A camera review

Back before our epic Disneyland trip, we purchased a little camera for Emily. We needed something sturdy, shock resistant, because let's face it, she drops things, and it had to be easy to use.  With Michelle's help, I decided on this little Fuji Film camera. I think this is the right picture...she has a green one...

Anyways, I didn't want to miss anything so I figured if she had a camera and took pictures from her point of view, I'd be twice blessed. AND I was. She got a few shots of me on our trip, but the best part is this little sucker takes awesome video. For 14 days she shot video and took pictures, not the over 1500 I took, but still had room for both! I was amazed. 

She also dropped it at least 2 times with no ill effects. 

When I went to the JinkyArt retreat, I made her promise to take pictures of her and Kerry's big Vancouver adventure. I played the guilt card, I wouldn't be there and didn't want to miss out! (I'm not saying I would have given up the retreat to go to the Olympic village.)

Here are a few of her SOOC shots. 

I like this one! She's in the photo! Good one, Dad! She's sort of smiling.

And this one...I'm sure she snapped it for me and my love of Disneyland. Although I have no love for large boats, or most boats. 

And a very decent one of her dad, with some interesting things in the back ground. I think this was before their attempt at leaving Stanley Park. But I could be wrong. 

Her indoor shots left a bit to be desired but she's taking after me and leans towards natural light  photography. She figured out how to turn it off the little point and shoot, but doesn't quite have a steady hand yet. 

I'm so happy to have these photos so that I have pictures to go with their stories of their trip. 

You are here!

I've been feeling very mappy lately. 

I found this very purple and pink glittery 18x18 inch canvas in the clearance section and brought home 2 of them. I knew exactly what one was going to be...the base for my map.

I saw this sort of thing on-line and had to replicate it only instead of printing a map and antiquing it digitally, I did it all manually. I used the only map we had of Kelowna, and it's a darn BCAA map so it does have the location of the nearest BCAA marked on it. It now also has a little heart for where our house it.  I think I will hang it upstairs somewhere just incase I need to know where I am.

Gotta have ART!

 After seeing all the very creative ways Heather has been journaling in her Art Journal, I decided to make one using mixed media papers, actually I made two.
I gave one to Emily when she said she wanted to do more watercolour painting. Maybe she was inspired by all my talk of Amelia's art work, and the fact I hung one of her post cards up. (Amelia was another Jinky Art Retreat attendee, she does beautiful sketch work.)
I'm using my Art Journal as a bit of a 'trial and error' book, to see how I like the different mediums, different hand writing, etc. I'm enjoying  the journey.
I had a pile of Japanese papers, maybe from Grandpa's house. I mod podged them to a few pages and then painted on them. For this one, I drew a heart and then water coloured it.

 This one has yet another Grandpa find, the K page from the A-K Dictionary. We don't know where L-Z is.

 I did this watercolour when the power went out. I did it in the dark.

 More Grandpa papers, and some Tim Holtz goodies.

 The front of a card from Grandpa. I see a theme now.

 This is my favourite so far. Kerry was filling dry wall holes and I borrowed the paste. I used my Cornish Heritage  Farms stamp in the paste. After it dried, I mod podged it. Then I water coloured it in the colours of our new improved basement. I mod podged some fabric from the basement too.

 I used Indian ink in a dropper to write COLOUR.

 This one is a favourite too. Just water colours and pen.

Emily came down and decided to add some paint to her journal. We've gone from a woodcrafting house with every colour of acrylic paint under the sun to a papercrafting house with only a handful of paint. There's lots of colour mixing. We'll have to start picking up a few more colours because there are just some things I can't do. Mixing colours is one of them. I always end up with purple-brown.

 I finally remembered to stop at Home Depot yesterday and get the things I needed to finish off the parcel to send to Amy and David. She sometimes stops by the blog so I will keep everyone guessing, although I think it's pretty obvious what they are. It's almost their one year anniversary. Kerry was saying that it's hard with fall coming and no trip to California to look forward to. I totally know what he means.

I had seen something like this, only with Texas and I knew I wanted to make one. After cutting out British Columbia, I wanted to move to Saskatchewan! (This looks much better in person, the colours are weird here)

Love it!

