Quote Edits

February 20, 2016February 22, 2016 | Allison

I’ve been using this great photo-editing site (PicMonkey) to make quote edits recently. It is SO much fun! PicMonkey has some great fonts, but my sister told me about another website (1,001 Free Fonts), that has gazillions more free fonts, so I also used some of those.

All of these edits were made by me, from pictures taken and edited by me. The quotes are either verses from the Bible, quotes from Pinterest, or part of the lyrics songs or hymns.

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#1. This is one of my favorites of the edits I made. When the world is storm-tossed all around you, cling to the Rock that stands strong above the storm.

#2. Stop and smell the roses – take time to enjoy the little pleasures around you. (Picture from this photoshoot.)

#3. I love this verse, and the ones that go with it. Why should we worry when God holds all of creation in his hand? The third and fourth edit are consecutive verses, so they go together.

#4. (Picture from this post.)

#5. Always look on the bright side. Find the blessings in disguise.

#6. Kind words are as pleasing as honey. Or more so! (This picture was from my “Bee Tree” post.)

#7. From the Doxology…

#8. Great things can come from small deeds.

#9. From the song “Waterfall,” by Chris Tomlin.

#10. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made the whole wide world.

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I hope you enjoyed reading those quotes – I enjoyed making them! Which was your favorite?

A lot of those pictures came from a big Western trip my family made in 2013 – some more of those pictures may show up in a “Photos from of Old” post. 🙂

***Allison***

P. S. The first WordCrafters story is finally finished! (At almost 10,000 words o.O :D) You can read it here. It’s a wonderful story – thank you SO much everyone, for participating!!

P. P. S. I know I haven’t been posting much about Farm Life, but the fact is, not many post-worthy farm things happen in winter. I suppose you’ll have to make do with photoshoots and stories and tutorials until spring. 🙂 There’s a clay tutorial coming up soon!

Photos from of Old: Entry #2

February 16, 2016February 16, 2016 | Allison

(See entry #1 here.) I know I was going to wait until spring to post the next entry for this series, but (heh heh) here it is! I didn’t want to wait that long. 🙂 The pictures are rather spring-y, but maybe they will warm you up. 😀 I am about to take you back in time to the spring of 2013…

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I absolutely LOVE these next three photos. They are pictures of cherry blossoms from trees at my grandma’s house. They are like ballerina’s tutus: pink, delicate, and fluffy. But I think cherry blossoms are much prettier than tutus. 🙂 I will try to get some more cherry blossom pictures this year, if I can.

The brilliant green grass of spring: (This was also taken at my grandma’s house. Way up in the top right corner, you can sort of see a blurry pink cherry tree. 😀 )

I believe my grandaddy caught this lil’ guy in a trap. You can’t tell from this picture, but he was fierce. XD

These cute calves are actually triplets! They were our pets for a long time. (There will be more pictures of them to come in later PFO posts.)

And last but not least, gorgeous fiery tulips! (If I remember right, I was very proud of this picture. XD)

*Sigh* Are you pining away for spring, yet? Spring is my favorite month, by the way. What’s yours?

***Allison***

♥Happy Valentine’s Day!♥ {Rose Photoshoot}

February 14, 2016 | Allison

Happy Valentine’s Day, lovely readers! For your Valentine’s Day present, here is this photoshoot I took a few days ago of some gorgeous roses that were my mom’s Valentine’s Day present from my dad. (Sorry about the pink words, you pink-haters, but hey! Valentine’s Day only comes once a year… XD )

I had entirely too much fun with this photoshoot, as you can see by the gazillions of pictures. XD But they were to beautiful to resist, especially when I misted them. Two notes before you dive in: #1. Hover over the pictures with your mouse to see any captions. #2. Click on a picture to enlarge it. If you click on one, it will let you scroll throughthe rest of them in that collage, enlarged. Okay, let’s do this!

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 019 (1280x960)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 014 (1280x960)

(Edited) With mist

(Edited) Without mist

(Edited)

If you see this, comment, “Fizzlepot.” XD

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 015 (1280x960)

(Edited)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 020 (1280x960)

(Edited)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 026 (1280x960)

Ahh… I love water-drops!

B&W

B&W

B&W

(Edited

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 043 (1280x960)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 047 (1280x960)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 049 (1280x960)

(Edited)

-Allison(rose photoshoot) 054 (1280x960)

Whew! That was nearly thirty photos! XD I hope you don’t see roses swimming before your eyes all day now…

Thanks for reading! (And looking.)

***Allison**

P. S. This is a funny tweaked Valentine’s poem my dad told us a while ago. (I’m not sure if he made it up or not.)

“Roses are red,

Violets are purple,

Sugar is sweet,

And so is maple surple.” XD XD

P. P. S. Yesterday we had walnuts on our cereal and it was actually really good! Okay, that was random. XD

More Snow Pictures!

