365 Photo Project - Photo 15

Yup, macro shots are killing me. Can you tell? 

I've resorted to taking pictures of beans. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 14

This photo was actually taken in the fall just after our wedding. I was really disappointed that our photographer didn't ask me for my engagement ring for the ring shots that they took. Jamie spent a lot of time looking and I love my rings so we decided to take our own ring shots! Looking at the photo now, I wish I had rotated the wedding band just over a touch so you could see the detail on the side. I think the detailing on the actual rings are what make the rings unique. We had originally tried taking shots of the rings by hanging them on some berry branches but the branches with actual berries were all too flimsy to hold up the weight of the rings. After numerous failed attempts with the crappy branches and bad lighting, I gave up. As we were coming back up the dog trail, the sun was setting and I saw a beautiful log. People around must have thought I was crazy because I was laying on the ground in an off-leash dog park in my wedding dress with a camera in hand, with a man (presumed to be my new hubby) standing behind me holding a superstore grocery basket and dog. I'll share that story later. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 13

I know, I know. This is once again not macro. I am having a really hard time with this week's theme. A big part of it is because I don't have a macro lense! Jamie has 3 lenses that I've tried using so I'll post those attempts when I get around to processing them. This is a new coffee that we have been enjoying a fair bit. It's a dark roast which is unusual for us. We typically go for a light to medium roast since neither of us take sugar in our coffees. It's from Costco and it only puts you out about $13 for a Costco sized bag of organic direct fair trade coffee! Super sweet deal. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 12

I'm so glad I get to use Khuno as my subject all the time! I hope I don't turn out to be crazy dog lady who treats him like my first born child... This week's theme is macro shots. This really isn't a macro considering Khuno's head is really quite large. I will attempt to take some macro shots this week. One challenge will be the engagement ring! Stay tuned! 

365 Photo Project - Photo 11

What's that weird looking kitchen item you ask? It's our beloved Chemex. I first saw this neat coffeemaker when I visited Jamie's sister's house in Hinton. This was even before we started dating. I absolutely love the vintage look of it. We purchased our first Chemex a number of years ago and it had a glass handle. Jamie accidentally smashed it when grabbing a coffee mug and I was secretly happy because I love the wooden handle way more. He wrote about it here. We used to use the paper filters that we either ordered online or purchased at Transcend Coffee but Jamie found a company that makes a reusable filter! Love the green-factor! 

Lazy Sundays

NOT! When did people ever decide to say "lazy Sundays"? I find Sundays are usually they day where both Jamie and I are both off and errands are ran. Today Jamie had class in the morning but not before he threw in a load of laundry and cleaned the bathroom. I know, amazing right? Afterward class we headed over to Costco to pick up photos. What does our Sunday night look like tonight? It's filled with red wine, photos, thank-you cards and some hand cramps. Hope you all had a great weekend! 

365 Photo Project - Photo 10

It's Saturday night and Jamie's already deep into dreamland. I just spent the last 2 hours processing some wedding photos and some random ones I took during the week. Does it look cold in the photo? Because it was stinkin' cold! I was wondering why my hands were getting so cold so fast. The walk was short as we quickly realized just how cold it was that day. My camera eventually seized up and refused to do anything half way through the walk... Fingers crossed that it's ok after it defrosts. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 9

Do they look in love or do they look in love? I cut off a bit of his shoes, but this is still one of my favorite pics. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 8

I recently got the pleasure of shooting some pictures for 2 of my friends before we got this ridiculous cold snap of -30°C. First thing she noticed when she saw the pictures was, "You really like your black and whites." Yes. Yes I do. 

What's Occupying My Time Lately?

Bless the public library.

365 Photo Project - Photo 7

First off, I want to congratulate my wonderful friends P&S Nabs for the wonderful new addition to their little family!!! Jamie and I are so excited for you guys and can't wait to meet him! Now onto today's photo. The theme for the week is black and white. It might seem super easy to take a photograph and just click "black & white", but to get really gorgeous black and white shots are really hard! Actually, photography in itself is flipping hard! I can't even imagine how photographers did it back then! I waste a lot of memory card space by snapping lots of pictures. Think about the amount of film I would've wasted back in the day! I read somewhere about luck photographers. They basically snap a ton of photos and cross their fingers that they have some usable ones. If they are super lucky, they'd get what I like to call a money shot. I don't want to become a luck photographer. I want to learn how to properly expose and compose each and every shot I take. This takes tremendous amounts of practice. I can't trust my camera's LCD because it is inaccurate. I can't totally trust my light meter on my camera and I can't trust my experience. Yet.  