Lately

It's been a busy August around here. I still haven't processed my photos from the Retreat and am hoping to do that this week. Today is Project Life day and I'm sad to report we have all fallen behind. It's weird, we get together but it seems we just eat and talk. Today, we're gettin' it done! (and I don't mean just eating)

Who am I kidding?

I really wanted to make these rainbow cakes in a jar for my birthday. But it was so much work and although it looked good, it wasn't worth it. I made it from scratch, maybe that was the problem. Next time I might try a mix. And I won't fill the jar so full. Learned that one the hard way.

Putting 'clean the oven' on my to-do list.

We realized we hadn't had a bbq in a while or company over for dinner so we decided to have a bbq/birthday. With a theme! Tacky Tourist. I did up invitations, decorations and we found costumes.

                                             

We were so impressed with our friends and family! Everyone dressed up. This one was my favourite! So much thought and effort! Love the sunburn, the raccoon eyes and the mosquito bites.

 Dad even got a super tan. He had just gotten home from Sturgis and after 14 days on his Harley he was toasty. Shaun has never been outside before so he was ghostly.

 Linus was nice enough to pose for me and my cherry tomato I held above my head.  Sally, on the other hand was wishing for a metal detector so she could scour the 'beach' for treats.  I have more pictures, and am getting more from Terry today, which is good because I didn't actually take that many.

Emily decided Linus's teeth needed a good cleaning. Poor Linus. He didn't know what hit him.

The basement is finished. Since this picture was taken, the couch got moved in, the wall got wrecked by said couch and Kerry, the wall got fixed by Kerry and me, a picture rail was hung on the right side wall, and we decide to paint the tables, but haven't done it yet because we can't decide on a colour. Our 'catch-all' area' has now become a very usable space. Thanks to watching too much "Love It or List It"!

 Dad brought back a bag of candy from his travels. So many we don't get here! Like Chick-a-sticks and Mary Janes(saw these on Unwrapped), makes me want to travel more!

 For my birthday, my sweet friend Michelle, got me a popcorn popper. I've been wanting one for quite a while, years, ever since I saw a Schneiders one at a garage sale and didn't buy it. Kerry said I didn't need one and we didn't have the space to store it. I have to admit he's right, my new, large no-stick frying pan has yet to find a cupboard it fits into. 

 So Michelle bought it for me anyways! And April gave me the fancy popcorn presenting 'bowls', a bag of popcorn, seasoning and coconut oil. It's been 4 days since I got it and I've had popcorn 3 times. We love it. But I think we need to slow down a bit. 

 And I finally got my issue of Cricut! So excited! Now 'those damn dogs' are published too!

 I've felt very creative the last couple days. Which is good, I signed up for a free class and it's 12 days long. I am vowing to keep caught up and so far, so good. Day 4 and I'm off to do it as soon as I'm finished here. There was a kit to purchase but I wouldn't have gotten it in time, so I made my own and was surprised at how well I did shopping in my craft room. I plan to do that more often. I even mixed brands of scrapbook paper. I am also doing something I don't do very often, journaling, and I do it first and then I find a picture for the layout!

Heather has taken quite a few art classes lately and made some beautiful pieces of art. I haven't committed to any of the classes yet, but want to. She made her She Art and I loved the idea. So last night I thought I'd try my hand at making one of me for the new and improved basement. 

It was messy. And I loved it. It gets you thinking. It is my reminder to let it go.

 I have to take this time to get all mushy. 

I'm so grateful for the friends I have. 

They are truthful. They are beautiful. They are a pleasure to be around. 

They bring out the best in me. 

They help me grow.

Thank you, my friends, real and internet ones!

Epic Fail?

