Pickleberrypop is celebrating it’s 2nd birthday with lots of great things going on - a sale, a contest and LOLLY BAGS!

My Lolly bag is up in the shop right now for only $3.. but if that low low price didn’t convince you to buy it I am going to show all my loyal blog readers (all three of you) what’s inside!

It’s only on sale until August 5th - after that all these items will go into the shop at full price so grab it now!

Time for a bit of an update - this blog has now become my ‘latest design news’ blog and the news of late is that I have been busy busy trying to finish up a heap of new digi scrap things as well as helping out with preparations for pickleberrypop.com’s second birthday celebrations.

New kit from me…

In store now at PBP and only AUD$4.00

You can see some LO’s my Creative team did here and here and there may even be a matching freebie coming soon.

New Look at PBP, go check it out!

More new stuff coming with a huge sale, grab bags and PBP’s second birthday party!… stay tuned for more information!

There will be no Flickr Friday this week…

I am finding myself stretched a bit thin at the moment so I am re-thinking what I want to do with this blog and my design ’stuff’ and what is the best way to move forward without going insane!

Flickr Friday will be back next week but probably at my other blog picklebums.com as I plan to make this blog not so much a blog, more of a ‘what’s new’ section as part of my custom design web site. So in future you’ll be able to find Flickr Friday and other designing, creative type, blog posts mixed in with my regular eclectic blogging.

Apologies for the disruption, I’ve so enjoyed everyone joining in and playing along I hope you come back to join in again next week

Ok so I am only getting around to posting assignment one for my Through the Lens digital photography 101 class now. I know that the next assignment has already been posted and I know I had ages to do this one and that it was pretty simple - ‘read the manual and then take your best shot’, but hey… better late than never huh?

I have to admit I struggled with this assignment. Not the reading the manual part, I can read ok. I struggled to remember much of it, or apply it, but that is why I am taking part in these classes. What I struggled with was getting a good photo.

It is dark and dreary and wintery here and our house is dark and dreary too and I really struggle with getting decent light to take photos of anything. My kids have all been sick and miserable and not wanting to sit still so I can take their photos and I’ve just not been able to snap that magical ‘great shot’ that I wanted to. So this is not my ‘best shot’, I can sit here and point out several things that are wrong with it and several things that I wish I could master to make it better, but it will have to do.

Actually, while I found this assignment frustrating, it has actually been good for something. It’s made me think about what I want to learn by doing these classes and about what sort of photos I want to take. I want to take better photos of my kids, my family, our home, the things we do, our every day life. I want to take amazing photos to make my blog posts light up like the ones I see on so many other blogs. That is what I want to learn…. so this ‘not so great photo’ has actually shown me a lot.

The next assignment is up already - it is about White Balance which is a little new to me. I know what it is, but it is something I have always done with photoshop rather than on my camera. But - I read the manual and I actually think I remember how to play with this on my camera, now if only there was some light around here that needed white balancing!

We’ve had rain here this week, and although I am not a fan of winter, we really do need the rain. So to help me embrace the cold wet weather a bit this week’s Flickr Friday theme is ‘umbrellas’.

1. Lonely, 2. Reds, 3. Umbrella blocking the path, 4. waiting for rain, 5. Rainy Days, 6. Day 124. May 3., 7. le point de vue de mon pébroque…, 8. Colour Project, 9. I really LOVE that UMBRELLA [PRE PROCESSED]

Join the fun and play along by creating your own Flickr Friday for your blog. I used the mosaic maker from bighugelabs.com to make mine, or you could create your own or simply post an image that relates to the theme then sign up with the Mr Linky below so we can all go and check out your creative inspiration!

I made these papers so that I could design Muski’s birthday invitations, and now they are in the shop at PBP.

Morgan Avenue - paper pack Just $3 (AUD)

12 papers in total, with a cool, calm, leafy feel to them.

I’ve also created a few ‘extras’ that match up with the papers…

You can download these matching extras free from here. I’d love to see what you do with them, so leave me a comment and let me know if you scrap with them.

And for those of you who want to play along with Flickr Friday this week - just a little ‘head’s up’ tomorrow’s theme is going to be ‘umbrellas’.

I am using wordless wednesday as a bit of motivation to dig out some old photos for this blog. This one was taken with my old old point and shoot Nikon CoolPix when we visited my parents in the UK - before we had kids, so it was a lONG time ago! This is a Castle Ruin in Whales somewhere….