And Time Escapes...

Some little updates on the new year of 2012...

Item #1 - New years resolution #2 ("post on blog at least once a week") clearly went down the drain after day one...considering I haven't posted in over two weeks. But I have felt productive in school...so that's a good thing.

Item #2 - AND I've succeeded thus far in my photo a day challenge...check out my Flickr set. *points to sidebar* I don't have all the photos uploaded yet but I have taken a photo everyday. Just bare with me.

Item #3 - The other day I realized that I didn't take pictures of any of the jewelry I made as gifts for Christmas. Don't ask me how that happened...but it did and now the necklace I wanted to show you all is on the west coast.

Item #4 - I GOT LIGHTROOM 3 FOR CHRISTMAS! Which I've been meaning to post about...I feel like a horrible blogger. Oh wait, I am. :P Lightroom post with before and afters coming soooon.

Item #5 - I love life. 2012 has been great so far...haha, only about two and a half weeks in but it's good. ;)

Item #6 - AND A PHOTO! My brother's birthday cake. Pumpkin bundt. Work of my fine hands. :P Delicious if I say so myself. ;)

Item #7 - I just felt like adding a 7th item because 7 is my favorite number. ;) Now you know something new about me! Or maybe not...thanks for reading! That is if you read this far...which I'll assume for the sake of my happiness. :P

-Leah

P.S. I've been thinking about moving and changing the name of my blog...thoughts? I'll explain more when I decide if I'm doing it or not.

366 Days, 366 Photos

This year I'm challenging myself to get out and take at least one photo each day. I decided it would be a fun way to practice and get better with my camera. And with it being a leap year there will be one extra day for photographing. ;)

I'll be uploading my photos to my Flickr account in the set "366 Days, 366 Photos" if you'd like to follow along. :) I'll also be posting this link in my sidebar.

And if you'd like to take up this challenge with me please comment with a link to where you'll be posting so I can follow you!

I thought I'd share my photo from day 1 with you.

Wish me luck! 

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!

Only 5 days 'til Christmas! :D

I bought my first lens (other than the kit lens) last week! My beautiful 28-75mm F2.8 lens to capture all the Christmasy goodness!

 Bokeh love... :D

 Look out after Christmas for some jewelry I'll be posting (and plenty photos of course. ;).

Merry Christmas!

Fall Photography Challenge - Day 7

A single red maple leaf for the final day of the photography challenge.

See day 6 here.

Fall Photography Challenge - Day 6

See day 5 here.

Fall Photography Challenge - Day 5

See day 4 here.

Fall Photography Challenge - Day 4

Fallen maple leaves.

See day 3 here.

Fall Photography Challenge - Day 3

A pretty autumn sunset. :)

See day 2 here.

Fall Photography Challenge - Day 2

See day 1 here.

Fall Photography Challenge - Day 1

Scottish Gal is hosting a fall themed photography challenge at her blog, Discovering Nature Behind My Lens. Here's my entry for day 1.

I miss these maple leaves...

Sixteen!

 

Look, it's meee! Being behind the camera I don't believe you've ever seen me...my dad took command of my camera for these.

Chocolate cake....oh how I love this stuff...

My little bro, he approves. :D

More cake! This is the fail birthday cake. It came out crumbly so it was hard to frost...hehe, it kind of fell apart. BUT IT STILL TASTED AMAZING! Ahem. :D

Happy November!

With October over and all the autumn loveliness washed away by the snow I can't help but post another photo from my trip East...the trees were gorgeous there. This photo was a beautiful sight to these eyes of mine that have been looking upon brown trees...

And you may notice the logo change...

And this is my beautiful MacBook. I've had it for about a month. He's so sleek.

Now...I'm off to work on an insane project that I don't have to do, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo. I made even more insane by not deciding to do it until the last minute....meaning 5 days into it. :P

Looking forward to an awesome week, my 16th birthday is on Wednesday!!!

Happy November! {be it 6 days late}

via Pinterest

Airplanes & Autumn

Needless to say, I haven't posted for a few weeks. ;) Actually, last Wednesday I went on a little trip for the Baptism of my cousin and first goddaughter, that explains my absence this past week. It was a ton of fun hanging out with my family. And I love travelling on my own...I don't know what there is about it but I think it's thrilling.

And I love baby hands.

When I left my house everything was still mostly green, when I flew east everything was red and orange and magical.

I came home today and everything has changed. I walked out of the doors at the airport into crisp, cool air. Driving home I saw all of the trees that are now yellow (some orange and red but mostly yellow). I got home and changed into pajamas. I'm making a cup of hot tea. It's autumn here too.

Pictures from around my house to come...in the future...

Red Leaves and Sunshine

As promised, here are a couple of pictures of our maple tree! It's dappled with red leaves now! And it's cool today, it actually feels like an autumn day. I love it. :)

See them? Only a few...but I'm still happy.

