Pressed ... Ahh ... Things ...

Over on The Dainty Squid Kaylah posted photos of her pressed flowers, and I fell in love with the idea.  At first I had ambition intentions to make my own journal, but the other day I was at Michael's, and they had this amazing journal for only a buck!  Of course I had to buy it, so for today's Saturday Blogger Love I wanted to celebrate Kaylah, and show you my first pressing from Wednesday's evening walk. Kaylah has an amazing blog.  She has great style, amazing hair, fantastic tattoos, and I like every posts she writes.  I either leave her blog thinking 'yeah, I love that too!', or 'or wow I didn't know about that, I'm going to check that out soon!'.  I think of her as one of the illustrious established bloggers, so I feel like most of you probably already read her blog, but if not definitely check her out!  Love her blog.  

I guess I'm kind of picky about what I carry around on our walks.  I feel like a little kid when I have mushrooms in my hand, but they are so fragile I can only carry so many.  The 'bike safe' sticker caught my eye, and I almost past it up, but then I doubled back for it.  So glad I did.  It looks awesome on my first page.  Oh, and I must say, I was pleasantly pleased with the paper inside this dollar notebook.  The color couldn't be more prefect for pressing my finds against.  

Right now I'm up in Vermont, and hopefully I'm pressing some awesome New England finds in this new lovely notebook.  Hope ya'll are having a great Saturday!  Happy DIYing, chris!

On Blogging

I'm approaching the six month mark for my blog.  Wow.  I'm glad that I've committed to this, and I think it is definitely helping me move towards some of my bigger goals.  I'm really proud of what I've put out so far, but I still want to improve ( a LOT ).  Maybe on some days I would like to be doing better with this thing then I am.  But I'm happy to have so many likes on facebook (holding strong at 178!), and my wonderful 21 followers.  Thank you for reading my blog everyone!  I couldn't be more proud to have you as my guest!  

Though I have to be honest, some days my lil' blog can feel like more work than it's worth.  For this Saturday Blogger Love, I wanted to share some bloggers that have written some inspiring words for when blogging gets hard, and it's the last thing you'd like to be doing.  I want to keep at this blog, because I have bigger goals for myself than where I am right now, and my blog is keeping my mind goal oriented, and my creative juices flowing.  Speaking of creativity Real Simple had a fantastic article by A.J. Jacobs on "How To Be More Creative".  Totally inspirational, and made me want to work harder to craft pieces that are true to my visual aesthetic, and to keep making things that make me happy.  

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Elizabeth over on Delightfully Tacky has been writing some beautiful thoughts on having an Existential Crisis in the blogosphere, and Clearing (your) Head when your blog hits a turning point.  I couldn't agree with her words more.  I want to move into the woods and have a garden, and Aaron and I could have our own little self sufficient haven, and let our natural talents flourish.  I'd love to own a boutique that sells an eclectic collection of unique handcrafted pieces.  I'm not always sure how all these goals work into my blog, or where I fit into the blog world, and Elizabeth couldn't have expressed these thoughts better.  

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My Girl Thursday wrote about being a quitter, and not giving up on her blog, even when all the other outside pressures make you want to run the other way.  On some days it's hard to remember that this blog is for me, and that it doesn't matter how many views I had today or yesterday.  Or that none of my new posts seem to surpass the ratings on my paper pulp seed cups DIY post.  This blog is for me to have a place to gather together all my thoughts, skills, and goals.  A place to stew on those things and let them grow into something bigger.  

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Heather over on Musings of A Girl and San on The In Between Is Mine shared their thoughts on blogging, relationships and connecting.  I've always struggled with my personal connections with other people, and a lot of Heather and San's words rang true for me.  It's always reassuring to hear other people feel the same way I do.  I read a lot of established blogger's tips on growing your new blog, and it's obvious that networking and making a blogging community is important to the growth, and maybe the sustainability of your blog.  I have to imagine having blogger friends helps on the hard days, and helps to push your blog to new places, and keep your posts current and relevant to the outside world.  I don't want fear of rejection to keep me from making blogging friends.  I want to write some heartfelt emails to some of the blogging ladies I enjoy following, but I don't want to get down if I don't hear back from any of them.  But who knows, maybe by this time next month I'll have one new blogging friend!  