I don't know what I was thinking when I saw the sliced "bacon" in the meat department. You know the kind, the not yet smoked, no nitrate kind, the sliced pork belly stuff. MMMmmm...sounds soooo yummy, give me some of that pork belly!
I bought it. I thought "I'll smoke that stuff up and there will be no going back to Schnieder's "Maple" bacon or whatever that pack of stuff is we buy at Costco."
Emily wanted it before she left for Vancouver today so I got up and fired up the smoker, prepped the 'bacon' and tossed it on the grill. Set the timer. Came back to beautiful plumes of smoke coming from the smoker, mouth watering goodness and.... charred strips of 'bacon'. OH crap! My brain said "Hurry do something before Emily sees that I've killed the bacon." I managed to save 6 pieces. We each got 3 strips. I put mine to good culinary use and made a bacon and tomato sandwich on cheddar bread. The acidity of the tomatoes and creaminess of the mayo takes away from the acrid taste of the burnt bacon. (I learned that bunch of nonsense from the Food Network, in truth I was so hungry I didn't care!)
But even slightly charred, bacon is still God in this house.

Smells better

The dollar was doing good, Victoria's Secrets had a sale, and I'm well stocked up with my favourite line of body wash, lotion, and sprays.

And I need it for all the slaving away I've been doing getting the computer/storage/other tv room redone. I just realized as I looked at this picture, not much of the stuff used to re-decorate the room is new. The frames from Ikea are. Everything else is handed down, Grandpa's chair, coffee and end table (retro). The yellow chair if from my Sunday school at the Japanese United Church I attended as a child. The school desk was mine from when I lived at home. Half the things on the wall are from thrift stores.  The real cost was the paint. It's grey. I can't tell. It's such a weird colour. But it goes with everything.  I'm starting to love it.

Winery Tour

I dropped Mom and Clare off for lunch while I ran some errands. I picked them up with the idea they'd do some wine tours. We missed the one at Summerhill by minutes, so they wondered around and humored me and my camera. They decided the liquor store was a better tour. On the way, I did my best tour guide impersonation and pointed out some sites. I took them to Costco and then home so they could relax and digest, and maybe drink their wine.

Oh, I love it!

This is now what is at the bottom of my staircase. I could sit on the stairs all day and look at it. It looks much better in the picture! But it still looks 100x better than it did before. A million times! Now if I can just get out of this corner and move to the next, the whole room could look this good. 

Those circles are going up on the big wall above the stairs. 

That's 2 posts in one day!

All my pretties.

I'm still pluggin' away at getting the basement finished. I've moved an end table in from the garage and a Barbie doll house out! I've got the fax machine in it's new spot, which means it's no longer on my bedside table. You never know when you might want to check those late night faxes. 

I realized when I got up today that in order for the basement to get finished, I needed to hang my cork board for all my jewelry. ALL!!! Ha Ha...Up until a week ago, I didn't need to do this. But after mom's jewelry party, I'm on my way to a small collection of baubles. I had bought a few of these boards a long time ago. I didn't love the Paris theme, but knew they had potential. I'm going to cover the Paris Icons with something else, I just haven't decided what yet.

I got the idea for the cork board from 2 of my friends, Calista and Misty-Rae. 

Here you can see my Medic-Alert bracelet, it should be on my wrist.

The pictures are such amazing quality, just kidding! Considering I had to take them in my closet, in my bedroom with no natural light, at a super high ISO, they aren't that bad.
Back to the grindstone!
I will get something more done today!

August Already!

This summer is going by so fast. A little summer weather would be nice. The garden is totally not enjoying the weather and I've just about given up on it. 

We've been busy since we got back from Vancouver. Kerry took the week off and we have hardly had time to sit and relax. He's back and work now and it's probably a vacation for him. 

We've painted the basement. Just need the trim and he's supposed to bringing that home today. 

He's been working on the 'new' truck and the camper. 

And I've been eating out! Hanging out with friends, and spray painting just about everything.

Me, Marg, Heather, and Karen had a non-productive, but very chatty Saturday. We stopped briefly for dinner and then came back here and did more of nothing. About 9 hours of it! 

I was so inspired by the Vietnamese meal that I recreated it the next night for dinner. So fresh and yummy! We all sat out side and ate dinner that night. 

I'm working on re-branding, and figuring out a few business related things. I want to do it right. 

So drinking coffee out of my lens mug should help inspire and motivate me. In my quest to go dairy-free, I've switched from disgusting almond milk to the much better tasting lower calorie Coffeemate. Edible oil product vs. gastronomical distress and meds. It's a tough one.

Let's see if I can get back into blogging on a regular basis!