Christmas Tablescape

      One of my favorite aspects of the holiday frenzy of entertaining is my annual Christmas tablescape for my family's Christmas dinner.  Each year, I come up with a new "theme" and decorate the table in a new way.  I'm always looking for cost-effective ways to do this.  I mix and match my existing dishes, and often re-use decorations from past years in different ways.  This year, the theme was "woodland", and I used all natural materials (except for the red berries).  I loved it!

The snow in the hurricanes is Epsom salts! 

I loved it because not only was it inexpensive, it has a bit of sparkle of it's own. 

 Rather than using tablecloths, I found inexpensive unbleached muslin on sale, 

along with burlap that I cut into runners.  No hemming needed for any!  

My kind of fabric project!  The burlap ribbon was a last-minute find.

The cedar logs were sliced with a chain saw by a friend, and all the greenery came from his property here in my local mountains.  Aromatic cedar, bay laurel, and holly.  I added some baby's breath and voila!

The last component of my yearly theme is the table gift for each guest.  Always something small, usually some kind of ornament, I like to find simple but creative ways to make sure that the gifts are all the same, but personalized for each person.   This year, I handpainted clear glass ornaments with different simple motifs for each person.  It was easy and fun!

 Merry Christmas to All!

New Name!

 - You will notice that some of my watermarks will have my old blog name - not to worry, it's all still my own work.  Just decided to update my brand and settled on a new logo!  

Kids: Halloween Fun

Smiles and giggles and Halloween fun.  Just a couple this time.  

Hope to be spending more time with these two in the future!  Trick or Treat!

Maternity: T & K

      First pregnancies are a special time in a couple's life.  It's always a joy to be able to share in this special time with a couple as they await their precious bundle of joy.

Baby - 5 months, Baby M

There's nothing quite as contagious as the giggle of a five-month-old!  

Newborn - Baby M

 Ahh, the soft, sweet innocence of a newborn. 

 

Peaceful slumber!

Daddy's Hands

Sated!

31-Day Photography Challenge

        Whew! October is over - and how fast it went!   The 31-Day Challenge was certainly a challenge.   One photo per day doesn't sound so bad, but it took a lot more time than I expected it to.  With the constraints of time and light and weather, keeping up  just didn't happen.  So maybe I'll think about weekly next time!  Meantime, here were the favorites from my unfinished challenge.

Day 19 - Animal

Day 17 - Symmetry

Day 16 - Orange

Day 15 - Gear

Day 14 - Luxury

Day 13 - Nature

Day 12 - Portrait

Day 11 - S-Curve

Day 10 - Glass

Day 6 - Texture

Day 5 - Long Exposure

Day 4 - Light

Day 3 - Lunch

Day 2 - Strangers

Day 1 - Street

Welcome Fall!

   My favorite time of year arrived a few days ago.   And ring in October, it's pumpkin time!

October Challenge!

Starting October 1st, I will be posting a photo a day.  This is a great way to stretch and challenge!

Serendipity

 Sometimes, good photos are the luck of just being in the right place at the right time.   This was a scene I discovered just by letting my dogs out the back door one morning a few weeks ago.   

 Such a bizzare and intriguiging cloud formation, I had to run and get my camera before the light was gone. What do they look like to you?

Memories

     Being a photographer and going on vacation seem like a natural package deal, don't they?  Sometimes though, it seems they are also mutually exclusive!   My daughter and I saved for a long while to take a trip to Europe, the first for both of us.  Each of us, both into photography, had visions of taking wonderful photos everywhere we went.   But we were limited by what we could carry, and what we wanted to risk losing or having stolen.  So, with mixed feelings, we opted to take just our point-and-shoot cameras and leave the "good" cameras at home.  
    For me, it became increasingly clear that we made the right choice, at least for this trip.   This trip was about the memories.  Being in the moment, living each day to the fullest.  Sure we took bunches of photos, but many of them were on the fly, "Hail-Mary" shots with our arms sticking out of the double-decker bus, the cheesy tourist photos of ourselves, or taken in just plain bad conditions.   
      What do we have to show for it?  Memories!  Nothing can replace the time we spent together, or the memories we will have when we look at even the less-than-perfect shots we do have.  If we really needed perfection of a certain location, we got a postcard.   It was a fabulous and amazing trip, all the way around. 
     In this post are some of my favorites memories, even if they aren't perfect shots.

The rain, rain, rain in London

The first of what was to be millions of stairs we climbed everywhere we went, and everywhere we stayed!

Walking among the stones at Stonehenge - wow!

An old bench, just outside a tavern in the old English town of Lacock.

Our stellar accomodations at the hostel in Amsterdam!

We biked all over Amsterdam that day - a great way to see the city!

The absolute awe we felt when we got to Venice.

A magical surprise awaited us when we headed down to meet the water taxi to Lido.  A full moon we didn't know was going to be there.  What a beautiful night that was!

The scale of everything in Rome - huge!

The breathtaking (literally) climb to the top of St. Peter's Basillica, Rome.

Great fun, great food, and new friends from our cooking class in Rome.

Making our wishes at Trevi Fountain.

The market places were fabulous!

SO much history in Rome.

Yet another suitcase bites the dust.  Thank goodness for street vendors!

Boy, did we wish for a wide-angle lens here.  The surreal and magnificent interior of Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona.

Surveying Barcelona from the top of Mount Monjuic

There's nothing like the Eiffel Tower on a summer night.

OMG!  The Lourve from the top of the ferris wheel next door.  Yes, the entire complex is the Lourve!

My favorite memory from the entire trip.  What you don't see is us on our bikes, riding on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, all around Paris.  We stopped at the tower for lunch. And what you don't hear, is the French music coming from the man with accordian.  It was a quintessentially French moment in time.

The adventure of ordering off a French menu, not knowing exactly what you might get, and finding it to be one of the BEST meals we had in all Europe!

Miles and miles of subway tunnels and stairs.

The London Eye at night.  What a view we got from the top!

Whoopee!

Here's to our last day of a memorable, special time.