The clocks have gone back...

and that spells disaster when photographing my cards. It's dark when I leave for work in the morning and it's dark when I get home so I am reduced to taking pictures with a daylight lamp, angle poise lamp and overhead light. Now, most people can make that combination work, me? I am so technically challenged that I just can't get it right. I have updated my blog hop post here with *marginally* better photos than before, however I need to figure out how to improve the quality of my photographs in winter!

Here are a couple of cards that I made recently for a submission call that didn't make the grade!

Lots of gold glitter (which got everywhere!) and my newest favourite sentiment set, Scrolling Script along with the Mat Stack 7 die. I had some left over pleated crepe ribbon from another project which I added for a bit of dimension, I like to think that this might be suitable for an older person's birthday.

I went simple with this card, adding texture with the polka dot embossing folder. I die cut an aperture in the card with Mat Stack 7 dies and mounted the sentiment on acetate to give it a floating look. I like how it looks like a silver ring with a big diamond, if I swap out the sentiment it might be nice for an engagement card.

On a later shift all this week which wreaks havoc with my crafting time, I hope to get started on some more Christmas projects this week.

Ang.

Snowdrops

I adore snowdrops and I have been patiently waiting for their appearance. There hadn't been any sign of them over the past few weeks, however when the big snowstorm came and I was wandering around the garden I noticed this...

Complete with bunny rabbit prints. I used to love watching the rabbits in the garden (I still love the baby bunnies, they are too cute to resist) but have seen how destructive they can be, they ate the majority of my potted herb garden and have recently taken to stripping the bark of the lower part of trees as well as eating the ivy off the wall.

One thing I have been looking forward to since getting my new camera is taking pictures of all the spring flowers, especially the snowdrops and my all time favourite, the cherry blossoms. I have been checking on the snowdrops progress every week and then today we had the most beautiful clear skies and bright sunshine and I was able to enjoy them in all their prettiness!

I looked quite a sight, hunkered down on a big square of cardboard in the damp moss and grass, butt in the air taking over 100 photos of snowdrops, even clearing some of the leaf debris in areas just to get a good shot. I loved my old point and shoot camera but I was never able to get to grips with taking good photos of snowdrops, they mostly seemed to come out as white blobs, like this one from a couple of years back, after that I pretty much gave up.

But this year I had my new spanky camera and was able to get nice and close up.

My favourite however is this one that I took in the late afternoon sun.

I forsee me taking another 100 before they start to wilt and go brown!