January 4 Macro Mondays-Negative Space

I couldn't come up with the shot I wanted. Note to self-begin working on these types of shots earlier in the week. But since I really want to submit two photos for the theme I went with this one as my second shot. I have two old thimbles with advertising; this one for a lumber yard and the other is the same colors/texture but advertises coffee. Interesting...

I posted this one the other day. Jan 1st and we had a little snow. Not a great snow for photographs but this one worked. On the last day of school before winter break I talked to most of the 4th graders about Wilson Bentley. I shared my love of photography and some of my snowflake and macro shots. Today my fourth graders enjoyed looking at this shot, I had it on the door of my classroom with a Happy New Year attached.

I did not take a photo with my phone today. After sitting in my car for at least 15 minutes waiting for the frost to melt on the inside of the windows I thought, oh I should have taken some pictures of the frost. Then while driving home someone flashed their lights so I slowed down and sure enough there were close to 10 deer in a yard. I did consider stopping for a picture but I knew my window was frozen shut and I didn't want to take a chance on getting rear ended. Who knows, maybe something will inspire me yet tonight.... 

January 3- Hockey Time

It's unusual for us to take in a hockey game on a Sunday afternoon but we were there today to support our local college team. The coach had his 200th win today!

One More Goal for 2016

Last year I switched over and bought my first iPhone. I do use it to take pictures but don't always do anything with them. So, after reading about some other photo goals yesterday I decided to add one more goal for this year; try to take and post a daily shot from my phone and add it to this blog as well. I may not post it here every day but I'll try to update at least once a week with all the shots.

So, today's picture is tire tracks at the gas station, my husband pointed these out to me.

Photo Goals for 2016

Well, it's been a year and a half since I posted here! In good news I have continued to take pictures but just neglectful when it comes to blogging.

This past fall Heidi encouraged me to post one of my photos to Macro Mondays.

I did and I have continued to participate in the challenges most Mondays since then. So, my goal this year is to try and meet all 52 challenges and to try and come up with two different images most weeks. Macro photography is my favorite so this is a fun challenge and a weekly commitment is easier than a daily one.

I'm not sure how the algorithm works for Explore on Flickr but since participating in Macro Mondays several of my shots have shown up there. What a surprise that first time when I woke up to so many messages that people had faved/commented on my photo, I wasn't sure what was going on. This is my favorite shot to the group so far, weathered and worn

I have my eye on a macro photo conference later in the year. There are a couple of macro photographers that I follow on Facebook that will be presenting there, one is Don Komarechka, an awesome photographer of snowflakes. The price is reasonable and I'm hoping I'll be able to make it to that.

This past year I took photos of two families for Christmas cards.

I think I would like to do more of that as a side business once I retire from teaching. Anything to bring in a little extra cash. Another idea I have floating around is possibly doing some notecards with my macro shots and trying sell them at craft shows or Etsy. I've got some research to do before deciding on that venture.  Continuing to improve my skills at shooting groups of people and lighting will need to be areas to work on throughout the new year as well.

For now...first flakes of 2016.

Garden Art

My husband and I spent our summer vacation covering about 60 miles a day traveling from Davenport IA to Zurich IL by way of Madison and Milwaukee WI. We had a blast. Our goal was to take our time and check out breweries and antique stores. 

Here are a few of my antique finds

Actually, I already had these handles.

I wanted to turn these into some art for my backyard perennial garden. So, I explained what I wanted to my husband. He suggested we find a pitchfork for the big wheel.

 So, we found this at an antique store in Syracuse. It's small and once we got home and picked up the wheel and remembered how heavy it was we were a little worried it wouldn't work.

 This is the end, it was taped together.

Sheldon inscribed on the side.

The small fork was able to handle the heavy weight of the wheel and the colors match my mostly green and brown garden perfectly.

 This one is much smaller and lighter. My husband decided to go with this handle instead of the doorknob. 

 Here's a couple of views showing how he put it together for me. 

I'm loving my garden even more between these two items and one of my new birdbaths. 

Jewelry Holders from Garden Products

I found both of these inexpensive items at a local antique mall. Both were covered with chipped paint and my original idea was to repaint them.  However, once my husband took the old paint off I liked the way they looked so I left them bare.

This is a little metal trellis for a potted plant. I took one look at it and saw a way to organize my earrings. Once I showed my husband where I wanted to hang it and what I wanted to do with it he made the base for it and hung it up for me. It's perfect!

This is a holder for a potted plant. It now holds my necklaces. It's so easy to see what I have and they never get tangled. 

New Bird Bath

I love wandering through antique stores and garage sales looking for items I might be able to repurpose. Just small things.

Here's our most recent project-a birdbath made from an old light fixture. I saw this idea in a gardening book at school and then I looked it up on Pinterest and found more examples. I showed the idea to my husband and he agreed it was a cool idea and he said he would help me.

It took awhile to find a light fixture I was willing to buy. $35-$55 dollars seemed a bit pricy. Even the $15 I paid for this was more than I was expecting to pay but after seeing the other prices my husband said go for it, so I did. 

Once we got it home I cleaned it up and then he did rest of the work. 

I've included some close up photos so you can see how it is put together.

 Now, I just need to wait for the birds to discover it and get some pictures of it being used.

We're pleased with the way it turned out.

Here are a couple more we tried.

This one did not work. As soon as we added water it tipped and spilled it all out. Oops!

This one works fine.