All posts filed under: photography/mosiacs

Autumn TeaTime

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With all these wonderful warm colours of Autumn, there’s nothing better than sitting by a sunlit window, sipping a cup of warm tea and eating a piece of Banana Nutmeg Cake. Sharing with you my new Royal Albert – Country Roses serving plate. A lovely oval design with cross-hatching embossing,filigree and gold trim, with handles of beautiful cut-out hearts. A beautiful addition to my china collection. For afternoon tea, there’s a serving of freshly homemade Banana Nutmeg Cake, served in petite paper doilies, and Royal Albert – Country Roses serviettes.   Welcome to all those lovely ladies, who are joining me for tea, and a chat in the afternoon sunlight. Wish you were all here, relaxing with me, just a little time for you and me, and see the beautiful hues of Autumn in our garden. Piping hot tea served in Royal Albert, bone china petite Val d’or tea cups, and beautiful paper filigree heart  – place cards. Can you see your name?   Here’s my quick recipe for Banana Nutmeg Cake 1/2 cup sugar …

Sweet Blessings

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A beautiful  Sunday, and Happy Mothers Day. I made a special cake for my sister today to celebrate Mother’s Day with the family. A Vanilla Strawberry Buttercake. Its the first time I’ve used this giant cupcake tin, so a little trial and error, but some great results. And some wonderful ideas for future baking were discussed by us girls….  A Mothers Blessing Thank you, Holy Father, for Your special gift of mothers; for the example of Your unconditional love they share with their children. Thank You for the mother who lets her child know without doubt he or she is loved, and for the child who returns that love. Lord, today we pray You will protect and guide mothers everywhere; that You will grant them Your wisdom in loving and teaching their children. Today, may children everywhere remember the warm caresses and whispers in the night; the tears dried and Band-Aids, the peach cobbler, the laughter; and the blood curdling scream, ‘No!’ at the brink of danger. Thank You for the mothers who played with …

Beeted Chocolate Fudge Cake

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The crisp cool mornings have arrived with the changing colours of our trees, and the early evening smoke clouds from chimney tops from warm lit fires. Autumn is here, and with it beautiful Autumn vegetables. Pumpkins, Squash, Parsnips and beautiful, beautiful Beetroot. I bought this beautiful bunch of beetroot from our local Organic Grocer, such wonderful fresh produce, this bunch cost AUS $3.50, and I used it for a couple of dishes. My first idea was to make that gorgeous magenta rich Bosch soup, but I didn’t have too many green flags on that one..so I thought I might be a little sneaky and make a chocolate fudge cake..everyone loves chocolate! I had seen red velvet cupcakes before made with beetroot, lower in calories and beetroot gives the mixture a smoother, moist texture. Scouting through many wonderful new and exciting beetroot dishes, I found this one from the ‘girls’ from the BBC program ‘Cook yourself Thin’, I have adapted it due to the amount of coffee in it, not good for the smaller generation. It …

Texture Tuesday – Let’s get Creative eDition

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Vintage Roses This weeks challenge, was even more a challenge for myself, I was determined to sit down and learn something new in Photoshop Elements, instead of my usual fly through with Picasa 3. What better way then to sit down with Kim Klassens, Beyond Layers and her Photoshop Test Kitchen – Elements The Essentials. Headphones, coffee and a learning will to ensure a new direction to textures and my photos. original photo + kk_mustardseed + kk_dream, mixing both blend modes and opacities. ‘We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine,we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born.  Astrology does not lay claim to anything more’  Carl Gustav Jung Have a wonderful week, my friends Yvette…x

You First

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Another challenge with Kim Klassen’s ‘Beyond Layers’. Bit by bit, layer by layer, finding the true inner self and capturing those wonderful moments, and times that I as a person grab onto the ‘me’ time. Last weeks self portrait challenge, wasn’t easy for myself and some other members of the group, but hey! it was a release to confront the self image, the reflection of the ‘true’ me and with Kim’s encouragement continue on this self discovery journey. So what better way to continue but ‘take the time’, embrace the ah ha moments that I can truly say, I’m doing this for me, I’m taking some time (and not feeling guilty) to do the things I love. I grabbed the moment of spending a few days with a wonderful friend, who was on her mission to excel in her new years resolution, of making time to visit family more often  Family not at her doorstep, travelling to the ‘bush’ some kilometers away from her home. I too, was on a mission, find time to do …

Amaryllis in Blueberry

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Amaryllis in Blueberry ***** (excellent) by Christina Meldrum “In Meldrum’s intoxicating first adult novel (after 2010’s Madapple) a family undertakes West African missionary work only to find its members profoundly transformed. Polish-American pathologist Dick Slepy lives with his bohemian wife, Christina “Seena,” in Danish Landing, Mich. They have four daughters, each following the other by two years. There’s pretty Mary Grace, now 18. Mary Catherine is “always-obedient” and pious, whereas Mary Tessa is a “trouble-maker-in-training,” and the precocious Amaryllis, their youngest at 11, is an “emotional synesthete,” who tastes, smells, and otherwise “consumes” the pain, rage, love, or joy of others, and is suspiciously dark-featured. Fearing that his wife is having an affair, Dick seeks the council of his local priest, Father Amadi, who suggests the Slepys take a mission to West Africa to help his nephew, Mawuli, run an aid organization. They go, but the mission is anything but the salve Dick had hoped for, and one event after another…shove the family into deep crisis. With every chapter, Meldrum jumps viewpoints and shifts time …

Texture Tuesday – free & easy eDition

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With every crack and chipped painted wall, (signs of a child, who hung posters on her wall), there’s something about returning to the four walls of a house, you call ‘home’. Reminiscing of many good times and sad ones, having the comforts at your fingertips and your Mum, home cooking and wanting do do everything for you, just as it was when you were a small child. I’m enjoying the Easter break holiday vacation time, relaxing with my camera and a couple of good books. (novels and a few inspirational cookbooks), writing up my next school programs and catching up with long time friends. Photographing the last of Mum’s flowering rose blooms, capturing them in the early morning stream of light from a window for a Texture Tuesday shot. Experimenting with composition, and light sources, and learning my new camera. Just a little time for me.(sigh!) I love the transparency of the rose petals… Beautiful roses,and just a little subtle texture. Free and Easy for this weeks Texture Tuesday. Linking to Kim Klassens Cafe. Have …

A kind of Beautiful

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It’s time to face the music… self portrait It’s been a changing moment…or is it just one point that I’ve arrived at before, started and then found a different direction. Are we ever happy with the now? I’ll do that when…I’m feeling happy, when I’m ten kilo’s lighter, when I meet the right person, when! , when?, when. Let’s just start living the now. I’m at this point again, lift my head high and face the music, however this time I’m writing the music and my own lyrics. Start enjoying every little ‘moment’. Enjoy the company of family, the company of friends, but most importantly know who that person in the mirror really is, the reflective you. With all the extra lines of time, the freckles, the blemishes. My journey with Kim Klassen and Beyond Layers, ( Beyond Layers II registrations now open) has been just that a journey of peeling back so many emotions, so many feelings, grasping for air, a ray of sunshine or a falling tear. Beyond Layers is 52 weeks of …