Scissor Quirk

Goodbye, for now!

Oh, my friends. :)

I am knee-deep in packing my backpack for the next 6 weeks up. We're off today/tonight for our 6 week adventures! They'll take us visiting family in Boston, flying over for a visit in France + Bulgaria + Italy, back to Calgary to visit my family, and then we'll arrive back home the first week in June.

photo source.

Aaah. I'm sooo psyched!
And I have three cameras in my everyday bag. lol.

I was planning on scheduling a bunch of stuff to post while I was away, here, but that feels a bit weird (not to mention unnecessarily stressful, today!) - I have a bunch of awesome things to post, and I want to be around to see them, too! lol. I may pop in to post a few photos while we're gone, but I make no promises...

So away I go, til then!
Have a lovely month, friends - back with a vengeance in June!

**PS - a rad camera-related something-something you should come back and enter will be posted bright & early tomorrow morning!

The M - Photography Class Giveaway!

**Now Closed & The Winner Is: Melanie (bearrabbitbear@hotmail.com)

For years I've been scared of flipping my digital camera over from 'auto' to 'manual' - years!! That said, I'm super-excited that the lovely Kara has an awesome giveaway for you guys, if you're having the same feelings of both yearning and fear when it comes to the 'm' setting!

Kara's offering up one free entrance to her self-paced photography class to a lucky reader! (So you can learn the elusive manual!! Yay!)

Here's a bit more about the class to peak your curiosity:

'The M' is for anyone who wants to learn the technical aspects of digital photography in an easy to understand and unintimidating setting. The class starts at the very basics – camera and lens recommendations, exposure, composition, lighting, and Photoshop corrections. It ends with tips from everything from landscape to portrait photography and includes free Photoshop actions, film tips, challenges, critiques, and inspiration.

To enter to win the class, you must:

1. Pop by Kara's blog and leave her a sweet note

2. Leave your name and e-mail address, here!

For additional entires you can:

3. Tweet about this giveaway & link to it, post your twitter handle here

4. Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to your post, here

For more information or to purchase the class, click here!
Giveaway is open until April 29th at 5 pm/PST.

Good luck, friends! And thanks, Kara!!

Diana Mini!

As a little treat for surviving a year of full-time work and full-time classes, I treated myself to a Diana Mini the other day! :) I've been wanting to delve back into film photography for a while now - after all, I did have a film camera back in the day before it all went digital...lol...so that's where I started, for me.

I want to find a vintage camera one day and learn to shoot manual that way, but I really wanted some film to take to Europe with us that I could learn quickly enough to get some good shots, and the Diana Mini won my heart!

photo source.

Here's some inspiring stuff she can do, if you're curious:




photo sources: 1/2/3/4/5/6

I'm psyched about her dreamy grain, double exposures and colorful flash light gels!! I'm also excited about the 72 shots/roll that it can pull off (yay, half-frames!). I love the idea of scrolling forward through film as far as I chose, too, and the super-cute little size of this camera!! (It's about the size of my palm!) So fun. I picture at least one roll of black & white film for Paris, of course. :)

Speaking of, has it been ten years since I bought film, or what?? It's expensive!

I've been learning the basics from this guy's Youtube channel, and shooting a bit - it rained like crazy today, but I hope to get out and shoot some of the blossoms so I can see how I'm doing before we leave!

Do you own a Mini? Any tips for me, you'd like to share?
I love having no idea how my pictures will turn out... :) he he.

What I Want, Here.

I've been thinking a lot about where I want to go with this little blog of mine.

I wanted it to start with finally finishing the code on this blog of mine. lol. You may notice that the yellow navigation bar on the top right actually works, now! lol. (I'm a self-taught coder, and sometimes when I can't figure something out right away, I have to leave it til I have time to wrap my brain around getting it. That ended up being 4 months.) Anyhoo, now that the blog is 'finished' being coded, and I feel like I can embrace the new direction it's started taking:

Since my craft time has been cut short for the last year (hello, school + work!), things have definitely changed around here, and I haven't really had any time to re-evaluate: I've just had to go with the flow - and I kind of like that. I'm not one of those people who finds blogging schedules helpful, I find them really stifling.

Do I know what this new direction is? Not really, to be honest.

I'm not even sure it will be 'new', it just feels a bit different, to me. There will still be crafts, because I love to crochet and embroider and sew and all that jazz. And I would love to keep posting daily life stuff - hopefully more of it - and I want to get better about documenting our home and my thrift trips, and the little things.  I'd love to bring in a fresh look at vintage goodness, my photography and design experiments, more about university, and inspiring art/design/photography that's close to my heart, too. But I will not set myself any 'rules'.

Other than maybe posting more than 'Ack! I'm busy!' during those busy school/work times, if at all possible. lol.

I think I'll be finding myself more than crafting, these next few years, juggling how to work and what to do to support myself while in school, balancing life, crafts and the art work I do there. I have dreams, oh do I. Some are life dreams the mister and I hope to accomplish in the next few years, some are creative goals and larger creative dreams. It's an exciting time. But then, isn't it always?

We're always a work in progress, and I guess I just wish to keep documenting the adventure of that progress in a beautiful way, here.

I hope to keep this an inspiring place for both you & me.
...and hope you'll continue to read throughout this journey!

Is there anything you love to read about/see, specifically,  as a blog reader? Anything you miss, that I used to post? I'd love to know!

A Little Paper Love.

...you wouldn't know it from my postings around here this past month, but there was a teensy bit of scrapbooking that happened for American Crafts. I made a few projects using the new 'Gardenia' collection for the blog:

There's a little card:

And a little scrapbook page:
I kept the page pretty simple, and focused on sewing, some paint splashes, and that cute green swirly paper - and did I mention how much I love the wooden buttons?? I painted the little coordinating blue edge on them - so fun!

I can't wait to get crafty, this week!
And to play with the paper that came to my door this week - eeek!

I've really been craving some sewing and embroidery, too. I'm actually wondering how I can sneak some into my carry-on to work on enroute to Europe...hmm. I did manage to sneak a pair of foldy mini scissors into my bag last time I flew. :) lol. Accidentally, of course...

Also, how mind-bloggling is it to book an insanely long trip?? Oh my word. At most we've kind of 'wung' 2 week, one-country trips before, but trying to coordinate flights in multiple countries and actually just figuring out where exactly of all the places to go has been the hardest part. Ugh! Not a fan of trip-planning right here, no siree.