My amazing hubby. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 6

Taking photos in low light really sucks. My camera is about a decade old and you can imagine the advances that have happened! To help get the proper exposure I had to turn up my ISO but my camera can only handle 200 and anything above makes my picture very noisy (grainy). You can see the noise inn the above shot but I didn't want to use flash and I couldn't pick a slower shutter speed because Khuno isn't a subject that would keep still. Don't you just love his little bedhead fur? 

365 Photo Project - Photo 5

I have wanted a pair of these coveted slippers for a long time. I first saw them at Sabrina Butterfly Designs on 112 Ave in Highlands. They didn't have the color that I wanted back then and I never thought much about going to look for them. On Friday I ventured into Birth Source for the first time and found that they carried these Padraig slippers! They did have the color I wanted but the leather sole had a weird kink that I didn't like. The owner told me that the leather would eventually mold to my foot but I didn't want to risk it. I settled for a brown pair instead. What makes these Padraig slippers so awesome? They are all handmade in North Vancouver, B.C. with hand spun raw wool and the inside is lined with sheepskin. When I wear them, it feels like I'm rubbing my feet into Khuno's undercoat. It's very luxurious!

365 Photo Project - Photo 4

This was taken Friday night once again in my dining room. That window frame in the top right corner bothers me and I knew it would from the moment I clicked the button. I tried moving the wine around for about 30 seconds before I finally gave up because getting it completely out of the frame required me to actually get up off the chair. Jamie was in class yesterday till 9:45 so I sat around by myself catching up on stuff while enjoying leftover wedding wine. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 3

First off, I did not take that picture on the left. I've stolen it from a google search. I am not doing so hot with this project. Jamie recently started taking some extra night classes and that's left me to being alone on some weeknights. He amazes me with his drive to constantly better himself. He reads all the time and for his introductory class that he registered for at NAIT, it turned out that he was too advance! He ended up registering for some intense more advanced classes and when I say intense, it means 3 days worth of classes. He's gone Friday night, Saturday all day and Sunday morning. That's left me to poke around the house doing things that he normally does, which is basically everything. Anyways, onto photo project 3. This past week's theme was to photograph in low light settings. Indoors is a great example of this. One might think that just because we have all the lights on in our dining room it makes for good shooting settings, but one would be wrong! Here are 2 pictures that was taken in my dining room. They are Jamie's version of a danish pancake. He found a cast iron danish pancake pan at Superstore for $10. He used a basic pancake batter recipe and filled it with fresh bananas. After feeding me and a couple friends, I had the great idea of adding Nutella! At first it started off with us smearing it on the little round balls of tasty, but it took us about 5 minutes to decide to add it into the inside with the banana! I'd give you a recipe if it weren't made up from inside Jamie's head. 

Each of us girls ate one bowl each. Then I rolled them out the door on their merry way, full and happy. 

Fabric Hoarder

Yes, that is a bolt of fabric. I have discovered that I love fabric as much as I love paper. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 2

Now I know you might be thinking, "What the heck? Why does it say photo 2 when there were 2 photos posted for photo 1 and now 3 photos posted for photo 2?" Don't worry, let me clarify. Although I love the idea of posting one photo for each day of this 365 Photo Project, my goal is more to post 365 photo projects rather than just 365 individual photos. I'll just label them as photo 123... for ease of reference. Meet Audi. He is Khuno's new cousin. Yes, my SIL and I refer to our dogs as our babies; therefore, they are cousins. He is a corgi husky mix that my brother and SIL rescued from the SPCA. He is just over 4 months and he doesn't bark, loves his crate and can hold his pee. What. The. F$@#.

What's My Hubby Up To?

While I sleep, make cards, sew, take photos, blog, eat, work, sleep, one might ask what my hubby does while I'm doing all these things. Here's the massive list... My amazing hubby cleans, cooks, walks the dog, bakes, works, sleeps and indulges me every single day. Today I woke up at 11:00 AM to this. 

