5 dec

Done!   Check out my other blog for more pics and info if you like!

3 dec

A morning walk….

A fire-y tree in a yard on Matheson St.

And my gal looks like she’s going to be job hunting soon- Out of Hand is going out of business.  I’m going to miss this chick!

28 nov

After almost 2 years of being “truckless” and driving a Honda Fit- we traded it in for a Nissan Frontier.  Keith liked the Fit.  I didn’t really like it- even though I thought it was ingeniously designed.  Keith didn’t realize how much he missed having a truck until he drove this one. 

I like how we finally made the decision to go back to a truck AFTER the remodel…. go figure.

27 nov

The day after Thanksgiving, the City of Healdsburg organizes a Holiday Festival in the plaza.  All the shops are open late and serving hot cider and cookies, or the requisite wine.   This is one of the many displays that caught my eye.  The pottery is by a local artist, but I can’t remember her name… hopefully I’ll get a piece from Santa (and then i’ll link you up!)

26 nov

Friends & Family totaling 18 people in our tiny house- wouldn’t have had it any other way!

wall art

I’m not even going to discuss my lack of daily photos.  I will share my latest photographic endeavor, however.  

We are NOT done with the bathroom, but  all that is left is painting trim and wainscoting.  Not that bad- almost done and then you’ll see the finished project- next week if all goes well.  However- with 18 people coming over for Thanksgiving, I need to get that bathroom in usable order.  We have all the neccessary things working and the walls painted.  I had 3 Ikea Ribba frames needing artwork suitable for the bathroom and it would be nice to have something up on the walls.

While perusing my pics, I kept noticing my pets.  I have a lot of bad quality photos with funny expressions and it hit me.  I could make these watercolors or frescoes- or comics.  The “blur” wouldn’t matter!  And they’d be colorful and humorous photos for the walls…. and so….

my quest for distorted faces began….

and it has become an obsession….

I’ve got so many prints now (and only 3 frames) it might turn into a seasonal gallery of photos that change quarterly. 

For those of you who would like to try this at home, it’s quite easy.  My tips are for Photoshop Elements.  You want to be sure you are resize the image to 300 dpi- and crop to the size you want to make (in this case, 8×10).  I also upped the saturation so the colors look a little more artsy.  Then I used the “watercolor” preset- fiddling with the settings until I liked the effect. 

Then I uploaded to Costco and picked them up the next day. So easy!!! And so much fun!  Surprisingly, Keith even liked the idea (i was afraid he wouldn’t!). 

If you do this, let me know with a comment and a link to your photo!

19 nov

8 nov

i chose this photo today because i just like it…. i am selling the spools on ebay and liked the color!

7 nov

Today was my 3rd annual “Christmas Card Stamp a Stack”.  I had 10 people (3 on Friday, 7 on Saturday) come and make their Christmas cards.  This is one of the cards.  Fun day!

More info on the projects on my stampin’ blog- geekgirl’s random ramblings…

5 nov

A daily occurrence at our house.  Mitzi is politely waiting for Trooper to finish so she can lick the plate. 

Look at the determination in her eyes.  She won’t respond to any of our calls or whistles at this point.  She is locked on and waiting.  I’m very impressed that she waits insteads of jumping on the cat and attacking- she doesn’t show the same restraint when it comes to something she wants from Keith or me.  But I imagine it may have something to do with the “smack down” she received from Trooper early this year.