color me weekly

Rosie at leavesnbloom has started hosting a fun link up starting on each Monday called Color Me Weekly. It's all about color! Just create a color palette from your photo. It's so much fun to pick the colors from an image and see how they all work together.


Rosie explains all about how to make your own color palette even if you don't have photoshop here. Or if you have photoshop you can download her circle grunge palette and follow her directions here.


There are many different ways to do it. I used the colorbar templates that are free at the coffeeshop blog. I chose some colorful photos to play with and here are the results. 


The japenese magnolias are just starting to bloom.

Last fall, I captured this little creature. I started to call him a butterfly, but I'm thinking he must be some type of moth. Does anyone know?

My cherries made a very yummy color palette, don't you think?

Just click on the link below to see lots more beautiful color palettes. I hope you'll join in too!

instagram scavenger hunt

The last time I participated in the scavenger hunt was way back in September so I'm happy to be back! My camera of choice more often than not lately has been my iphone. One reason is because I have so much fun with instagram. I love a lot of the filters, but today is all about my favorite, the earlybird.

1. smiling buttons

2. standing alone

3. something old

4. artificial flowers

5. repeating patterns

If you missed it, I posted a video tutorial here showing you how to use photoshop to size your instagrams for printing. Or you could just order them directly from your phone using the postal pix app. Very fun! 

this or that thursday: cherry blossom

Look what I found blooming...

Every single year I find a new type of plant or shrub or tree that I've never ever seen before. You would think after all these years I would have noticed everything, but there's always something new. This one is called a tiawan cherry tree.

Isn't it pretty?

By the way, even though I've been on facebook for years, I've never really embraced it. I've decided to give it a try. It'll be more fun if I'm friends with some of my blog buddies! Click right here to go to my profile if you want to be friends!


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Okay, now what did you find to capture this week? I can't wait to see! Here are the 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!

circa 1857

There is a unique collection of shops near downtown Baton Rouge located in an old drug store. Circa 1857 carries an eclectic mix of old and new. You will find antiques, original art and architectural salvage from around the world here.

In general, I am not a shopper. It's not something I do just to pass the time. Photography has a way of broadening our interests into many different areas, wouldn't you say? I had a nice time photographing these interesting finds and wondering about the stories they could tell.

linked up with texture tuesday

Even when I have my dslr with me, I still pull out my iphone for a few shots. You know how fun instagram can be.  :)

        

momento for project life plus a few layouts

First, I want to update you on how I've been keeping up with my photos and notes for project life.

In this post I showed you how I was using my iphone notes app to keep up with with everything. It worked great and it's free, but since then I discovered another app that I love called momento. You can read more about it here.

I had to think about it for a minute or two because it's $2.99. Funny how that seems like so much money when we're talking apps! It was worth it though. Momento is perfect for keeping track of my life without much effort on my part. It uses your twitter, facebook and instagram feeds to update each day on the calendar with your goings on. If you want to remember something that you didn't share through social media, you can add your own 'moment' manually and you can even include a photo. If I know I'm going to be using a pic from my big camera I usually just add a note to remind myself. 

Here are just a few screenshots of the app in action. The orange dots represent a moment that I added manually. On the calenday view, the blue dots were added automatically from twitter or instagram. When you click on days, you get a list with a short recap. Then you can click on each day to see the details.

My project life album for 2011 is complete and that feels so good! I still have quite a few layouts I haven't shared with you.


In November I used one of the new inserts (design G) for the first time. It's great for when you have a week with a few extra photos you want to share like I had for our weekend away at Thanksgiving. I included a 4x6 document that I printed on card stock. It included some text and a red border, plus I adhered a small group photo to it.

There was no shortage of happenings for the busy month of December. I loved it, but I'm also kind of glad things have slowed down and are back to normal.

I used the number stickers on a journaling card this week. I love doing this when I don't have much to say and it clears up space for extra photos in the journaling card slots.

And here's the busy week before Christmas. My favorite space this week shows Alec and Mason when they got home from their first ever trip to the grocery store for me. Very fun memory!

I don't always necessarily use a pic that was taken on the 'right' day. I wanted to document that I made my last trip to the mall on Tuesday and I was done with Christmas shopping. I didn't take any pics that day so I used a pic of the decorations at the mall from a few weeks prior.

For the journaling to go along with the two instagram pics on the bottom left, I cut off part of one of the double journaling cards included in the kit and adhered it and the two pics to cardstock.

I am so grateful to Becky Higgins for coming up with the project life system. I am not a very good scrapper so I'm thrilled that I've been able to document two years of our lives and start on a third in this fabulous way!

a tour of nottoway plantation

We enjoyed a fun family outing last week which included a tour of Nottoway Plantation. This is one of the larger and more ornate plantation homes in southern Louisiana. Nottoway was completed in 1859 and sits right on the Mississippi River. I highly recommend stopping by for a visit if you're ever in the area. 

You can see I'm not the only one who likes to use my iphone to take photos.

That grin on Alec's face is only because he's enjoying taunting me by not looking up from his phone for a quick pic. At least I got a smile...

I am so loving my wide angle. I keep my 50mm on my camera most often because I prefer primes and wider apertures, but every time I use my 24-105mm f/4 I wonder why I don't use it more often. This was taken at 24mm while waiting for the tour to start on the front porch.

A peek at the inside of this beautiful home...

And just for fun, I used the CoffeeShop Blog's teeny tiny action on this photo which was taken from the levee across the street. This action has the effect of making buildings look somewhat like toy models.

this or that thursday: frosty

Although we don't get below freezing too often in south Louisiana, we did a have a chilly 27* morning a few days ago. I was inspired to brave the cold by these gorgeous frost photos shared by Christina last week.

The first one was taken when these little green weeds were still in the shade.

Then the morning sun started shining right on us and the light got a bit prettier.

And the frost began to melt...

It's amazing what you will find all around you, if you just look very closely! These were all taken with my 100mm 2.8 macro lens at apertures of f/11 or f/13.

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Now it's your turn to share what you've been up to with your camera! 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!