Scatterday E - 12 Jan 2008

This week I found one of the categories quite hard - Terrifying Things - there isn't much I'm terrified of and what there is I couldn't photograph anyway! I wasn't sure if it's supposed to be things that I'm terrified of or what anyone would consider to be terrifying. I did think of Enema but I didn't think you'd appreciate getting a photo of that! As it turns out I went to a funeral and there are people who are terrified of dying (not me, I'm going to enjoy coming back to haunt you all) - as there is no Epitaph as yet I've gone with Eulogy given by the celebrant (she is there).
Then one morning I was lucky to get breakfast in bed, soft boiled googy, but it was really was googy - not quite cooked - so as I was sitting there comtemplating it I thought, yes, the white of the Egg for the White category - I had thought of egg previously but they were all brown!
Then I couldn't think of anything in The Plant World that started with E (that I had easy access to) so I looked in my gardening book thinking I'd find a latin name of something I had in my garden, that was when Eggplant hit me, I had one in the fridge. In the end this week was relatively Easy.

OMG - 1957 Bathing Beauties

Well well, I found the photos of me taken at Cornwallis Beach 51 years ago! Was I ever really that skinny! They were probably taken with a Box Brownie just like this one, I did own one once but I can't remember when it was - well you wouldn't either if you were as old as me!
And no you won't see a photo of me in my togs today - I'm the photographer and the camera can't get wet - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Fun in the Sun

I woke up! Today was the perfect summer day & as we were granddaughter sitting we thought a day at the beach would be fun - and it certainly was. So we packed a picnic & drove up the road through the Waitakere Ranges to Cornwallis beach, it's a lovely long beach with lots of grass and trees but you can only swim when the tide is in otherwise you have to walk miles when it's out! I used to go there when I was young to stay in one of the baches (holiday home) right on the beach but many years ago they were all pulled down and it is now a council reserve. Mmmm I wonder if I can find any photos of those days - in the meantime here's a few I took today.

Blog365 - Day 7

We've been to the beach with our granddaughters today so now it's time for a lie down - will post photos when I wake up, if I do!

Blog365 - Day 6

Yesterday I went to my cousin's husband's funeral at one of the loveliest cemeteries I've been to, the gardens were just stunning. I took a few photos for my cousin and am going to send her this little memorial of the funeral. I've had to blur the family photos to preserve their privacy. Another cousin was the celebrant which was lovely. He was in the Army in WWII so they played the Last Post, that was when I broke down, it gets me every time, I was doing very well up until then. RIP .....

Blog365 - Day 5

Just a quick entry today, we're off to a funeral so I probably won't feel much like posting later. This is my latest LO from xmas day, we had such a fun day at DS's place and even though it was a hot summer day Becky still wanted to cuddle up with her new gifts.

Heritage Photos

Another layout I did today of my two sons, they probably won't be pleased to know they are now considered to be heritage! The journalling reads:-
Letter to Scott & Glenn
I have very few photos of you as you were growing up. We didn’t have a camera and with little money to throw around it wasn’t a priority. I had no idea that I would be so frustrated in the future at not having any otherwise I would have made it my TOP priority. That is the reason I’m bugging you constantly for photos of your own children, I don’t want them to miss out like you have. In this one you are sitting on your favourite rocking horse holding Mintie the cat, c1973.

Blog365 - Day 4

I've finally started sorting through my holiday photos and realised I haven't posted any from xmas eve so here's just a few, won't bore you with too many seeing it's long gone. Xmas eve was a lovely warm night so we walked to a housing estate 5 mins away where every year all the houses put on a lovely xmas lights display. This is the first time I've taken photos of lights at night so I didn't have a clue as to what camera settings I should have - I just took one and turned the dial, took another one and turned the dial and so on all night, some were horrible some good and a couple not too bad at all! Oh yes, the Santa in the window is my bedroom window, would you believe the colour of the curtains is actually lilac.

Blog365 - Day 3

Another hot day so we didn't go anywhere exciting. Some of the Scatterdaisies wanted me to do a tutorial on how I did my 'mosaic' of the weekly photos - well, I'm not too hot on tutorials so here's a brief idea of how it's done and then I'll look for a link to a tutorial on Digital Scrapbooking because that's what it's called.

It's all done in PhotoShop or a similar graphics programme. Basically it's done with layers of jpg or psd (PhotoShop) files - loaded in one by one and placed wherever you like until it's how you want it to look, then you merge all the layers together and save it as another jpg file and then you print it out and/or upload it to the Internet somewhere. Of course it's not that easy and does take a lot of learning, for me anyway, maybe you're a quick learner LOL - but it's a lot of fun and you get to make some lovely albums to pass onto your grandchildren/whoever you want.

My gallery is at http://dawn-in-nz.digitalscrapbookplace.com/ - do have a look around at the DigitalScrapBookPlace where you'll find hundreds of other digital scrapbookers and their digital layouts.

These are a few links to more information:-

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/Scrapping101/benefits.shtml

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/Scrapping101/basics.shtml

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/tutorials.shtml

Don't feel as overwhelmed by all the tutorials on this last page as I was - after the initial shock I just chose 'Creating Your First Layout' and the graphics programme I use (PhotoShop Elements 4) and slowly followed the instructions with a few swear words thrown in and I was away, the addiction was upon me!

Here's the layout I did today, click on it to see a larger version. Now you can see why I'm not so good on tutorials, absolutely hopeless explanation!

