leave comments!

We invite you to share with us your family Thanksgiving photos & traditions, how you spent the day, a favorite family recipe, etc. For our international muses and guests, we look forward to hearing about what you are thankful for this Autumn.
We will post a Linky early Thursday Morning and will leave it open for the weekend so you will have time to link up and visit everyone in the muse community.
What is a blog hop? - A blog hop is a list that is SHARED ON MULTIPLE BLOGS. When several blogs put the same linky list code on their blog, the exact same list appears on each blog. Blog visitors can submit their entry on any blog that contains the list and the entry will appear on each blog where the list resides. Blog readers can then "HOP" from blog to blog seeing the same list of links.
If you do not have a blog, you need not be excluded. Link up to a photo on flickr that represents your day and share with us a few words in the description field.

We look forward to visiting with you and your families on this thankful day.

Get our Thanksgiving Blog Hop button to display on your blog here.

♥maureen

happy purple tuesday

My shot (above) for happy purple tuesday. I found these dried and faded blooms at a community garden nearby. I love how they have dried with so much of their color still on the bloom. I brought a few home with me, to remind me of summer's glory.

And from the flickr ♥happy purple tuesday♥  group, the group mosaic for this week.

1. Bird & Blooms, 2. Butterfly Flutters By..., 3. butterFLYING [+2 in comments], for Jaime973!, 4. Finishing the Work of Summer, 5. He's on a Mission from God, 6. Bumblebee At Work, 7. butterfly fave, 8. Thistle, 9. dream of summer, 10. On the edge, 11. Little Bee, 12. mid-flight, 13. look at the colors man!

Show some purple love, click on the links above to see a photo, full size, in each photographer's photostream.

hpt!

♥maureen

exploring in the night

  I'm musing today at Mortal Muses about night photography. Oh, not that I'm experienced at it or anything. In fact this past week was about the first time I had attempted going out after dark with the express purpose of  taking photographs. I pretty much had the idea that once the sun went down, I was done shooting for the day.

But I found that I enjoyed it, and am looking forward to more opportunities to explore the unique beauty of the night. Be sure to stop by the Mortal Muses blog to see more of my experience with night photography as well as musings on night photography by the other Muses.

 

♥ maureen

pumpkin time before and after

Shot with a canon xsi, canon 50mm f/1.8
Photoshop Elements 9 for processing.
The first thing I did was crop the photo down to just one pumpkin.
I created a gaussian blur layer, and then removed the blur from the pumpkin.
I used the clone tool to remove the blemishes from the pumpkin. :)
A little adjustment of levels and slid the saturation back -12.
Then I used Kim Klassen's Nutmeg {screen 40%}, Distress {multiply 20%} and Magic Scratches {screen 20%} textures.
And there you have it, the great pumpkin.

Linking up at Pixel Perfect for

.

where you will find some amazing before and after shots.

Interested in learning how to apply textures to your photos?

Kim Klassen is offering a free e-course beginning Nov. 8.

 

♥ maureen

it's tuesday, that means it's time for the purple

As autumn ends, and the flowers fade, it becomes more challenging to find purple, at least in nature. However, I've discovered I have more purple in my life then I realized. Once you begin to look for it, it's amazing what you see.
Do you remember being a kid and getting a new box of crayons? The 64 big box, with the sharpener? mmmm all those luscious colors of brand new crayons. Which one did you choose first? Which one did you save?

Here's to inspiration done up in purple.

 
1. luscious sky, 2. Dawn at Blue Springs Lake, 3. Sunset, 4. Day 22: Purple Reign, 5. Meadow Sunset, 6. a sardinian sky at sunset, 7. Full Moon Rising, 8. sunset over castle village, 9. More Reflections.., 10. {140/365}, 11. Morning, 12. Sunset, 13. 241. Scattered Light
 
This weeks happy purple tuesday group mosaic is of sunsets and sunrises. Amazing, the colors of the sky.
Where have you found purple this week? If you have posted on your blog about purple, leave a link in the comments, I'd love to view it. If you have purple in your flickr photostream, quick, add it to the ♥ happy purple tuesday♥ flickr group.

Have a great Tuesday, remember to keep an eye out for the purple.


♥maureen

autumn sun flare

exposure: 1/16 sec, aperture: f/29, focal length: 33 mm, ISO: 400

Happy Monday! I'm leaning to love Mondays, new beginnings and all. Hope you survived Halloween, and had more treaters than tricksters. This was my first Halloween in a new house, new neighborhood and I didn't know what to expect in the way of trick-or-treaters.  I stocked up on the good chocolate candy, {mmm yes, peanut butter cups} and was ready. I had three, yes, three kids knock on the door. I have looooooots of candy left. I'm going to need an intervention.

exposure: 1/16 sec, aperture: f/22, focal length: 50 mm, ISO: 800

The weather here has been spectacular, still warm enough for flip-flops.  I did get out and shoot some photos on Saturday. It was such a beautiful warm and sunny day. A perfect opportunity to try shooting some sun bursts. Lately I've been noticing  photos on flickr with this wonderful sun flare. I tried getting some flare into my photos with little success. Finally I went to the source. Yep, that's right I Googled "how to shoot sun flare." Bingo.

exposure: 1/20 sec, aperture: f/29, focal length: 29 mm, ISO: 400

 

What I learned is that my biggest mistake was my aperture setting. I normally shoot with a wide open aperture (f1.8 or f 2.0). For a sunburst flare you need your aperture set at a higher number, like f22.

I shot all of these in late afternoon when the sun is just low enough to 'peek' through the foliage on the trees.

exposure: 1/20 sec, aperture: f/25, focal length: 25 mm, ISO: 400

But don't take my word for it, here are some tutorials for getting some gorgeous flare into your photos.
Pioneer Woman Photography, Digital Photography School, and mpc actions
You can Google the subject and find many more tutorials.

And one other thing, this is one warning I read about shooting sun flare, keep this in mind. "PLEASE DO NOT FORGET - DON'T LOOK DIRECTLY INTO THE SUN WHILE YOU ARE DOING THIS. I know you know this, but in your pursuit of the art, remember you can look "at" the sun with your peripheral sight. Take care of your eyes."

exposure: 1/50 sec, aperture: f/22, focal length: 50 mm, ISO: 800

I hope I've inspired you add some flare to your shots. Now, go, find some flare!
have a great week!


♥maureen