That's right folks, homemade pot stickers for breakfast. He knows I love them and they are quick to make when I'm in a tight bind. He not only cleaned the house this weekend, but he cleaned 2 bathrooms, made a roast for supper and made enough pot stickers to last me a month (maybe). 

He freezes them on the baking sheet before putting them all into a nice ziplock bag. He didn't stop there though guys. No. He. Didn't. He whipped up a triple batch of gingerbread cookies to freeze because we had extra butter laying around. It's no wonder he crawled into bed today at 9:00 PM. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 1

My friend Jinnee is starting to get into photography. She bought herself a DSLR and I'm so excited to have another photo buddy to learn with. She asked me if I was interested in joining her on a 365 Photo Project and I thought it'd be a great idea! The basis for the project is to take one photo a day. If you ask any photographer how does one get better at photography, the simple answer is practice. Jinnee will be focusing on a new theme every week so I will try and follow suite. Just let the record show though, I won't be posting a new photo everyday because lets face it, I'm lazy. Period. I'll just be happy that by the end of the year, I'll have posted 365 photos. Some will be bad, some fair and hopefully by the end of the year I'll fit in a couple goods and maybe even greats! This past week's theme was taking photos in the dark. I have always wanted to try taking photos with a bokeh effect so what better time than at Christmas with all those colorful lights? So I put on my coat and boots at 10:30 Friday night and headed out with Jamie and Khuno to capture a couple of photos at night. The bokeh effect is those circles of lights you see in photos that look oh so cool. I couldn't get my camera to focus very well because my shutter speed was long and my breathing kept moving the camera. Here's my very first attempt at some bokeh! 

My neighbor turned on his lights to check out who the heck was standing on his front lawn. Good thing Khuno is very recognizable. My neighbor very quickly realized I was no hoodlum and went back to watching TV in the dark. In case you're wondering why I took a picture of my watch, it's because I had nothing else to put in front of my camera. 

Stocking Stuffers

As you may remember from Friday's post, this past Christmas with my girlfriends involved making stockings and getting each other stocking stuffers. It was really neat seeing everyone's different stockings and having them all hung together to celebrate Christmas, but more importantly, friendship! There's a really large stocking over to the far right and then a really small stocking in comparison to the far left. The large stocking is so large you can only see the cuff in the picture! I had Jamie help me trace out the lining to my stocking and when I went to use his lining as a template to cut out my stocking, I reversed it so there are only two stockings that face the left... Thank goodness D's stocking kept my stocking company otherwise I would have felt really silly. Why is it that all stockings face the right anyways? 

Saturday Morning

You read that blog title correct! I was in fact, awake this morning at 7:30 AM. Last night Jamie reminded me that we had a dentist appointment this morning at 9:00 AM. "Why?! Why would I do that to myself?" I asked Jamie. It's not that I can't get up early, but sleep is just oh so nice. Every year I always get a lecture from my dentist on proper brushing because the backs of my teeth are stained like mad. Today as he was doing his initial exam, he came across those same stains and let out an unprofessional, "Ewwuugh". It's a good thing I wasn't embarrassed. My response, "I know they're stained, there's no need for the lecture. Just clean them so I can restain them." I love my dentist. We have a special relationship. After bickering with him about my flossing technique and him pushing me to go on a cruise for our honeymoon, we finished at the dentist at 10. On the way home I decided to make Jamie do a detour to Planet Organic. I had purchased some soap the last time I was there and actually quite liked it so I grabbed another couple of bars along with a bar of goat milk soap. It's supposed to be really moisturizing for eczema. I almost got the bright red bar with anti-bacterial acne fighting properties until I smelt it and almost threw up. 

I actually almost threw up a lot today now that I think about it. I gagged a few times at the dentist, then smelling that God awful soap and then several times when I was smelling different essential oils. A lady actually laughed at me when I told Jamie that many of the oils made me gag. I finally settled on some grapefruit essential oil. Why do I need some of that expensive crap oil you might ask? I was poking around on Pinterest and found a pin on homemade carpet powder. Khuno's food is very fishy so the basement (my crafting lair) always has a weird odor. Hopefully the baking soda/grapefruit oil will help eliminate some of that. We also purchased some new toilet bowl cleaner and dish soap. The dish soap smells awesome but still comes in second place behind Amway's Legacy of Clean Dish Drops. That stuff is still my all time fav.

