It's starting to look a lot like Christmas...

Sorry I haven't posted anything in awhile...I have been busy with the usual holiday stuff, but now finally the dust has settled, the gifts are wrapped and I can now sit back and actually enjoy the season. I love it when everything is done and I can relax and do the holiday things I enjoy like baking cookies and spending time with friends and family. This is our Christmas tree this year...we have made the change to colored lights for the past two years and it is growing on me...I used to be a white lights only kind of girl, but my husband and daughter are slowly wooing me to the other side. My tree is of course slowly going tothe dogs....I have more dog ornaments now, my collection growing each year it seems. Luckily everyone else in my family shares this passion or they may think I am starting to obsess...
We are staying home for Xmas and then going to visit the In-Laws in Baltimore after that...I am looking forward to the visit since we still have a lot of friends there that we are excited to see and hang out with. I hope that everyone has a safe, magical holiday season and a very Happy New Year!

This one of my favorite ornaments...it looks just like my Daisy!

This a recent cabinet card that I altered...I sent out a few as xmas cards to some of my online friends....maybe you will get one soon?

Pet Portrait Day at the VBSPCA

What a fun weekend! I met a lot of really cool cats & dogs, some crazy pet owners and survived the weekend without getting my eyes clawed out by a few cats that were less than happy to be there. It is always exhausting since the appointments are every 20 minutes and you don't have a whole lot of time to get the perfect shot. By 5pm, I am usually pretty fried. The photos I have posted above were a few of my favorites...

Six Feet Under Fatbook has gone postal

Front Cover

Back Cover

Inside Spread - (left) Debby Beheler (right) Debbie Dischley

Inside Spread- (left) Nancy Donaldson (right) Lucy Lee

Overall, I thought the book turned out pretty well. There were a lot of last minute flakes that are always kind of annoying. I know that things happen sometimes and you have to flake, but I don't think it is fair to wait until the last minute to bail. I usually have a wait list of people who could have filled in. Oh well, so it goes when hosting a project. My last one for awhile is due in January and it is called Sanctuary. It is a fatbook all about birds which I am really looking forward to. After that, I think I am done for awhile!

Now I am off to get ready for my holiday pet portrait day that I have every year at the Va. Beach SPCA. It is always a really fun, exhausting day but totally worth the effort as it raises money for the shelter. I will post some photos from the event next week. Wish me luck!

Pointed Party Hats

I just did these ATC size fatbook pages for a swap called Pointed Party Hats. The only criteria was your image had to have a party hat...so of course I had to take a bunch of my dog photos and party them up a bit. They make me smile. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Caroline & Daisy

I have been playing with an old lens that I forgot about in the bottom of my camera bag...It is an 85mm portrait lens and i love the blurred background that you can get with the wider aperatures...Both of my subjects were less than thrilled about being my models once again.

Goodbye Toby...

A friend of mine had to put his dog to sleep last week. He was the coolest Dachshund I have ever met and his name was Toby. He was also the fattest Dachshund I ever met...he weighed in at 25 lbs. and reminded me of a foot stool. You know how some dogs that you meet just make a special impression on you? That was Toby...he lived his life on his own terms, nose to the ground, always on the snoop. He was never to busy to roll over on his back for a nice tummy rub (which was everytime you went to pet him) or never to tired to chase the chickens in his owners backyard. He loved to burrow in blankets...I was often amazed at how he could tuck himself into his dog bed with a blanket so you couldn't even see him...I will miss Toby and I sincerely believe he is enjoying unlimited dog biscuits in Heaven.

Holga/Woca shots from Italy

Ok, I promise I am done with photos from my trip...

I just love my Holga and had to post a few more.

More photos from Switzerland & Italy

Cable car ride at the bottom of Mt. Titlis

Cable Car at the TOP of Mt. Titlis!!!

From Lucerne, we traveled by train to Lake Como Italy...Along the way we stopped at a really cool town called Bellinzona which has three castles, each one higher up the mountain than the next...My daughter loved the medieval toilets the best (ha ha)

Bellinzona Castle

Lake Como was really beautiful, but unfortunately no George Clooney sightings...However, Tom And Katie are getting married right near the hotel we stayed at in Cernobbio...

View form our hotel room in Lake Como

Next, we were off to Venice...WOW what an amazing city...I know people either love it or hate it. I thought it was beautiful and fascinating...a photographers dream. The way they have perfected life without cars, only boats or your own two feet is really interesting. Trash removal, getting goods in and out of the city, fire and rescue operations, an entire island set aside for a graveyard...Not to mention the fact that the city is sinking and whever it rains the entire St. Mark's Square floods and you have to walk on raised boards. I think Venice is something everyone should see before they die...it is truly unique. We took our daughter on a gondola ride through the back canals along with her grandparents. Our gondolier was named Eros after the God of love...my husband thought he looked like Colin Farrell , which is not a bad thing...Eros and Caroline

Grand Canal

Us on the Gondola

St. Mark's Square flooded

That's the highlights...What an awesome time we had...I love Italy so much and can't wait to go back...next trip will be to Florence, Tuscany and Cinque Terra I think. Thanks for looking!

Back from Europe!

Wow! What an amazing trip we had...Everything went very smoothly, only one train mishap and that 's not to bad for me planning the whole thing myself...My daughter, who is eight, did really well. I was worried it may be too much for her, all of the travelling, strange foods and foreign languages, etc. but she did great. She can speak better Italian than me! We started off landing in Milan, Italy. We got immediately on a train and went to Lugano, Switzerland where we stayed for our first night to recover from the long trip and get acclimated to the new time zone. Lugano was a beautiful city which felt much more Italian than Swiss due to it's location so close to the Italian border...The town itself had great shopping, wonderful food and was very picturesque sitting on the edge of Lake Lugano. Here is a photo from the boat ride we took around the lake.

