feet

        this one I had to stand on a rather rickety cane table but I like the background texture

                    I liked the image with one foot forward and I think this one is my favourite

think this one would have looked better with the left foot further ahead, but like the barbed wire effect

I wasn't sure how I was going to do my photographs for the Feb challenge so decided to do my own first then move on to someone else's and do each challenge as it comes otherwise I will get confused and miss some.  These are my photo's of my feet, yep those paddle shape things with toes are my feet, now don't laugh they have always been reliable in holding me up and getting me where I want to go.  Hope no one has a foot fetish.  I took all these photo's at home.  I looked for different textures to go with my feet and liked some and not so keen on others.

my february challenge

itsy bitsy spider

Yesterday when I went out to hang the washing out I just had to go back and get my camera, the sun was shining on the spider web.  It looked just like spun silk.  We have been watching her since she set up her web from before Christmas.  She is just out midway between the fence and the backdoor.  I am aware of her and make sure I veer off to the right to hang out the clothes, otherwise I would meet her face to face, thats a scary prospect.  We know she's a she as we watched her zap a smaller one when he went to mate with her, had her way and then zap.  A huntsman spider eyed her up from under the eaves but there was no way he could climb her web.  She sits out there all day in torrential rain and searing heat, I guess we will go out one day and she will be gone.  We have this brown bird with a red wattle that goes around the house and fence snapping up the spiders but I haven't seen it for a while now, I guess there is a glut of spiders around for it to feed on.  No I didn't get up close with the last one, I used the zoom, no way am I getting within 1 cm with this one, she'd probably jump on my camera or worse still my hair eeeek..... As you can see this is no neat spider web it has bits going off in all directions, all those black lumpy things are insects it has caught and eaten.

Hot Chocolate and cake

Kirsty and the kids where up for a few days, Jack for Football and Alyssa spent the day with Maddison which left us kid free yeeha.  A little luxury was had at Claremont Quarter's Koko Black.  Koko's is a chocolate shop that serves beautiful cakes which I had a Chocolate laming ton and Kirsty passionfruit creamy thing and I had the front cup of Belgian Hot Chocolate and Kirsty's behind a light Hot Chocolate which we both declared absolutely delicious and decadent, of course I felt sick afterwards but it was worth it.  The decor was amazing as well......

and finally it rained

In fact it bucketed down, was like a lake out here, I rushed and got my camera and quickly looked to see if I could find sports mode, somehow got it on black and white, had another look and the colour one is sport.  When I got on my manual I found one that is hi-speed burst which is the one I think I needed as you hold your shutter button down and it takes a series of shots in which you might get a couple of great action or movement shots.  Tomorrow Kirsty, Jack and Alyssa are coming up and Jack is participating in a West Coast Eagles Football clinic so I will be ready to get some practice.  Oh yeh, I really like the black and white one its kinda moody aye?  And the rain was so good nearly chucked off and ran outside, I said nearly!!!!

got it

howz that

there you go Phil, can you see the 4 ghosts, cool aye.  It is my photo I took at the cemetery and changed in Picnik, so much fun

art

 a very creative nurse in boob art, the red mark closest is a reaction to the sticking plaster which I removed it has formed a little blister.  Ok I own up I cropped, bits I didn't want you to see.  To take the photo I stood in front of the mirror and I turned the lens towards me and I could see the image in the mirror, clever aye.

Don't these tubes of paint grouped together look good.  This was my day, sorting into colours and entering them on to the computer.  As I am not teaching these heavy body paints and have sold very little of them since closing the shop, I decided to sell them off at cost plus $1, I sent the list out to 2 good customers, Mandy in Qsld and got order for over $300 between them.  Will take them to class next week and I have a customer coming tomorrow who wants some too, so good start.

changing photo

 original photo taken at cemetery below and altered on app photo effect studio pretty cool aye

Cemetery Art

Just playing around with photo's taken recently with Phil at Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth.

circus has come to town

 the photo's above where taken about 9 am on my way into the hospital to see Raymon

And these around 7.30 pm when I went down with Kirsty and Alyssa to have a look at the circus I do love them lit up in the fading light what do you think.  It was a good place to have it as there are a lot of trees around to provide shade for the ponies.

another summer scene

 

I had to make it extra large so you could see the grapes nestled in there, not ripe these ones yet, they are selling the seedless ones at the road stalls at the moment.  Thank you Sharon for the prompt.

 and two taken at Karrakatta Cemetery on Monday, this granite cross above, can you see me and a statue behind me reflected in the shine of the stone.

                                 and Phil snapping away oblivious to me snapping her hahaha

My Challenge

                                                                    Ready and waiting

                                          Jayden our Great Grandson who calls me super nana

                                                          I didn't really get one of the Christmas dinner but here are two of the aftermath thats my pay I made above, see saga below.

the group photo taken with self timer, not easy to do but we all got in.  From right Samara, Anthony,  John, Joanne, Jessica, Cameron (Jess's partner with Jadyn) Courtney pulling a face and in front on right Maddison, Kaitlin and me.  I do prefer groups photo's shot from below but not sure if its possible with self timer.

 I just had to share with you these two.  I decided that I would make a Christmas pudding like mum used to make but the recipe for this one was Macadamia nut and mango christmas pudding, a real twist on an Australian theme.  In the recipe you steamed it in a bowl but me in my great wisdom decided on Christmas day that I would steam it just like mum did wrapped in a floured cloth.  Not taking into consideration that the biggest pot I had was only about 8 inches high at the most and I had to dangle this thing so it didn't sit on the bottom.  But being a Johnson girl and up for a challenge I got a long stick and balanced it on two plastic containers of flour and, wella, it wasn't sitting on the bottom of the pot, the lid was a challenge, see it sitting there doing sweet fanny adams.  Was the pudding a success? well it tasted ok, no, it tasted damn good but was kinda gluggy.  On checking in the trusty Edmonds book, all their recipes you boiled for 4 hours or more and this one only said 2 hours, hence gluggy.  I froze what was left which was most of it, and will heat it in the oven when it gets cooler and that should cook it through, the skin was there, so that was good.

Now am I the only one that is dumb enough to try something new on the day of the party, mmmhm!
This was my attempt at a Pistachio Pavlova, saw it in a magazine, thought, mmmh, that looks good, being a visual person,why not give it a bash.  One reason would be that previous christmas, my 20 odd year old electric hand beater disintegrated in my hand while I was using it.  But, there is a hand beater in the drawer, how hard can it be to beat up egg whites with a hand beater, used to do it before electric ones came into being.  Bloody hell, I beat and I beat, thought it would be good for my chicken wings under my arms, wrong, they are still there,  manage to get peaks but when I added the sugar,  spoon by spoon, could not get peaks, got John on to it, then Stuart came around to finish off the range hood, had him beating, in the end thought, oh well ,will have to do.  Well as you can see above it was about 1 inch high, nothing like the picture in the magazine.  I didn't trust myself completely, I did buy a ready made one as well.  However even though it didn't look very pretty it tasted really good.  We went and bought a electric beater after Christmas, they are cheap as, so will have another go.  It tasted really good with the pistachio's mixed into it.

summer days

Well at the beginning of the summer this is the scene here in perth, I may get a better scene tomorrow.

we will eat cake

I made this fruit cake this morning, tastes real good and so easy to make.  If you want the recipe I have put it on Vintage Vignette blog.  Will bring you a piece tomorrow Phil, we are off early to Karrakatta cemetery to get some good cemetery photo's.

lavender blue dilly dilly

this is my puny lavender colour came out quite good with the greys of the stones and chipped pewter finial in the background.