Contest Winner!!!

I follow a photography blog called Weekly Photography Tips and they have quite a few contests. I entered one this past month and am soooo excited to announce that I won one of their February contests! I get an awesome book on lighting by Scott Kelby. So excited! 

366 Photo Project - Photo 24: Pup

Not sure if you noticed, but I've officially changed the title to 366 Photo Project because of the leap year! We stopped by the dog park on Saturday and let Khuno run off leash for a bit. There was a lady there with 2 itty bitty dogs that were loaded with energy. They were the only 2 dogs that kept running around so of course, the big dogs followed suit and ran around for the chase! I was so worried about the little pup when the owner turns to me and goes, "Don't worry, she's used to big dogs. She can hold her own." Sure enough, as one dog was getting a bit too far up in her grill, she growled back and tried to snap at it's neck. She could never manage to hurt any of the big dogs but boy, she's feisty! Not only that, she was super cuddly and cute! Just came bopping along towards me and my camera and struck a pose. Speaking of posing and dogs, did any of you watch the Westminster Dog Show over the weekend? The pekingese won best in show 2012! I would've never predicted that but it's already won numerous times! 

Dogs make me happy.

365 Photo Project - Photo 23: Organizing

Remember a couple posts ago when we did a Walmart run for photo albums? We had to capture the mayhem in our living room that weekend when Jamie and I decided to organize his parents old photos. They are all sitting in albums now ready to be returned. It was so amazing to be able to see his parents when they got married, their honeymoon and Jamie and Jane's childhood. I'm so glad that they have many pictures of their past and it really inspires me to try and take more photos. I haven't mentioned anything about it on here, but I've started something called Project Life with a few girlfriends. Once I actually get going on it, I'll give you more details. I hope everyone had a great long weekend. Back to the grind in 8 hours. G'nite! 

365 Photo Project - Photo 22: Sick Forearms

That my friends, is a manly picture of my hubby knitting. Yes, he knits. And he knits quite well actually. Way better than anyone I know. This is him knitting the little hat for lil Ethan. Look at how determined and serious he is. He doesn't mess around when he knits everyone. If you want forearms like his, you must knit in the round. If you don't know what that means, you are out of luck. Have a great Saturday night everyone! 

Weekend Overview

Okay it's late and the layout of these photos is crap but I don't care. I just wanted to do a quick share of my weekend before I head to bed. Pretty random pictures but I'll explain briefly. For the wedding, Jamie retrieved a massive box of old family photos to do our slideshow. Instead of returning the massive box as is, he really wanted to organize the photos. I bet he's regretting the decision now because I made him organize and sort the entire weekend. We stopped by Walmart and purchased some albums. The top four albums hold 440 photos each and the two black albums are the old school sticky pages type because a lot of his parents' old photographs are odd sizes. And I threw in the picture of a new cereal I picked up because how can you not? Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal! We stayed up till past 1 AM working on it. Jamie wasn't impressed because he had class this morning. After his class ended today, I was craving cheese fondue and I had ciabatta bread going stale so we had some of that for lunch. I was also craving eggs and we had leftover steak so we ate that too! Breakfast of champions as Jamie put it. I eventually got sick of the bread and cheese and opted for a Granny Smith apple with cheese. It helped up my cheese consumption and we managed to finish the entire thing. 

On Saturday I purchased a spiffy new pair of TOMS shoes. Loving them so far. G'nite blogland!  

365 Photo Project - Photo 21: Blanket For Ali

 I don't think I ever got a chance to share lil Porkie with you guys. Everyone, meet lil Porkie. He is a porcupine pin cushion that I sewed a couple months ago after I got frustrated with containers of pins. I stuffed Porkie with rocks on the bottom to keep him stable, pillow stuffed the rest of him and on his front right side, I stuck a magnet. The original tutorial can be found here. Theirs is much cuter because they managed to find tan colored felt. I checked Dollarama, Michaels and Fabricland, but no tan felt could be found so Porkie is a touch dark. I'm kinda sad I purchased black head pins because they blend in with Porkie's dark skin and also my carpet! I dropped a couple pins and although I'm pretty sure I located most of them, I can't confidently say I found them all. This is my second flannel blanket and it was actually a bit harder this time around. Instead of laying the warp and weft together on both pieces, I tried to maximize my fabric by laying it together with warp against weft. Meaning: One piece was stretchy left and right, the other piece I put stretchy up and down. It didn't work so well with the sewing bit. That darn stripped flannel kept stretching and stretching. I'm not sure if that was 100% the problem but I'm sure it didn't help. The next one I sew I'll do a bit of a test. Regardless, I think the blanket turned out great! This time I attached the label using Heat & Bond and threw some stitching on either side for extra hold. Finished it off with a super cute pink ribbon and baby card! 

