My Week of Photos

What did I capture this week with my DSLR camera?

ISO 400, f/2.0, 1/80 sec with 50mm lens

I love an excuse to bake! One day last week was National Chocolate Cake Day, so I baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes and sold most of them for my Bake for Brazil fundraiser. Pretty excited that I was able to raise $50 last week for Compassion kids in Brazil!

ISO 400, f/2.0, 1/500 sec with 50mm lens

Took advantage of a break in the rain, set up one of my favorite childhood books in the backyard to capture this one. What children's book is your favorite?

ISO 100, f/10, 1/640 sec

After we got home from church on Sunday, my daughter and I drove around a bit, looking for the perfect spot to take photos of the clouds moving in. 

ISO 100, f/5.3, 1/400 sec

This is not a very exciting photo. And I really should have brought all these quart size canning jars in for the winter. But this just shows that we have been receiving a lot of much needed rain out here in California!

ISO 400, f/2.5, 1/80 sec with 50 mm lens

Hard to believe we are in the second month of this new year already! Time to put away the winter decorations and bring out the Valentine decorations. Pages from an old, used copy of Persuasion were used to make this craft which hangs in our windows in February.

ISO 800, f/2.5, 1/80 sec with 50mm lens

A few more handmade Valentine decorations are out. Add a bit of paint to some glue and paint the outside of a couple of canning jars. Attach a paper heart doily and tie it with a bit of ribbon or twine, and you have a cute new candle holder for your tealight candles on these dark winter nights.

What did you capture this week?

Capture Your 365

Out of the seven prompts for this week, I only took photos for four of them. Had trouble getting inspired with a couple of the prompts for this past week. But I hope you enjoy the photos I did take this week!

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/80 sec

Day 45 – Love: It just made sense that the prompt fell on Valentine’s Day! We have made it a tradition to stay home on this day for and have a nice dinner with the kids. We bring out the china and crystal, and usually have a fancy dessert. Less pressure on us this way…

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ISO 100, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec

Day 48 – Color From The Garden: First of my bulbs to bloom! It is always a surprise in the spring to see what bulbs are going to bloom.

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/5.6, 1/8 sec

Day 49 – A Favorite Snack: So I thought today would be the perfect day to bake my favorite chocolate chip cookies (it is worth the 14 day free trial to get this recipe!) and photograph them. However, I didn’t put the full amount of flour in these so they turned out rather flat (I can’t believe I did that!) To remedy this, I took another photo after dinner…

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.0, 1/30 sec

…ice cream, another one of my favorite snacks!

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/4000 sec

Day 50 – A Tree: a winter, leaf-less tree awaiting the coming storm

What did you photograph this last week?

Valentine Book Garland

Today was the day to take down the winter decorations!

Our poor church family (including my family) has been hit with all kinds of illnesses over the past month or so. Since there are so many sick right now, our weekly afternoon ladies Bible study was cancelled for today, so I knew I would have some extra time to work on a craft after Kelsey was working independently on her school work.

So I checked my Pinterest craft board to find a Valentine craft and was disappointed when the link was not working. The project didn’t look too difficult, so I pulled out some supplies and got to work.

Supplies: a used book, heart template, pencil, scissors, and thread

Start by tracing the heart template onto some of the book pages. The number of hearts you will need depends on how many you want on your garland.

Take your heart book pages to your sewing machine. You will be sewing down the middle of two hearts at a time. Leave a good length of thread at the top of the first set of hearts. When you are finished sewing through the first set of hearts, do not cut the thread! Pull the thread out some, then begin sewing down the next set of hearts. I decided that 4 sets of hearts would work for my windows. Once you sew the last set of hearts, pull the thread a few inches from the machine, then cut the threads.

Take the garland to a table, now fold the heart pages away from each other to create a 3D effect. I did tie a knot in the thread at the top and the bottom to keep the thread from unraveling later.

I tied a loop in the top of the thread and hung each length of hearts from a hook on a tension rod inside the window frame (which is covered by a valance).

Do you decorate your home for Valentine’s month?