Return of the Random Photos

July 6, 2017July 7, 2017 | Allison

My extra photos are piling up again, so I guess that means it’s time for another random photography post! 🙂 YAY! I hope you enjoy!

Aren’t these clouds lovely? ♥

We found this rather odd-looking bird and figured out it was a chimney swift. I think he’s quite weird. XD

I got these next few photos when we all went for a ride in Dad’s pickup to go check some fields and see how the soybeans were growing. (Sadly, they weren’t coming along very well, but Dad replanted them – twice – and now they’re doing fine, I think. 🙂 )

I love the view of our farm from this hill. ♥ Sooooooo pretty!

Aren’t mountains beautiful?

My little sister Carmen, holding a barn kitten we named Truffle:

This is a pretty edit I did of a huge, puffy pink cloud.

One day we studied ladybugs in Nature Study and went out to search for them in an alfalfa field. It was kind of hard to get pictures, but I got a few neat ones. My friend got an amazing one of a ladybug eating an aphid! But sadly, I did not. 😦 😉

I really like ladybugs, but I have to admit – they look a little creepy when you put dozens of them in a jar. XD

These are the kind of bouquets I made to decorate tables for a church potluck in May. It was supposed to be a “Farmer’s Market” theme, so I used a bunch of different stuff from our farm and garden. I think they turned out pretty well, and I love how this picture turned out too!

Hee hee, well this is random. XD We made the BEST playdough ever (seriously – it is!), just for fun one day when my friend came over. It hardly feels like playdough at all, it’s so soft and silky and stretchy. (Wow, alliteration skills. XD ) You can see the recipe here.

Another VERY random photo. 😛 I was going to do a mystery picture of a clementine, but it didn’t turn out. I decided to keep the photo, though, because for some reason I like it.

Lilies are gorgeous, and so photogenic, aren’t they?!

Okay guys, you are going to LOVE this! We’ve been feeding our neighbors’ kittens while they’re on vacation, and they are the sweetest, prettiest little things!

Look at those eyes! ♥♥

Our neighbor has a wonderful in-ground pool that she so generously lets us use pretty much whenever we want! I thought the clouds looked really neat that day, so logically, I took pictures. XD

Ahh, I LOVE this picture! The water looks so bright and clear and… almost plastic-y. XD

Mimosa tree photography…

It looks like someone climbed the tree and threw a rope into the clouds so they could climb up. 😀

Hee hee, Megan jumping:

We shall end with one hilarious picture. My cousin said this looked like a whale farting. XD XD XD

Well, I hope you enjoyed scrolling through those pictures, my dears! Do you have a favorite?

Thanks for reading!

***Allison***

P. S. Guess what?! My sister Megan wrote the next part of WordCrafters, and it’s GREAT! You can read it on the WordCrafters 3 page here.

Baby Bunnies – HELP ME I’M MELTING

June 27, 2017 | Allison

***EXTREME CUTENESS ALERT! If you read this post, you will most likely want a bunny afterward. AHH THEY ARE SO CUTE!***

Ahem. Deep breaths, Allison, deep breaths. Okay. Today I’m going to show you ADORABLE BABY BUNNIES AHHHH! *hyperventilates* LET’S JUST GET ON TO THE PICTURES NOW.

Since I’ve last made a bunny post, they have grown so incredibly much – but don’t worry, they’ve only gotten cuter! Let’s start back when they were small…

Here’s Basil:

And Mulberry:

And Herbert Naninger:

AND GINGER! (Ginger’s “mine” even though we’re not actually keeping him.) Oh, by the way, we found out that they’re all girls except Ginger… so some of the names are a bit weird now. XD

I love this picture!

We like to bring the bunnies inside because how can we not resist holding them as much as possible? Look, Ginger’s eyes are starting to open!

Here’s the proud (and very fluffy) mom, my rabbit Willow.

HA HA this is such an adorable pose. XD

This picture of her feeding her babies just cracks me up…

I took these pictures of Ginger right before we left for vacation. SO SOFT.

AWW I love his little nose!

And just the yesterday I took these pictures with Megan’s camera, because I still haven’t gotten mine to work properly. 😦

OH MY GOODNESS THE FLUFF.

I know this picture is super blurry but it was too funny not to post! My little sister Carmen put Mulberry in a “nest” she made. XD

They can barely fit in my hand now!

