Fall Colors-Yellow, Brown, and Orange?

Autumn is my favorite season.  I've always loved the way the deciduous trees' leaves change color, then fall off the trees.  I love the way it feels to take a walk on a crisp autumn day.  At Inspiration Avenue this week Shel challenged us to share something with the colors of fall.  I made a digital collage that illustrates the unique fall experience I've had since I moved to Southern California.

Don't get me wrong.  There a some things I love about fall here.  It can be pretty warm during the day but the nights are usually cool.   We have trees here that bloom in gorgeous pink flowers during the fall and that isn't the only blooming tree.  For all of us who love autumn, there's a nice selection of trees that change color.  There are just fewer of them than can be seen east of here and there is an awful lot of brown foliage.

Ghosts of the Civil War

I was thinking about Halloween and came across these images of people from the Civil War era. The quality of some of the images was rather ghostlike and it occurred to me that they are all ghosts now, since their time on earth has long since passed.  I created a set of two digital collage sheets containing eight of these images.  If you like them, please let me know.  

The set is also available in my Etsy shop.

I'll be doing a challenge at Inspiration Avenue next Monday on the 

Day of the Dead.  I hope you'll stop by.

Inspiration Avenue Challenge-Kodak Moment

This week marked the 125th anniversary of Kodak so I decided that an appropriate challenge for us over at Inspiration Avenue would be to share a "Kodak Moment" image.  It didn't have to be a photograph, though the original intent of the Kodak Moment was to capture a special moment on film.  Since yesterday was my birthday, a birthday photo seemed appropriate.

Who doesn't have a photo of a one year old eating their first birthday cake?  It's always fun to see how they tackle it and a mess usually (always?) occurs.  This is a page with photos of my first and third birthdays.  It's a couple of Kodak moments captured half a century ago.

I don't remember why I was pouting over my ballerina birthday cake, but I apparently got in the birthday mood and smiled for the camera.  What's your favorite Kodak moment?  To see the ones people shared over at Inspiration Avenue, click here.

September Journal Journeys-About Face

Amazing Amanda from  Outside the Box Studios is continuing with the Journal Journeys series on Digiscrap Addicts and will be offering a prompt twice monthly.  This first one was really interesting.  She challenged us to take a photo of our faces, then make a simple line drawing of it on a separate layer.  The idea was to work with a line drawing of my own face.  With regard to adding embellishments, she provided some great examples with tutorials.

I used this photo of myself, taken by my husband Tracy a few years ago.

My portrait seemed to have an autumn feel to it, so I just went with it.  I used papers and elements from Outside the Box Studios and found a quote that I loved.  The text in the hair was created because of an inspiration I received from another entry someone created.

I forced myself to stop before I made too many changes.  I had an urge to make everything neat and tidy so I tried to ignore that compulsion.  You can see what I created above.  If you'd like to view the other entries you can click here.

Credits for Image Components:
Outside the Box Studios-Beautiful Souls, 2chmd-At the Beach and PSAugBT, SYHO aug. Blog Paper, Sheyzz, and Raspberry Road.

Inspiration Avenue Challenge-Joy

We've been busy over at Inspiration Avenue.  Today is the deadline for signing up for our fun Altered Postcard Swap so I hope you hurry over to sign up.  Just click on the button in my right sidebar.

This week, Shel challenged us to create an image about Joy.  There are so many things that bring joy to my life.  For this challenge, I decided to use a quote by Edna St. Vincent Millay.  "Beauty is whatever brings joy," is the quote.  I love the idea that there is that possibility of beauty in all things.  I must admit I went a little crazy with that idea and created a digital collage that illustrates some of the joy I feel in experiencing the beauty of each day.

I suppose I used the door to suggest that joy cannot be expressed in one image.  

I'd love to hear about the joy in your life, if you care to leave a comment.

Credits for Image Components:

Raspberry Road, Maya DeGroot, KeyLime Digi Design, Friendly Scrap, BazzaDaRambler (Flickr), Cajoline, Aneczkaw, D. Bailey, Stampgram, BB Blooming Backyard, Holliewood, Sky, Prairie Song Scraps, Paprika, Pixie Treasures, NLD, Angelle Design, Amy's Design, and Crafty Buttons

Creating Yourself

I've been "retired" from my career for about three years now.  During that time, I thought about ways to "find myself" but never seemed to really find anything new.  I turned out to be the person I've always been.  The surprise in all of this self discovery is that we all have an opportunity to recreate ourselves.  There's no reason to stay locked in old habits or lifestyles if they no longer suit us.  For example, I had to be extremely conscious of what I said to my peers while working in the public school system.  There were many people who are far more conservative than I, and one must monitor one's communication output when speaking with children.  That being said, I no longer have the responsibility of pleasing a supervisor. 

At age 52 (for two more weeks) I can dress as I like and say what I feel like saying. But it goes much deeper than that.  When I try to peer inside myself, I can find a way to allow myself to be the person I want to be.  Perhaps it isn't so much "creating" as it is revealing what has been there all of my life.  I can shed labels incorrectly applied by others, or paste on new ones as I see fit.

If you've been looking for yourself, take a peek in the mirror and say, "Hi."  There you are.  Then give some thought to how you'd like to modify the image.  We are each our own canvas.  Use as many colors as you like.  It's your creation, after all.

Credits for Image Components:
Crafty Button Designs, Dhariana, Joyful Expressions, Itkupilli, and Christine Smith

Crafty Buttons Challenge-Bold

Over at the Real Life Scrapped forum, Crafty Buttons is hosting a fun challenge.  The idea is to create an image or some kind of response based on the word BOLD.  Of course there is a great participation prize!  I found a quote by Jonathan Swift and decided that a mermaid must have inspired the first human oyster eater.  Why else would someone swallow such a ghastly looking blog of gunk?  It could only have been a mermaid.  Check out the challenge here.

Credits for Image Components:
Courtney's Digiscrappin', APD (My Warehouse of Dreams), Digilicious, Blue Flower Art, Granny Enchanted, Finecrafted Designs, Nothing But Freebies, Publikado, DD (DillieHannah), Chriscrap, LindaLou Creations, Artgal, and Far Far Hill.