Hours of Photo Fun

I'll bet you didn't know that I once played hockey with the German hockey team, did you?  OK, actually I didn't.  But thanks to a really fun website, I'm right there in the thick of the action.  Have you discovered Photofunia yet?   

You can while away hours up on this site.  I do mean HOURS playing with all the different photos that you can pop your images into.  For one brief shining moment, you can even have the body of a 20-year-old (not to mention a male model by your side, eh?)

That will teach me to dress up like Cupid and sling those arrows around.

You can also put your photographs into images so that they look like charcoal sketches such as this one of our daughter holding her niece.

Or this one of little Mika.  Isn't it cute?  I love how the website can take a photograph and make it look like an artist's drawing.

In this effect, I chose a watercolor look.  I could have opted for Vintage, Oil Painting, or a host of other effects, as well.

With any of the many images, you are given the option of saving the image you make to your computer or publishing it to a site such as Facebook.  I think the easiest thing to do is save it to your computer and then post it to Facebook or your blog from there.  Oh yes, the website also lets you make avatars, too.

Head on over and check it out.  But you might find yourself ignoring the housework and other things on your "To Do" list because it's so much fun to play up on the site.

Project 365 - June 9, 2010 (Day 13)

 
Luscious strawberries sprinkled with a bit of sugar and ready for breakfast tomorrow.

Project 365 Musings

Have you heard about Project 365?  It started when a fellow decided to take at least one photograph of himself out doing his daily activities each day for one year.  What resulted was a year captured in film that also gave him a chance to reflect on what really was important to him at that point in his life.  Along the way, he also found that he improved as a photographer.

The concept intriques me and I think I will do more research into it.  I believe many who are following Project 365 post their pictures up in Flickr.  Others are scrapbooking their project photos digitally or in regular scrapbooks.  Participants are encouraged to take their cameras with them everywhere.  I stumbled across this little product today (a bottle-top tripod) while reading about the project and thought I'd share it with you.  How ingenious but I would think that you have to be sure to put it on a bottle that is pretty full of liquid.  I also came across some digital scrapbooking resources aimed specifically at "Project 365" folks.  In fact, that's what started me looking into it.

I'll report back with more information soon but I'll leave you with this teaser.  Do you participate in forums online where you use avatars?  Ever wish you could come up with a creative avatar other than a photograph of yourself?  If you enjoy digital scrapbooking and use Creative Memories Storybook Creator, I'll tell you how to make your own avatars in my next post.

Who Would Have Thunk It?

Today's post is a bit of lagniappe - a good old word that I first met in a Cajun cookbook.  Its meaning in that book was "a little extra."  It can also mean a little gift thrown in for free to someone or something given over and above, like the Baker's Dozen.  For Hot-Flashed Funk today, it means a bit of this and that thrown together to brighten your day.

My first little "extra" that I found as I was reading the paper this morning was a short article on the most popular baby names in 2009.  Top choices for girls were Olivia and Isabella and for boys were Jacob and Michael.  To see the entire list of the top 10 names for both boys and girls, you can go here.  Strangely, if you look to the right on that page, you'll see a link that takes you to a short video of Chubby Checkers counting down the top 5 boys' and girls' names for the decade 2000 - 2009.  I must say, Chubby is still looking pretty good for someone whose music I used to twist to back in the 60's.

My second "extra" of the day is the news from Great Britain in a recent survey.  The folks there were asked to rank the top 100 inventions in their opinion.  Well, would you believe that they put their iPhones above their flushing toilets?  It kind of boggles my mind.  If you'd like to see how the rankings went, you can do so here.

Do you enjoy free things?  There is a website that lists all sorts of things and services you can get for free and it is sorted by category, which makes it easy to browse through.  It's at thefreesite.com which you can access by clicking here.  They even have a page of listings of free things for bloggers.  Who knew?

Have a favorite coffee travel mug that has gotten stained and grungy-looking inside?  I know that mine looks terrible inside but yet it is shaped in such a way that it is hard to get my whole hand inside to really scrub it.  Well, here is a tip I've read and I think I'll try.  Moisten a sponge with white vinegar and pour some table salt on it.  Then rub the inside of your mug with the sponge.  The stains should come off as the salt will act as an abrasive.  You can rinse everything with warm water and repeat the process as needed to get it clean.  The vinegar should really make the inside sparkle.  I might give this a try this afternoon.  If I do, I'll report back here to let you know how it goes.  You'll definitely need to wash out the mug afterwards, though, to get rid of the vinegar and salt taste.


Well, that's it for today.  I'm off to high tea at a new tea shoppe where a group of us will be celebrating a friend's retirement.  Pictures and a report tomorrow, I hope.  In the meantime, I'll leave you with a graphic from my family collection that you can use for your scrapbooking.  It's a little calling card featuring a dove and roses that someone gave my grandmother when she was a girl.  Enjoy!

