Camper

App Happy Stuff

It's been a while since I've linked up over here at App Happy Wednesday. I don't take photos every day with my iPhone and I've consciously decided to limit how many apps I have. The other day while thinking about our upcoming European trip this summer, I started looking at storage space on my devices and decided all the apps I seldom or never used had to go. And just before the trip, my granddaughter's games are going into hibernation, too.

But I'm here today with two photos, both in one of my very favorite apps, BrushStroke. I found a couple of weeks ago that you can buy additional filters for BrushStroke for $2.99. Now I seldom would pay that much for an app but friends, I'm glad I did. I absolutely love the new filters. Here are two photos where I've used them.

This was taken last Sunday morning when all five of us {we're a small family!} went out for a birthday brunch. The restaurant had some great decor but the lighting was -- well, I don't have to tell you. So while playing in the Illustration portion of BrushStroke filters, I found this and I loved it. I'm going to print it out.

With another winter storm warning hanging over my head, I decided to buy some tulips yesterday and I'm glad I did. As I finished my breakfast and looked through the porch windows at the seemingly ceaseless rain {which will tonight turn to snow}, I looked at the red tulips on my kitchen table with a grateful heart.

This, too, was edited in the Illustrator portion of BrushStroke. This has really become a favorite go to place for me. And while I may not be as daring and artistic as some of you, I find that BrushStroke, My Sketch, and Artista Impresso give me the kind of look I like when I'm playing with my photos.

Since I tend not to spend much time playing with photos and apps on my phone, these are probably more than adequate to serve my needs. I do like to play when I'm on a trip of some sort but for every day, I just don't find the time to truly play. Being an after school childcare provider for my granddaughter, while a blessing, is also very time consuming.

And on that note, I'd better get my morning moving along, I've been diddling long enough. But it was fun to drop in here to see Barb and I hope you see you on my comments page!

Reluctantly awaiting the snow,

Camper: Snow Edition

{kk_presets breeze, whisper; texture kk_daisy}

As I write this {Monday}, I realize a lot of you are getting hammered with real snow. Blizzard conditions, in fact. Even though we only get that kind of snow once every 20 years or so, snow is still a big deal in Kentucky. One, because we don't typically get a lot of snow and are not equipped to handle it. Two, because when it does snow, the forecasters generally miss it by a country mile.

The forecast was for the possibility of 1" of the white stuff overnight Friday and into the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. We were greeted Saturday morning by a wonderland of white, you know, the big, white, fluffy soft kind of snow. Perfect for snow angels and photographs. And several inches more than the 1" that was predicted.

It's a well-known fact that I don't like cold weather, I prefer the warmth of the indoors to the chill of winter outdoors. But this was too good to pass up so I ventured out before breakfast with my camera and iPhone.

{kk_presets warmandslight, truecolor; du Chemin preset toxic warmth light}

I loved the pop of the red ball on the tree limbs that were covered with snow. This ball is an unused hummingbird feeder which we use just as an ornament. If you look closely, you'll see me in my white jacket with my hood pulled up. Hi, there! It really was not that cold, right around freezing but I am a wimp. In fact, 24 hours later, the snow was mostly gone. And we are far enough west that we were not affected by the Nor'easter rumbling up the East Coast today.

For my last two photos, I had a little fun with photo apps. This bench photo was processed in Waterlogue, using the Illustrator filter. I really do love this old bench even as it gets more and more broken down. But it's so great for photos, so much character, so much texture. When it finally collapses, it will have to be sent off with an appropriate farewell.

This photo was processed in the BrushStroke apps, one of my favorites. I really love what it did to this tree. Who says dogwood trees need to have flowers on them to be pretty?

That's about all I have for today. For those of you in the East, be warm, be safe. Drop in and let me know you're okay, I want to know. For the rest of us, let's just breathe a sigh of relief that we didn't get what our East Coast friends have experienced. And you can drop in and let me know that you're okay, too. I do want to hear from you as well.

With love and gratitude,

Texture Tuesday

 

 

 

#Christmas Mug Love

Today I'm linking up with my friends Barb and her guest, Roxi, over at Barb's blog for App Happy Wednesday. If you haven't visited Barb's blog yet, you are missing one great blog.

