Little textured pretties

Just messing around with adding textures to photos this morning.  Grabbed the little white flowers (what are they?  Snowdrops? Not sure.)  from the other day.  Added a free texture by Shadowhouse Creations.  And voila.  If you want to download lots of free textures, go visit Jerry.  His place is a texture treasure trove--and it's all free!  Gotta love that!

Here's before texture:

Here's AFTER, at about 10% opacity:

Kinda fun!

It's done!

The video of the photos of hands that I've been taking over the last couple of weeks is done, and the ladies viewed the video on Tuesday night.  It was fun for me to see it up on a large screen--but I think I'm done with it for awhile.  After listening the song over and over and over while working on it, I've been seeing hands and humming the tune in my dreams!  Faith W sang it on Tuesday and did an amazing job.  I wish we had a recording of HER singing it on the video!  Thanks to Bonnie C for making everything look so pretty on Tuesday as well.  You have such an eye for making things lovely.

When I was working on the piece, there was a painting that I wanted to use at the end.  Since I wanted to credit the artist, I had to do some digging around to find out who it was.  The painting was posted on plenty of blogs without his name attached.  Finally I found out who it was, but the painting was copyrighted.  The artist's website advised to write for permission and that a fee would be assessed for its use.  Makes sense.  Of course, I didn't have dollars for any fee, but I didn't feel right about using the painting without permission, either, and I searched for hours and couldn't find anything else suitable for that spot.  So I thought, "What the heck."  Sent the artist an email explaining what I was doing and that I'd like to use a detail from his work.  He graciously gave permission, wished me luck on the video, and thanked me for asking him before copying it. He even said that if I wanted a higher resolution file to let him know!  How generous is THAT?!  I didn't want to bother him with the file, since he'd been so kind anyway, so what you see on the video is a copy from his website.  So, lesson here folks--don't steal copyrighted works from the internet (photos, paintings, words...anything!).  Chances are, the author of the work will be happy to allow its use.  You just need to ask first!  

Thank you, Stephen Gjertson, for your generosity in allowing your work to be shown on my little video.  

Here it is.  And I'm not taking hands photos for a loooong time!  LOL  If any of the ladies would like prints of  your hands, please let me know.

Guess what I saw?

SPRING!!

hands3

Although I've done umpteen hands in the last week, this is the last one I'll post here--I promise!  

But I like it.  So I'm going to share it.  So there!

One of just a couple that I kept in color.  The contrast looks so much better this way, I think.

Nighters.  I actually went down for a nap at 5, if you can believe it,  leaving hubby to take care of dinner.  I've got a good one, because he was sweet enough to do without hesitation (oh yeah!).  Woke up at midnight--but I'm still ready to go back to sleep, so I'm going to toddle off now.  *yawners*

Have a good week!

Hands2

Today I hopped in the car and headed over to see a lady that I haven't seen in ages.  I wanted to take a photo of her hands for the "Hands of Heaven" project.

She has become the foster mom of 4 cats.  Each one has a story.  This little guy (almost a year old now) was found when he was just a few weeks old in the woods north of here.  A friend called J and asked if she'd please take him.  His eyes were all crusty and he was in pretty bad shape, but he was nursed back to health and look at him now!

The only thing is that he's completely deaf, and they suspect he has been since birth.

But oh--what a love he is!

He was playing with my camera bag strap and I moved it with my toe, which is why he looked up at me.  Clicking and calling certainly wasn't doing the trick!  J is trying to find homes for the cats, and I wanted to scoop this guy up and bring him home.  Considering how noisy our place is most of the time, he'd probably be the happiest of all of our pets!  But I think the others might object...

Here are the hands that rescued him.

Hands

I'm working on a project for a church women's activity based on the quote by Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the earth; yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now.”

I'm taking some photos of the hands of as many of the women as I can as part of a presentation.  Here's the one I've just finished:

I think the quote is beautiful. 

And so are the hands that I'm photographing.  

Such beautiful, giving, loving hands getting worn out in service and good works.

These sisters inspire me every day.  What a blessing to be in their company.

Lerv Cinnamon rolls

Oy!  Been too long since I've been on here.  So here's something for ya.

Heart shaped cinnamon rolls!  I know--it's way past V-day, but I did these for my kids a couple of days later, since I wasn't organized enough to leave time for the things to rise the morning of the day of lerv.

So I did it for an after school snack instead.

Easy to do.  You make the dough as normal (or cheat like me and use a loaf of frozen sweet dough.  Whatever turns your crank and lets you get it done without stress!).  Roll the dough out into a rectangle like you usually would for cinnamon rolls and add loads of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  

Then stop and think for a sec, cause the next part is pretty tricky!  Instead of simply rolling one long end to the other, you roll it to the center.  Stop.  Then roll the other end to the center until it kisses the other long side.  It IS for lerv day, after all, so let them kiss.  It's OK this once.  Do you understand what I mean?  I should have taken pics but didn't think about it.  

So let me review the rolling process.  Instead of rolling it all the way like you normally would, you just roll it half way.  Then do the same for the other side.  

When you've accomplished that terribly tricky task, you cut the rolls into slices as you usually would.  Then you plop them in the pan--but give them more space than usual so they don't shove into each other too much as they rise.  They've been kissing, after all, so emotions are high.  Best to keep them apart for a bit.  Pinch their little bottoms to give them the heart point.  Rise until double.  Bake til done.

Voila!

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In other Valentine's day news, aren't these cookies adorable?

Aren't these adorable?  Adrianne at Color Me Cookie (look for her on facebook!), made these for me to give to Meryl for Valentine's Day.  I'm fortunate that she lives nearby, I must say!

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And finally:

A piece of fried bread dough that looks like a bear.  It was completely unintentional.  Adam insisted that I take a picture of it before he smeared it with butter and honey and bit its head off.