A Springtime Giveaway!

Sweet perfumes scent the balmy air,

and life is brimming everywhere.

~Paul Laurence Dunbar

Springtime makes me happy! I love seeing everything in the garden blooming and all the beautiful creatures coming out to play! In honor of this beautiful season, I'm doing a Springtime Giveaway! Enjoy these lovely images taken this weekend in my garden and then scroll down to see details on the prize and how to enter!

A Momentary Spring

Bromeliad and Bokeh

Guava Flowers

Pink seems to be the predominate color in my garden right now...

Pink x 2

The pompom (or powder puff) bush is bursting with spiky pink goodness:

And even my orchids have begun showing off their various shades of pinks:

Deep Pinks

Pale Pinks

Patterned Pinks

Magenta

Even our Bunco group is getting into Spring with a "Garden Party" themed bunco! I made these cute garden cupcakes for the party:

(idea stolen from the fabulous book Hello, Cupcake!)

Sally & I don our best Garden Hats (and for those Big Bang Theory fans, my pink & green floral dress is the same one Bernadette wore when she said Yes to Howard's proposal. sweet!)

How about a Spring Giveaway? I'm giving away to one lucky person, my beautiful hand-painted Butterfly Box which is filled with my Butterfly Note Cards and organic butterfly seeds I cultivated myself! Now, you can start your own Butterfly Garden! :)

All you need to do to have a chance to win is become a fan of my Photography Facebook Page or click the button on my blog that says "Join This Site" and become a member of my clubhouse! Then, leave a comment   about your favorite childhood garden memory! (If you are already a fan or member, just leave a comment for me so I know you were here!) I'll use a random number generator next week to pick a winner! And, here's another little incentive...if you are an artist or crafter, a little extra something will be in the box! :)  Good luck everyone and I'll leave you with one more image from my garden:

Reaching

iPhoneography Mission #12

Mission #12: Let the weeds get a little out of control.


No problem. It's football season. Typically that means my garden gets the silent treatment for several months.
It stops raining. Things start dying off, weeds start popping up. Still, there is beauty to be found there. :)
All images shot with the Native Camera and processed with a variety of apps including Pic Grunger, Photo Toaster and Lo-Mob. All taken in my secret garden. ;-)

Bold Death 

 Entwined

Forgotten Days

Garden Faerie

 Hidden Path

Waning

For the next mission, I grant creative flexibility for all those participating since it's a holiday week.

Here ya go!:

Mission #13: Go someplace you've never been.

Wordless Wednesday: Sun Soaked

Sun Soaked

World Photography Day

Photography has come a long way. Thanks to the digital age, images that were considered poor by the photography elite are now considered art. Sure, there are still purists out there who want a perfectly focused and balanced image but with a digital camera you can experiment with all kinds of techniques, settings and software. You don't have to worry about the cost of film and developing. You can take hundreds of shots and view them instantly. You can think outside the box. You can create art with your camera. In honor of World Photography Day, I spent yesterday afternoon composing abstract images...in mid-day harsh light...with a slow shutter speed...in wind...and while moving my camera in a circle. Voila...photography as art! Here are a few of my favorites:

Garden of Light & Motion 

Pastel Journeys

Flow

Bromeliad Complex

There are no rules anymore (well, except you still need to have a good composition!) and you can take a chance and try something new and different! I hope these images inspire all of my readers to take camera in hand and experiment! Be bold and have fun!

Recommitting to the Garden

There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter.

One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogues. 

~Hal Borland

It's time to begin. Time to gather the tools, the seeds, the plan and get the garden prepared again for the butterflies and for the vegetables I will once again grow in patio pots. I had much luck last year with Jalapeño pepper and carrots so those will be back on the list again this year. 

Organic Jalapeño in hand. Taken with my iPhone

Organic Carrots. It took me ten weeks to grow enough for a salad. :)

Some of today's journal fun from the Awe-Manac:

Name Today: Thor

Since it's January 6th, give yourself credit for six small things you are already glad you have done this year.

1. Taken my camera with me everyday

2. Taken and processed pictures everyday

3.) Worked out regularly

4.) Journaled everyday

5.) Cut back on chocolate consumption (don't know how long that one will last!)

6.) Finishing the Sketchbook Project (pics to come in an upcoming blog!)

 Today it rained. It's been a while since we have had a thunderstorm (thus the naming of today) as we are currently in the dry season. I'm ready to once again get out every weekend and work the garden. Connecting myself to Mother Earth. It's time. :)

Summer Lovin'

Although not official until June 21st, it feels like this is the first week of summer. As a child, Memorial Day Weekend signaled the end of school and the start of vacation. Most of the summer was spent on The Island, at the Sand Pit with family and cousins...water skiing, fishing, staying out past dark, playing games, and of course, cooking out with lots and lots of good food. Summer is different now but still my favorite season. I love heat and humidity. I love being in the pool. I love the lazy, relaxed feel of the season. Being in Florida, summer includes Hurricanes, but hey, it's a small price to pay to live in paradise!

This week in paradise saw the first sign of little ducklings...Mother Duck brought her five babies by for a bite to eat. They are so tiny right now but just adorable beyond words.

