Photography Challenge - Seeing the world from a different perspective

This year I've started to challenge myself to work on my photography skills and part of that journey has been learning about macro photography.  I have so much more to learn but I'm having a blast!  

What is macro photography?  It's a genre of taking extreme close up photos of small objects to see the fine details.  My main focus in macro photography is plants and flowers.  Some people really get into insects but I'm happy with non-crawling objects.  

Yesterday my husband and I went on a hike at the Cedar Hill State Park.  The weather has been awesome lately and Saturday was the first opportunity we had to go since Fall Break.  The beginning of the day we encountered some light rain (which worked out in my favor on a few photos) but it also meant that they closed a few of the trails to help preserve them.  Cedar Hill is definitely a place we want to visit again sometime.

I thought I'd share a few of the photos that I captured yesterday.

That last two of the water droplets are some of my favorites.  You can see the reflection of the foliage behind it through the droplet!  

This one isn't a macro photo but while I was distracted by what looked like a red thumbtack stuck on a tree (which my husband said it looked like some sort of marking tag), my husband noticed this birdhouse just off the trail. Maybe the tag was placed so the park rangers could find the bird house later?  I don't know but it made for a lovely photo opportunity.

Maybe this will inspire someone to pick up their camera and try capturing some macro photos.  I would love to see your results if you do!  Let's inspire each other and share some joy along the way.

Just a Thought

 I worked on a layout yesterday after being inspired by some photos that I had taken of some propagations that I had going.  Have you ever thought about how the growth of plants is much like life in Christ?  Here's the layout that I made using Connie's Paint Chips Sweet Pea kit and her Pics Galore Vol. 48 Template pack.

Just in case you can't read the journaling:

Plants are the very picture of life with Christ.  When you allow God to lead, new life, growth, new beginnings, and renewal can happen.  Sometimes you have to be stripped down to the very beginning like the wet stick/node pieces in the top-middle photo.  But given time, nurturing, and the right light (Christ), what was once lost is new again.

This verse was placed on my heart today as I thought more about what God has said about our growing in faith.

As I continue to pursue a life with Christ as my Savior, I know that I can only represent Him to others if I have a personal relationship with Him. Peace in this life isn't possible without walking in faith. There are too many distractors, too many roadblocks, too many emotions to sift through on a daily basis. Only God can sift through it all and provide us with a clear path.

Here is one of my favorite songs that expresses this hope.

May this encourage you today. My prayer is that in this chaotic world, that you will find peace, that you will feel the love and grace that God has given us.

Scrapbook Journey + Freebie

Digital scrapbooking is one of my creative outlets that has wove it's way in and around my online world for nearly two decades.  I had to sit back and really think that through before I typed it out.  Two decades?  those years flew by in the blink of an eye.  I originally started this journey when my oldest children were maybe three and just born.  I remember wanting to put together a screen saver for my parents that would have photos of the kids so they would feel connected to us since we lived about 4 hours away.  I searched online for free background images just to make it a bit more polished and fell down the rabbit hole of designers offering freebies on their blogs.  Digital kits to create scrapbook pages to print.  

It didn't take long and I was hooked.  I always wanted to get into paper scrapbooking but several things held me back.  First of all, supplies were expensive and we just didn't have the disposal income to fund another crafting hobby.  Second, pulling everything out and putting it back up in a hurry seemed like a lot of work.  I have this thing about needing/wanting everything to have a specific place and with paper scrapping there's a lot of supplies to store and we had limited room.  I'm also not one that can leave unfinished projects laying out and with creative time at a premium, the time spent taking out supplies and cleaning up seemed like a waste of precious time.  With digital scrapbooking all that wasn't an issue!  Winner!

So there's the backstory of how I got into digital scrapbooking.  I know I have some of those early pages filed away on an EHD somewhere and I'm sure they are cringe worthy but we all have to start somewhere and the memories those pages hold are dear. I'm sure that some of you have similar stories of how you got into scrapbooking.  Now onto current events.  What have I scrapped recently?

The first one was made with #2025 May by Connie Prince and Banner Play Vol 1 by Connie Prince template.

The second one was made with Memories {Bundle} by Connie Prince as part of a challenge at Ginger Scraps.

The last one was made with #2025 June by Connie Prince.

Participating in the challenges at Ginger Scraps helps me have a focus and prompt for my creative journey which I need at the moment.  My mind is still very cluttered with teaching/job tasks and I need something to guide me into the creative side of my brain.  Otherwise I find myself just staring at the screen.  I have also found that I absolutely can not open Facebook/social media during my creative time.  Once I do that, I get sucked into watching videos.  Yes, I'm discovering new things but at the same time, I'm not being productive.

Here's a couple of blasts from the past. The middle layout above is of our youngest daughter.  She's about to graduate from High School (a full year ahead of schedule).  She's currently taking her final class as a Summer Credit Advancement course through our school district.  By July 17th she will be completely done.  She has always been a trailblazer, one to find her own path and follow through with her decisions.  

I wish she could see herself through my eyes.  Every time I look back at the layouts from the past 17 years I see a fearless, imaginative, inquisitive, creative, and joyful child.  I pray that she never loses that spirit as she enters this next chapter of her life.  

