when bunnies fly.

what happens when you don't dust your ceiling fan for 2.5 years and you leave your windows open all summer?

well, i've officially declared wednesday "Cleaning Wednesday." so i am going to spend all morning until 1pm cleaning on wednesdays. for now i'm just going to play catch up with the things i've been putting off since we moved into this house. eventually i will start to get into the nitty-gritty of things like wiping and re-painting all the window sills.

and don't worry, no bunnies were harmed during the cleaning of this ceiling fan.

illustration friday ~ pattern ~

this little robin is wearing his favorite argyle pattern socks and check pattern scarf

don't forget to sign up for my 100th post give-away here!

100th Post Give-Away!

thanks for all your great comments! this give-away is now closed.

here it is. my 100th post. and as promised, a give-away. without revealing all of my secret halloween party decorations i've crafted up this little quilty as a table runner, of sorts. and the big news, my pretties, is that this one is for you. (or one of you anyway) all you have to do is leave a comment here and you'll be entered in the drawing. i'm thinking i'll close the entries next friday (that gives you a week). tell your friends, tell your family, and a halloween treat might be on it's way to you!

invitations!

got my invitations out, even though i would have wanted to send handmade invites in the mail to all my guests i've opted for the modern route. i made only one invitation, scanned it, and emailed it. you're invited too, just check back right here at laura's birdnest on october 17 for my halloween party.

ps: this is post #99 and i've got a lot of sewing up my sleeve for tomorrow. keep your eyes open!

halloween party!

i am so participating in this halloween extravaganza! it looks like such a blast. i even went to hobby lobby and got way carried away with the decor (so much so that i'm returning 1/3 of it tomorrow). thanks, vanessa at a fanciful twist, for hosting such a great party!

and here's a little preview of what a pot of bubblin', boilin' trouble i've got brewing in my cauldron. lots of projects to get my crafty mo-jo back on track!

illustration friday ~ welcome ~

:( well, i missed it. i thought that you posted your illustration on friday at the end. but you are supposed to post it before friday. apparently, anyway, because the next topic has been listed already and i can't post my welcome link :( well, i guess you all will have to enjoy it for me. plus i need to figure out how to make the required thumbnail for the IF website anyway....

from the kitchen : apple cake

not a huge fan of baked fruit but this cake seemed like a good fall treat. it is sweet! the cream cheese frosting is the best i've made so far... i'm thinking the secret was the vanilla but reality says it was more likely the stick of butter.

i've also determined that even though when a recipe calls for "butter" and they mean unsalted butter that i am going to keep using the salted butter. i have always used and always eaten recipes made with salted butter. my last trip to the store for butter i browsed the ingredients on the unsalted butter and felt the salt was a better preservative than all the things in the unsalted butter that i didn't know what they were.

from the kitchen : BLT

we had a surplus of tomatoes waiting ready to be picked when we arrived home from vacation. 9 to be exact. this meal used up only 2 (including the BLT salad Mountain Man is taking for lunch tomorrow).

to add a little flavor and some flair to my BLT sandwiches i threw in some garlic and green onions while the bacon was cooking.

on my bread i brushed fresh herbs and olive oil on one side and toasted them in a griddle pan.

Mmmm!

hello autumn

it's good to see you again.

fall has always been my favorite season. i'm not sure if it's the part about getting back into a routine, or warm, dry days and cool evenings, or the changing leaves on the trees. i think mostly it is the anticipation of something new to come. and lucky for us, fall has decided to grace us with it's presence early this year. usually i'm talking myself out of getting the mums and putting up the pumpkin decor until at least the first week of october. september is typically still hot and sticky until the last week or so. but the sun is noticably setting earlier and the weather is cool so why not enjoy an extra week of fall (we all know the extra week won't be at the other end!)