While I always admire what Roxi and other Instagram friends do with their editing apps, I tend to be mostly a purist with my iPhone photos, just as I am photos from my big girl camera. My go-to apps are My Sketch, Brushstroke, Waterlogue and ImageBlender.

When I was pulling out Christmas decorations the other day, I think I was most happy when I opened the drawer that holds all my Christmas mugs and cups. No, I don't have one for each day of the month but I do have one for each day of the week. And I make no promises that there won't be some additions to the family this year!

First up, Frosty.

I almost always use the camera in the CameraPlus app to take my iPhone photos and I tweak them in there, if they need it. Then on to the fun apps. First stop for Frosty was My Sketch where I used just one filter. They don't have names so I can't tell you which one. Then, I did something I've not done before, I took the My Sketch photo into BrushStroke, making some slight adjustments. Finally I finished up in ImageBlender just to recapture some of the detail.

This morning, I used my Santa mug for my morning tea. After the initial treatment in CameraPlus it was straight to BrushStroke for Santa. And that's all I did, no blending of images today.

Oh! And on both photos, I used Watermark to add a watermark to my photos, just in case somebody decides to 'repost' it, ownership of the photo remains clear.

Now a really fun thing about these mugs. This is the time of year when Campbell and I have tea and cookies most everyday after school. On Monday when she spotted the mugs, she wanted to choose one for her tea. Yesterday after school, we brought a friend home with us. Both girls immediately went to the mug display and chose their mugs for their tea. Campbell very politely let her friend choose first. So I expect that will be the pattern this month, choosing a different Christmas mug each day.

That's why it's called #christmasmuglove.

Before I go, I want to thank you all for the wonderful, warm and meaningful responses to my month of gratitude posts. I appreciate each and every one.

With gratitude and joy,

 

Gratitude Day Five

Yes, I'm grateful for my trusty umbrella on this rainy day. As I write this, the rain has stopped but there still seems to be a threat for more. Umbrellas may not be perfect protection, but they're better than a smile when it's raining! So, yes ... grateful for my umbrella, or brolly, or parasol, or bumpershoot. Whatever name you wish to call it, be grateful for it.

I googled it just now and it seems the device made its first appearance in the Ancient Middle East, not for rain protection but to protect the king from the sun's harsh rays. Hmmmm.

It's also the day to link up with App Happy Wednesday, which is now the first Wednesday of every month. I'm also grateful to be joining up once again with this fun linky party. Come on over and see what the clever gals have created.

My app happy this morning is rather simple. I used Camera+ to take the photo and tune it and then I went to BrushStroke. There are some new features on this app and by moving my finger around the photo, I was able to manipulate the final product which I liked so I stopped right there. There are a lot more things to try but I haven't gotten to them yet. All in good time.

Hope you have an app happy Wednesday and I'll see you tomorrow!

With gratitude,

 

 

In Between

Why ... hello, there! How have you been?

Yes, I know ...  it's been a while since I've been here to visit you from Camperland, it's been a busy 10 days. And as it so often does, the busy-ness seems to stifle my creativity. My girls and I are back from a whirlwind visit to my mother in Pennsylvania. And then the day after tomorrow, Mr. Peepaw and I are leaving on our fall vacation. For someone who is mostly a homebody, I feel kind of like I'm stuck in a vortex ... in between ...

A few minutes after I woke up this morning, I noticed how the slant of the light has changed in my bedroom, which is what you see uptop. This room gets the morning sun and it always amazes me how the light changes so subtly from season to season. Autumn light might be my favorite.

Going out today into the beautiful morning helped awaken my senses. I had my iPhone in my pocket so I was able to snap some of the images that spoke to me. Here the sun glimmering on the purple blooms of the lirope stopped me in my tracks. Purple seems to be the dominant color in our landscape these days.

I was also pleased to find caterpillars on our milkweed plant. They look to me to be monarch cats but I'm not an expert. We have been seeing the monarchs around for the past couple of weeks so I've been watching the milkweed carefully. And squishing the aphids off. Yuck!

