Yikes, Stripes

But this isn't fruit stripe gum. I was out on the deck the other day, winding up the garden hose. When I looked up, this is what I saw.

I found several of these but this is the first one I spotted. This is a stupid ladder that's always outside leaning up against the house in a corner of the deck. The rungs on the ladder are all hollow and just about every one had a nest in it. After I got the picture, I ran inside to see if we had anything I could spray them with. The only thing I could find was an old can of flying insect spray that said it was for flies and mosquitoes. Good enough and it worked. I sprayed every rung of the ladder.

Thank you

My mom and I want to thank  you all for coming to my birthday party.

 This has been the best birthday ever. All of you coming to see me, presents, cup cakes, food. A dog couldn't ask for anything more. Well except for maybe extra treats.

Mom was going to show some more birthday stuff today but I think the party has her worn out. I had a wonderful day though, I got to go for a ride in the car, had an extra special dinner, got some cool new chewie stuff and some treats. 

Thanks again everyone, it was the best :)

Who's 3?

Mom said I had to put on this silly hat and wait here in the yard but I have no idea why.

There's a very good reason Duke.

SURPRISE!!!

It's a party just for you! All your friends want to celebrate your birthday with you. (officially it isn't until tomorrow) The Dukester deserves a big celebration though so that's why I stretched this out a bit so we could really do it up right. The guests have already started to arrive and they're bringing some fabulous gifts and food. If you would like to mingle with the other guests and haven't already had the chance, you can go to this 

post and visit with everyone else.

Now how about a little pup cake to celebrate and get things going.

 Looks like Sandee and I had the same idea. She made chicken flavored ones and these are peanut butter. Both with yogurt frosting. Help yourself to your favorite flavor.

By the looks on that face I think he likes it.

More tomorrow.

Splish Splash

I've got a surprise for you today. I finally worked on making a video. Can you guess what it is?
Since this is the first one I've done, I have to admit that it's far from perfect. Somehow I managed to wipe out the sound. I think you'll enjoy it though and find it quite entertaining.

Just a reminder that the Dukester is turning 3 on Friday and there's still time to RSVP for his party. My posts don't publish until 7:00 PM so consider this the beginning of his party. Guests can arrive any time between now and Friday. It's not every day that Duke has a birthday so we may as well make this a big celebration.  In case you missed you're invitation to the party you can check it out HERE

Ordinary every day things

For a switch, try looking at the ordinary every day things in a different way. You may just find that they are quite extraordinary.

Ripped

It's no wonder people tend to give me that "look". You know the one I'm talking about. The look that says "Have you lost your last marble?" "Are you just a few bricks shy of a load?"
I admit it, I do some strange things sometimes. They make absolutely no sense to the people around me but I find them entertaining.
For example the other day I ripped some paper. What? You've never ripped paper to amuse yourself? Whatever!
So anyway, I ripped some paper, like this,

You still aren't seeing the fun here are you? Well let me continue. I ripped the paper, I took the picture, then I played around with it in photoshop elements. Then I had this

Oh look! There appears to be a hole in my story. 

On to the big finish. 

Drum roll please.....

Now do you see the fun? 

I was going to upload this to 4shared but after all the excitement of the day I was just too tired to do it. However, if you're in to photo editing and would like it you can contact me and I'll email you either the PNG file or the PSD file or both if you want them.

OK, I'm off to go see what other things I can find to amuse myself with.

Find 5

As promised, I'm back today. However, I  must admit, today's post may not be any better than yesterday's. I spent yesterday doing pretty much nothing. Nothing that is except for playing with my camera and my computer.
Today I have a picture of a secret mushroom town with 5 hidden inhabitants. Can you find all 5?

Can't find them? How about now?

Maybe tomorrow I can do better :)

I have it in writing

I must really need the day off I didn't even cross all my t's and dot all my i's

The Brenda Photo Challenge (7-24) Ruby Red Macro

There's no place like home, there's no place like home.
Oh pardon me, I was just thinking about the Brenda Photo Challenge, the theme is Ruby Red and that reminded me of the wizard of oz and Dorothy's ruby slippers. I guess I was caught up in a little free association. My mind tends to do that frequently.
But on with the post, my pretties. I searched my yard, no red. I wandered around the house and couldn't find anything red that would make a good picture. Last resort, dig in to the craft stuff and find something red.
Well here we go, how about some red buttons.

I also found some red paint and some red glitter glue.

Here's a red paint drip.

So what do I do with the drip now? Ah what else would a free association type do besides turn it into a red ink blot with a bunch of red glitter glue smashed in for extra flair.

Yeah, I know, it's pretty weird looking but I ran with it.
After that to satisfy my urge to edit, I added some textures from Shadowhouse Creations to the paint drip picture.

Before you head out to check out the rest of the entries in the challenge I want to give  you some additional information about Duke's birthday bash.

• You can RSVP now for the party with just the link to your blog. You do not have to link to the exact post.
• You can also schedule a post for the day of the party if you want to attend but don't think you'll be around. Scheduling is easy. In blogger just click on post options and you'll see the option to schedule the day and time you want your post to appear.
• Submitting your link is also easy. At the bottom of the post you will see a little blue box that says add your link

See, it's circled in red in the picture with a big red arrow pointing to it. Once you hit that just fill in the blanks and follow the directions. Easy as pie.