The warmth of the sun has brought the garden into full bloom with the Mammoth Russian Sunflowers finally opening up to reveal their finery:

In this picture you can see off to the left just how tall the sunflowers have gotten, currently about eight feet high! I have about six currently waiting for bloom. I've only cut two for the house and the rest will be left in the garden so the birds can enjoy the seeds.

While taking my self portraits, Charlie came out, grabbed the camera and told me to "work it" which made me laugh and be all embarrassed. Although his pics are always a bit blurry (poor guy), I love this one because it shows that true happiness and laughter he is always capable of bringing out of me:

The Stargazer Lily is in full bloom and the Mr. Lincoln Tea Rose which began blooming at the beginning of the month is still producing gorgeous, beautiful, sweet-smelling blooms in velvety red:

Even the trees are participating in Nature's fashion show: This Royal Poinciana sits at the end of my block and when I drive by it my heart lifts and fills with happiness.

And, maybe one day I will have one in my own yard as Charlie brought me back a seed pod from this tree today which he picked up during his run.

My heart also soared this week when I went to my mailbox and discovered a surprise package of goodies from my friend Phoebe:

It's always great to get a surprise the old fashioned way...by mail! So, thank you Phoebe!

I ended the week with a Date Day with Daniel. We went to see The Prince of Persia, had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and of course, shopped for books at Barnes and Noble.

This unofficial first week of summer was a good one, despite the fact that I was suffering from a sinus infection and had to get a cortisone shot for Tendinitis. Two small little setbacks in an otherwise perfectly beautiful week.  Life is good!

Sun showers, Mojitos and a Clutch of Eggs

I wanted to blog several times this week but my tendinitis is back with a vengeance so I wasn't up for typing on the computer most days. My camera agitates the condition also, the lifting and holding of that big DSLR. But, I would rather just suffer the pain than stop taking photos! So, my week of exceptional and magical moments is getting condensed into one post and with little prose. Was your week full of exceptional and magical moments?  I bet they were...it's up to you to spot them! :)

Had a huge thunderstorm earlier in the week but this time, despite all the heavy thunder and cracking lightening, it stayed sunny the entire time...the rain was heavy, loud, a torrent. But, the sun shined on as if to say, "you aren't ruining my day!"

The sun was low in the sky after the rain had stopped, a perfect time to head to the garden to capture glistening little beads of raindrop diamonds.

How about some Pink Diamonds?

On Friday, I accidentally ate some moldy food, had to rush my cat to the vet, tried to swat a mosquito and hyper-extended my elbow...the one already inflamed with tendinitis. So, when my husband said let's meet at the Outback for dinner, I didn't hesitate to give a very enthusiastic YES!  

I said yes, not only for the great (non-moldy) food but also for the delicious Mojitos! Give me two please!

I hadn't had alcohol since Jackie and I had champagne during high tea in London back in December so it didn't take long before I was loopy and flirting with my husband who was busy snapping pics of me with his iPhone, complimenting the "mood" lighting that sat above our booth.

Creative Saturday was a Traditional Art day and Lita came over to mess around with our oils and watercolors. The night before I had sketched this image of a Buddhist Nun using a doll owned by Richard Simmons as my reference and anticipating that I would paint it with watercolor the following morning.

However, I really loved the sketch and didn't want to ruin it with my horrible watercolor skills so I decided to scan it and paint it digitally first before I watercolor the original. We began the morning instead by working on the oil paintings we had started last month. Lita worked on her still life bananas and I added more layers of thin oil paint to my Girl with Horse.

There is still a lot of work to be done but I'm getting closer to adding details which is my favorite part.
After lunch we headed to the bookstore and picked up some books on Japanese and Chinese Ink Painting.  However, not having the proper inks, we used our watercolors instead and learned to make the four main strokes for Japanese Ink painting.

 I'm going to head to the art store sometime this week and pick up the proper equipment for ink painting and continue to study the two books I purchased and attempt to master the art of Japanese and Chinese Ink painting! I also messed around in my art journal using markers and watercolors to create a pineapple. I will add some words to this page such as "juicy" "delicious" and "sweet" before calling it finished.

Sunday was a very active day starting with a 3 mile run/walk followed by a 4 mile bike ride before heading out into the garden for a few hours to weed, plant and clear out some of the dead leaves and then finally a swim in the pool! The first swim of the season! Yay for pool time!
This being Mother's Day, it was appropriate that I found this in the garden hidden behind some pots:

Our first clutch of the season! I was getting worried because we haven't had any ducklings so far this year and usually by this time we have had two sets. Meadowlark (so named because she likes to sing) probably thought that the garden was a good place, close to where I feed the ducks and to the lake. However, it's also right next to the home of the Palm Rat so if she leaves them at night, she's bound to have one or all missing. I hope Meadowlark gets the chance to hatch her eggs. Here she is sitting on them:

Perhaps I'll be taking pictures of cute little ducklings soon!  Fingers crossed! Happy Mother's Day Meadowlark and Happy Mother's Day to all the Mother's out there including my own!

Me and my lovely Mom in Scotland

Have a great week!