Textures and Layers

…and something a bit different for me.

I have been visiting Bonnie over at Pixel Dust Photo Art for a few weeks. She hosts a wonderful digital art challenge which I have been wanting to link to for ages.
Sometimes it takes a lot of courage and a little encouragement to get me to do something!
It is my day off today so after a dreadful week unable to visit anyone and working twice as hard at home, I spent the morning playing with photoshop, blending layers and textures and getting messy without getting messy!

I am linking two results of my playtime.
Scary Fairy

And a Purple Heart

Thank you for your encouragement Bx

There is some beautiful Digital Art over here this week.

Words to live by … last two days

In August of this year Big Pictures Class ran a project over 12 days. Each day a new word was given as a prompt for a page in a book or layout using the word as inspiration.
I really loved the project, I have the last two days to share with you.
Embrace was our word for day eleven

This was my least favourite page but as I talk about embracing imperfection I stopped playing with it!

and Play was our final word

I play everyday on my mac.
I play with photoshop
I play with textures
I play with my camera
I play when I blog

Play totally de-stresses me

I have had so much fun with
this challenge

The border is made up of three quotes about play
It is a happy talent to know how to play ~ Play is the beginning of knowledge ~ When we play, we remember

Shades of Autumn

Shades of Autumn Photo Challenge

I almost didn’t make this one! I have been poorly since Saturday with a dreadful tummy bug, in fact the entire family has it. I am blaming my nail technician, (sorry Sarah). Anyhow I am on the mend now, well enough in fact to be looking after the others and well enough to gather some white Shades of Autumn into a collage for Alicia’s project.
I have been looking through some old photo albums and wanted to make this collage in a similar way. I used to crop with scissors in those days and lay one photo over and under another, leaving some space somewhere on the page for the date. Sticking and gluing that’s always been me. Never happier or in more of a mess than when I’m playing with a pot of glue. Now I suppose my mouse is a bit like my glue.
I was really surprised to find so much white in Autumn but then that’s the joy of a challenge like this, it encourages me to be more aware and photograph my world.

This is the last of Alicia’s Shades of Autumn challenge, I have no doubt she will be back when she has settled.
Want to see everyone else’s Autumn Whites?

When I was trying to take the photo of the horse she wasn’t being particularly co-operative, it was late in the afternoon and getting dark and on top of that I am afraid of horses. I wasn’t sure I’d got anything from the first two shots with my little camera so, one more try before giving up in fear of her getting too close and clicked for the third time, she suddenly came really close to me and nieghed very loudly in my face.
I ran back to the car to see husband laughing and dog looking astonished. I got the two pictures for my collage, here is the third.

Has anything surprised you lately?

Scrapping the Everyday

Two birthday party layouts.
When I scrap with paper I frequently use fabric or a paper bag or a calendar picture or something that is not traditional scrapbooking paper as the background, so I wanted to try using one of my photos as a background to a digital layout.
The background on this is one of those paper lanterns that you put a tea light in.

And the background here is a photo of the fire pit.

They look kind of Autumn to me, just right for late October and lovely memories of a fabulous weekend when it was slightly warmer!