today was just what i needed. a new season. new goals. a new start. so i kicked off my fall with ripping out the over-grown, dried-up, not-so-pretty anymore summer flowers and planting some mums. it was great being outside for the afternoon even though it is severly windy today. i was also lucky to find some texture for my pots in the clearanced grasses (which i think are prettier in the fall than the summer anyway) and some kale or cabbage or whatever it is. it looks pretty and i've seen it used by others before and always liked it. i also just had to leave my red geranium in the pot because even though i think patriotic, 4th of july when i see red geraniums, it looks better this week than it has all summer.

i hope you are enjoying the early fall weather as much as i am. i know, i pack the plants in as crowded as i can get them, but hey, mums only have to survive for 6 weeks!

blue

feeling a bit down today.... a break from reality was nice for vacation week but when life slams into you full speed in the form of 7 loads of laundry it takes some energy to climb out of bed in the morning. here's what i'm up to...

i'm going to participate (hopefully regularily) in Illustration Friday. and this is the perfect week to start because the theme is 'welcome.' a little advance look at what i'm working on:

and i got a new toy (of sorts) that i will start to play with as soon as i can find my mouse amoungst the sea of socks needing to be folded.

ps- this is post #93. remember when i promissed a give-away for post #100. well, back then i was a posting maniac and now the boat has slowed but i haven't forgotten my promise so stay tuned if you're still out there.

elk, and moose, and bears, oh my!

mooses? meese? well, there were 3. the biggest guy is standing behind the one on the left. if you look close you can see his giant antlers.

we are back from our vacation to colorado and i'll be back to sewing, drawing, and blogging as soon as i tackle the dirty kitchen and the huge piles of laundry. until then, here's a little vacation story.

we drove to winter park, co the day before our hike started. it was a cute little vacation (second home) town with great landscaping and a nice park. we hiked in rocky mountain national park out of grand lake, the less popular west side of the park. within the first few hours of our hike we came across those 3 bull moose, very cool. the first day was almost 8 miles of hiking to get to our campsite. we stopped at a waterfall for lunch and there was a pretty little lake we passed in the afternoon.

on day 2 we left our campsite set up because we were also staying there on night 2. we took a "short" 6 mile hike to visit 2 mountain lakes. we also passed another waterfall. the trail was fairly steep and we were around 10-11 thousand feet above see level the entire day. we did not see any other people on day 2. and we were lucky to miss the afternoon rain both on day 1 and day 2.

on day 3, our summit day, we started out early knowing we would be above the treeline for several hours. we got out of bed and packed up camp at 4am. we were on the trail by 5am. we were meeting all of our goals in the morning as far as speed and distance were concerned. we came across 4 elk grazing near a mountain stream and stopped to take pictures. they were so close and very peaceful. we continued on to the summit, hallett peak at 12,735 ft, and ditched our packs for the last 1/2 mile of the trail. we didn't spend much time up on the summit because it was already 11am and we knew we should be back below the treeline around 1pm in case of any afternoon storms. when we reached the treeling we were happy to have seen the approaching clouds and already put on our rain gear. it began to snow. the snow lasted 10 minutes when it turned to hail. it hailed on us for about 2 hours and then changed to rain for the last 30 minutes of the storm. by the time we reached our campsite, 12 miles that day, the sun was shining. we were in a meadow and on the side of the mountain there was a herd of elk. the elk serrenaded us with bugeling until about 2am.

on day 4 we woke to frost on the ground but the sun came out quickly and warmed things up. we knew we were hiking on an easy trail that day but it was still nearly 8 miles. by the time we got back to the car i could not walk another step. we went to grand lake for a late pizza lunch. it tasted so good, mmmm. we were camping at a local private campgrounds that night. all i required was a good shower. the worst part of our vacation was the night at the campground. a local raft-guide company was having thier end-of-season employee party and our campsite was located in between the sites they occupied. needless to say, the dog ended up not getting attacked by the moose, the drunks were in bed by 12:30, and we did not pay for our miserable night at the "short cut" campsite.

we got up after not much sleep and warmed our leftover pizza for breakfast. after resisting the temptation to bang our pots and pans together to wake our neighbors we headed up trail ridge road to the alpine visitor center. it was nice to be driving and not hiking for a change. we drove through the park and on to boulder where we spent the last day-and-a-half of our vacation.

