Loves Frogs, Hates Mosquitoes

On Sunday, Rob and I ventured to the Vermont Wildflower Farm, but found it in sad shape. Apparently the whole summer has been filled with cold, rainy days, making it difficult for the flowers to grow. (There were ones that did put up a fight though-- just not many.) Lucky for us, the sun came out when we visited, so we decided to venture outside anyway.

On the farm is a scenic path for the wildflowers (with information about each species on the way) that leads into the woods. Upon entering was a small little pond. At first I stopped to admire the multiple water lilies, and then found a little frog staring at me!

He was very patient as we photographed him - several times - without even blinking. The whole time he seemed to be smiling. Well of course he was! When I looked down I was covered in mosquitoes! I was attracting the little man's dinner!

What follows next, well, I'm not proud to admit. The budding nature lover that I am fled from the woods, taking the long way out, and ending up with 20 mosquito bites that my body seems to have reacted very poorly too. Four days later, the bites have stopped swelling and are healing, and all I can say is thank GOD these photos were in focus, or I would have thrown a fit!

Sunflower Sunday

Rob and I spent Sunday afternoon driving around trying to find interesting things to photograph. We were lacking inspiration for a good hour when, as a last resort, I suggested we head up to Lyman Orchards. Little did we know, their huge sunflower maze was in bloom.

We only had about an hour to walk around before they closed-- and luckily the brief raindrops passed over. We didn't make it out of the maze correctly-- pausing to study the sunflowers for composition kinda makes time pass more quickly.

Still, I'm happy with the results, and I'm still going through photos from our outing.

And Rob did quite well surrounded by way too many honeybees. :-)

Celebrating the End of Classes!

I made it through all my pastry school classes!* Hurray! To celebrate, I'm holding my first ever Buy One, Get One 1/2 Off Sale in my shop.

The details:
Buy any item, get a second at half price. (The half price item applies to the lesser priced item.) I will refund the difference or convo me through Etsy for a private listing!

SALE ENDS FRIDAY (8/22) AT 6 P.M. EST.

Visit jmcguinness.etsy.com to browse.

*For those keeping track, I am now heading off to volunteer at a bakery until late November. In December, I get my official pastry chef certification.

Oops is right!

I made this treasury yesterday and when the room became available, I panicked and made a lousy title (see, "Oops no name" above).

Well oops is right, since hardly anyone is clicking on my ode to chocolate treasury. I tried to delete the treasury when the room came down to 222 listings, but so far, I haven't been able to recreate it. I'm hoping to redo it with the proper title!

So I guess my ode to chocolate will have to wait. I finished up chocolate class on Saturday and brought my macro lens with me to photograph the many creations we made.


I'm not sure about the last photo though. It shows the mirror tray and the chocolate heart box I created. But I feel like the lower left hand corner is distracting because of the mirror tray. I also tried a version where I desaturated everything but the box, but I decided I didn't like that either.

I'm definitely more a fan of the chocolate detail shots.

And eating the chocolates in the chocolate detail shots.

Clinton Wrap Up

Sales were pretty good at the Clinton fair this past weekend. (That's a photo of our tent above.) Every show brings a different layout, and on Saturday when our neighbor never came back, we were able to move our gridwalls partially into his space (with the show's permission).

The only downside is that we had a theft overnight (Friday into Saturday). Rob had purchased new LED lights for the tent, and they were bagged up and hidden inside the tent (with the sides up). The next day, no one could find them, and today we confirmed after going through all of our things and after Lauren went through hers that they were indeed stolen. It's too bad -- they were brand new and never used.

As for sales, I've found this season that people are not as interested in matted photographs. They tend to be leaning more towards our photo jewelry or photo greeting cards. I imagine it's the economy that's influencing that choice, since last year matted photos sold very well.

Check out my new card display in the lower left hand corner. That was custom-made for us by Jeffrey of SmileMoon Woodworks. It's a beautiful piece- I'm glad to have it! And it's a much better way for us to display our smaller notecards (as opposed to just laying them out on the tables!).

The Cat Who Stole My Sweater

She looks so comfy that I really don't mind... and I don't blame her for snoozing on top! I got this sweater as an import from Ireland over a year ago when the catalog was closing out styles. I had never seen an Irish sweater in that beautiful color of pink before! So I grabbed it.

Unfortunately, I'm allergic to wool. In this case, the sweater is a cardigan so technically I could use it... but I haven't lately. I brought it to work since I'm always cold there, and noticed that Ginger would want extra hugs on the days I was wearing it. One day I left it folded up on my extra chair--erm, her chair--and it's been hers ever since.

She does seem to enjoy it more than I do. She likes to knead it and then fall asleep.

And gosh she does look cuddly, doesn't she?

New horses

I just received my 6x9 horses back from the printer today. I'm really happy with how they came out. I just switched suppliers and so far, I'm very pleased.

I did something new with this photograph, and turned it into a digital collage. Every time I look at this horse, she reminds me of a unicorn that I envisioned from my childhood. I desaturated the background to bring the emphasis on her, and then added words.



Looking forward to debuting them at the Clinton show this Friday and Saturday.