Lucy's Ballet Recital

On Saturday we went to see our precious baby dance in a ballet recital at ORU. She was dressed as Pocahontas. She was looking for her classmates when I got this shot. I don't know how I got it. There were hundreds of people walking past this window. But at this moment, with her on her toes peeking over the rail, no one was in view.

Sigh...

 

Her ballet class had a great performance.  They danced to Colors of the Wind from the movie Pocahontas.  

Busy Busy

Since returning from Emma Jane's field trip, we have not stopped.  Things are crazy at our house.  Among all the other things I am doing, I am making a quilt for the Mayo Auction.  Did I mention I don't quilt?  Someone I know said "that is like trying to throw a dinner party for 200 when you don't cook!"  Yup!

But the first step was to take pictures of Lucy's classmates.  You see this quilt needs to have photos of her class on it.  I went to the school yesterday and took pictures of her class.  Among the "real" photos I captured a series of shots of a little boy named Simon.  He was not going to smile for me.  Nope.  Not gonna.

Here are his out takes...

The Pop-Up Flash Bounce

I found a little item I cannot live without.  I am one of the many people I know who hate the way the flash on my digital SLR looks.  I can't stand the pop up flash and whenever possible I don't use it.  However, sometimes you have to have the light.

That's where this little number comes in.

The Pop-up Flash Bounce at the Photojojo Store!


Here is a photo of my two girls using the pop up flash on my camera.  This room was nearly dark and the settings were set to auto.

 
The next photo was taken with the same settings using the flash bouncer.

Here is a photo of my girls playing with their dearest companion and friend and mentor and playmate and idol.

With flash...

With the flash bouncer...

I love this little tool and you will too!

Gallery Wall

Lately I have been on a home improvement tear.  I have been tackling projects that have been on my to do list for years but I just couldn't make the time to do it.  One of those projects was to create a gallery wall in my house.  I have been seeing gallery walls appear on Pinterest and blogs all over the place lately.  We all know I have no shortage of pictures but I need to take the time (and money) to frame them and hang them.  I also wanted to frame Lucy's and Emma Jane's art.  I had a stack of art pieces I wanted to have professionally framed until I found out how much it would cost.  Then I decided to buy stock frames and cut the mats to fit.  This proved to be much less expensive and also allowed me to get the entire wall done in about 4 evenings.

If you are considering doing this yourself, I highly recommend you buy this.

 

This little tool made all the difference in the world.  I can not live with out it.  I bought mine at Michael's with a 40% off coupon.  Soooooo worth every penny, even if I had paid full price.  Keep in mind that you can't use it when you get as close to the ceiling as my pictures are.  You have to eyeball it when you get that close to the top.

I love how my gallery wall turned out.  I just sit and stare at it while I sip coffee in the morning.  I also look at it while drinking a beer in the evening.  It is a multi-beverage viewing wall...

Come on over and have a beverage with me and enjoy my gallery wall.  Emma Jane said she feels like a real artist now.

The Great Salt Plains

This past weekend we went camping.  We packed up our truck in Tulsa and drove over to the Lazy E Arena near Guthrie.  We went to the Wilderness Expo that is put together by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.  We spent the day learning about bats, spiders, migrating birds and fish.  Emma Jane got to shoot a BB gun and both girls shot a bow and arrow.

Emma got two bulls-eyes and one shot right off of bulls-eye.  Her dad might be taking her for target practice soon.

Mike took the girls in a kayak and we ran into our friends Sean and Amy!  What a nice surprise!

After a fun day at the Expo we drove about two hours to the Salt Plains State Park to camp for the night.  We got there a little before dusk and quickly made camp next to the Great Salt Plains lake.  This area was covered by an ocean in prehistoric times and the salt is left over from the sea bed.  The lake is a salt lake with about half the salinity of the oceans.

