A day at the seaside

We went to the seaside today, as it was such a lovely sunny day. I took my new toy along, the Canon PowerShot A570, my dinky little digi. I didn’t realise that it had this cool function called Stitch Assist that helps you take a series of shots to make a panoramic photo; I was actually looking for the Landscape setting when I found it. I took four adjacent shots, but unfortunately when I put them into Photomerge on Photoshop CS, it could only match up two shots as the other 2 were over exposed. But I still got my first panoramic view!!

I loved the patterns that the sea had made on the sand as the tide went out, so I took a couple of shots for later use.




Of course we had to have an ice cream, it would have been rude not to ☺, and our faithful mutt had to have his share (good job the vet won’t read this). The only thing was 2 seconds later he’d almost swallowed the stick and Mike ( my hubby) had to retrieve it.


What a lovely way to spend a winter Sunday

Apples for breakfast

Today we made our yearly visit to al local apple growers Apple Day. We had a 'second breakfast", in true Hobbit style of sliced apples from varieties as varied as Coxes Orange Pippin to Pinova, a lovely sweet apple with a hint of sharpness! All this was then washed down with samples of mulled wine, Christmas Mead, and cheese. It doesn't get any better than that, or does it?


They also have a craft exhibition on the site, where I met a lovely lady, Jenny Stacy, who was selling the most delightful buttons I've seen in a long time. She had a great piece of collaged luggage label on the table, and I asked her if it was an ATC, to which she looked blank and asked me what on earth was that. I elaborated and we had a super chat. I asked Jenny if I could photograph her lovely buttons to show on my blog and she kindly agreed.

Jenny has a web site www.jennystacy.co.uk where you can buy these gorgeous buttons, which I think would be super for decorating ATC's as the small 25p ones are about 1cm in diameter.

It was so nice to meet someone like minded and so enthusiastic about their craft.

I love Hobbycraft

At the beginning of this week I had planned to go to the K&S show in Ally Pally, but by yesterday my desire to spend £22 on the train and £10 to get in was definitely waning. So, not to be outdone I went to Hobbycraft in Southampton instead. What a treat! loads of people free aisles with lots of wonderful scrummy stuff to choose from and I hadn’t had to pay an entrance fee.

I took the photos of my work on the rusty gun doors (on my post ‘a grand day out’) and had a great time cruising up and down the aisles picking out the threads and paint etc. without getting sidetracked and seduced by things I didn’t need. I also bought the 3 canvases for my planned triptych for £19 in a set of 3, which I thought wasn’t bad for 16”x16”, deep sided.

I finished off my purchases with 2 delightful little 3D frames for £5.99 each, which will be used for our Christmas exhibition:info @ www.sharonoyoung.co.uk

I don’t think the prices were exceptionally cheap, this little bundle cost me £60, but it was lovely to have everything under one roof and not have to pay an admission fee.

A grand day out

We had a lovely day at the seaside yesterday, taking full advantage of the late arrival of the sun. We went to Hurst Casle, which is on the South coast. It would be more aptly named a fortification, as that’s how it appears today, although the Keep, that was built by Henry V111 is still in evidence. It is situated at the end of a causeway and was garrisoned in both world wars and formed part of the Coastal Artillery defenses until 1956.
This was my second visit recenly as the first time I'd become enthralled with the amazing colours of the rust that has formed on the enormous metal gun doors.
I wanted to get more accurate colour pictures than I had on the first visit, as the cloud cover was heavy and I'd had to use flash.
I also wanted to ty out my new little Canon Powershot A570, which I bought for occasions where my Nikon D50 is too bulky and heavy.
I have to say I was pretty impressed with the close-up shots, but not that pleased with the distance shots. I have alot to learn about it yet. I still love the colours in the original Nikon shot and hope that I can find a way to translate the paperwork I've don so far.