Life in Color Photo – Page 112 – Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

We’re home

Okay so I guess the guest blogging thing didn’t really work out. It turns out Sciarrino moved while we were away. In addition to taking care of our place and helping with Ribbon Jar and all of that she was painting, and cleaning and painting some more. I’ll bring you updates to that soon, but first a little glimpse of our time up north. I’ve only gone through some of the pictures and I can already tell you they are going to need their own photo album. My whole desktop is full of versions exported from aperture ready to post on the blog. Here are a few of my favorites (so far!).

We did this a lot, since there could be long spaces between cars (like 10 plus minuets).

I was obsessed with the cuteness of these trees. I don’t know if they are actual noble firs, but they look like them, and those are always what I get for Christmas trees. It was like Christmas tree land everywhere! And yes there are Christmas trees everywhere in Oregon, but these are all random and just right on the side of the road.

My husband likes to pose. With anything, anywhere. Hehehehe.

A most excellent picture Bj took of me. Check out that reflection. That is because the water was just beautifully clear.

We kept calling this glacier run off water "Sciarrino’s water" because of that excellent turquoise color that she loves. Sorry we couldn’t bottle you up some Sciarrino!

And finally (taken with the iPhone)… What the heck Canadians, that’s not a Shirley Temple!!! I was a bit perplexed by this concoction brought out when I asked for one, it’s like water, orange juice, and grenadine. Hmm… Is this normal Canadian behavior?

We loved our trip, more stories to come, and many more pictures, that only touched on the first few days. Good to be home, missed you all!

And she’s gone.

The new owners came and got her this morning. I’m sad, but as Bj keeps telling me, I AM getting a new car soonish. So have fun with your adventures in Alaska dear car. I’ll miss you.

We made it!

Geez I guess Sciarrino has been slacking on the guest blogging 🙂 Just kidding, I know she’s been super busy. I just wanted to say that we made it! All our pictures were shot in RAW and I can’t upload them here, but we are having a great time at Carmen and Andrew’s. The drive was absolutely one of the most amazing experiences in our lives. So beautiful. Like completely amazing. We crossed back into the USA yesterday and arrived at Anchorage last night. Today I had to post my car. 🙁 It totally rocked the trip and who ever gets it is going to be one happy customer I am sure. Check out my Craig’s list posting. Do you think I fully get across how much I love this vehicle? Oh and to answer Erin’s question of why we are selling it. Two things: we have to get a car that sits a little higher up for grandpa to get in and out of easier, and when we realized that we couldn’t rent a car and leave it up here we decided to drive it and sell it and fly back (because we didn’t want to take off too much time and driving both ways would have taken forever).

Posting from the iPhone

Okay I’m testing out posting from the iPhone. Let’s see if I can use a picture from my phone.
Nope. Hmm. Well I can at least tell you that it is 6:47 and we are just getting into Portland. I probably won’t do this from Canada but maybe when I get into Alaska. Peace out my blog buddies.

He Did It!

And don’t worry he didn’t use that knife! I have been begging Bj to shave his head for YEARS, just to try it, but he never would. If not right before a road trip in the summer, than when right? So he went and had it done today. He called me after to tell me he looks ridiculous, but I think it’s cute. We’ll see how he feels after a few days. Yeah!

a riddle

What two coins when added together equal .30, but one is not a nickel?

Edited to add: This post was by Sciarrino. We are testing out her being able to post because she is going to be the guest blogger for ten days. I hate it when I go to a blog and they have nothing up for days. And Sciarrino is very, very clever so I’m excited to see what she shares with you. Everyone be nice to Sciarrino and say hi!

oh also does anyone know how to get it say at the bottom: posted by ____________?