Those moments captured in those three layouts are why I scrapbook.  As I pulled them up I was transported back to the moment those photos were taken, the moment I scrapped about and how I felt.  The nostalgia brings all the emotions back to the surface and makes me appreciate what I have in life.  Three pretty awesome kids who are finding their own way in this world, finding ways to make their own marks on the world around them.  A loving husband who has made sure I know that I'm loved, that I'm enough, that I am valued.  We just celebrated out 30th Anniversary this past week.  We have a good life and together we are finding joy in the small things.

I have another 4X6 card front printable for you today as a "thanks for stopping by" freebie.  You can get the download by clicking on the image below.  Thank you for taking time to visit today!

~Susan~

Propagations - begonias and coleus

Part of this plant journey that I find fascinating is propagation.  What's that?  Taking a cutting of a plant and growing a new plant from that cutting (or at least growing a new vine to go back into the original pot to make the plant look fuller).  For the past year, I've done easy propagations like golden pothos, cebu blue pothos, marble queen pothos, and heartleaf philodendron.  I also propagated an adasnonii monstera from a vine my mother-in-law gave me that I've managed to keep alive.  Oh....that may be what those NOID small leaves are that I just potted up from my node propbox.  I guess we'll know in a few months. 

So today I got brave and took some cuttings of the beautiful coleus plants that my husband has growing in our shade garden.   Crossing my fingers that these root in a couple of weeks.  The first photo shows some coleus cuttings I got from my friend Jane a few days ago.  She has a small plant shop and I love getting plants from her!

Here are our cuttings from today.

There's one peeking in from the left that I need to go back and take a better photo of.  It's one of my favorites! 

This next one isn't a coleus but I think it's in the same family.  It's called a purple shield.  I'm hoping it roots like the coleus.  I guess we'll see in a few weeks.

I didn't take any cuttings of the outdoor begonias.  Their leaves are huge and I haven't figured out what I'm going to do to propagate those yet.  I know I really want to try because they are so unique and I need to get going on that soon so the cuttings have a chance to get established before I need to acclimate them to indoors.  The purpose for these cuttings besides me learning something new, is that we're hoping to overwinter these indoors and either transplant them outside next Spring or have a big enough plant that we can propagate cuttings from that into small plants to have a full shade garden next year.

On to the indoor begonia propagations.  I have photos of the ones that I started leaf cuttings of a couple months ago.  I'm pretty sure these were started mid to late April but I'm not 100% certain.  We had purchased a few begonias (I shared a couple photos of those the other day) from Lowes as little plants.  You know, those small starter plants that are only $5 - 8?  One of them may have been a rescue because it was not looking so hot and I just had to downsize it into a tiny cup the other day hoping to get it to size back up.  It's looking healthier but it's got a long ways to go.  I took one leaf from each plant as an experiment to see if I could propagate from a single leaf.  I think all but 2 have survived and are starting to put out new growth!  Look at the root growth on this first one!

This is the baby leaf (smallest of the bunch) from the plant that I'm desperately trying to save.  I guess this is my insurance plan in case the other plant doesn't make it.  As soon as the original plant puts on a significant amount of new leaves, I'm going to take a couple more and get them started.  Until then, enjoy this cutie!

I have a couple of begonias that look very similar to each other but one has a dark center what the other one is missing that trait.  The outer edge is slightly different as well. 

This last one is so iridescent!  The silver and light purple are stunning!

What are those cups?  They are snack cups with lids that you can get at Wal-Mart.  I have some coco coir in them and the lid keeps the environment humid/moist.  These sit on a shelf under a grow light with a couple other propagations and right now my philodendron micans (you can see part of the micans vine in that last picture).  

I hope this inspires you to try propagating some of your plants.  I have a couple cane begonias that I want to chop back a bit and propagate but they both had new leaves emerging up top today so I put it off again to let those come on out. That's going to be a new adventure!

Thanks for stopping by again and checking out more of our plant journey.

~Susan~

Our Jurassic Jungle + a card freebie

Today was one of those days where I woke up early but couldn't seem to focus for very long at a time.  I did go out and take some photos of some of our plants that my husband has planted.  I absolutely love the variety!  Here's a few of my favorites out of the coleus, begonias, hosta, and caladiums.  There may be a few other plants in here as well.  Matter of fact, the deep black and green plant in this first picture is a potato plant.  I've never seen this variety before and it's so cool!  My husband picked out the caladium in the photo and it is one of my new favorites as well.

I told my husband that I think we are trying to grow a prehistoric jungle. I'm praying that my son and mom remember to water these lovelies while we are gone in a few weeks for about 5 days.  Otherwise we may return to utter devastation from the Texas heat.

Oh!  Look at this caladium!  This leaf is huge, about double the size of my hand.

I have a free 4X6 card front for you today. I may play around with making a mini-kit to go along with this idea over the next week and make up some different card fronts to share.  It's been a while since I made something to share like that.  I won't be able to host this freebie indefinitely so if you like it, snag it by the end of June 2025.

DOWNLOAD HERE

~Susan~