Calling Cards - An Elegant Social Custom

Today's graphic image is an old photographic calling card that was in old cards and papers belonging to my grandmother.  She grew up in Lismore, Minnesota and this young man was probably someone she went to school with.  He's quite the young dandy for someone from a small farming town on the Minnesota prairie.

I have become quite fascinated with these calling cards as I've been scanning the few that she had.  I knew that calling cards were used pretty extensively during Victorian times but I had no idea that there were so many rules governing their use.  For example, did you know that you often turned down the corner of your calling card depending on the nature of your visit?  The corner that you turned down was determined by what type of visit it was.  You also might write down some initials on your calling card which would indicate such things as "congratulations" or "With sympathy."

When you arrived at a home, you usually presented your calling card to the servant of the house who extended a special tray to hold the card.  The servant, in turn, would take your card to the master or lady of the house to let them know who was at the door and desiring to see them.  If the family wasn't at home, the card was left to let the family know that you had called.  A set of rules then governed how long after the initial call was made after which the person who had been called upon should then return the favor of the visit. 

There is a website called "The Art of Manliness" which does a nice job of giving you a history of the calling card and a brief explanation of the etiquette surrounding the use of these cards on their page "Gentleman's Guide to the Calling Card" .  If you'd like to spend some pleasant minutes looking at examples of the various kinds of calling cards, visit Days of Elegance which has marvelous pictures of calling cards, salesmen's sample books, and even calling card trays.
It's been suggested that calling cards might even be making a comeback as a means of giving folks a card that will list one simple way to contact you or learn more about you (such as a website address) when you first meet them, without inundating them with all of your personal contact information.  I know I've been using a variation of this idea by using Moo minicards at knitting retreats and other gatherings to exchange with new friends and acquaintances.  Some of these are almost works of art.

A Gem of a Graphics Site

Did you ever type on a typewriter like one of these old gems to the left?  Believe it or not, my mum had one like this and I used to bang out book reports for school and "great" works of literature for submission to the local newspaper's weekly children's column.  I loved typing on that old typewriter.  MANY years later, I had quite a chuckle when I was working at a local college library.  I asked one of my student workers to go over to an electric typewriter and type out an address on an envelope.  She looked at me in astonishment and said, "A typewriter?  Oh, my gosh....I've heard about them but I've never actually seen one." 

So what has that little story got to do with a graphics site?  Well, as I was searching the Web the other day for a graphic I could use to illustrate a post I wanted to write, I stumbled across a wonderful site run by a blogger called The Graphics Fairy.  I have a button link to her blog on my home page but you can also access it here.  She has an astonishing collection of free clip art that pulls heavily from vintage graphics like old postcards and advertising flyers.  In many instances, she gives you the option of downloading graphics with the original vendor names on them (i.e. in the case of advertising graphics) or ones where she has cleaned them up and given you a place to insert your own words.

  Love this graphic of a British war poster!  I should probably blow it up and frame it to hang on the wall in back of my computer monitor.  Or better yet, maybe I should print it out onto a postcard and mail it off to my local congressman.  Or how about the delicious illustration of cakes?  It's nice to look at right now, especially since today is a "weigh-in" day for me.  That means I won't be heading over to the local bakery to buy any sweets to snack on.  There aren't many calories in a graphic.


The Graphics Fairy has a neat feature at her blog on Mondays.  She calls it "Brag Monday."  On Mondays, folks who have used her graphics in some creative way post links on her blog and you get the fun of visiting their sites to see how they've been using the various images available.  What a great way to get new ideas.  She also features one or two of these projects in more detail on her blog that day. 

So why not grab a nice cuppa tea, put your feet up and get comfy, and head on over to the Graphics Fairy to check out all the treasures she has assembled for you?  And while you're over there, if you like what you see, don't miss the chance to subscribe to her blog and/or follow her on Twitter.  I'm sure glad that I've done both.

The Incredible Growing Scarf

Yippee! I came in under the wire on this Knit-a-Long (KAL) with several weeks to spare. I have to admit that I was a little worried considering that I was also knitting up a storm on socks for the Summer of Socks '08. But "I dood it!", as my Mom likes to say.

