My Creative Cubbyhole

More action and business.

2009-07-04T18:39:00.001-07:00

This gorgeous girl has just graduated. We are so proud of her! We went downtown for a photoshoot in her gorgeous dress with her handsome boyfriend. A photogrpahers dream!

So many fun, pretty little places around town to have a shoot. Thia was having fun being the center of attention, and boy did she deserve it!

This is a fun, playful shot just outside of city hall.

I love the way our school does graduation. The students are walked down with their parents, and holding a rose. At the end of the walkway, they hug dad, hug mom and give her a rose. The parents then all sit in the front. Later, at the banquet, the first dance is a father /daughter, son/ mother dance. It is just beautiful!

Here's proud papa!

Oh, Poor sad little lonely blog!

2009-07-04T18:25:00.001-07:00

So yes, I have neglected my poor blog again. It seems to fall in the list of priorieties quite quickly! To my defense though, I have had some serious computer issues that needed tending which seem to be resolved now. In my absence though I have been busy. I helped take some pics of my son and his band up at the Butter Church in Cowichan Bay. It is quite the place and made the perfect backdrop for grungey gritty band pics. What a great looking bunch of guys eh? They are crazy talented too.

They were so much fun to shoot, totally up for anything and took direction well too!

This is just outside of the butter church, the trees are so awesome!

And this is my boy. Gorgeous, isnt he?;)

Friendship spanning the spieces

2009-05-11T21:16:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend our camera club went to a Wildlife Rescue center. This young fellow has there for a few years now and his name is Sandor. When he was brought in he had a very badly broken wing, lice, siezures and other health issues that made it almost hopeless he would survive! They managed to nurse him to health although, he would never be able to be released into the wild so they decided to use him as an educational tool. In order to 'tame' him, they have one person who is his dedicated handler. It was truly stunning to see the interaction between the two of them! Here you can so easily see the size of the birds beak next to her unprotected finger. He was so careful and gentle with her bare fingers. Unreal!
So naturally they shared affection, complete trust and comfort made thier bond easy to see. She must really have dedication, patience, and persistance to bring a saint to his knees!

Spring, a time to renew, start fresh!

2009-04-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

My poor blog over here all by itself, lonely and neglected. So many times I popped over quickly but felt so overwhelmed by how far I let things slide.

A couple of new clutches, one made from a vintage linen table cloth! I think these are nice colours for spring. It is hard to not feel spurred on by all the new beginnings around this time of year. Finally I felt compelled to just pick up, dust off and jump back in to where I left off. No sense trying to back track to redo, just pick up where I am now. Simple, but refreshing!

It's that time of year again

2008-12-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

Christmas is just around the corner. It seems to come faster every year. Grace is also having her birthday just next week! This means that my blog and other online presense has been very neglected.I'll get back into it soon enough though.

Carlos Lascano

2008-11-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.carloslascano.com/carloslascano/Home.html

An amazing artist. A must check out!

A beautiful read

2008-11-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/#/0

This is just an amazing journal of a man caring for his aged father. Click on the link, then click on the pictures to advance through the pages.

Then make sure you have a tissue handy:)

topaz again

2008-11-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

This is an unaltered picture out of my camera. Pretty dang good actually considering the horrible lighting in there. That is another story about my new lens. Anyways, This picture does need some cleaning up, there is some noise happening and who doesnt like a little skin smoothing/evening out? This is after runing the picture through a plugin for photoshop called topaz labs. It was one click, all the noise is gone! Click on each picture to see it full size to really see the magic happen! I can hardly wait to see what it can do when I actually read the directions!

boat

2008-11-13T10:00:00.001-08:00

Straight out of camera, resized only A quick trip through topaz labs.

2008-11-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

2008-11-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

more peeks

2008-11-10T00:09:00.000-08:00

sneeky peeky!

2008-11-09T01:22:00.000-08:00

Head hanging in shame.....

2008-10-31T21:54:00.001-07:00

I have completely put the blog, and my etsy store on the back burner as of late. I sure have missed it too! I have a fairly good excuse though. I litterally woke up one morning with a very very very sore shoulder. The pain was unrelenting and I'd rank it up there with the harsh part of labour, only it didnt end! I haven't dealt with chronic pain before and I must admit.... I am a whimp!! I also had no idea why I was suddenly in so much pain and frankly, I was putting off anything that aggrivated it. I am most comfortable with my arm resting up parallel with my shoulder, neutral position my dr calls this. It seems that I probably have a ruptured disc in my neck but am waiting for an mri and an appointment with a neurologist. I have not felt my finger on my left hand in over a month now! I still use my camera but I do NOT carry it around my neck and I am just being super careful with how I move around in general. Anyways, it is still problematic for me, but seeings as this doesnt seem to be going anywhere soon, I figure I'd better start back in with normal things again, bit by bit.

I have barely even been stalking the blogs that I love so much! I havent updated my store and certainly havent completed any sewing as the sewing seems particularly difficult on my shoulder/neck. But in bits, 10 mins a time I will be starting to get back into it simpley for my own sanity:)

I hope you enjoy the picture of the birds all dressed up for halloween!

Things are Looking Up!

2008-09-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

This top one is called 'blush'
(This bottom photo is called innocent)

Oh, it's good to be 'home'! I finally got my comptuer back so I can start to get back to 'work' again:)

I pretty much fell off the face of the net for a bit here. I have a lot of blogging to catch up to that's for sure!