And, finally, if this daisy doesn't perk you up, you're a lost cause. There are only a few still hanging on from the second blush on the three daisy plants we put in this year, this is the best one. It's still hangin' on ... which is what I need to do when I go into a creative drought because I know that the energy will return.

I'll be linking up with Barb's App Happy Wednesday. For this daisy, I used Camera+, then Waterlogue. Still not satisfied, I hopped into My Sketch. Nope, still not happy, so I used ImageBlender to blend the Waterlogue and My Sketch. Getting better but still not quite what I wanted so still using ImageBlender, I blended the original with the blended Waterlogue/My Sketch. Yes, that will work. And for all three photos, I used Watermark to add my watermark to the photos. Oh! And I used WordSwag for the word art.

I wasn't planning a post before we leave on Friday but when I noticed all this beauty around me this morning, I realized I'd been missing y'all and I wanted to stop in and say 'hello'. I appreciate each and every one of you. It's a pleasure for me to have you stop by our little world.

And the big news about our trip ... we will be spending a day in Halifax with my dear friend Pam, aka Fishgirl. Pam and I 'met' in online photo classes some years ago and a friendship was forged. We've long wished we could meet for real and on Monday ... 5 more sleeps ... it's going to happen! Lots of photos, for sure!

So ... until I return from my adventures ... be well, be safe, be happy!

With gratitude,

 

 

Two-fers

Several days ago as I was walking through the bedroom, I spotted the deep shadows from this bowl and pitcher so I whipped out my iPhone and took a photo, put the phone away and promptly forgot about it. At least until I started thinking about App Happy today.

I wanted to show an early edit and then the final. All photos today were taken with the Camera+ camera, which really has become my go-to iPhone camera. There are so many features that I like, the focus and exposure lock being perhaps my favorite. In Pic-Tap-Go, I used two filters, the final one being one of the new vintage film filter which is what you see on the left above. I looked just now to find out which one and I don't remember, I'll do better next time. Anyhow, after going through Pic-Tap-Go, the little pitcher found its way to My Sketch. One click on one of the filters and that was it, I didn't even experiment any further, I liked it just the way it was, which is what you see above.

At the right time of morning, the sun shines in just the right spot to set the ornamental grasses aglow. This time I used Brushstroke. That's all.

And finally, my favorite of the day ...

It's not often you'll find a black and white flower/floral edit among my photos. But while playing around in Snapseed with this yellow rose, I clicked on the black and white filter and just stopped. It totally changed the character of the photo, bringing out the great lines of the rose and all of the beautiful details.

The diptychs were made in Lightroom in the print module. Really so easy, I can't believe it.

And that's all I have for today, friends. I have a busy day ahead so I'd better get busy or there will be a lot of unchecked items on my task list. Hope you enjoyed my little before and after show.

See you soon ...

PS - The new banner photo was taken by my granddaughter.

Wonderful Wednesday

It's been a week or two since I participated in Barb's App Happy Wednesday because of my spontaneous online hiatus. But I'm getting back in gear so I wanted to pop in here to share.

Today I have two views of our side garden, this is the view we see from the side window of our back porch. Until this year, it was a pretty lean space but my husband decided it needed some color this year, so color we have.

For the first photo, I shot as I almost always do in Camera+ and also did minor tweaking with the same app. After a quick run through Pic-Tap-Go, I tried out Waterlogue but just didn't like what I was getting so I simply took this into Stackables and used four layers. For the watermark I used the Watermark app.

I'm hot and cold with watermarks on my iPhone photos. I'll use them for a while and then stop using them for a longer while. But they're kind of fun to do.

Once again, the side garden but from a little different angle. I used Camera+ for taking the photo and then tweaking. Again, a quick trip through Pic-Tap-Go but then I skipped the Waterlogue experiment and went straight to BrushStroke. After finding something I liked, it was over to ImageBlender. When working with apps, I find myself very often going to ImageBlender to bring back some of the detail of the original photo, just a personal preference, since I'm a purist at heart. Again, Watermark was used for the watermark. {What else?}

Not only am I hot and cold with my watermark, I'm hot and cold with my iPhone. I'll go for a spell using it a lot and posting on Instagram most days then I'll hit a dry spell. I'm in a dry spell right now. But that's okay. No matter how hard we try, we can't do it all, can we?