It is SO cute when they clean themselves. ♥

BWAHAHA! XD Mulberry squeezed through my flip flop all by himself.

Brother and sister. 🙂

OH MY GOODNESS THOSE CHEEKS.

THAT FLUFFY FACE.

*collapses into laughter* THAT TINY WITTLE TONGUE.

Jeff put poor Herb in his cowboy boot. XD

Heh heh, this looks like a bunny selfie.

They were snuggling up to me. ♥

Ahhh, relaxing.

Loooooook!

Jeff’s expression… XD

Carmen took these last two pictures for me. 🙂

It’s VERY hard not to smile with three balls of fluff are sitting on you. 😀

PLEASE HELP ME, ALL THAT CUTENESS HAS MELTED ME INTO A PUDDLE. And the fact is, they’re practically 50 times cuter in real life, when you can hold them and squish them and pet them. ♥

Did you melt? Do you want a bunny now? And which baby bunny is your favorite? (Hint: the answer is Ginger. XD I’m just kidding.)

***Allison***

Assateague Island {Photo Dump}

June 23, 2017June 26, 2017 | Allison

On Monday we left for a vacation at Assateague Island, and so far it’s been a ton of fun! If you know me, you’re probably guessing that I took, like, hundreds of pictures. And you’d be right. XD This is going to be one serious photo dump, guys.

I was trying to figure out how to organize the pictures, but I ended up pretty much just keeping them in the order they uploaded, and hoping that it’s not too jumbled. XD

I’ll start with some flowers. We’re staying in a cozy little Air B&B house with a moss lawn and gorgeous periwinkle hydrangeas in the front yard. I love how these photos turned out!

Some of our funniest adventures happened while driving. One time my littlest sister Carmen came up with… um, rather creative “Would You Rather” questions like, “Would you rather have all your hair pulled out or all your teeth?” and “Would you rather pour honey or glue over your head?” and lots more that were too gross to tell. We nearly died laughing but it was so GROSS. XD XD XD

I don’t pictures marshes as being exactly beautiful, but the marsh at the entrance to Assateague was really pretty.

If you’ve ever read Misty of Chincoteague, you probably already know that there are wild ponies roaming all over Assateague and Chincoteague Islands. It’s so funny because they walk right up to you and wander around the beaches and parking lots where people are, but they can still bite and kick like wild animals, so you’re not supposed to pet them.

I love this next picture! I spent a long time trying to get this to turn out. XD

When I was taking these footprint pictures I remembered a little poem/story thingy that I love. You can read it here.

My sister Megan took these pictures of me with my camera. The next one looks like my elbow is lighting up. XD

As you can see, the waves make me happy. 😛 🙂

Heh heh, I forgot to put sunscreen on my back that day and now it’s bright pink. YOUCH.

My parents taking a walk on the beach…

We barely found any shells the first day, but the second and third days we found a bunch!

I took sooooo many pictures of waves, but I just couldn’t help it – they’re so beautiful! We hardly ever take beach vacations so I have to take what I can get. XD

My brothers built a sandcastle every time we went to the beach, and the last one was QUITE impressive. But we’ll get to that in a moment… This is just the beginning of a moat or something.

Aww, isn’t that picture sweet? My little sister, Carmen, loved the waves too. 🙂

I don’t know what Megan is looking for… shells, maybe?

I got some pretty funny pictures of my brothers’ expressions while they were jumping waves. XD

This is one of my favorite pictures out of all of the beach photos! Just look at their smiles! 😀 Logan is the one with the black shirt and Jeff has the white shirt.

Hee hee, look at Megan’s hair!

I got some neat silhouette pictures of my parents on the beach.

I like the seagull silhouettes in this one.

Isn’t this so CUTE?!

HA HA!

Hoof prints…

And footprints.

I got some really neat pictures of two wild ponies meandering over the beach.

Oh my goodness, isn’t this hilarious? The horses were investigating these peoples’ bags. XD

Going down the boardwalk…

More flower pictures. ♥

Ahhh, I LOVE the next one!

Here’s the first sandcastle my brothers made. Neat, but nothing compared to their later ones. 🙂

This is the second sandcastle. (I took this picture quick with Megan’s camera, so of course it won’t be as good of quality as my wonderful camera would be. Heh heh. 😛 )

And this is their last one! It looks pretty similar to the second one, but it’s more impressive in real life. (Megan took these pictures.)

