Conference Weekend

Had another lovely Conference Weekend. There were some great talks, and it was wonderful to hear from our new Prophet and new apostle. I think my favorite part about Conference weekend is that it is spent with family. I usually try to keep my hands busy while listening, so I made a new necklace.
It's a turquoise pendant with faceted citrine nuggets. I actually bought the citrine beads this weekend at a bead fair in Salt Lake. I went with my mom during the priesthood session. They were a little spendy, but too pretty to pass up! They're quite large (the turquoise pendant is about 1.25" diameter to give you an idea) so it's a pretty bold piece, but the design is still simple.

I also went for a walk with Brian on Saturday afternoon to take pictures for photography class. Here's a picture that I took:
And here it is after some Photoshop action:

And here it is after A LOT of photoshop action:

The second one is my real assignment. The third one was me showing Brian all the cool things you can do with photoshop. Please note the twinkle in the eye, and the bling on the finger. I think I'm better at the jewelry "art" than the photography "art", but it's been a fun class.

*Spell check does not recognize the word "bling".

Photography is Art

Yippie! Karla and I just signed up for another class from the infamous Brian Niven through UVSC Continuing Education, and I'm pretty excited about it. Photography is Art meets Mondays from 5:15-7:15 for five weeks between March 17th-April 14th. Anyone care to join us? It's sure to be great!

Kashmir*

Hey folks! Sorry it's been a few days since I've bloged, considering I left those semi-disturbing soaps up as my post for several days. But now I'm giving you much better pictures to look at. Tuesday was my last day of photography class. I'm a little sad it's over. I need to take community classes more often! It was a lot of fun, and I had a great teacher. Here's a picture I took of him when we were learning some tricks with motion shots. I felt a little like a paparazzo when I took this one.
We learned a few other tricks on the last day. This one was taken in a room with the lights off (but the door to the hallway was open) and no flash. Amazing, no?

And indulge me with a little detail shot of this necklace. I love it when you can see the twisted wire in the picture. The lights were on for this one, but again, no flash. Oh, and this necklace, including the pendant bead, are made of a stone called mookite. Say it with me, people, "Moooooo-kite".

And one of the other women in the class brought a vase of roses to take pictures of, and we found a dead fly in one of them. Random, but I thought this picture turned out pretty cool.

And on the recent projects front, I've been making some baby braceletts lately. They're fun, quick, and easy. Here's some I made for new baby Allie.

And a few more I made for Brian's cousin's baby, Jaylee. She's not a newborn, so these ones are a little bigger than the one's for Allie. I put in the shot with the quarter to show you how tiny they are. I also made some recently for forth-coming baby Maughn, but I had a brain lapse and failed to take any pictures before I sent them to mother-to-be.

*The song I was listening to when I wrote the post.

Fall Leaves and Crazy Man

Brian and I went for our yearly fall drive up Payson Canyon on Sunday evening. It was a little late in the year to see all the color, but it was still beautiful. And I got a chance to practice some of my sweet photographing skills.

Some of the few red leaves still hanging on.

Golden aspens reflected in a puddle.

Along the shoreline of Payson Lake.

Quaking Aspen.

A cricket on the path around the lake.

This last picture is to show you the snow on the ground. It was really cold, and I wanted you to know how I suffer for my art. But that's nothing compared to this guy:

That, my friends, is a dude, fishing in a float tube. Yeah, the water was probably about 35-40 degrees. Now that is dedication. Insaine? Yes.

In My World...

So I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while. Some of you may even know I created this page months ago, set it up the way I liked, linked to all the cool stuff I could, and then I did a whole lot of nothing with it.

See, I wanted it to be a good blog. You know, with pictures and such, but it turns out my picture taking skills were no bueno. "How can one possibly pay attention to a book with no pictures in it?" Oh, the pressure!

There I sat on the sidelines, passively watching all my friends have fun with their blogs. Until one day when one of those friends told me she had signed up for a photography class, and so did I. Today we learned how to take "product shots", so I decided to test it out on the necklace I was wearing. It's one I made a while ago (thanks, Nancy, for the pendant). Here are the results:

Yeah, I'm pretty stoaked about those. A vast improvement from previous efforts. I was so excited that I came home a took some more. Of course, the sun light was best for the jewelry pictures, but I took some of my Halloween wreath that just went up yesterday. I made it last year.

Folks, my world has been forever revolutionized!