After the bit of shopping we decided to stroll (...drive) over to Credo for a beverage. Their rooibos london fogs are another one of my favorite things. Lattes are quite tasty as well. Turns out our neighbor knows the owner! We had taken our engagement photos at Credo and even though we have had many conversations with the owner, I still wonder if he recognizes us. I got my answer today when he commented on how well the engagement photos turned out! I emailed him the link after Katch posted it on their blog. 


Now I'm not sure if any of you have been to Queen of Tarts before, but if not, please go. Yes some may think it's expensive compared to the local favorite, The Duchess, but supporting local businesses is important to me. The Duchess boasts about their use of quality ingredients but what sets Queen of Tarts apart is their use of local ingredients. Support local always costs more but I don't mind paying the extra cost. I had my heart set on this amazing bread with cherry tomatoes, but sadly it wasn't being made due to the lack of fresh local cherry tomatoes. The owner said she'll be bringing that back in February. If getting downtown doesn't fit with your schedule, you can find Queen of Tart goodies at the Alberta Avenue Farmer's Market that runs
year round. Their bread is so worth the calories. We got their seeded baguette today. Wow, I wrote a lot today. Thanks for reading! (You know who I'm talking about)

Sew Your Own Clutches!

This Christmas my girlfriends decided to try something different. Instead of doing a secret santa gift exchange, we all opted to do a stocking stuffer exchange instead. Each girl would make her own stocking and instead of getting one gift, we all got 13 gifts! I really liked the idea of getting something small for every girl instead of just one. I had found a tutorial way back on Martha Stewart's website on how to make your own fabric clutch. After watching the video, it seemed easy enough. I didn't take pictures through the process of sewing these clutches because I just simply didn't have time! I ordered the clutch frames from Upstyle, who is the lady that does the video tutorial. Instead of poking around looking for cheaper frames and such, I just opted to buy hers because it was the same ones she used in her tutorial. I ordered 20 frames, 10 in silver and 10 in gold. I purchased most of my fabric from Earthly Goods and just a few from Fabricland and Stampin' Up! The fusible fleece and fabric stabilizer I got from Fabricland and I made personalized labels using the recommended Jacquard Inkjet Sheets. I had a hard time finding the Gutermann Glue so I purchased the E-6000 glue from Michael's to glue the clutch frames on. My poor hubby was sucked in to helping me glue because he was way better at it and was able to stand the stink of the glue. "I used to build model airplanes." 

 There's a couple clutches missing from the picture including the one I made with my beloved Joel Dewberry fabric, my SIL's clutch and my tester one. Sewing 15 clutches took a fair chunk of my time. As Jamie put it, "Sooooo many purses."

Then of course I make the poor guy help me wrap them because I needed his fingers to help me hold and tie. I reused some old packing paper to try and stay green and made some gift tags with my card making supplies (which I've neglected lately). 

Boutineires

One couldn't have a fabric bouquet and not have fabric boutineires right? I applied the same concept of melting polyester fabrics to create the flower. Family wore the red flowers which I made with melting organza fabric I found at Dollarama. My brother and SIL helped me cut a gajillion circles of various sizes to create over 50 boutineires (we have a lot of family). I also made my brother and SIL cut fabric leaves out for me but when you try and assembly-line mass produce something, quality starts to go downhill. I went back and did some trimming of the leaves to create the shape I wanted. I used hot glue to glue all the layers of the flower together. The leaves had a thin metal wire attached to the back so it would stay straight. I left the wires from the leaves long so I could wrap floral tape around the bottom. The wires were unfortunately really skimpy looking so I had to glue extra triangular pieces of leftover fabric to create that typical look. To wear them, I hot glue gunned clasps on the back so we wouldn't have to use those pokey scary pins that always seem to poke the wearer. 

 Jamie and his two groomsmen had special white organza boutineires with the pop of a red leaf to tie all the colors together. Jamie originally wanted to wear a red bow tie but I vetoed it. I think a bow tie seemed too formal for a fall wedding. Especially since it was outdoors. I will still make him his bow tie to wear for another occasion (that post will come when I actually get to sewing it). 

A good number of boutineires were leftover from my family not wanting to keep them so instead of throwing them out, my friend suggested I post them on kijiji. I'll give that a go in the spring and see what happens. Happy belated new year everyone! Back to the grind as usual tomorrow.