And back to the ocean… It looks like Carmen is Moana. XD

More wave action pictures!

His expression… XD XD XD

I like this one because the wave looks huge! (Actually they were pretty big.)

Seagulls!

I got some more neat (but blurry) action photos of the wild ponies galloping.

And lastly we shall end with a sunset. These are the last beach pictures I got before my camera stopped working. *Sniff* I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong with it. It might be that the battery isn’t good anymore, or maybe it’s something else. It still takes pictures but the screen doesn’t work. We might be able to fix it when we get home, but for now… 😦 Any advice?

PHEW! You made it through almost 100 pictures! I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did. 😀 Have you been to Assateague or Chincoteague? Do I even dare ask what your favorite picture was? Nah, there were too many. XD

Thank you so much for reading, my friends!

***Allison***

P. S. AHHH YAY! Hayley is doing another ATC trade! For all the details, check out her post here. You should totally go see – the past two ATC trades were SO much fun!

BABY BUNNIES!

June 11, 2017 | Allison

AHHHH, GUYS, WILLOW HAD BABIES! 😀 😀 😀 I’M SO EXCITED AS YOU CAN PROBABLY TELL BY ALL THE CAPS! *Ahem* But seriously, they are sooooo cute! I took these pictures a few days ago, and they’re even more fuzzy and adorable now.

There are four bunnies: Basil, Ginger, Mulberry, and Herbert Naninger XD (does anyone get where that’s from?).

DSC_0627 (1280x853) — This is Herbert Naninger. XD

DSC_0635 (1280x853) — AWWWWWWWWWW! (The one on the right is Ginger.)

DSC_0642 (1280x853) — This is Mulberry. (It’s hard to get a picture of black things, but trust me – she (or he) is cuter in real life. 😉

ARE THEY NOT ADORABLE?! They are WAY cuter in real life because they’ve grown since these pictures and they’re so snuggly and soft to hold. ♥ I love baby bunnies so much!

Which is your favorite bunny (so far), and do you have a favorite picture?

***Allison***

P. S. You only have four more days to sign up for WordCrafters 3! 😀 If you know blogger friends who love to write, I would appreciate it if you shared or reblogged the post (and thank you sooo much to those who already did!). 🙂

Furry Things

June 4, 2017 | Allison

CUTENESS ALERT! I have to say, these barn kittens are pretty adorable. ♥ Let me show you some pictures and see what you think, sound good?

AHH I LOVE THAT PICTURE! ↑

Peek-a-boo.

♥

Doesn’t she look like a little stuffed animal in the next picture?

Cutie kitten eyebrow whiskers. XD (Is that even how you say it?)

Argh, this one would be almost perfect except for the grass blade across her eyes. 😡 XD

Ah I love that one!

And thus concludes the cuteness. SO NOW DO YOU AGREE THAT THEY’RE ADORABLE? EEEEE! It’s so fun to find barn kittens. 🙂

***Allison***

Miscellaneous Photography

May 31, 2017 | Allison

Okay, maybe I can finally get on top of my extra photos here! I decided to be brave and just heap them all into one post. XD

Fishing

The kids love going fishing at our uncle’s pond where I got some rather funny pictures. XD

HA HA!

This rather formidable looking fish is a bass I caught. 🙂

This dog always follows us around, trying to catch our hooks and stuff. But he is rather cute in pictures, wouldn’t you say?

Dandelions

I know, even more dandelions. XD But I found out that they actually look really pretty in a bouquet if you pick the nicest, roundest ones. See?

Whipped Cream Fight

We had a whipped cream fight with our friends, but I mostly stayed back and took pictures because it looked really sticky. Heh heh. Shaving cream fights are SUPER fun, but the whipped cream fights… not quite as much.

Birthday Cake

My mom always makes birthday cakes for the kids, customized to their request. I had sort of an art themed party so I wanted an art themed cake. We looked up some things on Pinterest and found an idea for a watercolor cake! It’s actually pretty simple: just dab some blobs of different colored icing on the side and smear them together. (Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that in practice, but you know… 😛 ) I helped finish it off with the pearls. Isn’t it GORGEOUS! This is probably my favorite of all the cakes I’ve had!

Bunnies

Hee hee, we like to take our bunnies out and play with them outside sometimes. That night we all got in a circle and let some of the bunnies hop around. So much fun!

