Underwater Torso Trio

How's that for an odd title?  I was working on two different challenges this morning (Something Completely Different's "of the sea" torso prompt and Studio L3's Compendium of Curiosity chipped enamel prompt), and I came up with this little trio which I like quite a bit!  Each one starts with a Club Scrap stamp in cobalt blue archival ink and then has some other stamps layered on top.  I'm particularly happy with the layering on the pirate version.  The silver images are embossed with Ranger's Liquid Platinum, my all time favorite embossing powder, and the treasure chest is embossed with vintage photo distress powders.  I used the chipped enamel technique on two round tags (with broken china and painted shutters) for the two mermaid tags and on a key (black) for the pirate tag.  I hadn't played with embossing powders in a while, and it was a lot of fun! Kindof  put me in the mood for a margarita. But then most things put me in the mood for a margarita! Yo ho ho!

Learn Something New

There's something so satisfying about putting together a blank album at the start of a project.  I'm going to follow along with Shimelle's class "Learn Something New Everyday."  Last time, I did a series of mixed media ATC's.  This year I'm going to focus on journaling, accented with rubber stamped images. I started with a stack of 4.5"x6.5" colored chipboard pieces and some Basic Grey paper scraps. I edged everything with ink and assembled.  Keeping it simple this year and looking forward to it.
 
Meanwhile, I received this wonderful blog award from a few friends.  Thank you so much! The award asks me to list three things about myself and post a favorite picture.
1. My current favorite band is The Avett Brothers.  Great lyrics and interesting blend of upbeat and folk.  I also really like Michael Franti.
2. I don't read much, and I watch a ton of television.  This summer I did read The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked over the Hornet's Nest, Heart in the Right Place (a great memoir), Breath, and (currently) Await Your Reply.
3. I have traveled all over the world: El Salvador; Ireland; Scotland; Wales; London; Paris; Rome; Milan; Bellagio; Budapest; Vienna; Venice; Prague; Canada; Hong Kong; Beijing; and most of the 50 states.   I really want to go to Greece, Australia and New Zealand.  I just learned that next summer we're planning to travel to Puebla, Mexico.
Now for a favorite picture:

This is one of my favorite from pictures from our trip to Venice and my blog friend Mel asked me to post one.
I'm also supposed to pass the award along to five friends, but I fear that most of my blog friends have already been tagged on this one.  So, I'm going to pass on that part of the award.
Thanks again for the acknowledgement!

Let's Talk Stamps & Stamp Companies

After photography and scrapbooking, stamping was my next step into creating art.  That was almost ten years ago.  I started with Club Scrap stamps, which are high quality and nicely designed.  I dabbled with Stampin' Up and Close to My Heart stamps, mainly because I had friends who sold them, but neither really grabbed me.  Right now, my two current favorite stamp lines are from Stampotique (especially those designed by the Penney-Torrente) and Invoke Arts (you can see some cards I made with their stamps in this post).  Stampotique has a wonderful challenge blog and recently they were kind enough to award me a "designer's choice" badge for this brave girls graffiti wall altered book page I submitted.  "Yea me!" (oops, did I say that out loud?)  The current design challenge is to create a birthday card using a Stampotique stamp with the theme "not so sweet 16."  Snarky cards are right up my alley, so I made this super simple card. They run two challenges a month; one requires the use of their stamps but the other does not.  Thanks to Jacky for telling me about the blog.
Of course, I also love the Tim Holtz stamp line at Stampers Anonymous (except for the clowns!) and two local stamp lines (Alpha Stamps and Leavenworth Jackson). I'd love to hear about your favorite stamps and stamp companies!

Red and Black and Scary

The current color challenge at Gingersnap Creations is red and black.  This color combination suggested vintage to me, so I pulled out my newest Tim Holtz stamp set and used the blended batik technique (in red and black) to make a vintage circus tag. I added a variety of papers and ephemera to finish the card.  I love these images (and the clock) from the stamp set, but the fifth image, not so much:

Clowns . . . uhhhhhggg.  Creepy clowns.  These ones kindof freak me out.  Not sure I'll ever use them.  What about you?  How do you feel about clowns?  Are there other things that freak you out?

Blended Batik & a Hawaii Story

This week's Studio L3 Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities challenge is blended batik. I found this technique a bit scary because it involves using an iron, but I ended happy with the Halloween card I made.  I used lavender and grape distress inks for the bottom layer and orange marmalade for the top layer.  Plus, I overstamped in black. For the title block, I used marmalade for the bottom layer and black soot for the top level.  I added some ribbon and brads and declared it done!
So, here's my Hawaii story.  Five years ago, our family traveled to Hawaii, and we put the kids in camp one day so DH and I could go snorkeling.  At the end of the day, the kids brought in some cool fuse bead creations. Fuse beads are plastic, donut-shaped beads that children arrange into interesting shapes like flowers, butterflies, trains, etc. I'd always wondered how these were made. I asked the kids what kind of glue they used. Henry said there wasn't any glue. When I asked him how the beads were stuck together, he said:
"The teacher brought in this big flat board thing that looked kindof like a surfboard.  Then she took a really hot metal thing and pressed it on top of the beads and they melted together."  Of course, he was describing an ironing board and iron, but my children had managed to reach the ages of 10 and 7 without ever learning what those things were! 
No wonder the blended batik made me nervous!

