Be Still 52 - Week 46

Letters and words

surround us, but finding just the 

right ones to add to photography can be a

little challenging.

It took me a few days to even know where to start. Of course, my childish heart soon solved that. My mind went to some vintage wooden blocks I have. "B" seemed a good one as I have several bears and books around my home. The book in the background is "First Lessons In Nature Study" written by Edith M. Patch in 1940.

While looking for the first book, I ran across this one. It reminded me of our family vacation last year. So, I visited the "sea."  The book, "We Visit The Seashore" has the most wonderful pop-up illustrations that are reproductions of antique pictures by Ernest Nister. Nister's book was published in the late 1800's.

I guess I had summer and the sea on my mind.  I cross stitched this small pillow several years ago. The boat, beach ball, castle, and lighthouse on the pillow represent the letters S-A-I-L. 

More and more as I go through this class I'm surprised at the many props that are right within my reach. I just have to stop and look around! One more thing, the boards that I used as the base in these photos were old pieces of a picket fence that someone dumped in the woods nearby. I will never understand why people choose the woods as a dumping ground, but this time someones trash was a treasure for me.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday ~ January 27, 2013

 

I'm a nostalgic person.  I love things that are old, well used and loved.  When I redecorated an extra bedroom I went for the vintage look.   I call this room my "nostalgia room."  I've decorated with items that belonged to my grandmother, my mother, and myself.  Yes, I'm old enough to have antique items that have always been mine. I also searched flea markets and antique stores looking for other items.

 

When I read this week's prompts for Scavenger Hunt Sunday with Ashley Sisk, they make me think about things that are vintage, so I went hunting in my "nostalgia room."

 

The prompts were:

lace

bling

wood

fuzzy

fabric

lace

There are rows and rows of lace on my bride doll which is over 50 years old.

 

 

 

bling

A little bling still remains in this vintage necklace.

 

wood

Little birdhouses made of wood hanging from a bookshelf.

Not antique, but I have a lot of birds in this room.


 

fuzzy

My first teddy bear is still soft and fuzzy.

He's a Cubbi Gund bear made in the 1950's.

 

 

 

 Fabric

I found my name stitched on this linen fabric handkerchief.

 

 

This is not my normal style of photography,

but it was enjoyable roaming around my room,

picking up my treasures,

and

taking photographs of them.

 

It is easily overlooked that what is now called vintage was once brand new.

Tony Fisconti

The Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas

When all through the house

Not a creature was stirring,

not even a mouse...

Happy Christmas to all,

and to all a good night!

Picture The Holidays - Day 3

It's the third day of Picture The Holidays! 

Our prompt was "all you need is love."  Love is the "heart" of the Christmas season. It all began with the love of our God for us...love enough to send his son to earth as a baby. Then there's love for family, love for friends we see in person and those we know online. There's love for even ourselves, for the earth, and for all of humanity.  We were to find a way to show a little love. When I think of love I think of hearts.

 This is the photo I chose to put in the gallery.

A heart filled with rose hips.

 cookie cutter and candle light

I also liked the way this one turned out.

 For Capture Your 365, the prompt I used was stripes.



You can't get more striped than a candy cane.

These taste like cherry.

My favorite kind.

Little bear elf on a candy cane...

stripes on his shirt and on the candy cane.

Picture Fall - Part 5

This is it!  The last of Picture Fall.

Day 24 - Family Matters

take a self portrait with someone in your family

My husband wouldn't cooperate, so I had to wait until my youngest grandson came over. We made a game of setting the timer on the camera and running to sit down before the light quit blinking.

Day 25 - Fall Colors

look for the rich, quintessential colors of fall.

I found this unusual pink color fall leave near our home.

When I saw this leaf tears came to my eyes.

I posted this in honor of my sister, a breast cancer survivor!!

Day 26 - Open heart, open mind

seek out some kind of openness and shoot it-nothing inside but room for the good that can come when we allow for it.

I found this open rock just waiting to be filled with goodness.

Day 27 - Leafy Love

find a way to capture a leaf that says something totally new

This leaf reminds me of a Spanish dancer

with her black mantilla and vibrant red dress!

It speaks of beauty and love to me.