Blog365 - Day 2

Well, I nearly didn't make it past the first day! I remembered just in time as I was going to bed - so just a short one today. The heat is starting to get to me but it's the humidity that is the worst, 83% at the moment, I have the fan going flat out but it seems like it's just moving hot air around!

DH is off for another week so we've decided to try and tame our garden, a very miniscule one thank goodness! When we moved nearly 9 years ago we were disappointed to find the builders had already covered the ground with black polythene and bark without first replacing the soil that had been removed, hence it's just compacted clay underneath! All the local cats think it's their own personal toilet so we've decided to remove everything and cover it again with something they won't like, probably a small stone chip of some sort. That is going to take us at least all week and probably more so not much time out for doing any photowalking of note but I promise I will post some photos soon, as soon as I get time to sort them out.

In the meantime here's a digital layout I did of DGS Harry on xmas day.

What have I done.....

....I must be mad! I've just joined Blog365 which is self explanatory I guess - anyone would think I had nothing better to do with my time - http://blog365.ning.com/ - let's see how long it lasts.

Scatterday V

Okay, I hope I have this right! Not the best photos but I only arrived home from holiday yesterday and today was just a blur of unpacking, washing, shopping, grandchildren sitting and downloading over 1300 photos from my camera! I rushed these photos through but I promise to do better next week! The Office Items stumped me a bit, I could only think of Velcro and do you think I could find mine - so in the end I went with my 'volumes' for Dummies! The rest is self-explanatory - I thought my V in the Visor of the car was a brainwave :).

Happy New Year

Hello, I'm home again! Had a fabulous nine days in a little place called Tararu which is just out of Thames on the Coromandel Peninsular - 1.5 hrs drive from home. We stayed in a friend's caravan and apart from the first night when we froze (and of course I didn't take any winter woollies did I!) the weather was absolutely perfect, long hot sunny days (a little too hot but I'm not complaining) and lovely evenings with a cool breeze to go walking in. After wanting to get away to fill up my new 4 gig camera card I didn't actually manage to fill it but I still have plenty of photos to post over the new few days/weeks.

That's all for now except to say I've just joined the Scatterday ladies so hope to post my first Scatterday photos this Saturday. Don't know what Scatterdays is? Check out Michelle's blog where you can read all about it and have a look at the other blogs in the Scatterday blog ring -
http://michellewatters.blogspot.com/

Christmas Eve

Well, I'm finally finished wrapping the presents, making the calendars and a few tags to hang on the tree. Tomorrow we'll be visiting DH's 87 year old mother before we head off to DS's place for a Christmas feast with the rest of the family who are in Auckland. This year there's only two of our children here, with wives & 3 children between them, the other four children (and 3 grandchildren) are in Macau, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane respectively. Weatherwise it's looking not too bad, at least it's not raining and hot if somewhat overcast - let's see what it's like when daylight breaks! Have a wonderful day everyone - Merry Christmas to all.

Merry Christmas

This is a peep at the calendar I've made for my grandchildren for xmas, you can see photos of each page in my scrapbooking gallery here:-
http://www.dawn-in-nz.digitalscrapbookplace.com/


And this is a board game I made for the kids to play while opening their presents, yeah right Nana, don't be so silly! Well, I thought it was a good idea. Again you can see it better if you click on it.

In case I don't get a chance to post again before xmas day I'd like to wish all my visitors a wonderful time with family and friends and have a very merry christmas. This is my six grandchildren taken at various times over the last 10 years. The eldest, Lauren in the tartan dress, is now 10, the rest are Rebecca 7, Kate 5, Liam 3, Harrison 2½ & Riley 2.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

The Lighthouse

On the 2 December we finally took a trip to Awhitu to the restored lighthouse that I've been wanting to do for such a long time! The lighthouse is at the south side of the Manukau Heads which is the entrance to the harbour from the Tasman sea, a rough place where boats founder and have often sunk in the past! I fully intend to do a layout with lots more photos but the xmas rush has taken over my life so it will have to wait until next month now. You can get a closer view of the lighthouse by clicking on the photo.

Xmas Holidays

Yay it's the start of our annual holidays today, can't wait to get away and fill up my NEW 4 GB camera memory stick DH gave me for xmas today. The trouble is I now need a new hdd to put the photos onto, my current one is full up! So, still trying to catch up from being absent for so long. I was up to the end of October and our weekend trip to Tauranga. On the 18 November we went to watch DS play a game of softball and I took a few photos while we were there. This layout is his son following in Dad's footsteps and the second one is Dad following in his Dad's footsteps!

Wacky Letterboxes

I've always had a fascination for letterboxes out of the ordinary so on my walks & trips I've taken photos of lots of them over the years. These are just a few of them!

Christmas is looming fast...

I recently took part in a holiday recipe collection at DSP and thought I would post my recipe here. There are two versions for those who live in different parts of the world. I always use glace cherries (maraschino), soak them in the rum or coffee liqueur overnight (or longer) then use the liquid to make the truffles with mmmmm - don't forget to keep them away from the toddlers though!

Leaving comments

Thank you to everyone who leaves comments, I love to get them as I guess everyone does, I really should leave more myself. Susan, that face of Harry's is a Vegemite face - all good kiwis are brought up on it, it's a yeast extraction spread. Yes, I do have lots of photos of the restored lighthouse, a layout on them is coming soon.