Fun weekend ....

...  Hi!  I hope you all had a super weekend.  Mine was lots of fun.  Jonathan was away in Chicago on business - we missed him, but he did get to go to a baseball game at Wrigley Field!!  Kathryn had her birthday party - she invited a couple of friends over for gossip, pizza and movies and a sleepover.  I've no idea why it's called a sleepover, I know that the girls were still chatting when I went to bed at midnight!!!

So I had a lot of free time on Saturday - I did think about cards, but I decided to catch up with my other hobby.  I go to photo shoots with Jonathan and Kathryn, but I'm really bad at editing.  At the start of the weekend I had over 30 different sets to edit.  By last night I'd got that down to 23 sets.    I worked on some shoots with models as well as some of the sets taken on our summer road trip.  Here are a few of the photos edited.

One from a series, taken in February, that features the beautiful Abby.  I have all the edits of the natural light photos on my Flickr account - you can check it out here.  At the same shoot we also did studio lights - two quite different sets, and they are here and here.

This is Rachel - she's a really fun model, as well as being very beautiful.  Here she is being "Christina" from Phantom of the Opera, it was a Broadway themed shoot.  She also did Fantine from Les Mis and finally she did a blue cat from Cats - you can check out more here.

Would you believe that this one of Amber is taken in Downtown Pontiac?   There's a small garden between a couple of buildings - perfect for taking photos!  There's the rest of the natural light outside photos, a few more inside with natural light and then the last set uses studio lights.

Jonathan and Kathryn at the foot of the St Louis Gateway Arch.  St Louis is 250 years old this year and to celebrate they have put birthday cakes all over the city!  Sadly, I didn't get to photograph as many as I would have liked, but this one was in just the right place!!!

Most of the time we were in St Louis it was really dull and grey, but the sun did come out occasionally and I managed to get this one looking up at the Gateway Arch through some pretty flowers!

 

Finally, this is a view of the Old Courthouse in St Louis, looking down from the top of the Gateway Arch.  We took a ride to the top - the lift is tiny and rather claustrophobic, but it was worth it.  The views are amazing. Click on the links for more photos of St Louis from our first day and second day.  I still have the last morning to edit - they will follow soon.

On Sunday I took the girls to the cinema to see Maze Runner - it was really good - highly recommended if you have teens to amuse!

Before I go, I must tell you that I've been nominated for the Rick St Dennis Pick of the Week - second week in a row.  This time they picked Kathryn's birthday card - which features Rick's Sugar Skulls.  Go check out the rest of the nominees and I'd love it, if you vote for me!!! 

That's all for now!  Thanks for stopping by.

Pick of the Week nominee ....

... Good morning all!   Yesterday I shared a Halloween card made with a fun, but slightly scary, Rick St Dennis image - Strange Doll.  I really I like this image, it's a bit creepy, but not so much that it'll have you running in the opposite direction.  I posted it to RSD Facebook page as well as a couple of challenges.  I was surprised and delighted to find this on the post from Rick

Then I got an email enclosing a link to this little badge - I'm thrilled to be Rick's first Pick of the Week nominee!

This is a fun idea - Rick and his team pick the nominees and then we get to vote on the winner.  Rick will be posting details of this week's nominees on Monday 15th September!

Rainbow scales ....

.... Hi!  Do you remember the book Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, about a fish with beautiful rainbow coloured scales?  And do you remember the film Splash, starring Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks? Well my card is based, in part, on both the book and the film.  Here's the card:

Stamps: Rick St Dennis Digi - Sirena; Lil Inkers - Shiny Happy; Stampin' Up! - Sea Street
Inks: SU - Rich Razzleberry, Lost Lagoon, Wisteria Wonder
Accessories: White Lustre Card; SU DP - Maritime; Copic Markers; Wink of Stella Brush - Clear, Silver, Blue

Over at Inkspirational - INK#61 they have a word prompt for us - SPLASH.  As soon as I saw the word I was reminded of the film Splash about a mermaid - it was such a fun film!  On Rick St Dennis's Facebook page there is a challenge to use one of his mermaid images, so I'm submitting this one.  I printed off this wonderful mermaid and set about colouring her with Copic markers.  I mentioned the book Rainbow Fish - well the colouring for her tail was inspired by that little fish and his beautiful scales.  I used a number of colours and then blended them all with a very pale aqua pen.  I added some silver scales and a touch of sparkle with my Wink of Stella brushes.  I coloured her hair to co-ordinate with her tail.  To make the card I covered the base with this lovely paper from Stampin' Up! - creating the sea.  I added some little fish and a bold sentiment.  On the inside I cut a mat layer from the design paper and on the white panel, I stamped some more fish and an octopus.  There is no sentiment, just space for a message.

I took a close up photo of her tail so that you can see the shimmer and sparkle, as it doesn't show up in the photo of the whole card.

I'm a very lucky girl!  I got a new computer delivered last week and I've been busy setting it up - you know, transferring photos, documents, etc and adding the programmes that I use.  It's almost done and later this week, I have to dismantle this PC and replace it with the new one.  It has a much bigger memory - good for all the photos - and a lot more RAM too which will make editing so much quicker.

That's all for today. See you soon.