This the beautiful town of Morcote on Lake Lugano

Next, we travelled by train to Lucerne, Switzerland. Lucerne is a lovely city with a really beautiful Old Town section. The langauge turned to German here, which we are not very familiar with unfortunately. We found some people who spoke English, but not many...We had a terrible nights sleep our first night there...some soccer team had TIED some other soccer team and I kid you not...drunk Swiss men stayed up until 4am in the morning singing victory songs outside our window...what a trip that was...they definately know how to party!The town of Lucerne

We took a day trip the next day to two different mountains...One is called Mt. Titlis and the other is Mt. Pialtus. Mt. Titlis is 10,000 feet high and is covered in snow 365 days a year. You start out at the base in green meadows and end up at a frozen glacier! The temp. on the ground that day was 65 degrees and 28 degrees at the top. This was my first cable car ride since I was a kid and OMY it scared the living daylights out of me! I am afraid of heights so I don't know what the hell I was thinking...The first cable car was the worst because it is really small and only seats about 4 people. It swings and rocks a lot...The second and third ones to the top weren't so bad because they held about 25 people and felt much more substantial....Once we reached the top it felt like you were in heaven...above the clouds! Very cool and worth the near heart attack.

I will try and post some more photos later...for some reason Blogger will not let me upload any more photos right now....

Arrivederci

I am off to Italy & Switzerland today!!! I will post some photos when I return...

Holga and Infrared shots

I went out to a local cemetery yesterday to play around with my infrared filter on my digital camera and to check out my new Holga "Woca" camera. I have been using my old Holga 120S for years but I recently came across the Woca and had to check it out. It ROCKS!!! Don't get me wrong, I still love my old faithful, but I have to say the Woca is just a little bit sharper and offers more contrast than the 120s. Not everyone wants that from their Holga, but being a professional photographer, that little extra detail makes me LOVE this camera. The infrared filter worked great on my Canon 30D digital camera as well. I really like the fact that you don't have to wait and see if your shots turned out. Infrared can be really tricky to expose properly with film and this takes that right out of the equation. I used the Hoya R72 filter which is pricey but will pay for itself in one outing when I don't have to buy film and pay to have it processed and printed...I love new photography toys!

Virgin Mary Fatbook page

Here are my finished pages for the Virgin Mary Fatbook...I used a photo of

the Virgin with Jesus and handcolored the b/w image and then stamped

and collaged on top....The back page is pretty simple, I just hand colored

a stamp that I have of the Virgin and added my name and email info...

Mail Art

I just sent this mail art out to my friend Randi Feuerhelm-

Watts. For those of you not familiar with her work check out

her website at http://randifeuerhelm.com/index.html. She

is an amazing artist...She is the one who introduced me to

mail art and now I really love making fun little postcards to

mail out to friends. I can't help but think it brightens the day

of whoever receives it and also gives the postal workers

something fun to look at for a change. I send them in clear

plastic envelopes with bright labels and fun stamps. Try it!

On a different note, I am hosting a new fatbook over at

Chubbyville if anyone is interested... The topic for this fatbook

is "Six Feet Under" - 4x4 pages that pay homage to cemeteries.

Anything graveyard related goes...tombstones, statuary, crypts,

shrines, etc. If you are interested and want to play, you can either

go to the polls section of the Chubbyville Yahoo group and sign up

or leave a comment on this post and I will contact you. The

due date for the book is Nov. 17th. I have always had a morbid

fascination with graveyards...whenever I travel, I look

for cool graveyards to photograph. New Orleans, Savannah, GA

and France have been my favorites so far...

Altered Cabinet Card Fatbook finished!

This is the cover for a fatbook I just
hosted over at the Chubbyville Yahoo
Group. The theme was altered cabinet
cards and the art work I received for the
book was really amazing. I will share
some examples of the artists work who
participated below...

Lisa Martinez

Maija Lepore

Beth Kelsey (left) & Lucy Lee (right)

The BIG 4-0 !!!

Happy Birthday to me.....My husband and daughter have

been celebrating my bday for the past four days. They are

calling it "four days of turning 40". I have been showered

with gifts every morning for the past four days leading up

to my actual bday today. I have received the butt mug

(shown above) which they thought was hilarious. An action

figure of Capt. Jack Sparrow ( the closest I will ever get to

Johnny Depp, apparently), various candy, a cookbook, a

video, and beautiful dog sculpture for my front porch. What

a wonderful way to welcome a milestone...I don't think 40

is going to be so bad...I have my health, a wonderful family,

four crazy dogs and I still feel like I am 18 years old on the

inside...It's all a state of mind I suppose...

My sister's new "puppy" Lily...

I'm sorry I have not been posting very much lately...We are getting used to a new routine at my house with school starting back up and I have not yet found my groove. This is Lily, she is an 18 week old Great Dane with huge paws who thinks she is a lap dog. She is a very sweet girl!

I have been working feverishly on completing a fatbook that I am hosting called "Altered Cabinet Cards". The work that I have received so far is awesome and I think the book is going to turn out quite nice. I will post some images of the book when I have it completed...More later.

Back From Art Unraveled!

Wow....what a week! Art Unraveled was wonderful. I met some really nice people and over loaded myself with new ideas and techniques. I can't wait to get busy in my studio to start processing some of what I learned. Below are some photos from my various workshops....

Uber Self Portrait with

Traci Bunkers

Mixed Media Backgrounds with

Kelly Kilmer

Voo Doo Doll with Michael De Meng

Then Is Now with Sylvia Luna

Art of Repetition with Juliana Coles

Transfer class with Traci Bunkers

My partner in crime, Cindy....Thanks for being such a great friend/host!