Oh, and I have some very sad news. Clementine, that little brown bunny down there, is gone. Somehow Maggie, our dog, got her and killed her. NOOOOOO! *SNIFF* Rest in peace, little Clemmie. ♥

Flowers

I do the decorations for our church’s tables, and I thought these bouquets turned out really pretty. 🙂

I especially love these floating peonies! Sooo pretty and fluffy!

Little Felted Rabbit

I recently just discovered needle felting. I think it’s really neat, but I haven’t made much yet besides this tiny bunny. 🙂

Baby Killdeer

They hatched! Aww, look at the fluffy things!

We also found another nest. (The mother laid more eggs after this.)

Farm Photography

I saved the best for last. 🙂 I just LOVE these pictures!

This is kind of an abstract (a.k.a blurry) photo, but the BOKEH. The sun was shining off the windows of a little church on the hill and it looked really neat!

AHH I LOVE THIS ONE!!

Aww, Maggie.

Ahhh, it feels good to clean out my photo stash, for a little while at least. 🙂 I hope you enjoyed these pictures! Which category was your favorite?

***Allison***

Dandelion Days

May 29, 2017May 29, 2017 | Allison

Dandelion season is pretty much over now, but I still haven’t posted these photos. I am WAY behind with all the things I want to post. XD But too many ideas is better than no ideas, right? Right.

Anyway, I took these pictures when we went on a nature walk with our friends. It was such a beautiful spring day. Look at all the sunshine!

The bee was feasting on these vetch blossom. Looks yummy! XD

And now we get to the dandelion part. LOOK at all those dandelions! One corner of the field was absolutely covered in them! I’ve never seen so many dandelions in one place. O.o

Megan kindly obliged and blew some dandelions for a mini photoshoot.

I love this one! ↓

Heh heh, it looks like she’s going to eat it.

XD XD XD

Ahh, I think dandelions are so pretty, don’t you?

The kids decided to have a dandelion contest: whoever found the dandelion with the longest stalk won. It was super fun to pick out the tall ones – some of the dandelions growing in the fields were two feet tall!

The little girls are so cute together. ♥

This is the lane that leads to my grandparent’s house. (They live just up the road from us.) Isn’t it so pretty with that huge old oak in the front?

Ahhh I love this maple in our front yard. It’s enormous and beautiful:)

Well, that’s about it for today! Which picture was your favorite? Does a dandelion contest sound fun?

I hope you enjoyed the post and thanks for reading, my dears. ♥

***Allison***

The Art Lab, Episode 25: Art Inspiration

May 22, 2017November 12, 2018 | Allison

Heh heh, so some of you are probably like, “What?! She just published this post!” Well yeah, I did… but I didn’t mean to. XD I accidentally hit the publish button before I finished. Oops. 😛 Now that I have explained all that, let’s get on with the real stuff. 🙂

Guys, guys, guys, look! It’s the 25th Art Lab post! WOOP WOOP! And today I’m doing something a little different, to celebrate. Okay, not really to celebrate – it’s mostly because I wanted to, but we can say it’s to celebrate, right? 😛 Ahem. As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, today I’m just going to post some pictures of some of my recent art rather than using someone else’s art as inspiration. I’m always inspired when I look through bloggers’ art posts, so I hope this post inspires you to sit down and start drawing! 😀

First up I have a few ATCs. (If you don’t know what Arist Trading Cards are, I highly recommend you click here to find out! They’re so much fun!) Some of these are recent and some are not so recent.

YAY doughnuts! Yummy. I really like this one. 🙂

I did these watercolor cherries from a tutorial on Pinterest (which you can see here). They turned out great – if you don’t look at the cherries on the tutorial, that is. XD

I love this quote/verse thingy, and have a canvas with these words on my bed.

We learned about geraniums in Nature Study, so I decided to draw one on an ATC.

I made this ATC ages ago, but I still love it. 🙂

This is the first page (besides the title page) in my new sketchbook. Eh, could be better, but it least it’s welcoming. XD

It’s a rainbow lion! It didn’t turn out quite like I had hoped, but I still like it.

I liked drawing the lion’s eyes so much that I did another one on a separate page.

Ahhhh, I love this one! I wish our roosters looked this pretty. 😛 I actually just finished this today with my new Prismacolor colored pencil set. It took me several days to draw this, but I’m very pleased with how it turned out! (And in case you’re wondering, I did look off of a photo.)

