quarterly top 5

It's time to share my favorite photos of Alec and Mason from the first quarter of the year. This time only the first one was taken with my dslr. The rest are iphone instagram pics. I am a lucky mom to have boys that humor me with my photography obsession. Thanks, guys, for putting up with my frequent, "just one more" request. :)

this or that thursday: pear blossoms

I've been thinking I missed my chance to photograph pear blossoms this year. Then I came across these that I took two weeks ago. I don't know how, but I had totally forgotten about them. They are such a delicate and pretty bloom... so glad I didn't miss my chance after all. I used my 100mm 2.8L macro lens set at f/5.6.

<a href="http://www.debduty.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g404/dkaym/thisorthat200.jpg" width="200" height="200" /></a>

It's time to link up again! There are just a few rules.

• submit the url of your blog post, not your home page
• link up a photo that was taken by you
• include a link back to my blog in your post (you can use the button or a text link if you prefer)
• visit a few other blogs and leave some comment love 

Okay, now let's see what you've been shooting!

the jeep

This little guy used to love driving his Uncle Brent's jeep.

And now, many years later, Alec finally has his own jeep. He is one happy fellow...

It's been a fun time. I found out that I actually enjoy riding around with the top down. I thought I was too old and mature to enjoy such things... but I guess not. :)

project life: week eight

I loved week 8 because the boys were off the whole week for Mardi Gras. That means there were lots of fun things to document. We didn't make any parades this year, but we went out to Montpelier to work on the fruit trees and we planted some satsuma trees in the backyard. We made a trip to the mall for new shoes, and Mason helped me paint my bird feeder. I also documented turning my handwriting into a font because of the inspiration I found from this pin.

this or that thursday: tulip

Today I'm sharing a few more tulip images. I found this lovely flower on my morning walk covered with little beads of moisture. It made for really fun close ups in the beautiful morning light with my macro lens.

<a href="http://www.debduty.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g404/dkaym/thisorthat200.jpg" width="200" height="200" /></a>

Now it's time for you to share what you've been shooting! There are just a few rules.

• submit the url of your blog post, not your home page
• link up a photo that was taken by you
• include a link back to my blog in your post (you can use the button or a text link if you prefer)
• visit a few other blogs and leave some comment love 

Okay, just link up below!

project life: week seven

I'm sharing week seven today, the week that included valentine's day!

I stamped 'week 7' on the title card because I'm finding I have to count back from the beginning to figure out what week I'm on too often. I think I'll start either stamping the week or using letter stickers so I'll know where I am more easily.

This is my third year doing project life. I love that I always know when my trees start budding in the spring. On the first day I notice leaves on my elm tree I take a photo and include it so I'll always know how long I have to wait for everything to start looking green again. The Mario Brothers shot is just an iphone pic of the tv screen while we were playing Saturday night.

I made sure I used the ten of hearts this week to go along with the heart cookies and the box of candy for Valentine's Day.

I used a stamp to create a label to contain a bit of journaling about Mason playing basketball.

I included a really old pic of me from 1982 since I spent some time scanning in some photos from the 80s. I found an iphone app called shoebox that makes it really easy. I may never use my scanner again!

Thanks to Mason's friend, I was able to include a pic of him and Mason while they were out. I saw it on instagram so I texted him and asked for the pic. It's great to be able to include parts of my boys' lives even when I'm not there!

Check out The Mom Creative for lots more project life sharing.

color me weekly: tulip

I passed by a tulip on my morning walk a few days ago. When I bent down to take a closer look, I saw that it was covered in beads of moisture from a recent watering. I hurried home to get my camera and fortunately made it back before they dried. I had more fun with my camera capturing this tulip than I've had in a long time so I have a few more tulip images to share later this week.

this or that thursday: josie

Last week my niece was in town for a few days and she let me take a few pictures of her while we were at the park. Portraits are not my strong point. I have trouble figuring out the lighting and posing and composition. But Josie makes it a lot easier. She is so beautiful inside and out. And I love those freckles!

<a href="http://www.debduty.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g404/dkaym/thisorthat200.jpg" width="200" height="200" /></a>

It's time to link up again! There are just a few rules.

• submit the url of your blog post, not your home page
• link up a photo that was taken by you
• include a link back to my blog in your post (you can use the button or a text link if you prefer)
• visit a few other blogs and leave some comment love 

Okay, now let's see what you've been shooting!

color me weekly: daisies

It's all about the beautiful colors in one of my favorite types of flowers. I love all kinds of daisies.

These gerbera daisies were actually a lot brighter, but I toned them done with the pioneer woman's seventies action applied at 75%.

I was really surprised at the colors that I found in this soft pink daisy.

And finally, I wanted to see what colors would come from these simple classic daisies. 

project life: week six

Week six was a lot of fun to put together thanks to Ali Edwards encouraging others to join her in documenting an entire day on February 8th. I diligently took iphone pics all day long. I captured lots of little details from that Wednesday. With so many photos from just one day, I used the front and back of a 6x12 pocket page to include a collage of my day in the life photos.


Here's my week six layout without the insert.

For my insert collages, I sized my instagram photos to 2"x2". That gave me room for three columns and five rows since I also included a two inch wide title on the front side made out of elements from the project life kit that's available at jessicasprague.com. On the back side, I used the same amount of photos but finished it off with a strip of patterned paper at the bottom. It worked out good to limit the collage to 10 inches tall so that I could still print it at home on 8.5x11 photo paper. I printed the title separately on cardstock.


If you haven't made a collage in photoshop or elements before, it's easier than you think! Just create a new document at the dimensions you want and 300 pixels per inch. Size your pics accordingly and drop them into place with the move tool. If you need help knowing how to size your pics, the video in this post explains how at the beginning.

That was 30 instagram pics in one day! I don't necessarily want to post 30 pics to instagram in one day. It seems that would be somewhat annoying to my followers.  I may have posted more than average on that day, but for a lot of them I deleted the image from my feed as soon as the filter was applied. That way a copy is saved in my camera roll, but I don't have to bother everyone with a constant stream of every detail of my life. :)


One of the 4x6 slots contains very brief journaling to go along with all of my day in the life pics. I used a digital journaling card (again, from jessicasprague.com) so that I could easily type it on my computer and print it out on cardstock.

It was nice that I had a little help with the photos on this side. Since I was sick and couldn't go to my little niece's third birthday party, Gary took some pics for me so I could still document what everyone else was doing without me on Saturday!

And here it is all together.

For more project life inspiration, visit The Mom Creative.