Of course you don't HAVE to submit your link but if you do other party guests will be able to mingle with you and ooh and ahh over your fabulous gift or your stylish outfit.

OK that's it for me today. Now head on back and get your RSVP in for the party and then right after that go check out the rest of the entries in the Brenda Photo Challenge.

R.S.V.P.

Can you keep a secret?

Shhh!

While Duke is sleeping I want to tell you about a little surprise I have planned for him. July 30th is Duke's 3rd birthday so I'm throwing a little surprise party for him and you're all invited. If you would like to come to Duke's party here's what you have to do:

• Add your link below
• On July 29th show up on your blog with a post about Duke's birthday and link back to THIS post
• You can do whatever you want such as showing a picture of the fabulous gift you got him. Show a picture of yourself, dog or cat all dressed up for Duke's party or maybe you want to bake him a special treat. The sky is the limit just make it about Duke.
• On the 29th I'll post a reminder about the party with a link to this post so that you can mingle with all the other guests

(feel free to grab any picture I have of Duke on my blog if you want to use it for your post)
I do hope you can all make it, we'll have loads of fun.

I scream

you scream

We all scream

For Ice cream

Yummy! And it's not just people who love ice cream. Dogs like a frosty cone now and then too.

I know, it's not Duke but he wasn't with us. If he had been I certainly would have bought him one too. I know what some of you are thinking so I'll answer now. Yes, I did make it up to him. I bought him a box of frosty paws at the grocery store.

Duck, Duck, Goose

Last weekend we were in Warren Pennsylvania for Wade's family reunion. Since it was such a hot day and we had a little bit of a wait before we met up with his daughter we stopped at an ice cream place for a little treat. The Allegheny River runs right behind it and they had picnic tables set up under the trees. We took advantage of the tables, the shade and the scenery. The ducks were quite accommodating and allowed me to get their picture.

I turned this one into a black and white and then erased part of it to reveal the color of the ducks. I think I like it.

Sorry but I didn't see a Goose that day.

Practice makes for a lot of mediocre projects

They say that practice makes perfect. I'm not there yet. But it's ok because I have fun practicing. I made a couple of cards just for fun the other day.

Here's one with a close up of the quilled pieces blended together in one picture.

 Let me tell you, that hummingbird was a real treat. That sucker has some really, and I mean REALLY small pieces. He's far from perfect but I couldn't just throw him away so I plopped him on a card. The other bird is supposed to have one of those little google eyes on it but I didn't have any so he didn't get one. Although I noticed after I glued him down that there is a little speck of white on the picture underneath him so my story is that I purposely placed him there so that the speck could serve as his eye. Yep that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Upgrade

Wade's youngest son is on our cell phone plan and said that he needed a new phone. Apparently something is wrong with the one he has. Well turns out his phone isn't eligible for an upgrade yet but ours are. Perfect solution, WE get new phones and he inherits his dad's old one. Hey works for me.
So it's out with the old phone and in with the new.

 Now if I could just figure out how to work this darn thing.

Since I'm on the subject of upgrading I want to direct your attention to my side bar. I've been working on adding some of my favorite blogs over there. The list, of course, is not complete yet. I've broken it up into categories. Some of you easily fell into just one, while others I like for more than one reason. That brought about the category of darn good people. If you don't see your blog listed there, it's not that I don't like your blog. I've been going in alphabetical order from my google reader and haven't made it through the list yet. You could of course point out to me that you seem to be missing and it may get me motivated to work on that a little faster.

The other upgrade that I think is in order is my blog name and profile. Originally this blog was supposed to be about photography, photo editing and digital scrapbooking. It doesn't seem to fit that anymore other than the pictures I post. I need a new name but I just can't settle on anything. I've never been good at naming things. I also need to rewrite my profile since what's written there really does not apply anymore. Although how many people really read that anyway. Oh well, maybe I'll get around to doing that some day.

digital makeover

It's been some time since I've done any, "just messing around," kind of edits. I've done a lot of photos where I have added texture of adjusted various things, but nothing like I used to. I can remember doing some really crazy off the wall kind of edits and maybe some day I'll pull some of those awful things out and show you a few.
I thought it might be fun just to take a random picture out of the files and play around with it a little bit and see what I could do to it.
Here's the picture I started with.

That's an old stepping stone that I have sitting out in the back of my yard. It wasn't bad looking when I first got it but through years of dirt, mud, snow and whatever else it's looking a little sad. I thought I would put a little color back in to it.

I added a blank layer over the picture and just started painting in the color. Then I changed the blending mode to linear burn and it sort of popped out at me and said, "I feel better now"

backyard photo shoot

Duke and I took the camera and the tennis ball out in the backyard and had a little photo shoot. Of course he had no idea that's what we were doing. He thought we were just going out to play and have fun

Wait a minute, that is exactly what we did. We both played. He played with the ball, I played with the camera and we both had fun.