While I was taking these pictures I noticed that it would be a really good time for My little brother, Joe, (somewhat reluctantly) let me take some picture of him to play around with sun flare. This is my favorite.

That's it for now! I'm off to do Algebra...fun stuff... :P

Practice Makes Perfect

I'm currently working on my photo editing skills. Which also involves figuring out my photo editing style, so to say.  I got my reluctant model of a little brother (teehee) to let me take some pictures of him earlier so I could work on my editing. Luckily he agreed. ;) This photo is my favorite so far.

Here's the original...

And the edited version...

Taken with Canon Rebel T1i and edited with Photoshop CS4

And the black and white version.

Edited with Photoshop CS4 and Picnik

What do you think?

You can expect to be bombarded with photography posts from me over the next few days. ;) I also have some jewelry and a few other projects I've been working on that need to be posted. And I'm serious about posting this time (like you've never heard that one before :P). But really, stay tuned!

Vintagey Earrings

"Hey, is this a post about jewelry?! Wow, took you long enough."

Hehe, I don't really believe that any of you are reacting like that as you read this post. But if you are, I have nothing wrong with it. Well then, shall I get to the point? Yes? Ok, then. Note: I know vintagey is not a word, but 'Vintage Earrings' didn't have the same ring as 'Vintagey Earrings'.

I made these earrings...a while ago, haha. But I just got around to taking the pictures today. Oh wonderful DSLR was very successful at his first jewelry photo shoot. It took me about five minutes to get good shots of three items...that would have taken me 20 minutes with my point and shoot IF it was behaving. ANYHOO. I got some awesome things on clearance a few months ago that were vintage inspired. For these earrings I used brushed-brass looking ear wire and findings, a purple glass bead, and a little dangling gem charm. I love the way they turned out.

It's been REALLY warm here recently...mostly above 80 degrees, sometimes as high as 90 though. I'm not sure if I'm enjoying it or not....I love warm, but not hot. I HATE hot. But I do love sunshine....and afternoon thunderstorms! Oh, the afternoon thunderstorms are wonderful! They're one thing I do love about summer. :D 

By the way, Have I ever mentioned I love vintage stuff? Well I do, so now you know. :D

What Caught My Eye

A 'Do Not Enter' sign...

My friend's awesome belt...

The bright yellow 'No Parking' painted on the asphalt (the word parking was covered in cracks filled with tar, so I just took a picture of the no. ;)...

This long red fence surrounded by sweeping grasses on a clear day...

Cookies, just out of the oven...

This lovely orange flower...

Tuesday night's sunset that made for awesome bokeh...

Just a few pics...

While you're waiting for me to put together some crafty posts, I thought I'd share a few of my recent photos. :)

Promise: For Real This Time

prom·ise/ˈpräməs/
noun: A declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that guarantees that a particular thing will happen. 

Ok, I know how terrible I've been to this blog. And I know how many times I've said that before. I just wanted to write (AGAIN) and this time say that I'm working on devoting more time to actually posting. Right now I'm working on updating the blog and adding some more pages, then I'll figure things out and plan on posting more often. Part of the reason I was putting off posting was because I didn't think the posts I put together were substantial enough to be posted...so my solution was to not post. Which makes no sense at all...haha. So, I'm going to put that aside and just post. I'm not even going to pay attention to how skimpy the posts are. I'm just going to post them. Sometimes there will be some explanation of a project with a few pics. Sometimes I might just post some of my photography. Sometimes I'll post tutorials (I'm working on these right now, but I'm taking a little more time on them, stay tuned. ;). Sometimes I'll even post random updates. Point is, I WILL post. I'm even going to have somebody to make sure I stick to this promise. And now, I'll bow out and work on some pages. :)

Camera Strap Cover

Since even before I got my slr camera, I've been drooling over all the camera strap covers I've seen on Etsy. A couple days ago I told my mom about all the cute covers there were. Her response was, "I bet those are super easy to sew." At that point I figured it would be worthless to keep wishing for one and that I should just make my own. And that's what I did yesterday afternoon. The first one a made turned out too small for my camera's strap, but it fit almost perfectly on the strap of my mom's point-and-shoot. Then I made a second one...but I forgot to sew on the pocket before I sewed the two pieces together...so the pocket looked kind of out of place. So I went back to the fabric scraps and pulled out some cute retro-flower patterned fabric and made another strap. Lo and behold, it turned out perfectly!

Since I still haven't given all you lovely followers a tutorial, I was thinking I'd do one for these camera strap covers and, for those of you who have smaller cameras without neck straps, a cute carrying case. What do you think? (You'd probably get the strap cover tutorial first though, since I haven't decided on the best way to make a case yet. ;)