I just can't believe how long it took for my comptuer to be fixed and sent back to the store. I kinda wonder if it hasn't been sitting there for a while without them calling me too as I called today to check on the status of it and they said it "just" got to the store. Seems like quite a coincidence to me. Anyways, it's just great to have it back.

I got a blogging award from Vanessa while I was MIA! How much fun is that! As I get things in order here, I will deal appropriately with it.

I am still bewildered about how long this whole computer thing took to get straightened out!

I just wanted to pop on for a quick yay! my comptuer is back post and will be back with a long overdue giveaway too!

A couple of quick pics of 2 prints I will be selling. darn, I accidently put them UP there, Oh well, you get the idea. :)

Celebration on the horizon!

2008-08-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

I was just noticing that my shop hearts are nearing 100 which I think is a reason to celebrate! Be sure to stay tuned because there will surely be goodies to celebrate!

Free stuff rocks!!

2008-08-28T21:49:00.001-07:00

Check out this great giveaway happening over at The Ardent Sparrow blog! I am so excited to be a part of it!

What's with the big "O".......

2008-08-19T09:11:00.001-07:00

Get your mind out of the gutter! I'm talking about the Olympics!

They are pretty much everywhere in your face while they are occuring. Everyone seems so excited and happy about it.

I have been trying to see where that all comes from. I really have been trying to see the overall goodness of the Olympics, however, I can't get certain things out of my head. Such as the overwhelming cost of prepration for only a very short time. I cant forget how China (and Canada too!) are 'cleaning up the streets' at the cost of the poorest people. I keep trying to think of how it actually benefits a place to have the Olympics there and I fail to find anything over a temporary increase in hospitality industry and minimum wage industry. If anything, every angle I look at it, the Olympics seems to strip the area that it comes to. It reminds me of a big colourful party, wild and crazy. Everyone dancing, and drinking like it will never end. Streamers, balloons, and confetti being the litter that everyone partakes in distributing. Then the party is over. The guests all leave quickly with barely a thank you and the host is left bewildered at the mess left to clean. It doesn't seem like so much fun now. A few, very few select athelets will benefit a great amount from thier endeavors. Not saying they dont deserve the recognition and the endorements, however, it seems like a huge expense in every way for the benefit of a very few people

*sigh*

It's a sad day

2008-08-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

I have a very sick computer and will not be able to do any photos for a while. I don't know how long:( I haven't forgotten about the blog, just am having to put it on the back burner.

Really Feelin' it

2008-08-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

Just really feeling comfortable behind the lens. It has been an absolute BLAST hanging out at all the different venues at the NAIG games here in town.
And such an amazing opportunity to take somewhere around 5000 or more pictures this week in so many different situations!

I have never had so many terrible lighting situations to really stretch my photography muscles! It was so much fun doing these outdoor concerts too! I really would love to photograph more concerts! They are so animated!

This performer here is George Leach. He had really wonderful music which my mom and I really enjoyed. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet him later (lucky insider "media" leads..... and a fun story too, but that is for another time) and he is a really nice, down to earth kinda guy.

Pitcher/ Picture

2008-08-04T11:38:00.001-07:00

NAIG

2008-08-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

The North American Indigenous games are being held in town here this week. We have been told about all these thousands and thousands of people who would be comming to town for the week. I know I didn't really expect all that many people to come, till I saw this parade of athelets! It went on, and on and on. An impressive amount of young athelets thats for sure! There are teams from as far away as florida, North Carolina, Nunavut, and just about anywhere else!

It was pretty neat to see how far these teams came and in such big numbers! Some teams had traditional dress represented. And some were just so dang cute!
This week there is going to be entertainment all day every day, as well as a market all day every day. Not to mention sports on the go all day everyday too! I am looking forward to seeing everything!

I've been Featured!!

2008-07-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

The lovely Vanessa over at Designs by Vanessa has done a feature on me at her blog! Be sure to check it out and then go take a look at how talented she is in her etsy shop! She has some very beautiful jewlery.

Trying to improve

2008-07-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

So, I have not been getting the sales for the amount of work I have been doing that I would hope to have gotten by now. It seems common sense that your photos are by far the most important thing to draw potential shoppers into investigate around your store. Photos are always so important but in this application, I suspect they are even MORE important!
I think my photos have been lacking interest. I don't think they have really been drawing in people. There is just so much competition out there that it's easy to get burried. I don't want to be one in a sea of many. I want to stand out! I have been revamping my products a little as well, jazzing them up with some embellies and getting more creative that way. There are mountains of plain little zippies out there but not too many that are embellished. I really enjoy doing the embellishment part. Right now I am just using ribbons, buttons and scraps of fabrics, but as I continue on, I am sure I will branch out.
Another improvement is the addition of labels! I really like the way they turned out! I ordered them from JennifersJewels
She was really great to deal with! She was great at listening to what it was that I wanted and she produced a great quality item.

So anyways, These are my new photos. I ended up not using a lightbox but just played around in the backyard. They may be a little bland, what do you think? I have been pondering the idea of using fun backgrounds but maybe that would just be a distraction? I am not sure. I do however, like the angles and how that worked out.
Head on over to my etsy

to check how they compared to my old photos. I would be grateful for any and all feedback and suggestions of improvments:)

I just couldn't wait!

2008-07-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

I just couldn't wait (or risk the rain) to show you how the plate turned out once painted. It was super easy, accepting the paint very smoothly. I can see this as part of a very pretty afternoon tea set up, with pretty china teacups, tiny finger sandwiches and dainty iced cakes.
The occassion may even call for lace gloves and flowers in hats!
One lump or two, dear?