New Zazzle Fractals Shop

Alien Worm Cocoon Fractal by FunWithFractals

I was looking at all my various bits and pieces across the internet - blogs, stock sites and Zazzle shops when I realised it was all really one big jumble. I need to get it all organised if I am to make any progress with it all.

I already have my photography shop on Zazzle and I also started a World of Warcraft T-shirt shop. My thinking was that the audience here for my art and craft type stuff isn't that interested in my World of Warcraft stuff and vice versa! But within my photography shop, I also added my fractal designs and now as I look at it afresh, I decided they don't really fit there.

I also stumbled over the new iPhone cases, skins and speaker covers - all great candidates for fractal designs so Fun With Fractals was born. For the moment, I only have iPhone cases - I'm still trying to work out how to create templates to make listing multiple products more easily but I am really pleased with how effective my fractals look - makes me want to buy an iPhone so I can have one of my snazzy fractal design cases!


See other gifts available on Zazzle.

Green Thumb Sunday - Darling Dahlias

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Not much to talk about garden-wise this week, it's been another wet and grey week but with sunnny spells whilst I've been at work. The green bug is still sitting on the same flower, the new auriculas Mum potted up and left with me to look after, are still alive and the special Morning Glory (Convolvulus) is climbing its' frame very nicely thank you. I haven't killed anything yet but I'm guessing that's because of all the rain and me not having to water all those pots!

I begged a Dahlia from my neighbour yesterday (it was calling to me when I opened my bedroom curtains) and set up my little table top studio. I am so pleased I did! To say I am chuffed to bits is probably the understatement of the year! It follows along my abstract experiment (although it's not that abstract) - anyway here is my pride and joy from yesterday :-D


Hope you all have a good week, see you next time xx

Day2Day - Week 4 Mix It Up!

Well this week was another hectic week at work so I wasn't really concentrating or even thinking about my Day2Day so it's a bit of a mix this week.

Day 1, Monday, dawned with blue skies and fluffy little clouds - just in time to go back to work after a wet weekend.

Day 2, Tuesday, was a lovely hot day but then some really heavy showers and a bit of thunder in the evening. The skies cleared around sunset just in time to colour the clouds around the moon rising.Day 3, Wednesday - can't really remember what sort of day it was, just a really, really busy one. The sun did break through around teatime, just long enough for me to water Mum's pots and get a shot of her new Clematis.
Day 4, Thursday - another grey day all day but no rain. Had to boost this one a little in photoshop but you get the idea :) Gigantic allium heads hanging up to dry and making themselves irrestible to my macro lens :)
And last but not least, Day 5, Friday (Yay!!) playing with abstracts again - this time one of Mum's alstromerias - also known as a Peruvian Lily or Lily of the Incas. I like the colours in this one but perhaps the markings should be more in focus? Hmmm not sure.

I hope you've had a good week. Schools are breaking up for the summer this weekend and that usually means less traffic for me. This year, that also means more evening sunlight to shoot in so I'm looking forward to it too.

Green Thumb Sunday - Calla Lily

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This week has been a calla lily week! Mum bought me a beautiful calla lily last year but until about 3 weeks ago, the pot appeared empty. Then the shoots started to pop through and now I have a full pot of leaves with 8 flowers so far. This has also coincided with Mum's pink callas blooming but she only has 2 flowers on her plant!

I'm not an expert but I haven't seen many callas like mine. The leaves have white spots on them and the flowers are a darkish purple with white edges. Luckily for me, my pot is also one of the last things in my garden to stay in the evening sun so it's featuring heavily in my Day2Day challenge too :)

Yesterday I was shooting some abstracts (following on from an earlier post) and Mum popped over for coffee bringing treats with her - a tub of fresh picked cherries and one of her 2 calla flowers. A cat (probably) had damaged the stem so she thought I might like to photograph it. How cool is my Mum? Well, I loved the idea and set to work and I've been really pleased with the results - abstract idea + calla = some really good shots! I think I may have to play with the colour on the 3rd one (right hand side) to try to make it tone in with the other two but then I will have a lovely calla triptych to frame and hang on my wall (if hubby will let me have pink on the wall of course!).

Green Bug Thingy

Not sure what this little critter is but it looks like a bit like a grasshopper to me or maybe it's a cricket but I've never seen a cricket so I can't say! Anyway, I was playing with my macro lens and have decided that it's a tricky pest (the lens, that is) especially without a tripod. These shots are hand held but even so, the depth of field is so shallow, huge chunks of the picture are out of focus. It's definitely going to take some getting used to as most of my favourite shots are fairly straight, in focus type shots not arty-farty, soft focus, abstract ones.

I've been working on some more abstract shots though so once I've processed them, I'll post them here for some opinions :)

As for the question I posed the other day - yes, the tulip one is the photoshop soft focus one. The rose is almost straight from camera.

Experimenting with Abstracts

I've been having a play with some of my photos and also using my macro lens to achieve the same effects. I sometimes feel that everyone is photographing flowers in these days of good digital cameras at reasonable prices so perhaps I need to distinguish myself from the crowd a bit more.

Trouble is, I'm not art-trained - never done a course in anything artistic so I feel at a distinct disadvantage to those who have arts related degrees and seem to know what they're talking about! I look at a piece of art or a photograph - I either like it or not. I don't go looking for hidden meanings, alegorical references etc or need to understand what the artist was thinking about for me to like it! I guess art appreciation is a learned skill - but if it means I can appreciate a stack of bricks or half a preserved dog as Art, then maybe I'll just stick to what I like :-)

So one of the photos above is photoshopped, the other is straight from the camera (except crop and small levels adj, no blurring etc) - which one is which do you think?

Anyone know what this is called?

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Mum's got this lovely spiral succulent type thing in her garden. It's been doing well for years and I often use it as the basis for some abstract work but this year - it's flowered and oh boy, what a show! The flower stem/bud/sprout thingy started off in a rather limp phallic manner but it's standing very proud now ;-) LOL

I love the soft effect on the close up shot so I'll pop over again and try to get some more of those - so dainty. The whole flower spike is about 12 inches tall (30 cm) and we've got a funny feeling the whole plant will die now.

We've had loads of really heavy rain this week so the iris' have been hammered but the rhododendron is in full bloom. Quite a bit paler than I expected after seeing the colour of the buds but it seems to be thriving in the extra wetness (just as well really)!