My First Flannel Blanket

I managed to sew my very first flannel blanket for little baby Ethan a couple weekends ago. I have never sewn a blanket before but as Jamie would say, "How hard can it be?" I purchased some flannel and after getting a friend to help me wash and dry some of it in her nice front loading washer, I cut out two large rectangles. I put the "right" sides facing each other and had to lay it out on the floor to pin it because the table just wasn't big enough. After pinning it, I took a large bowl to trace the rounded corners and trimmed off the excess fabric to make a nice straight edge to sew along. I sewed a 1/4" seam along the entire edge, leaving about 5" to flip the blanket right side out. I stitched up the hole by hand and then did a decorative zigzag stitch along the edge about a 1/2" in. Turned out super cute. I found a lady that makes her own labels by stamping on ribbon and heat setting the ink. I tried it and haven't hard yet if it washed out or not. I attached it to the blanket using the heat & bond stuff to hem pants with, but I should have added some stitching too. Hopefully the label stays and the words too! Jamie was madly knitting a little toque for Ethan. It turned out more like a knitted helmet. He stitched on a lightning bolt so I told him, "You do realize that people will call him Harry Potter now right?" We paired all of that with a little gift set from Birth Source for some natural bum cleaning stuff. Is the blanket perfect? Nope. Do I, Penny or Ethan care? Nope. (I hope)

365 Photo Project - Photo 20

Isn't he just oh so handsome? I can't believe it's been almost 4 years since we got Khuno. He still loves that IKEA step stool and that front window. Khuno's always keeping an eye out for visitors, walkers, other dogs, rabbits, the mailman, cars, blowing leaves, flying garbage...

Baby Ethan Again

They never stay itty bitty do they? Isn't it amazing how their little bodies can fit inside bigger momma bodies? The amount of hair on lil Ethan is crazy! 

365 Photo Project - Photo 19

It was a boring old Friday morning, Jamie and I were finished breakfast and getting ready to leave the house when we noticed something amazing. Not a word of a lie, that is the gorgeous sunrise we caught while looking outside our kitchen window. I was so blown away by the beauty that I tried taking a picture through the kitchen window through the gross mesh screen. Jamie, being the smart one, suggested I take the photo from the balcony window. So this photo was actually taken while we were indoors through our balcony sliding doors. The colors were breathtaking. It lasted all about 5 minutes before the sky turned to the gross gray/blue color again. I complain about my home all the time and the amount of reno/work we've had to put into it and will have to put into it, but it was mornings like that which make me remember why we love our little home. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 18

Welcome to the world lil Ethan. You are absolutely adorable and no, your parents are not biased. It was so much fun to snuggle up and breathe in all that baby yummy goodness. I tried capturing you with your parents and big sis, but babies and toddlers are a lot harder than compliant adult subjects. I managed to sneak in a couple uber cute shots of you and I think this one is my favorite. It shows off your little fuzzy hair, those big juicy cheeks, all your little chubby rolls, the baby fingers and toes and that cute lil bum. I can't wait for another snuggle session. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 17

This is another attempt at some macro shots except this time I'm taking it during the day in the kitchen using window light. The little garlic chive bits are waaaay in focus! I've learnt that I'm not a huge fan of macro shots mostly because I like my shots to tell more of a story. It'd be different if I was shooting someone else's rings but shot after shot of my own ring gets really boring. I've been falling way behind on posting photos for this 365 photo project so I'll try loading a few extra photos today to do some catching up. 

365 Photo Project - Photo 16

My friend, Justin, asked what issues I was having with macro shots. My biggest issue is getting close enough to focus on the darn object. The challenge I had with trying to do ring shots is I couldn't get close enough. The second problem was I needed to have a higher aperture to get the detail captured but it was so stinkin' dark that I had to slow my shutter speed right down which left me with blurry shots and I hate blurry shots. Here's an attempt in the kitchen at night.