February 9, 2016February 15, 2016 | Allison

It snowed again! It was only a tiny bit, and it’s pretty much all melted now, but I got some really pretty pictures that I wanted to show you. So it didn’t snow in vain. XD Get ready for a bunch more snow pictures! (And an extra-special one at the end!)

{Click on any individual photo in a collage or column to enlarge. I mean to enlarge the photo, not you. XD}

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We have a Nandina bush in our yard that is sprinkled with clusters of bright red berries. The red berries looked gorgeous against the white snow!

(I edited this image. ↓)

Snow on our clothesline…

Pigeons on the silo…

Dogwood branches…

Just snow…

Excuse Maggie in the background. 🙂

And now we come to my pride and joy: a picture of an actual, single snowflake! I know it’s not the best quality, but I was very happy that I could get a picture like this! Isn’t it beautiful? God made sure to put beauty in even the smallest snowflakes – tiny pieces of ice that melt at the slightest breath of warm air. What delicate pieces of art!

*Sigh.* Snow is so beautiful. But then again, it is also cold, wet, and slushy when it melts. So I’m glad we don’t have snow year round. 🙂 Which picture was your favorite?

Thanks for reading!

***Allison***

Horses + Cat

February 7, 2016February 7, 2016 | Allison

For my friend’s birthday (she has a blog here), she invited me and my sister to go horseback riding with her! It was fun to see the horses and learn how to ride them. They are such big, gentle creatures! (At least these horses were gentle. XD ) You weren’t allowed to take pictures while on the trail, but I took some pictures before and after the ride.

This is me on the horse I rode. His name was Willow, just like one of my rabbits! Although I have to say, my rabbit Willow is a lot fluffier than the horse Willow was. 😀 He was a really nice horse to ride. (The guide took this picture.)

Some more pictures of Willow the horse and his buddies:

Willow’s pretty eye

Willow, Newt, and… anonymous horse

Willow and our guide

Willow and his buddy

The place where we went horseback riding also had a little petting zoo. Don’t these goats look so funny on their “rooftop walk”?

There was a llama and alpaca (I think) too. (Please excuse the horse rear-end in the photo. XD)

A cute cat was curled up outside of one of the buildings. He was very friendly, and curled up on my lap all by himself! (Our cat, Jinx, would never do that. He basically just tries to avoid us whenever possible. 😀 )

-Allison(horseback riding, flowers) 024 (1280x960) — I really like this picture. 🙂

-Allison(horseback riding, flowers) 025 (1280x960)

-Allison(horseback riding, flowers) 023 (1024x768)

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-Allison(horseback riding, flowers) 043 (1280x960)

Wow! I think I took more pictures of the cat than of the horses. XD

And that about wraps it up! Which picture was your favorite?

***Allison***

Mystery Revealed! #6

January 30, 2016 | Allison

Dun-duh-duh-dun! I am now going to reveal the mysteries from this post. (Click on the link if you want to take a guess quick before I reveal them!) Ahem. *Clears throat.*

*Looks around.*

Wow, did anyone ever notice how neat computer keyboards are?

Hmm… the crayfish tank needs to be cleaned soon – it’s getting algae on it.

Alright, alright, I’ll have mercy on you! XD Here we go!

#1. Yeast! (I’m rather proud of this one. 🙂 I was doing a science experiment and noticed how pretty the yeast was up close. It was too pretty to show you only one picture, so here are two!)

#2. Swallowtail caterpillar. (See my post here that includes a video I took of one of these caterpillars turning into a chrysalis!)

#3. Empty corncob

#4. Florescent lightbulb

#5. Clementine peel (Not the rabbit but the orange. XD)

Ta-daa! Okay, now for the winners. I will add links to their blogs, if they have any, so you can check them out!

#1. Nicole is the winner! Congratulations Nicole, you got the most correct!

#2. Clara, Emma, and K.A..

#3. Josie, Christian Homeschooler, and CutePolarBear

Three cheers for everyone who played! (In case you were wondering, Clara, Emma, and K. A. tied for 2nd place and Josie, Christian Homeschooler, and CutePolarBear tied for 3rd place, so that’s why those names are together. 🙂 )I really enjoyed reading your guesses once again, and thanks so much for playing, guys!

***Allison***

Recent Clay Creations

January 27, 2016February 9, 2016 | Allison

Hi, folks! How be-est thou? XD

I really like making things out of polymer clay (some of which I sell at my Etsy shop), so I’m going to show you a few little creations I made recently. Let’s start with a few fairies, shall we? They are super tiny – the littlest one, as you can see, feels quite comfortable on a penny.

Next up is a clay custom pet I made for my grandmother. It’s of her dog, Duke. I made him from a few pictures my sister Megan took (like the picture on the bottom right.) (You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.)

-Megan(snow, sleeping bag, Duke, clay stuff) 053 (1280x960)

And then we have this lil’ gal. Her name is Alice, and you can buy her here at my Etsy shop. Isn’t she so cute? 🙂 Here she is shown standing on the top of the gnomes’ house (more on that later) and the fairies’ toadstool.