This was a KAL headed up by the Loopy Ewe gang over at Ravelry. If you haven't discovered Ravelry yet and you like to knit or crochet, my friend...you need to head on over and read all about it. Membership is free. You just have to sign up and wait several days until you get an email invitation to join and then the fun begins. This is a marvelous worldwide community of fiber people and the website is chock full of patterns, groups of every interest imaginable, pictures of people's projects, a library feature where you can add your knitting books, etc. Really, it is just hard to describe. You have to experience it. Imagine a big convention of like-minded folk and now extend that convention to year-round, 24 hours a day, at your fingertips whenever you want to be there. Go to http://www.ravelry.com/ and when you get on, look up "Booklassie" and say "hi." You'll find me up there most days and if I'm temporarily away, you can leave me a message.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes....talking about the KAL that the Loopy Ewe group was doing. Loopy Ewe (and I promise I'll stop tantalizing you soon) is a fantastic vendor of sock yarns and accessories and spinning wheels, etc. Sheri has a wonderful selection of handpainted yarns from some great companies and some wonderful new Indie artists. Her service is top-notch. You can find the Loopy Ewe store here http://www.theloopyewe.com/ and don't say I didn't warn you.....you might become a "Loopy Groopy."

Now, back to what I was saying. We all picked a Dream in Color Baby laceweight yarn and then each picked our own projects to knit. Concurrently, there was a Red KAL going on and so I decided to pick some DiC Baby in the colorway "Lipstick Lava" and knit it up into a Rivulet scarf. I started it and decided that I wanted a little heftier weight yarn so after doubling the yarn, I was a happy knitter. Here is how it looked as I was starting out.


If you look closely, you'll see that I actually used some "lifelines" in this scarf. For those of you not too familiar with knitting, a lifeline is a piece of string or yarn threaded through something you are knitting (usually a shawl or scarf) periodically so that if you really mess up and have to rip out a bunch of rows, you can always rip down to the nearest lifeline and know that all your stitches will be intact at the point of the lifeline. And you also try to ensure that all your stitches are correct at the point that you insert a lifeline. In almost 50 years of knitting, this is the first time I've used lifelines and I can tell you that now it won't be the last. I decided that they are a good idea.

I worked and worked on that scarf and it didn't seem to be getting long very fast but the time was ticking so eventually I decided that I was going to finish her off and just artfully cross it at my throat and secure it with a nice pin. That was the plan. Imagine my surprise when, after giving it a good soak, I went to block it out and discovered that my little scarf had grown to a full 68 inches long. Wow, that yarn just relaxed and BLOOMED in my sink. I felt like Jack and the beanstalk except that I didn't have to climb anything to find a treasure. My treasure was lying on the guestroom floor.

After giving it a day or two to dry thoroughly, I unpinned it and wrapped it around my neck. It was soft and warm and long enough to wrap around my throat and sling over my shoulders, just the way I like it.

 
Once again, I'm amazed at the way lace knitting looks pre-blocking and post-blocking. And now, I plan to go pull out that stole I've been working on off and on over the summer. I've used umpteen skeins of yarn trying to get that thing long enough to wrap around a person but I was figuring that I still had another 2 or 3 skeins to add to it before blocking it. Now I'm not so sure. If that stole is anything like this scarf, I just might have a potentially LONG stole in my knitting bag. In fact, it might already be big enough to wrap around 2 or 3 people all at once. Maybe I'll call it the "Overachiever Stole."

Manipulating Realities

I'll admit it. I'm an incurable escapist.....someone who just can't pass up a good alternate reality. I love to manipulate my environment, putting the unexpected in familiar settings. When I stumble across something that helps me do this, it's a GOOD day. And so, from the land that brought us Stravinsky, Rudolf Nureyev, and Dr. Zhivago, I give you a nifty little piece of escapist programming called Photofunia http://www.photofunia.com/ which should give you quite a few hours of fun.

It really is quite addicting. For example, I took a little picture of my dear hubby and me from our daughter's recent wedding and did a little playing with it. First I decided to put us on the front page of a newspaper. What fun! Wouldn't you love to see us over your first cup of coffee in the morning instead of war images, politicians, or high prices at the gas pumps?

Then I decided to put us up on the side of a building. I figured maybe America wasn't quite ready for us early in the morning so instead we'd greet commuters on their way in to work; remind the younger generation why they're working. Someone's gotta support us Baby Boomers in our golden years.

Well, I got to thinking that perhaps we shouldn't spring that little fact on the younger folk yet. We don't want to encourage a generation of underachievers, at least until their portfolios are well-padded. So I decided that I'd pop us onto the telly instead where we
could be featured on some show about couples that still have that "zing" after 29 years of marriage. It would embarrass our kids but their pets might pick up some pointers.

Pets! Ah, now that got my creative juices going. Why limit the fun to just my hubby and I? Why not expand my horizons a little? So I dug up a picture of my son-in-law and stuck him in the computer. Since I know that he is particularly fond of cats (excuse me a moment while I extricate my tongue from my cheek) I just HAD to put a cat on top of the computer. Too bad they didn't offer a white cat as an option which would have been purr-fect since our daughter and son-in-law share their home with Bailey, a big white cat.

And finally, knowing that my daughter wouldn't want to feel left out, I decided to add a poster
of Laura and I on a street kiosk display under the bright city lights of a town that shall remain nameless. I like to think that we're promoting a cozy tea room next to a quaint bookstore.

