Zoo Time

Life is busy. Like super-super busy. And it didn’t even really help having a week off work last week! Although I did manage a little trip to the zoo. I’ve not been to Marwell in an age and it’s still as great as I remember. Of course I took some camera gear and took 1 or 2 pics.

Most of these were with my Canon 7D and Sigma 150-500mm. You really appreciate the extra reach at Marwell. It’s essential with most of the animals living in lovely BIG enclosures. To see them all visit my Flickrstream, but here are a couple to whet your appetite.

While events have conspired against me to do much scrapping at home recently, I have been creating for my day-job. While I can't share any sneaks of projects for the July issue of Creativity, I can point you towards some bits and pieces on the website. 

First up are some pages using the new May releases. The first features some of my favourite things! The pics are of some Mandarin ducks that live wild at one of my favourite places in the New Forest and they are merrily nestling in acres of PM Kraft cardstock. I seriously can't tell you how much I love this stuff. I'm not sure how I survived before it!

 Next is a page with Mistress Martha and using the Me To You - Especially For You collection. Tatty Teddy is so adorable and for pages about kiddies (or my bear cub) it's just the right about of cute!

Lastly for today is a page explaining another thing that's been keeping me busy!

4 cute little ducklings hatched the week before Easter and they are already nearly as big as their parents! If you are a member of the Creativity Club you'll also have already seen my newest chicks featuring on a page. I can't share that here (It's exclusive don't you know!) but when I get a spare min, I'll share some more pics!

Design 101 for Newfie Owners.

I’ve just been reminded (yet again) that Newfie’s aren’t normal dogs. Now, you might think that’s an obvious statement but it’s only when people indicate something is dog friendly that it becomes glaringly obvious that these big hairy beasts are nothing but ‘regular’.

I’m always on the look out for ‘dog friendly’ (see, there’s that phrase again) ideas for the home so when my FAVOURITE blog of all – Design Sponge tweeted a link to a ‘dog friendly’ home I couldn’t resist nipping over for a peek. The article is here in all its glory BTW.
So herein lies a couple of differences…

1. Easy clean tile/wood floors. Sounds like a great idea in principle, but this is a recipe for disaster for giant dogs with hairy paws. I’ve experienced a dog with Cruciate tears and don’t care to experience another thankyou!

2. Teeny weeny, wobbly glass bottles with leaves painstakingly arranged on a chest of drawers. Looks great but Newfies are TALL and their flappy tails reach even higher… I’m pretty sure these would last 30 seconds in my house.

3. White fabric sofas/fabric covers on dining chairs/white bed linen might look gorgeous but with dogs that resemble woolly mammoths plus gallons of dribble these would be grimy and grey in about 5 seconds flat.

4. Vintage skittles artfully arranged next to a fireplace - I predict these would be standing up for 30 seconds and outside as a new exciting chew toy in 30 mins.

5. Floor length white curtains - See point 3!

6. The Coffee Table. I don’t know anyone with a Newfie that owns a coffee table. First off it’s the perfect height for dribbling, ANYTHING on it would be flung aside with a huge head or flapping tail in seconds plus putting a cup/glass anywhere near a Newf is asking for trouble. A big hairy snout and giant tongue would be inside faster than you could ever imagine a Newf could move. Plus Newfs like to play rough. Leaping about and wrestling is an activity best saved for the middle of the living room (and ideally just when your family is sitting down to watch Glee. (I’m not bitter.) So the space is left empty.

7. Candles. No. Big hairy, wafting tail + naked flames = the towering inferno.

8. Sheepskin throws/cow hide rugs. I can’t be sure, never having owned one of these, but I’m pretty sure slobber and sheepskin isn’t a nice mix. I think the cow hide might just get eaten.

But apart from that.... it looks perfectly ‘dog’ if not Newf ‘friendly’. :)

Mud has a lot to answer for.

So yesterday I was roaming through the woods at my favourite spot in the New Forest and like the clumsy dolt I am, managed to get myself stuck up to my knees in mud. In retrospect maybe I should have stayed in the mud and called for a flock of burly firemen to rescue me…. But as I had no idea where I was, having roamed randomly through the woods for a good half hour I decided to utilise my very own rescue squad (my lovely Newfies – Lola and Martha). So with the assistance of a pair of ‘trained’ rescue dogs and some handy nearly trees I managed to lever myself free.

So there I was… so giddy that I’d managed to avoid almost certain death due to quick-sand (quick mud?) drowning that I skipped gleefully on and pranced majestically over a ditchy stream thing.

Of course ‘prancing majestically’ is code for losing my footing on the opposite bank and face planting onto the muddy bank the other side.

As if that wasn’t enough I managed to land with my arm (and somehow my shoulder) right under me. I heard a crunchy sound that suggested I’d snapped my arm, but thankfully it seems to be a bad bone bruise and lots of lovely strained muscles/ligaments etc. Never have I been so glad for stupid amounts of mud and a flabby gut to cushion my fall and allow me to avert potential arm snappage.

How to Construct a 'Push 'N' Pull' Card

I've got a little video to share this arvo. It's my first of this type so be gentle with me! Can't take any credit for the editing etc - just the crafting!

Crimes against Memories

It occurred to me today that we are in danger of having a whole generation of children that their only photos of their childhood are taken with phones and only uploaded to facebook (where they get compressed to death BTW!). A whole generation whose key life moments are only immortalized in grainy and blurry images. Birthday parties, first steps and other milestone moments might be immediately broadcast around the globe for mass consumption on facebook , but these same publically heralded moments are seemingly treated with as little importance as a quick orange tinted and blurry snap taken of your new shoes to show off on twitter.

I’m grateful so often that I have family albums full of childhood photos. Photos of birthday parties, days out and holidays. Photos that are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and not taken with expensive kit, but they are real and they are ‘safely’ stored in albums for me to look at whenever I choose. (I say ‘safely’ because I’m guilty of not having liberated them all from the sticky photo albums.)

Of course if you’re a scrapbooker I’m already preaching to the converted. We embrace recording our family’s history (and those everyday little moments) with an almost obsessive vigor but I’m sure we all know someone who is guilty of crimes against memories.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying a camera phone doesn’t have a place. They are perfect for grabbing a once in a lifetime moment pic but for key moments take a second to get your camera (whether it’s a compact, or a slr) out and use it. Facebook won’t be here forever (I hope!) and with it will disappear the photos you’ve trusted them to keep safe.

Piled high

7/365 2011 Damask
Originally uploaded by *karlotta*

I'm notoriously bad at filing layouts away - i must have a pile about 12inches high of pages waiting to find a home, so I'm quite excited that I've just had a gorgeous pair of albums arrive! They are both this amazing damask print and are of course the essential D-ring. I just can't be bothered messing with post bound ones. Life is far too short!

If the rain carries on at least I have something to keep me busy indoors!

My own bear cub.

6/365 2011 Sleepy Bear
Originally uploaded by *karlotta*

The last few nights I've really enjoyed watching Gordan Buchanan's latest films about families of Black Bears in the woods of Minnesota (if you missed it it's on iplayer still). Perhaps unsurprisingly there were so many ways that they reminded me of the big black and brown furry creatures that share my home. The way the bears sit right back on their bums with their legs sticking out in front, their huge and mobile noses and the way they amble about in the woods but with the potential for super bursts of speed! I'm just glad Newfies can't climb trees!

So of course yesterdays picture had to be of one of the Newfs. Neither of the girls though wanted to be terribly obliging; Martha drew the short straw and refused to even open one eye! I'm sure she was channeling the bears with a spot of hibernation (she'd definitely be capable of digging the winter den!).