it was a wonderfully sunny warm day with temps in the 60's today. 
i decided to take advantage of it and experiment with a different lens.

the grape hyacinths are happily standing in the garden spotlight today. it's interesting how these particular ones are a darker purple at the bottom than they are at the top.

our calico kitty Cricket joined me for a while. she was quite interested in watching the bird feeder which got me to thinking that i should try and get some shots of the birds . . . but i had to wait for her to move on before they felt comfortable enough to begin feeding again.

there was quite an assortment of hungry birds and this one was charming and quite unafraid once the kitty went on her way.

the yellow headed blackbirds are a lot more assertive than most of the other birds. they push and shove and gobble up as much as they can as fast as they can.

i like the small wren-like birds with the cherry heads and rosey breasts.

after i became too sore to sit on the ground shooting birds i decided to snap a few of my grand-dog Suki. she is very playful and energetic and doesn't she have the sweetest face~!?!~

today's gifts included:

• continuous birdsong
• my daughter's company (and Suki's too)
• the sight with which to see so much spring beauty

today i used a shot of Grace to do some PSE7 practice. i recently purchased a book (Digital Expressions by Susan Tuttle) that is all about "creating digital art with adobe photoshop elements". all of the digital art that i have so far done has been by trial and error and i thought i would see if progressing through this book would help me out. i'm hoping for less cursing and more happy endings!

anyway, she starts the reader out with simple vignetting instructions and i followed along with a shot of Gracie. i did learn some things and am ready to go on to the next challenge: Popping Areas of Color.

so here's to happy ending number one~!

Happy Father's Day to all those wonderful dads, grand-dads and other important father figures. the world would be a sad place without your love, hard work and guidance~!~

other highlights of this day include:

my first nasturtium blossom of the summer ~ it's orange~!~what a happy color~!~

the roses continue gearing up their beautiful show of blosssoms,

a batch of baby orb spiders just hatched out in the garden. this is always such an amazing sight to me~!~there are so very many of them and they are so ultra tiny . . .

this batch is a bit later than normal . . . i suppose due to our cooler rainy days . . . i know that these spiders are a harmless and very beneficial part of our garden and am always happy to see them. there will undoubtably be more photos of them over the summer as they grow and spin and do their thing.

and what exactly is Emmitt up to~!?!~he is playing/hiding in some bits of Chirstmas wrapping paper that i've saved for an art project.

my daughter and i are working on making some fiber paper that will then be used for making postcards. she will send these postcards out to her friends and family from Honduras this year at Christmas time. i'm not sure that it's turning out quite the way that i expected but to be fair, it's still in process and this is the first time that i've experimented with this technique. after the fiber paper is dried, it will be cut to the proper postcard sizes and then further embellished. i like the idea of adding some stitching to it and who knows what else will develop . . .

Emmitt is having a very good time while we cut and paste~!~

speaking of postcards~!~ it's time to reveal the give-away winner . . .

i did this the old fashioned way and hand wrote each participant's name on a slip of paper along with the post date that it was collected from and (on some) noted whether it was a flickr comment. as it turned out the winner pulled was from a blog post.

i asked my daughter to pull one of the slips of paper out . . .

and the winner is . . .

Pink Sky Studios~!!~ i am so excited for her and at the same time so sorry that i couldn't make everyone a winner . . . i will definately do this again~!!~ thank you all for participating and for making my blog a happy and creative place for me to come to every day~!!~

Congratulations Pink Sky~!~ please e-mail me with your address information. i will be getting the package ready to send during the upcoming week.

if by some chance, i don't hear from my lucky winner within a week or she changes her mind about wanting the card, i will redraw a new name from the basket.

A Coin Quilt was my main project for the day. i actually started it (as a way to use up some of my scrap fabrics) roughly two and a half weeks ago. i managed to get the strips sewn in good time but then have had other irons in the fire and only today got back to working on it. this little top measures approximately 40" x 50" and will be a good size for use as a baby quilt. i have those center seperating strips as double the width of the coin strips and don't think i've ever made one quite like that before. looking at it now it seems like almost too much space and i did consider doing some appliqued vines in that space along with a flying bird at the top, but then decided that i sort of liked it's sweet simplicity . . . who knows what i'll utimately decide~!~ i think on the next one i will make the seperating strips narrower than the coin strips just to change things up a bit. i have a lot more scraps to use up and this is one of my favorite quilt patterns. i have a plan to make at least three or four tops and have them machine quilted and then just set aside for gift giving or charity giving as the need arises.

Gracie decided to help me by doing a quality control inspection right before i photographed it. i had put it over the back of the dining room chair and gone into the kitchen for a drink and when i went back in with my camera there she was looking quite comfy. at first i was worried that she would run off before i got photos of her tangled up in it but after a lot of shots i realized that i was going to have to physically evict her to be able to get any shots of the top. by this time there were wrinkles in it and i had to re-iron it. i do think it has her seal of approval . . .

i am very tired tonight but happy to have this little top as one of the day's accomplishments.