Just think, you all can have as much fun as I'm having with this gem of a website. And the beauty of it is that it is a free website. Plus you can not only save your pictures as regular pics but you can also save them as avatars, for those of you who chat on online communities.
Be forewarned though! This is highly addictive.

Feeding My Obsessions

It all started innocently enough. I just wanted my husband to show me how to put a button link on my blog. That led to a decision to redo the format a little.....spruce it up a tad, if you will, which led to further discovering that I had other options of things to add to my blog. I still don't have the button thing down very well but I am enjoying adding links and lists. And this is where my sad little tale of obsession begins.

Have you ever noticed that obsessions are either fattening, frightening, expensive, or a combination of the latter? I don't THINK I have any frightening obsessions but I sure do have fattening and expensive obsessions. I love to eat, I love to read, and I love to knit. Need I say more? Well, since this is my blog....sure! Being the obsessive-compulsive person that I am, I don't do things half-heartedly. When I find something that I enjoy, I throw myself into it 150%.

Imagine my delight when I discovered an entire worldwide virtual community of compulsive knitters and crocheters on Ravelry (see the button link to the right). Here were people just like me--obsessed with fiber and making things out of it. Folks, I was in Nirvana wandering the pages and pages of patterns and projects on Ravelry. Then I discovered that there were "groups" up there that you could join based on common interests. If you liked coffee and knitting, there was a group for you. If you shopped with certain yarn vendors, there was a group for you. Making certain "shawls du jour?" No problem. Join a group of like-minded strugglers. Yarn Harlot groupie? You weren't alone. This was dangerous territory for an obsessive person and my growing stash of yarn reflected it, as did my dusty house.

And now I'm practically wiggling with excitement because my prospecting on Ravelry has dug up another treasure. There are groups of READERS on Ravelry. Readers.....in groups with names like YarnWords, RaveLibrarians, and Librarything Crafters. Wow, I mean, I can sit here and read about knitting and what books other folks are reading while munching on popcorn thus effectively feeding all three of my obsessions, which doesn't get much better than that unless the popcorn was something chocolate but hey, you can't have everything.

I had forgotten about Librarything for awhile but thanks to being a member now of YarnWords, I went over to Librarything and logged in. The "OC" in me groaned. I had joined it awhile back but hadn't done anything to update my profile nor had I even begun to catalog my books into it. My house would be in cobwebs by the time I got this site up-to-date. But then I spied the CueCat Scanner, a little device that looked like a resting cat in the shape of a stapler. This little beauty plugs into your USB port and you use it to read your book barcodes and then that info goes right into Librarything into your personal library holdings. This should save LOTS of typing time.

 
In the meantime, I'm back to my reading groups on Ravelry and notice that some have attempted to make a list of every book they've ever read in their life. Hmmmm, it's tempting but can I really come up with a list filled with 58 years of reading? Probably not. But this list idea really excites me. I LOVE making lists. What fun to put it up on my blog. And once I catalog my books into Librarything, I can link my library to my blog and......Well, you see where this is going, don't you? It's an obsession, I tell you. One thing feeds off of another and before you know it, your husband has returned from work and you're looking at him like he's an alien because you're still at the keyboard with your feet propped up on the hard drive, a book on your lap, a set of knitting patterns spread out on the computer desk above the keyboard, and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrapper on your mousepad. You are SOOO busted. But it was a good day, wasn't it?

Pillows of Love Workday

Yesterday our Women's Ministry MerryMakers (our motto is "Spreading Joy through the Work of our Hands) had a workday where we made pillowcases for the Pillows of Love ministry. This is a wonderful ministry started by a lady in our area after hearing about children and women going to shelters often with their meager belongings gathered up in a trash bag. She felt God nudging her to use her special talents as a seamstress to make bright, cheerful pillowcases that could then be distributed to shelters for battered women and homes for unwed mothers. That ministry has now expanded to homeless shelters and to orphanages as far away as China.

Each pillowcase has a copy of the New Testament or a children's book about the Bible included in it. The pillowcases are given to the women and children and are theirs to keep. At the very end or wide cuff of the pillowcase is the verse "He will give you sleep, peace and a safe place to dwell." Psalm 4:8.

We had 3 sewers and 2 ironers at our workshop and after spending the morning sewing and ironing away, we had 27 pillowcases completed and another 13 pillowcases all finished except for the final seam around the 3 sides. Since each shelter receives about 40 pillowcases at a time, that was enough for one shelter. It's really awesome when God can use our hobbies to serve others. The morning was a joy.

If you would like to find out more about this much-needed ministry, check out www.pillows-of-love.com. Well, off to do some ironing of my own now so better cut this short. Practice some random acts of love today.