Do you see the small heart?

The sun peaked through for just a moment after a misty rain. I took so many pictures of leaves this fall.
These covered with rain were my favorite.

Day 28 - The Great Pumpkin

 offer a seasonal ode to the great pumpkin!

He's just a little pie pumpkin, but he has the cutest stem!

Pumpkins need stems that twist or curve!!

We had a lot of fun with this little pumpkin in the class gallery. One girl mentioned that she saw the Loch Ness monster in the stem.  Another, decided we should name him Nessy. If you look really close, the stem looks like the face of the monster looking about searching for his prey!!

Day 29 - Sweet Relief

capture a little something sweet

What could be better than M & Ms!!

Day 30 - Fantasyland

shoot a little bit of fantasy to celebrate the tricks and treats of the season

Fantasy is not my thing, so once again, I drew a blank at something to post. I finally decided to create a fantasy with Nessy being loved by Wellington the witch!!

Day 31 - Thanksgiving

 focus on something that expresses your gratitude

Giving thanks for this wonderful group of talented photographers who have inspired me, taught me, encouraged me, and brightened each day!!

I hope you've enjoy my recap of Fall. 

Do not take autumn for granted; it's days are limited.

And, so it is, that autumn is almost gone.

 The damp, chill of winter is in the air today.

The trees are almost bare.

Winter is coming and with it Picture The Holidays.

I can't wait to share this holiday season with you through my photography!!

Picture The Holiday is being offered free through Paper Coterie's website. The photos can be posted in a private Facebook page and I'm understanding that Big Picture will also have a link for posting pictures. It seems a little confusing right now, but I'm sure it will all work out. If you're interested, all you have to do is visit PAPER COTERIE PICTURE THE HOLIDAYS home page to sign up. You will get a confirmation email soon after. You'll then need to find their Facebook page and request to join.

WELCOME JANUARY

First thing this morning I put up my 2011 calendar.

What cuties greeted me...my sweet grandsons!!

Then after breakfast, I began packing up some Christmas decorations and bringing out my January decor, which consists of snowmen. Even though I live in an area that doesn't see much snow, I love snow. You probably caught on to that when I posted my snowman tree here.  First I changed my door hanging. I have a hanging for each month of the year. I saw this cute snowman on the front of a quilting magazine as I walked down the craft aisle in Wal-Mart. Yep, this was what I wanted for January.

Then I moved on to my cross stitch wall hanging. I also have a hanging for each month. The series is called "Four Letter Words". Every time we hear the words "four letter word" we think of bad words, but that's not the case here!  These are GOOD four letter words! For instance January's word is SNOW. Each month I bought a kit with the chart, cross stitch fabric and buttons. Some stitchers framed theirs, but I decided to make small pillows. I enjoyed looking for just the right fabric for the pillow. As I was making these little pillows I searched for the best way to display them. One day while looking in a magazine, I saw a small pillow hanging from a wall sconce. Bingo!! Found my sconce and small candles at  Pier One, on sale no less!

 

The pillow has six little buttons on it:  the snowman's nose, star, heart, bird, flower, knit cap, and a snowflake.

The kits came out once a month so, as I stitched the current month I would  try to guess what the next four letter word would be. You can probably guess February's word.

I keep my snowmen decorations from Christmas up through January. Not the tree, just the ones sitting around like these on my hutch. There's a lot of red and green, but I don't think they look too Christmasy.

The snowmen in the photo below are on my counter in the kitchen. The snowman on the left side with the wide red scarf is a candle that my son made in art class. I think he was in Junior High. They made them in class and then sold them for a fund raiser. Of course, I had to but Randy's!!

I collect Boyds' snow globes. I think it's because I don't get to see real snow very often. I have 32 of them, mostly bought by my wonderful  husband. He loves to shower me with whatever I like to collect.  I think it makes the gift buying easier for him and they make me happy. I placed a couple of winter ones around, played the music box, and watched the snow fall!

And one last snow thing, every year I read Christmas novellas during the season. I finished my last book this morning. Guess the title...The Snowflake.  It was a good little romantic story.

Here's a snowflake poem the author included in the book.

They say that every snowflake is different.

