You Capture - Circles

Today's You Capture over at I Should Be Folding Laundry is Circles. I have missed the last several weeks because I always feel I have to take pictures in the natural light but sometimes it's just not possible as well as losing a bit of my creativity over the holiday break. No more excuses for me, I grabbed my camera and used what I had - indoor lighting and lots of walking room to room to find "circles". Yes, I am a very literal person and I enjoyed looking for circles in my house and figuring out how to best compose the picture to make it fun. Never the less it was fun to grab the camera and get to work. At first I thought "circles", that's not a fun subject but I truly had a ball. Can't wait to see what next week's challenge is.

Snapped a picture of my Keurig drip tray. It was a lovely Christmas gift from my hubs.

 A necklace with pearls and lots of other round or "circle" shapes. It's one of my favorites and what better subject to snap a few photos of.

 This is the lid to my hamper - Yup, I love the pattern and was really excited about how the photos turned out. Who knew that the laundry hamper could be so inspiring.

 Another angle showing a bit more of the texture.

 This here is the cooling unit I place my laptop on top of when using it in places other than my office. Our laptop easily gets overheated and this does the trick. I like the various circle sizes that this has.

Last but not least I love the circles of this trunk. My grandfather is a carpenter and he made stools for all of us out of a tree trunk and tree limbs. I like that while the rings are circular in nature, it almost looks like a heart too.

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A Stella Update - 2 weeks

It's been 2 weeks since Stella won the lottery joined our family and I thought I would share an update with how our little Stella-Bella is doing. She is fitting well into our little family and still adores Tanner to pieces, however he is still adjusting to not being the only star around here. He is a great big brother and thanks to him Stella is doing great with her house training. After her first walk around the block today, I decided to take advantage of the natural light and couldn't resist snapping some pictures of her in her new pink winter coat - it's just so darn cute! There are many more items of clothing in her future, I just can't help myself.

New Discoveries:

• Her bark and howl - not a good thing necessarily but if Tanner barks so does she
• She loves her new winter coat that Mama got her
• Hanging out in the backyard and chasing after Tanner

Making Progress:

• Is able to lay down and relax when we are watching TV or reading
• Walking on leash
• House training with minor accidents
• Maybe recognizing her name
• Takes treats out of our hand
• Going up and down the steps on the deck; going up the stairs in the house
• Sleeps ALL night long - in our bed of course

Needs some work:

• Allowing David & I to pick her up and cuddle with her, she is scared to death and it's a race around the house to be able to pick her up. This will take time but I hope we start to see some progress.
• Giving Tanner a little bit of space, her nice is in his behind all of the time
• Going down the stairs in our house (she only goes up)
• Not destroying her bedding in her crate while we are at work

 Stella right after her walk around the block

 Getting ready to go outside

 Tanner & Stella really do look like brother and sister don't you think?

 Later in the day getting ready for a little grooming session with Mama.

 I love her soulful eyes

10 Faves in 2010

2010 was a year full of ups and downs but I thought it would be fun to look back anyways. Instead of focusing on the not so fun stuff from 2010, I thought I would share with you my top 10 photos from the year. Many were taken while I was taking a photography class but I guess that's a good thing right?

Like many of you, I too have a long list of resolutions for 2011. I won't bore you with the not so fun one's (i.e. exercise more, eat healthy, lose weight, etc.) but instead share a couple of my more fun one's.

• Take another photography class.
• Participate in at least 1 photography challenge per month.
• Blog more regularly (at least 1-2 x/week)
• Take another vacation with my hubby
• Take Tanner and Stella to the dog park once a week.
• Work hard & play harder!!!!

There you have it....now I must be held accountability. Let's see what 2011 holds for all of us.

In the meantime, here's my 10 faves from 2010.



Just an old tire that I liked.

What's not to love about an American flag?

Gotta love nature.

Prickly little thing but still cool.

Gotta love some berries. 

Pretty flowers but the spider web looks cooler.

Froggy in our pond.

Emily "glowing".

Peaking into the wishing well.

A hairy situation.

Baby Tanner and a little bokeh.