we visited the denver botanic gardens, had a picnic, and went on a very short 1 mile hike at the flat irons. while on our hike we encountered 3 bears. they were just right. :) really, the location they selected was perfect for our picture taking. the 3rd bear was on the ground and ran away when we stopped to take the pictures. but these 2 were hanging out in the tree.

we spent the evening at the pearl street mall and drove home the next day. it was a great time, a very fun vacation.

vacation

i'll be gone for awhile; but that's ok because i'll miss you even though i'll be here :)

ISO 101

ok, so i got this fabulous camera for a belated christmas present and i've been so impressed by the no-adjustment shots i took at the beginning that i never bothered learning how to use it. now i can see that even sooc (straight-out-of-camera) shots are better when you know how to use the right settings. so today i'm trying to learn.

there are 3 main things to adjust on your DSLR camera relating to light levels

1. aperture (how much light gets in- establishes depth of field)

2. shutter speed (how long the light gets in- establishes movement)

3. iso (what type of "film" you use)

iso is the most complicated for me to understand so i'm starting with that one. and just so you know, i'm no expert. i just learned this today. meet my model :)

basically, as i understand it, iso relates to both your aperture and your shutter speed. for today's exercise the depth of field does not change (f/4.5) because that's just what i picked. sheesh! so many questions. ok, f/4.5 is the biggest (even though it's the smallest number) that my aperture will open. this creates the most depth of field (blurry background). and in my dream world i would own a macro lens (or some other type of lens that i haven't learned about yet with a wide aperture) so i like my aperture set at f/4.5, period.

the iso, or 'film type', you select depends on your shooting environment. my EOS Rebel xsi has iso options of 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600. also, the higher the number the more noise in your photo (the grainier it looks). i am shooting inside with natural daylight coming in the windows. so before i start photographing i figure that i will probably get the best photo with an iso of 400 or 800 because of my lower light levels. 100 or 200 is best for a sunny day outside. (i know this because i read about it, not because i just know it.) but i'm going to shoot all my iso options to see what my M setting on my camera will recommend for shutter speed. remember my aperture is constant, f/4.5. i also know that a shutter speed slower than 1/40 probably needs a tripod but i am going to just rest my elbows on my desk (please ignore the messy desk). so here goes.

iso 100

shutter 1/4

iso 200

shutter 1/8

iso 400

shutter 1/20

iso 800

shutter 1/40

iso 1600

shutter 1/80

so you can see that as my iso increased my shutter speed got faster. and the ideal iso in this situation is 800 with a shutter speed of 1/40. and the 400 iso is even better but at risk to needing a tripod. any iso lower than this would need a tripod if you didn't have a desk to rest your elbows on and the iso 1600 with the faster shutter speed of 1/80 probably needs a wider aperture to let more light in. remember i don't have groovy wide aperture lens to work with? so the 1600 iso is not right for me.

ok, this was really an exercise to help get it straight in my head and i worked some.

maybe.

so if you have any questions i probably don't know the answers but ask away if you want to.

confusing enough for you?

and, by the way, this photo is a total fake. i'm really left eyed but that made my entire face behind the camera and the picture looked stupid.

and please ignore that dog hair on my filter. thank goodness for filters.

coin quilt

remember these fabrics?

well, i never posted any in-progress photos of this quilt because i had this great idea to post at the end the entire process of making this quilt. then when i looked at the photos i had taken along the journey of making this quilt i realized they were bad. i mean really bad pictures. the hubs has been messing with the camera so most of the pictures have the wrong settings and i don't feel like taking the time to play with them on the computer. so, i am only going to share one in-progress photo with you today. this is me quilting on my mom's long-arm quilting machine. this quilt is about 60x70 and it only took me about 2 1/2 hours to quilt it (plus an hour putting it onto the machine).

and here is the finished quilt.

isn't it pretty?

i'm sending it out in the mail to it's people very shortly.

it's a wedding gift.... or a 1 1/2 year anniversary gift?

better late than never, right?