The campground was fairly empty and we had a secluded spot near the sandy beach.  We didn't realize it as we were making camp but we were pitching our tent right in the middle of a field of burrs.  These little sharp burrs got into your shoes, attached themselves to your socks and came through the tarp and through the floor of the tent and directly into your knee right below the patella...OUCH!

As the sun was setting and we were trying to hurry up and get our camp set up, I glanced skyward and saw that the sun was turning the clouds a pink hue that could best be described as cotton candy pink.  Emma started jumping towards the clouds to catch the cotton candy in her hands.  It was fleeting and only lasted about 2 minutes before the spun-sugar-clouds disappeared.

Lucy helped hammer the stakes into the ground around the tent.

Then we sat around the campfire and cooked brats and s'mores and sang songs.

The coyotes were the predominant soundtrack for our night.  They would call in bursts of fierce crying and howling.  It sounded like there were young pups trying to imitate the older ones.  Something would set them off and they would yelp and holler and call and whine and howl in a big tangled song of frenzied crying.  Then they would suddenly stop and leave you wondering if they were busy tracking something or eating or moving.  And just as suddenly something would set them off again and their calls were coming from another direction which was disorienting and exciting.

The night was a cool one and we were all very tired.  We collapsed onto our sleeping bags which were on top of thin foam, hoping not to get any prickly burrs in our behinds.  We fell asleep listening to the frenzy of the coyotes and the calm hoots of the owls.  We all got a little cold in the night but camping is best done when the nights are cool.  It was absolutely perfect.

The next morning we made breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, coffee and hot chocolate before we set out exploring the nearby beach.

We saw coyote tracks very near our tent.

And creepy buzzards sitting in a dead tree warming their wings with the morning sun before flying away.

We spent quite a bit of time along this beach.  It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

Emma borrowed the big camera and shot a bunch of pictures of fish skeletons.  But the photo I like best of hers is this one.

After exploring the beach we packed up our campsite and headed for the Great Salt Plains.

This salt plain is all that is left of an ocean that was once covering this land.  We came here to dig for Selenite Crystals.  Are you ready for a science lesson? 

Selenite is a crystallized form of gypsum. Chemically, it is a hydrous calcium sulfate. Gypsum is a common mineral that takes on a great variety of crystal forms and shapes. On the Salt Plains, the crystals are formed just below the salt encrusted surface. They are seldom found deeper than 2 feet below the surface.

Crystals take on the characteristics of their environment; the finer the soil, the more clear the crystals. Iron oxide in the soil gives the crystals their chocolate brown color.

Because these crystals form in wet soil, sand and clay particles are included within the crystal. These particles often form an "hourglass" shape inside the crystal. This hourglass shape cannot be found in selenite crystals in other places of the world; it is only found here at the Salt Plains of NW Oklahoma.


So we set out on this barren moonscape to dig for crystals.

 Boy did we have fun!  And did we ever get dirty!  We were covered in sand, salt and mud.  Lucy had to go potty so I told her to step down into one of the holes someone else had dug.  When she did, she started sinking into what appeared to be quick sand.  I grabber her arm and started pulling her out right as the mud was up to her ankles.  I am afraid she will never use the bathroom outside again.  It scared her and scarred her.

Does this remind you of the movie Holes?

I love this picture.  It makes it look like Lucy worked really hard this day.  When the reality is far from the picture you might be getting from these photographs.

My little scientist was in heaven.  She loves geology and going to Utah this summer has fed that curiosity.  To bring her here to this salt plain was the perfect trip to foster her love of the earth and rocks.  She has a perspective that is beyond her years.  She seems to grasp that the earth has a history that is so far beyond human beings.  That kind of understanding takes a maturity that usually comes so much later in life.

We found lots of crystals.

(iPhone shot from the ground with focus on the soil right in front of the phone)

We had an amazing weekend.  It is another family memory we will treasure.  It took a lot more planning than spending the day at the fair, but it was worth all the time and effort.