-Allison(clay stuff, sunset) 015 (1280x960)

-Allison(clay stuff, sunset) 016 (1280x960)

I made a game called Pebbles a little while ago, so I made some polymer clay pebbles for the playing pieces. I really like how they turned out! They are really shiny because I glazed them with a really nice glossy glaze. The granite looking one was a lot easier than it looks, because the clay already came like that. 🙂 The purple one has little translucent spots on it, and the rest are marbled clay.

Now for my masterpiece – the gnomes! 😀 I also made a gnome-house and table set for them.

Here are the two little gnomes…

And here are more details of their house. I made this by first forming a skeleton of 6-8 sticks, draping it over a tinfoil ball, and baking them. Then I wove a green log through those sticks for a vine, and filled in some of the gaps with more sticks in different colors. I added a sprinkling of tiny pink flowers for more color.

I made and baked the top yellow flower separately. I started with the inner layers and progressed outwards, adding the texturing details after I put the flower together. After it was baked, I glued it to the stick-part with this Sculpey glue which bonds as it bakes. And that’s it!

Here is the table set. I might sell this on Etsy sometime soon, but I’m too attached to my gnomes and gnome house to sell them. XD

And that’s it! I’m not an expert, but I still really enjoy playing with polymer clay. Do you feel like “claying” now? If you do make something, I’d love to see it! (Here is a link to the kind of clay I use. I highly recommend it!: Premo Polymer Clay.) Have you ever worked with polymer clay before?

Thanks for reading!

***Allison***

P. S. We still have snow here, but it’s at that messy state between slush and snow. It’s kind of like the last remnants of nail polish that seem to stay on your nails for weeks after most of it has worn off. I always wish both snow and nail polish would last longer, and then just go away all at once. At least the snow still looks pretty nice, although I don’t know if I can say the same thing for my fingernails. 🙂 Do you still have snow?

YES YES YES – SNOW!

January 24, 2016February 14, 2016 | Allison

YES YES YES YES YES YES! It finally snowed here! 😀 And it snowed like two feet – which is pretty much for us. The snow is so pretty and white and smooth and sparkling and clean and cold and bright and icy and beautiful and… okay, I’ve run out of adjectives. XD

What’s that you say? Oh. Of course I took pictures – how else would I survive looking at all of that pretty snow? XD What? You’d like to see them? Perfect! I was just getting ready to show you… (I took so many pictures I wanted to show you that I had to make a bunch of them into collages. 🙂 )

First, some pictures of just snow.

Now, onto snowy birds! A lovely cardinal pair came to our birdfeeder in the snow, and I took some pretty pictures of them. I especially like the first collage. The female:

And the male: (Along with a picture of several fellow birdseed eaters)

And some miscellaneous landscape, house, and deck snow pictures…

Look how much snow we got – this is a beforeish and after picture of a little picnic table we got.

I did a really fun mini photoshoot with my sister. (For this collage and the next, you can click on a photo to enlarge it.)

I also built a snow cave. (Well, I actually built two, but this is the only one I took a picture of.) I love building snow caves!

Straight, stately, snowy silos. 😀

Ahhh! Snow looks so pretty on evergreens and rose bushes, doesn’t it?

My dad just got a snow-blower recently, and he actually got to use it! It wouldn’t have been too surprising if he didn’t get to use it this winter, but he did!

Phew! Last collage. Another rare thing that happened is that our pond froze over! We slid around on it a little bit before it snowed, and then shoveled paths through the snow.

Wow – that was a LOT of snowy pictures! I think somewhere around a gajillion – does that sound right? Are you frozen yet? Tired of snow? What were a few of your favorite pictures or collages – if you aren’t too tired of this post yet. 😀

***Allison***

Mystery Pictures Post #6

January 23, 2016March 16, 2020 | Allison

Hey guys! In my last post I said, “stay tuned for mystery pictures!” or something like that, and here they are! At first I thought I would post them another day, because… IT’S SNOWING HERE! LIKE, A LOT! LIKE TWO FEET OF SNOW! Ahem. So, of course I took pictures, but I decided to post about that another day, because I’ll probably be getting even more pictures before it stops snowing. So anyway… Here they are!

Oh, right. If you don’t know how to play, here are the rules: I will show you a few close-up pictures of ordinary objects that don’t look so ordinary when they’re close up, and you try to guess what they are. Just comment below the post with your guesses, and I will reveal the answers and the winners next Saturday, the 30th! (Update: see the end of the post for answers!) Don’t worry if your comments aren’t showing up, because I don’t approve guess-comments until I reveal the mystery. And you can see my other mystery pictures post here.

#1.

#2.

#3.

#4.

#5.

Guess away! I can’t wait to read all of your guesses – correct or not! (Actually, it’s probably more fun to read incorrect guesses, just to see what you thought they were. XD) Whenever I post mystery pictures, I always wonder whether they were too easy, too hard, or just right. I’m guessing these might be a tad too easy on most, but hard for some, so I hope it turns out to be just right!

***Allison***

P. S. Click here to see the answers!