That's pretty much all I have today, friends. I'm two days behind in LR31 and since Mr. Peepaw has a meeting this evening, this is a good time to catch up. This is the first online class I've managed to stay on top of so I don't want to lose track of it all now.

Wishing you a Wonderful Wednesday!

 

Wednesday's Apps

Oh, my! Since I had Campbell only until lunch time yesterday, I was able to spend many productive hours editing our vacation photos. I'm now in the process of sorting them out to export to Blurb. A record for me since it's not been three weeks yet since we returned from the beach.

Anyhow, all that to say I plumb forgot about App Happy Wednesday until this morning. So on my way to get the paper, I strolled around the garden.

As I almost always do these days, I used Camera+ to take this photo and do basic edits. Then we moved over to Snapseed to play around a bit until I got this.With my 'big girl camera' photographs, I tend to be a purist, light touches on my editing. I'm finding the same to be true with my phoneography. Every now and then I'll do something totally crazy but not often.

Who can resist the sparkly sun on fresh green grass? Certainly not I! This is a combination of My Sketch, ImageBlender and of course, SquareReady to make it fit on IG.

And finally, one more purple coneflower photo. These and the late rudbeckia are the best things going in our garden these days, except for the pots. So here we go again ...

I know you're supposed to capture things in odd numbers but flowers don't always understand that. Besides, there was just something about these four flowers, kind of a quartet, that caught my eye. Again, after Camera+, a simple edit. The first option in Brushstroke worked, I didn't even shop around. Then I blended it with the original photo in ImageBlender just to bring back a bit of detail.

So, with all that said and done, I'm ready to go over to link up and visit everybody at Barb's App Happy Wednesday party.

Are you coming along?

I'm Late, I'm Late ... for App Happy Wednesday

I took these two photos while I was watering the flowers and cleaning the birdbaths this morning. And they sat on my phone until after dinner. One. of. those. days. Of course, after I went to the trouble to water everything, we got a slew of thunderstorms through here this afternoon. But that's okay; we need the rain.

So for both photos, I stepped outside my comfort zone. Using Camera+ to take the photo, I applied the depth of field filter. Then I went into My Sketch where I selected one of the apps and then used color burn blend mode on it. Different, huh?

Again, Camera+ was the camera of choice. The photo was in focus when I took it but I decided to use the blur filter in Camera+. Then it was right over to Waterlogue then into BrushStroke before blending these last two in ImageBlender. Again, quite different than anything I normally do.

But it's all about fun, so it's all good. I'm linking up with Barb over at Keeping With TheTimes for her App Happy party. Come on over!

Hope you had a great Wednesday and I hope to be back on Friday. Until then ...

It's Wednesday - Time For App Happy

As I've mentioned here a time or three this week, we were at the beach last week, thus, most all of the photos I've shared are from our trip. Today I'll share three of the iPhone photos I took last week.

For this beach scene, I used Camera + to make the photo and basic edits. Then I used Pictapgo to do some additional editing. Next, I needed to use Squareready, because I didn't want a square photo. The seascape just seemed to call for a rectangular crop. And finally Wordswag for the word art.

On this day, it was really windy and I noticed the sand trying to bury my daughter's flip flops. Again, I used Camera + to make the photo {it's now my go-to camera} and some basic edits, then Wordswag {which is so much fun} for the word art.

Adjacent to the island is a delightful little village with upscale shops and groceries and other necessities. This is just one of the little garden spots sprinkled around. Once again, I used Camera + to make the picture and then Brushstroke. That's it, simple but fun.

Now that I've shared those three photos, I'm ready to link up at App Happy Wednesday. Do you use your phone camera and apps a lot? Or maybe you're just getting started, kind of like me. Either way, I encourage you to hop on over to the linky party where you'll find delightful art and more information about photo apps than you ever dreamed possible.

Until the next time ...