If that were true, how could the world go on?

How could we ever get up off our knees?

How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?

Jeanette Winterson
(Doesn't she have the most perfect last name for this poem?)

The author of the book was very thought provoking at the end. Here's her thoughts copied from her book.

"Have you ever considered the snowflake? I have. I have a fascination with them. They say snowflakes are one of a kind, like fingerprints. Can you imagine how many snowflakes are in a handful of snow? A yard full? A city’s worth? And that’s just in one snowfall. What about a winter’s worth of snowflakes across the entire world? What about every snowflake that has or will ever fall? Can you imagine the diversity of intricate design? The perfectly symmetrical arms that appear like sparkling glass under a microscope? The bends and twists, the nubs and branches on a piece of floating, fluffy frozen water? Only God has that much imagination, that much creativity, that much timeless knowledge and wisdom. Only God could build a snowflake with each one having it’s own identity.

We are like the snowflake, fantastic and unfathomable and fragile. Our lives are a moment in time, but that moment is all ours. No one like you was ever made or ever to be made. If God took the effort to make each snowflake with its own unique shape, how much more did He expend on you. His beloved, in His image?

We forget, I think, how valuable we are to Him. When the snowflake melts, what does it become? Streams and rivers, lakes and oceans. life-giving water. God created one-of-a-kind water droplets for you to drink. I can’t fathom such love."

Jamie Carie

If you're interested in snowflakes, you should check out these pictures of actual snowflakes. Pretty amazing.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm

I agree with this sweet little bear.

Let is snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Ornaments - Day 19

What would Christmas be without soldiers and nutcrackers?

 I know I love bears, but until I started taking pictures of my ornaments I never realized how many bears are on my tree. This stately soldier is cross stitched on perforated paper.

This glass ornament is from the Old World Collection. Nutcrackers make me think of the ballet. I remember every year in elementary school we went on a school field trip to see the Nutcracker Ballet. I remember the beautiful music the best and of course, the Sugar Plum Fairy. My husband remembers going every year too, but I don't think he was too impressed with the ballet. He just like getting out of school.

Of course Winnie The Pooh has to be on the tree.

I can't believe we're getting so close to Christmas. My daughter and her family are coming home this Friday. So, we'll be celebrating an early Christmas on Saturday. Can't wait to get them all here and play with my grandsons!!

Ornaments- Day 18

I think I mentioned yesterday that I love anything Boyd's. Here's a few ornaments just to prove it. Most of my Boyds' ornaments came from a wonderful store called "Country Cupboard."  They have since gone out of business and I'm really sad about that. There isn't any place left in my area that sells Boyds' anymore. I really enjoy these on my tree.

Boyds' always names their bears. This is C. C. Sugarmint. I think he's such a cute jolly elf swinging on a candy cane!

There's a story behind these C. C. Sugarmint twins. My husband has given me several of my Boyds' figurines. One year he went shopping and bought me this cute little elf. A few days later, he went shopping again and bought me another cute little elf. He forgot he'd already bought me one until I opened the packages. I kept them both since they remind me of our twin grandsons!

Elliott with a Christmas tree. I was browsing around on the web looking at Boyds' Bears and saw where this retired ornament is worth over $75. Maybe I'd better start packing them very carefully!!

We all love trains in our family. This is Elmer on his Chugalong Holiday Express.

Casey Whistlestop calls "All Aboard" on the Holiday Express. He is pulling Jingle on his hopper car, Toot McNibble on the gingerbread car, Chillie on the box car, Peppermint and Spearmint on the candy cane sweet ride, and C. A. Boosebeary on the Cool Yule Caboose. Love this little train! These are all retired now. Hmmm...wonder what they're worth?

This is Hope Angelbeary wishing us peace, hope, and joy.

Jingle Mooselberry is all dressed up in his Santa suit.

This one is not a Boyds' bear,  just a really handsome bear all dressed for the holidays. I had to bring home to my tree.

And this is is from Cottage Collectibles. I have a weakness for Panda bears. I haven't been able to find any more Cottage Collectibles around here, either. I just may have to search the Internet, because they sure are cute.

And lastly, another Boyds' Santa bear sending my holiday wish for you!!