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Stella - Our New Addition

About 10 days ago I shared that we may have a new addition to our family and I'm happy to say that Stella joined our family on December 26th. She is a 7 lb pound Maltese that we rescued from a puppy mill. The vet estimates that she is between 5 and 8 years old and lived her whole live in a puppy mill until recently. She has kept me very busy this past week which is why I haven't had a moment to take pictures or blog about her or anything else. The last few days have went really well and we (actually just me) were able to get her house trained in 1 day!!! She's a fast learner but we have a ways to go. Because she only had interaction with other dogs, she is afraid of people and we are slowly working on earning her trust. She looks a lot like Tanner and she absolutely idolizes him and follows him everywhere - which helped with the house training. I have been off of work the entire week which helped in helping her with the big adjustment, next week I head back to work on Tuesday so I'm hoping she will do fine while we are gone. She loves her crate as long as Tanner is in view so let's cross our fingers and hope for the best. Here's a few pictures of our little star Stella.

 Stella trying out her new hair bow.

 Stella and Me - can you tell she doesn't like to be held (yet)?

 Stella and Daddy.

 Tanner and I on my birthday.

 Tanner and Daddy.

Me and our failed attempt to hold Tanner and Stella at the same time.

Stella just wants to cuddle up with Tanner and he just wants to run away from her and be along.

I hope this phase passes but it's hard having a sister after 6 1/2 years of being an only spoiled dog.

From Our House To Yours

This year I decided that I wanted our holiday cards to be simpler than last year's or the year before and I accomplished that - kind of. I don't do too well with simple but at least they didn't get in the mail at the very last minute, in fact they went in the mail last week and would have been sent earlier if I had stamps. I know some of you get them sent out right after Thanksgiving but I need a little bit more time to get into the Christmas spirit and get my creative mojo going.

Once I figured out my design concept, I began working on a sample and then cut all of the pieces so that I could work on them in an assembly line. That approach makes assembling each card go so much faster than if you cut them one by one. You get a rhythm which makes it much more enjoyable and decreases the number of errors that can occur. Yes it's a lot of work but I want those that receive them to know that I poured my heart into them. Also I like being that holiday card in the stack that is a little different from all of the others that they receive.

From our house to yours - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Supplies Used:

• Stamps: From Our House to Yours
• Paper: real red, shimmer white, whisper white, soft suede, vellum
• Ink: soft suede, real red (heart)
• Other: red ribbon, oval punch, square punch (window), snowflake embossing folder, big shot, scallop edge punch, merry sizzlets

A new addition to the Family?

We are very excited and while it's not finalized, I still can't wait to share the news with everyone. Tanner may soon have a sister to keep him company when we are away! We have been looking to rescue a dog similar to Tanner for quite a while and we found Carmen while searching the web and it was love at first site. Carmen is a 7 year old Maltese and is a puppy mill dog who has not had any human contact until recently. Her foster mom had nothing but good things to say about her progress and we think her personality will be a perfect match for Tanner. We get to meet her tomorrow and see how the two of them do together. Because Carmen hasn't had human contact until her rescue, she's skittish and is working on trusting others. She has shown no aggressive behavior but rather gets scared if you move too quickly towards her or try to pet her. We know it's a big job and will require a lot of patience but we are up for the challenge. When we got Tanner 6 1/2 years ago, we got him from a pet store because we didn't know any better. Thanks to Oprah and the many stories she has done on puppy mills, we have vowed to only rescue. I'll keep you posted on how the visit goes tomorrow.

P.S. We are likely going to change her name to something different after finding out that Carmen meant "drama queen". We have 7 names on the list at this point but I'm hopeful we can widdle that down once we meet her in person.

Sweet Bokeh Baby

For the last week I've been following Darcy's 31 Days to Better Photos and I am starting to have a couple of "aha" moments. Being able to get these bokeh shots was one of those moments but I have to thank Amanda & Kevin for their bokeh tutorial - it's awesome. I shot this in very poor light and all manually! Yup, I adjusted the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture! I'm feeling proud but even prouder of the cutest dog ever - Tanner who was very cooperative during my 45 minute photo shoot. It's amazing what he'll do when I bribe him with treats. After I captured this shot I rejoiced by yelling "SWEET" - I really was proud.

Canon 50mm

f/1.8, 1/40s, 1600 ISO

 Isn't he the sweetest? He really is and I love how it captured that here.

 A couple more to show off the Tanner man.

 f/22, 1.3s, 1600

 Having a little fun with a slow shutter speed and moving the camera in different directions while capturing the picture. I thought it was fun playing a little bit.

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