Party Collage from Lisa's House

Last night we had a little soiree at another Mayo Mom's house.  It was for the Einstein Mom's (Einsteins are what the pre-k and Kindergarteners are called.)  It was a fantastic evening filled with good food, adult libations and great conversation.  It was so good to get together with the other mommy's and unwind.

Thank you Lisa for sharing your lovely home with us...

iPhone Photography

I have had quite a lot of interest in how I take my photos using my iPhone.  First of all, I have an iPhone 4S.  It has an 8 megapixel camera on it and I always have it with me.  And since I do ALL of my editing on my phone, it has become my first choice in photography.

When I do take pictures with my DSLR, which is a Canon Digital Rebel, I end up putting the best pictures on my phone so I can edit with either Instagram or use them in a collage with PicFrame.  So it saves me a step if I can just take the photos with my camera.  I love my rebel, but for now I will stick to my iphone photography tips.

I recently posted this picture on facebook.

I took the photos on our boat while sailing (with my iphone) and edited them using instagram and then collaged them together using Pic Frame.  The entire process took about 2 minutes.

Here are two photos I took with my iphone.  The first picture was taken without any adjustments.  I just opened the camera and took the shot. The sail and the lake are in focus but the winch in the foreground is not.

For the second picture I touched my finger to the winch (the cylinder wrapped with rope) on the screen.  When I held my finger down on the screen on top of what I wanted in focus, it refocused the camera to what was in the foreground and automatically blurred the background.

This works for adjusting the aperture too.  If you have a particularly bright afternoon and the camera is closing the aperture down too small your picture will turn out dark.  But if you touch the darkest part of the photo with your finger the camera will adjust the aperture to brighten the darkest parts of the picture.  The sky might get blown out white instead of blue, but the trade off is that you get the shot.  This works well if your subject is back lit and all you see is their outline.  Touch and hold your finger on the faces on your screen and it will brighten the faces.

Another iphone secret is that the shutter releases when you let up, as well as when you tap it.  So you can hold your finger on the shutter button until the moment you want to snap the shot.  The instant you release the button, it takes the shot.  This is a great technique if you are watching a thunderstorm over Kansas through your passenger window.

After I take my photos I start to edit.  I almost always use Instagram.  I have a more detailed tutorial on editing with Instagram posted here.

Inside of Instagram there is a button on the bottom right that takes you to your profile.  Then tap on the gear icon in the upper right hand corner.  That will take you to the screen below.

Make sure you have both of these selected to on.  This will save both your original and your filtered photos to your camera library.  I want the original in case I want to edit it with several different filters.  And I want the filtered photo so I can email, text or upload it.

Next I open Pic Frame.  I select a frame that will hold the number of photos I want to collage.

I tap on it to select it and then tap on a square (or rectangle) to select a photo from my camera roll.  You can zoom in or out and drag the photo around inside this frame to highlight the area you want.

I make sure that if I used a frame in instagram it is not showing in picframe.  (It just looks weird)  You can also drag the borders of the frames to change how wide or tall they are.

You can also select the color of the frame.

Then click share on the bottom right.  Make sure your resolution is set the way you want.  I always have mine at the highest resolution...hmmm that could be why I am constantly running out of hard drive space...

Clicking Save will save the photo to your camera roll.  I know that some people collage first and instagram second so that the entire collage has the same filter.  That works too!

This blog post took about 60 times as long to write as this entire process takes to execute.  Try it.  Play with it.  You will love it!

PS.  If you did not know this already, you can take screenshots of your iphone by pressing both the home button and the sleep button at the same time.  That is how I created these screenshots.

(I look forward to seeing your instagram collage Cynthia!)

If you want to follow me on Instagram, my name is fontsavant.  You can search for me under the explore button which looks like a compass.

I will leave you with a quote from Emily Lim in 2001.  "Why would I EVER want a camera in my phone?"  Oops...now I know...