This is another of my absolute favorites! On my birthday I decided I wanted to draw a fox. I had a picture in my mind, and what do you know – I got it down on paper and it actually looked good! XD I didn’t copy anything but I did look off of some photos and drawings for reference. She’s such a cute wittle thing, don’t you agree?

I drew this for my horse-loving friends, and for those of you who requested a horse drawing. Here you go, girls!

Here’s another ATC which I drew a long time ago. I think it’s so funny but neat. XD

Another mandala ATC…

I drew this for art class because my art teacher wanted me to experiment with an art medium I’d never used before. I was like, “Um… I can’t really think of any art supplies that I have at home but have never used.” XD Finally we came up with artist’s pastels! It was fun to experiment, but I don’t especially like how easily they smudge.

art (5) (1280x853) — My little sister thinks this picture is so weird. XD

art (4) (1280x853) — And this one too. 😛 Well they’re kind of SUPPOSED to be weird, so…

I haven’t finished this one yet and probably won’t for a long time, but I wanted to show you guys how it looks so far. I had the idea to make a collage of barcodes, and I think it’s looking really neat! I’m only using the ones off of receipts, so it’s going to take a while to collect enough to cover the whole page. Heh heh.

A random Sharpie doodle…

I love how this one turned out. I’m kind of proud that I could get the highlights to look fairly realistic because I usually have trouble with them. 😛

art (10) (1280x853) — Just in case you were wondering, my little sister LOVES this one. XD

We were playing around with charcoal in Art Class, and this is what my practice page turned out like:

Here’s my actual drawing made with charcoal:

And last but not least, one of my very favorite favorites, a picture I drew of Bethany from a photo Loren’s gorgeous post. I just LOVE how it turned out! The background was inspired by a super good teenage artist named Sydney Nielsen that I follow on Instagram. She also has a YouTube channel here. You should check it out – she’s really amazing!

Are you inspired yet? XD I hope so! Which was your favorite piece of art from this post?

Also, I wondered if you have any drawing requests for me! I’m not guaranteeing I’ll draw whatever you ask, but I’d sure love to hear your suggestions and I’ll definitely try some of them!

Thanks for reading, dears, and have a lovely day (or night). ♥

***Allison***

Mountain Hike {Photo Dump}

May 18, 2017 | Allison

Yesterday we went on a beautiful hike in the mountains with our friends. It was tiring, but so fun! Plus there was a stream and a waterfall, so that automatically makes it a good trail. 🙂 I took ~~quite a few~~ absolutely TONS of pictures, so do some finger exercises, get comfortable, and start scrolling. 😛

Such a beautiful view, don’t you agree?

Ahh, so sunny. ♥

Beautiful ferns…

We’ve seen these weird corncob-like fungi before, but I don’t know what they’re called. We probably looked it up but then I forgot. XD

There were a bunch of mini cascades and waterfalls like this before we got to the big one.

A few people pictures: 😀

The kids were splashing rocks into a little pool and I got some really neat pictures with fast shutter speed. 🙂

I love how clear the water was!

Ahhh isn’t this waterfall GORGEOUS?!

I love the next picture, even though it sort of looks like Megan’s holding up the fallen log with her head. XD

Ha ha, my brother Jeff was climbing all over the place.

The fallen log kind of got in the way of the pictures, although it looked neat, too.

If you wade to the other end of the waterfall you find another, much steeper and narrower one. It’s basically just a shoot of white water.

BOKEH!

Aww, look at the cute little millipede. XD

Trying out my new lens on some flowers here…

Ohhh it was a gorgeous day, and the sun shining through the new leaves was just too pretty!

My little sister and her friend are so cute together. ♥

As we were driving back, I got a few good shots out the window. (Surprisingly, it worked a lot better when I rolled the window down. 😛 XD )

AHHH I absolutely LOVE this next photo! I love all the layers and shades. ♥

*Gasp* Okay Allison, maybe you went a bit too far this time. O.o I applaud you if you persevered to the end and actually looked at most of the pictures. XD I hope it wasn’t too strenuous of a journey. But wasn’t the waterfall gorgeous? And the mountains? Ahhh, it makes my heart happy. ♥

Have a lovely day, lovely people!

***Allison***