In case anyone is wondering I photographed all the photos used in this post using a 35mm SLR (I don't remember if I was using my Pentax, or my friend's Nikon) back in 2003.  I love what my eye saw back then, I want to make more art like this.  Hope ya'll are having a wonderful Saturday, and Happy DIYing, chris!  

Saturday Blogger Love #6

For this week's Saturday Blogger Love I want to highlight this YouTube video on how to make a gingham pattern in photoshop.  The music is perfectly cute, and it's an extra helpful photo editing trick.  Pugly Pixel made this little tutorial.  She has a fantastic website with great blogging, and photoshop tips and tutorials.  I don't have photoshop (yet), but I find I can adapt most of her tutorials to GIMP (which is free).  I usually figure if I can't adapted her photoshop tutorial to GIMP, it's not because it can't be done, but because I'm not completely GIMP or photoshop proficient.  

I've been having fun creating my patterns, and layering them together.  For my new Saturday Blogger Love banner I layered together a plaid pattern I made, and a polka dot pattern I made.  I lowered the opacity of the top layer to reveal the bottom layer until I was happy with the mix.  I want to replace all the terrible free patterns GIMP gives me,  with my own awesome creations!  I'm so happy I found Pugly Pixel's video on how to do this!

I also love her tutorial on making detail circles.  I still have some learning to do, but It really adds something to the whole photo.  

She also has some great freebies too, like these tape strips.  Which I used for last weeks Saturday Blogger Love pic.  Makes me want to read her blog back to front, and tool around in GIMP all day.  I'm not sure sitting in front of the lappy for extended hours is a great idea though.  :)  My bum and hubby would be happy for me to get up and move around.  On that note I'm off to do something fun, which could be thrifting/antiquing before I have to work this evening.  I have to take pictures of a communion confirmation for work.  I'm not Catholic so I'm always mixing those two ceremonies up.  Have a happy Saturday ya'll, happy DIYing, chris.  

Wedding Anniversary Present

This is the outfit I got as a present for our one year wedding anniversary.  I wore it on Tuesday, it was super hot here in Delaware.  For this Saturday Blogger Love I wanted to try out Diversions' technique with cloning myself in an outfit pic.  I couldn't be more thrilled with the results.  It was way easy to do too!  I took my outfit pics with a tripod and self-timer as usual.  This time I tried to move around the frame and pose myself differently in each photo I planned on layering together.  In GIMP I layered all the photos together.  Erased the parts of the top layers that covered me up in the lower layers, and then there were four of me!  This photo definitely reflects my current mood.  I've been feeling cut adrift.  Caught in this strange dream space.  I want to do this cloning thing again!  Thanks Diversions!  

I bought this dress at a cute little local store at the Rehoboth Beach, called Super Kind. Which is where Aaron and I went for our anniversary.  I'll share some photos from our little beach adventure tomorrow. I love the colors and the pattern on the dress.  There is a silk slip attached as the bottom layer, and it makes me feel so girlie and pretty.   You can also see our two raised 4x4 garden beds.  The bed closest to the camera has four tomato plants, a Pink Ponderosa, Anise Noire, Cherokee Purple, and Riesentraube.   The back bed has a couple varieties of lettuce, some spinach, some chard, a Red Rock Mammoth Cabbage, and a broccoli plant.  

I love all the pretty flowers that are blooming right now.  It smells so good walking and driving around.  I love the smell of gardenias, and I can't wait until the honeysuckle starts!  

Love these colors together.  They matched perfectly with my dress, and I didn't even plan it!  

I usually hate photos of feet.  I'm not a foot person, but I had to show off how I painted my toe nails the color of the dots on my finger nails.  I love the feeling of grass or moss under my feet.  

One last photo of my nails, don't mind how awkwardly posed my hand is.  You can see my completed friendship bracelet in this photo.  I braided the end, and added some beads to finish it off.  Totally love it!  Hope ya'll are having a great weekend!  Happy DIYing, chris!