A picture is worth…

So what photography equipment is coming on my trip? I spent a good portion of today trying to figure that out. Of course my D50 (can I just say how happy I still am with this camera since

Dill in my mom’s garden. SICK! I love this lens. And another new toy (shot with that lens and the speedlight):

It’s a Polaroid Land Camera Automatic 100. Unfortunately they don’t make batteries for this anymore. I’m going to do some searches to see if I can find one, but I won’t get one before the trip. This site has a lot of great information about the Land Camera. We tried rigging up three AAA to get the right voltage, but couldn’t get it to stay. That black picture was what we got. I wanted to find a Polaroid that would take some of the expired film I have for my DayLab so I hit up all the thrift stores. I ended up also getting a couple of One Steps, and I’ll take one of those and 600 film that I picked up today. I am determined to get that Land Camera going when I get back though. And play with my DayLab more, it’s so wicked cool really. I just have to find some place that will turn digital photos into slides for me, anybody know of a good place?

I also have a Sony Digital HandyCam from back in the day. It was the hugest purchase of my life. I remember using all the savings I had built up from when I first started my savings account (like 8) and cashing in pennies and everything. I have neglected it for years, but I really want to play with it, unfortunately the eject system is acting up a bit. I had that repaired once, so I’m not thinking it’s looking to hopeful to bring it. We’ll see. If I do get it turned on though I could upload some classic Sackett video. Ah good times.

edited: oh and you should check out my this day. Hehehe.

The end of an era

Well my friends I just finished scrapping off stickers and cleaning out little known nooks and crannies of my much loved vehicle. Found: one pair of purple drum sticks, 9 insurance cards, one Black Butte gate key (we sold that place like ten years ago), one pair of Oakley’s circa 1989, a partially eaten pack of cherry sour balls, a ziploc full of jelly bellys, 6 maps, 1 hand knit wash cloth for spills, 2 lighters (no idea why), 1 mini tape recorder, also from the crew days a piece of athletic tape with a race plan on it, a particularly nice piece of driftwood from the Oregon coast, 2 combs, ‘what happened here’ knowledge cards, the best mixed tape ever: the Purple Tape, and more. Okay I could go on and on about it, but to be fair the thing is freaking amazing. It’s seventeen years old this month. And yet it is fully electronic, windows, sun roof, seats, mirrors, everything. I took it in this morning and it was only a thirty dollar oil change/trip ready thing. Nothing was wrong with the car. Because it rocks (and I’m sure it helps it has had the same mechanic the whole time). Now I do see it’s age, but it still gets 21 miles to the gallon, and I do mostly city driving, ridiculous. It is with mixed feelings that I will be leaving it up in Alaska, it will have one great last adventure, but I’ll certainly never see it again. So aui revior (ha! have no idea how to spell that) my dear car!

So back to one of the important things on that list up there: the Purple Tape. My mixed tape from my 1999 high school graduation road trip:

Side A:
Kiss Me – Six Pence None the Richer
Joy to the World – Three Dog Night
La Isla Bonita – Madonna
New Age Girl – Deadeye Dick
Medley Aquarius & Let the Sunshine In – The Fifth Demension
Acoustic #3 – Goo Goo Dolls
Invisible Sun – Sting and Aswad
Foxy Lady – Jimi Hendrix
Leader of the Pack – The Shangrilas
When I Come Around – Green Day
Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin
Side B:
I Touch Myself – The Divinyls
What’s My Age Again – Blink 182
Colors of the Wind – Judy Kuhn
American Woman – Lenny Kravitz
Basket Case – Green Day
When Doves Cry – Quindon Tarver
Beautiful Stranger – Madonna
Sunday, Bloody Sunday -U2
Word Up – Melanie G
Just What I Needed – The Cars
Wonderwall – Oasis
One More Addiction – Natalie Imbruglia

I can’t play that tape any more. My car decided to eat a different mixed tape and the deck no longer works. So I was thinking of making that into a play list on my iPod. But I’ve got a lot of miles, and I could really use your help coming up with more road tripping songs. Any suggestions?

