Capture Your 365

June 5, 2013

Kind of a slow week for me on the photo prompts, but I will be sharing a couple of extra photos with you this week!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/6 sec

Day 146 – In The Kitchen: Our pastor’s son recently got married down in Southern California and they had a reception with our church family after their honeymoon. For the reception, the groom requested homemade chocolate chip cookies. So I baked a couple of batches of my favorite recipe from America’s Test Kitchen (it is worth getting the trial membership for this recipe!)

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/80 sec

Day 149 – Smiles: Trying to get these two to cooperate for this picture was hilarious! They kept giggling and squirming. Not the sharpest image (shutter speed was too slow for the focal length), but I love how it captures the sweet relationship my children have for each other.

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec

Day 150 – Butterflies: There is no butterfly in this picture, but these flowers do attract hummingbirds quite often. Maybe I will be able to capture a butterfly or hummingbird picture one of these days.

So at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I would have a couple of extra photos for you this week. Here is the first one:

ISO 400, 50mm, f/5.0, 1/50 sec

Remember the wedding reception I was baking the chocolate chip cookies for? This is the bride and groom. While I have never photographed a wedding (and I am not sure if I will want to!), I did have fun taking pictures at this reception.

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 sec

Remember this photo that I posted a few weeks ago from our photography field trip to San Francisco? I entered it into the Arts & Crafts contest at our local town festival last weekend. I ended up winning a first place ribbon and Best of Show! So exciting!

Ready to join in the fun? Be sure to visit Capture Your 365 to print out this month’s photo prompt list. Be sure to let me know if you are participating so I can visit your blog.

Making Cut-Offs Cute!

May 24, 2013

I don’t know about you, but my daughter likes to wear her ‘shorts’ pretty long. Have you tried finding long shorts while shopping? It is next to impossible!! So we have come up with a solution, and it is a frugal one too.

Here is what you are going to need:

a pair of cut-off jeans (cut these to the length you would like)
extra wide double fold bias tape
thread
pins

sewing machine

The first thing you are going to do is measure around the bottom of the pant leg and cut a piece of the bias tape about an inch or so longer. Using your pins, you are going to basically ‘wrap’ the bias tape around the bottom of the cut-off leg. I use the pins to help the bias tape stay in place as I am sewing around the pant leg.

Then at the sewing machine, sew through all layers of the bias tape and the pant leg.

Once you have sewn around the pant leg, I fold under the end of the bias tape to finish off the edge.

Long ‘shorts’ makes for one really happy teenage girl in my home!

You can really get creative with this project if you want to, but my daughter wanted just plain blue bias tape to finish off these ‘shorts’. Try different colors of bias tape, or get really creative and make your own bias tape out of fabric you have at home.

What project have you done at home lately? I would love for you to share in the comments!

Capture Your 365

May 15, 2013

I have a whole week of photo prompts for you today!

ISO 100, 20mm, f/7.1, 1/640 sec

Day 124 – A Wide Angle: My whole family was able to volunteer for a shift at the Compassion Mobile Experience when they were in our area recently. I knew this was the shot I wanted to take to go along with this prompt. Have you had a chance to visit the experience yet?

ISO 100, 44mm, f/5.3, 1/6 sec

Day 125 – Relaxation: that is exactly what I did after making 2 batches of strawberry jam!

ISO 100, 36mm, f/5.0, 1/30 sec

Day 126 – Crayons: Crayons in our home are not used very much any more, but it is amazing to me how many we have! Every now and then we bring them out when we are watching little people, or when we are doing a fun project for our Compassion kids.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/15 sec

Day 127 – Candy: Can you see my favorite candy there on the top right shelf?

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/10 sec

Day 128 – Snacks: Interestingly enough, I don’t really eat a lot of snacks when I am home during the day, so I decided to take a photo of the homemade macaroni and cheese we had for lunch on this day. Yum!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/40 sec

Day 129 – Animals: This is Kelsey’s bunny, Vinnie. She used to show rabbits while in 4-H years ago, but now she just has two pet rabbits. I can’t believe I didn’t get the very tops of his ears in the picture!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/15 sec

Day 130 – Framed: I believe it was back on day 68 that I did a photo similar to this one, with just me. This time I decided to have Kelsey join me.

So this wraps up a full week of Capture Your 365 photo prompts for me! Have you started joining in on the fun? Please let me know in the comments so I can visit your post of photos.

Capture Your 365

May 8, 2013

Boy has it been a busy week around here, which didn’t leave a lot of time for me to focus on the photo prompts from the Capture Your 365 challenge. Only three photos from the prompts this week, but I do have one bonus photo to share.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/5.0, 1/640 sec

Day 117 – Fresh: Finally had some time to clean up my garden area and get some plants in the ground. Spent about three hours putting in 4 tomato plants, 20 basil starts, 2 zucchini, a whole bunch of marigolds and 3 new rose bushes. Instead of wire tomato cages, I am trying this new thing I found on Pinterest to help support the tomato plants. We will see how well it works.

ISO 100, 18mm, f/8.0, 1.6 sec

Day 118 – On The Floor: Just bought a new piece of furniture from IKEA, so time to rearrange things in the school/craft room…again. With Matthew out of school and Kelsey doing a lot of school work in her room, the school/craft room isn’t really being used as a school room anymore. So we cleared out 2 desks and I am currently on the lookout for a big craft table to use in this room. Meanwhile, there are many piles all over the place that need to find new homes.

ISO 100, 22mm, f/8.0, 1/200 sec

Day 119 – The Price: This is why you fill up your gas tank before you get into the mountains around here. This gas station is right outside of Yosemite National Park, which brings me to this bonus picture for you this week!

ISO 100, 18mm, f/8.0, 1/200 sec

Bonus photo: Last week, I was able to go to Yosemite with three of my friends. It was just what I needed, a little break to enjoy the beauty of this place that God created. The falls were amazingly full, it wasn’t too crowded, the weather was gorgeous…where do you go when you need a break?

Capture Your 365

April 3, 2013

I am on photo overload right now! So many photos to edit! But I did manage to complete four of the photo prompts for this last week.

ISO 100, 18mm, f/5.6, 1/4000 sec

Day 86 – Hunt: I just love clouds in a blue sky! Do you ever look for shapes in the clouds? When the sky is filled with clouds like these, I love to take a moment to ‘hunt’ for things in the clouds. Makes you wish for those days when you could lay out on a blanket in the afternoon and watch the clouds roll by.

ISO 800, 55mm, f/13, 0.6 sec

Day 87 – Flowing: Now why would I take a picture of my washing machine filling up? Because I was trying to get some blurred water shots. Also, since we have hard water where we live, I have found that cleaning my washing machine every few months helps it clean my clothes better. I know, boring picture, but it completely fit the photo prompt!

ISO 100, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec

Day 88 – Minimal: Ahhh, bare feet! I just love when the weather starts to get warm enough here that I can walk around in bare feet and not have to put socks on!

ISO 100, 48mm, f/5.6, 1/10 sec

Day 89 – Dyed: plain, white, boring hard boiled eggs. That is what we had for Easter this year. My kids really didn’t want to dye eggs this year. But I still did a batch of hard boiled eggs because my husband loves them!

So that is my week of Capture Your 365. Did you take any fun pictures this past week?