Did you know that no tennis ball is allowed to retain it's fuzzy exterior?

 Nope, just can't have that. He rips that off of every single tennis ball he ever gets. I'm always finding little pieces of yellow fuzzy stuff laying on the floor when a new ball comes in the house. After he's done doing that he dissects them so that he has two halves. Silly dog.

This was my favorite out of all the pictures that we got. Too bad the grass needs mowed and those stupid weeds are sticking up right in front of his face.

Duke's idea of chillin

I can't believe I'm going to show you these pictures but here they are. The pool may be green and slimy but Duke doesn't care. If it's hot he's jumping in.

Last Week Wade was on vacation and spent a few days on a friends house boat. When I came home after work Duke was dieing to get in the pool. Of course I couldn't say no to him.

He would swim around in a couple circles then make his way back over to the ladder.

It was so hot that day that after he got off and shook the water off he turned around and jumped right back in. He did that three or four times. Duke sure does love the water.

Breakfast at my house

The other morning I was looking out the window and noticed movement on the ground under the bird feeder. I didn't have my glasses on and couldn't tell from that far away what it was. I thought it was a morning dove by the size of it. I grabbed the camera and tried to get a few shots through the window. Then I put on my glasses and moved to another window to get a better look. I guess my vision is worse than I realized if I thought this was a dove.

My view of the bird feeder is over the pool and through the railing around it. I really need to move that thing or get rid of the pool.

I decided to go out the back door and see if I could sneak up on him to get a better picture. Just like every other living thing, he heard me coming and knew I was armed with my camera. I did manage to get a shot of him running off though.

Not the best quality on the picture but I'll take what I can get.

Play time

It's been a while since I've used with my kaleidoscope program. Every now and then it's fun to sit and play.

Playing is also known as "mindless distraction from all the other things I should be doing".

It's pretty easy to figure out what most of those were pictures of but starting at the top and going left to right they were pictures of:

the flag

a box of pins

a marigold

sparklers

hydrangea 

a hood ornament on the front of an old ford.

Life is good

Here's a little project that has a little bit of everything.

 It's thrifty since I used a dollar store frame and things I already had laying around the house

It's recycling since I used cardboard for the base and a tag that I found laying on the floor at work. There's always a ton of those laying around after we get a delivery in.

A little photography and photo editing included. I took the picture of the quilled flowers and then did an edit on them. Printed it out and mounted it to a piece of cardstock.

A little bit of scrapbooking technique incorporated into the mix for the layout.

A little die cut courtesy of my cricut machine.

And finish it off with some quilled embellishments.

Of course I couldn't resist throwing in the quote.

How about that, I can finish a project every now and then.

Embossed

I've always been fascinated by some of the things people have done with embossing and have wanted to try it. I finally broke down a couple weeks ago and bought a few things to give it a try.
Armed with paper, rubber stamps, ink, embossing powder and a heat tool I set out to experiment.
The first try.

 OOPS looks like I failed to read the tips about wiping the paper off with an anti static cloth to prevent those stray granules of powder. That's me though. Try first, read directions later. You can't tell from the picture but the embossing gives it a shiny, slightly raised look.

Second attempt. This time I tried it on a piece of cardboard with white ink and clear embossing powder.

 I like this picture better since it doesn't show where I screwed up here. 

There were a few other attempts as well, and I had fun playing. I'm sure that if I wanted to I could spend a fortune on supplies to do this. I may have to control myself and stick with what I have on hand. It does look pretty cool though and adds a nice effect. I'm sure I'll be playing some more.

Why can't I focus?

I'm not referring to my camera either. The focus problem is with my brain. I see so many craft projects that I want to try, and then I see something that just puts another idea in my head and before you know it...

I have this

This...

And this

All sitting around unfinished. That's not even all of it. I can't tell you how many other things I've started and never completed. Before I can finish anything another new idea or inspiration pops in and I can't wait to get started on it. 

I'm hopeless.

Flower time

Just a couple different flowers out in my yard today. It's Friday and I'm feeling lazy :)

Lunch in the park

I am normally the type of person who loves the heat. It doesn't matter how hot it gets, bring it on and I'm a happy camper. This year though, it's been really getting to me. Especially the last few days. It's been in the 90's which I know would probably be a welcome number for some of you. The humidity has been really high too. It's even been too hot to sit out in the parking lot at lunch time.
Since the borough park is just down the street from where I work I decided to drive down and find a nice shady spot at lunch time.

 It was too hot to even eat so I just took my iced tea and found a shady pavilion to sit in for a little while. It was pretty quite. Only a few other people were enjoying the park. This guy was out for his morning walk.

 Then there was this young mother enjoying the shade of the trees on the other side.

They are saying that the temps are supposed to drop tomorrow and only be around 75.

What is it?

Can you guess what this is?

This shouldn't be too hard. 

Just in case I'll give you a couple of clues

• It may or may not have come first? That is a mystery which is still to be determined.
• There was just a little fowl play involved here
• The Colonel didn't get this one

So do you know yet? Are you ready for the answer? Well here it is.

It was my chicken cooking on the grill.