Just so you know re: my taste – I HATE COUNTRY MUSIC. Sorry if you like, but ew, with a side of ew. We leave tomorrow night, but I’ll be blogging more before than. It seems like all the sudden I’ve got lots to say!

Violet’s Album

I had this old Kolo album that didn’t quite work out for me. I got it to do my college years, but it drove me absolutely batty because you can’t add in pages easily, and it was terribly boring to do things in order, after so much time had passed. So I was cleaning out my studio and came across it and decided I should do an album for Michele with all the pictures I’ve taken of Violet. I wanted it to be a really quick project, simple, no journaling (but room for it if Michele would like to add it), and Ribbon Jar ribbon on every layout. I’ve worked on it for about five hours. I put up the whole album

I tried scanning them in and then doing the photomerge things since they are 12×12 and you can’t fit that on my printer. But it is so time consuming, they never look quite right, and I wanted to be able to print them in a 6×6 size so I could keep a copy. So I set up the cookie sheet downstairs and used the flash. Not bad, I kept them mostly square.

I finally got to see Miss Potter. The local rental place only has two copies and they are always out. It is so wonderful, I really recommend it. Great acting, wonderful story, and there is a mini biography on Beatrix Potter since the movie is not 100% realistic. And I finally figured out how to be email notified when I get a comment on the blog. I love being able to respond to you by email now. I might not always do it, but it’s good to be able to when I want to comment back. So comment away my friends!

Life is a Highway

This morning I put together some major yumminess. Fun packets of goodies for my helpers from the wanted post. Check them out:

I’m still looking for that fan so you know, there could be goodies coming your way too. One of the things I put in there were some pages from this awesome ledger:

It was three dollars at a sale last month. It is so wonderful, the writing, the size of the pages everything. I’ve used it on almost a dozen scrapbooking projects already (I know, I know, I need to scan them in). I had gotten a ledger from eBay a few years ago (gosh that’s a blast from the past, sometimes I forget how long I’ve been blogging!). But that one is sort of a journal, I want to paint in it, it’s very big, this one is a bit smaller, and since it was only three dollars I don’t feel absolutely horrible about tearing it apart. Any way nothing makes me want to play with my supplies like organizing them, so I decided to make something up for Bj and my upcoming trip. We are headed to Alaska. By car. By this car in fact. That’s right, a 17 year old car with 200k + mileage. So I’m assuming there will be adventures and craziness, and a travel journal is a must. I thought it might be fun to go through my process a bit.

This is how my little studio gets so insanely messy. I take stock of the things I have and want to use. While finding one thing I’ll come across something else that could work. Some of the things I have in this pile: my box of ephemera, mad libs, sticker binder pages, old sheet music, used paint pallets, knock knock stuff (of course), files, mat board, watercolor cold press paper, paper samples, ruled note book pages, prong fasteners, paint chips, post cards, paisley print cut from an old gift box, and lots of envelopes.

Um lets stop for a minuet and think about how sweetly cool those tab things are. From a local shop here. Okay so now I’ve pulled more of a pile together. I also took some of the envelopes and cut the bottoms off and then sewed them back together so that they would fit better.

Then I put the pages in order and clipped them together. I want to thank Donna Downey for introducing me to the wonder that is the fiskars drill. Damn I love this thing. It’s perfect for a project like this where it would be way to hard to line everything up and punch it. It’s also really messy. I have creative dust everywhere. I decided to use book binding rings like I did for my senior printmaking project:

Ah I loved that project. Anyway here is an open shot:

I have these awesome Canada from Aa to Zz cards from Hemlock Printers that Sciarrino brought back from a graphic design conference for me. Since we’ll be driving through Canada I figured I could finally use them. I have such a hard time using things like this that I can’t get again.

I still have things to put in it. I used mat board for the covers, and I’m going to bring a piece of chip board with me wedged between the pages so I can use it to back a page when I want to write. I’ll keep you updated as I get it filled up a bit more.