today...

Gleefully stolen from Lavender & Lilies

oh how i love picnik.com...

Have you been over to Picnik.com yet? If not, you should hop right on over there! Here's my lilac picture from my previous post with a little fiddling on Picnik. I used the cross-process and vignette effects. Messed a little with the softness, color saturation and sharpness. And voila! It's the next best thing to Photo Shop. Enjoy!

sample pics from the new camera...

I haven't really had a chance to play around with the custom settings yet. And yes, the gimmicks are, well, a little gimmicky. But still...love this camera. So, here we go:

First, I experimented with the zoom. This camera has two or three times the zoom of my old camera. Here's the few from our hotel last weekend, without any zoom:

...and here's the same fountain, at about 15x zoom. I know that most cameras take good pictures outdoors, but I'm impressed with the resolution at high-zoom:

Note the tree in the middle of the picture has flowers on it:

...and here are those flowers close up - again, using full zoom at about 15x:

Takes great pics of always-on-the-move kids:



Same pic with a little "lightening":


This is the one that has impressed me most. A gecko on-the-move, taken quickly in "auto" mode, and with a slightly shaky hand. The pic is not fantastic:



...but look at the resolution when I crop that same photo. I'm impressed:

The lilacs in my backyard (that never last long enough...boo), taken with the camera's "miniature" feature:

...and again with the camera's "color select" feature, where you pick one color, and then everything else is in black and white. I love the blurring in the background. There's a word for that, but I can't think of it:

TTFN...have a Happy Easter, everyone!

new patio cushions...

We'll have a housefull of people here next weekend for Easter. I have a long to-do list - more than I can possibly do between now and then. So I'm picking and choosing my projects this weekend. This one was quick and easy. And boy, did those cushions need to be recovered!

Before...

Note to self...take the cushions off of the chairs before the kids start painting!

After. So much better. This outdoor fabric was only $4.99 a pound at our local fabric-by-the-pound place (and this project took exactly 2 yards). Yay! :)

why i never get anything done...

...gratefully plagarized from Thrifty Decor Chick.

and the winner is...

TA DA!!!

After months of exhaustive research (I got my Amazon GC for Christmas, people!) I finally bought a Canon PowerShot SX130is. Not the SLR I was dreaming of, but it's an awesome camera and I LOVE it (and it was in my price range). Sample pics to come...

craigslist fail...or hit?

Fail or Hit? You decide...

I searched for a king-sized headboard and found this:



And here's the info:

I use the term "pimp" very loosely. You don't have to be a pimp. I mean, I'm not. Definitely not. But this thing is big. 10'3" big. (' is for feet, " is for inches, by the way.) And when I say big, I mean long - from end to end it's 10'3". That's longer than my bedroom. Longer than all three of my bedrooms. One's actually converted into a little office, but that's besides the point. Perhaps they would be larger if I were a pimp. But I'm not. Definitely not.

Now what is this thing? It's a headboard for a california king bed. And it has a nightstand on either side combining all 3 pieces into one big unit. It's 4 feet high. It has a mirror that goes all the way across and LOTS of storage. It also has lights on it so that you can read in bed. This thing is OAK. That's wood from the OAK tree. Heavy! Way heavier than you think. You need a truck or an old VW bug that's also a flatbed. But once it's in your bedroom that's larger than mine (sure - rub it in why don't you) what it took to get it there will no longer be a concern. It'll be good ol' times that you can laugh about and reminisce about when you're good and old and your children's children are about to inherit this soon-to-be family heirloom pimp furniture. Moving it into their space will then be their problem, not yours. Just instill into them good work habits so that they have bedrooms that are bigger than mine. You know, like a pimp.

I say "fail" on the photo, but definitely a "hit" on the description!