The Fantasy World of Michael DeMeng

I've been working on this altered book spread for a while, but I'm very happy with how it came out! The theme for the book was "Fantasy," and I decided to create a spread about the fantasy world of Michael DeMeng.  The background is textured gesso, colored with DeMeng's recipe for Uzzzh, with some added green.  I adhered some grungeboard elements (key, flourish and letters) and a plastic tree.  I cut a niche, filled it with a picture I took of my sister holding a skull at a nature museum and covered it with some mesh.  The picture of the model is from a fashion magazine and the other picture is one I took of the Budapest Opera House. You can see more details if you click on the image to enlarge it. It was a ton of fun to make and it definitely meets the Gingersnap Creations challenge for creating a 3D object with paint.  The themes, color and style are all inspired by Michael DeMeng. I find it inspiring and useful to create in the style of other artists.  Have you ever done that?

Busy, Busy (photos to scrap)

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to create art. I started teaching my new semester on Monday night (a huge, heartfelt thank you to all your wonderful comments on my video yesterday; they made me feel terrific!). Today (Wednesday) is the first day of school for my kids. We got all the school shopping done, and DS Henry finished all his summer work in the nick of time. In spite of the above sign I spied at the baseball field over the weekend, I'm pretty ready for them to go spend some time with their teachers and friends!
Speaking of the baseball field, the boys had another successful weekend, winning the tournament:

I tried my hand at taking some "generic" baseball pictures I might be able to use for greeting cards or sports-themed artwork.  As my photography skills continue to improve, I think this is something I'd like to do more of.  Here's the best shot, which I turned to sepia, but  I think could be improved with other effects (once I learn photoshop):

Of course, I had to take a couple of my boy, who was really happy to have contributed with his bat this tournament (by hitting well and scoring a lot; interesting note, at this age level, the travel teams all play with wood bats instead of metal/aluminum/composite). He usually contributes with his glove (he normally plays amazing defense, but our pitchers threw so well in this tournament, that wasn't really needed):

Love that kid!

I teach art and law school

My first two classes at the C.Andrews Studio went very well - art journaling as art diary and a gratitude journal on plaster. So, I've come up with my next three classes.  
In September, I'm teaching a class on "Art journaling as creative play." It runs for three Sunday mornings (a two hour class with additional studio time available at no charge). One technique that I'll be teaching (and that I used for the page above) is using a photograph or image as the inspiration for art journal pages.
In October, I'll be teaching a simple, relaxing card class geared to making fall cards.
I'll also be teaching the class I call "Stump Maria - Halloween Edition."  Here's the description:
"Have you ever purchased a product and then forgotten how to use it? Want to get more out of those supplies gathering dust in your drawers? Ever wanted to take a class tailored specifically to your needs? If so, this is the class for you! When you sign up for this class, indicate one crafting supply that you would like have covered in class.  I will use the sign-up list to design a variety of Halloween-themed projects.  If I choose your product, you get a $5 discount on the class. If you come up with a product that I can't figure out how to use, you can take the class for free!"
If you're in the San Francisco bay area and these classes sound like something in which you would be interested, email me at rinda1961@yahoo.com, and I'll send you details.


Regular readers of my blog may also know that I am a teacher - a law school professor at the University of San Francisco to be precise.  The school recently interviewed me and put together a little video that I thought you mind find interesting.  It's really a different side of me than what you might be used to seeing, but I'm feeling brave these days so decided to share it (assuming the link works).  Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADMnWjM3ltk

Sunny Sunday Haiku

Last days of summer

Yellow, soft, fading flowers

Reaching to the sky

I spent the day yesterday at a baseball tournament.  Without a zoom lens, it was hard to take many pictures of the games. During a break in the action, I took some pictures of these sunflowers growing next to the field. I'm back to the ball park today but hope to post another DeMeng inspired project soon!  In the meantime, enjoy this yellow goodness:

Playing with Paint

The Something Completely Different Challenge Blog is continuing its "torso" theme this month, and this week's challenge is black and red.  Well, here's my totally awesome Michael DeMeng-inspired entry! I blogged yesterday about DeMeng's cool new app (for ipad or ipod) which gives fabulous recipes for mixing Golden paint washes.  I couldn't resist stealing away to the studio today to play with paint.  Here's some color samples I made:

The colors in the top row are oil slick, ushzz, serial killer red. In the bottom row are fire water, jelly brain and undead red.  The torso ATC above is made on undead red.
I also decided that Michael, former bartender, needed to get plastered (so to speak).  I experimented with fire water on plaster and the result was spectacular (IMHO):

Not sure what I'm going to do with the samples or the big plaster sheet, but I'll be sure to share what I do.  In the meantime, I'm also submitting this to the for the Gingersnap Creations Supply Challenge (Paint). I just read the rules, and you can submit more than one thing, which is great because I was having trouble deciding whether this was better than this flag mini-album I posted earlier.  Anyway, it was so much fun to play today! My wish for you is that you get a chance to enjoy some creative play this weekend.

Thoughts of Shopping Interrupt the Daily Routine

The current prompt at creative therapy is "What is your daily routine?"  When I first read the prompt, I giggled because my life is a little too hectic to have a daily routine.  Then I thought of those little plastic puzzles with the numbered tiles you're supposed slide around and put in the correct order.  Well, that's pretty much my daily routine - trying to slip and slide all the various pieces into the proper order.  So, here's my art journal page capturing my daily routine.  It would have been better sized as a square, but I still like it.
One of the reasons it's so hard for me to have a daily routine are those surprises that pop up.  This week the surprise has been trying to fit in back-to-school clothes shopping for the kids. I always get a headache both from the amount of money I'm spending and the mall. I did buy myself some cute aqua-teal vans tennis shoes, though! Is this a chore you're struggling with?
I've got other thoughts of shopping in my brain:
1. Should I buy a new online class?  Shimelle just posted "Learn Something New Everyday."  I did it a couple of years ago, creating an ATC each day based on the prompt.  Loved it! Not sure if I'll repeat it again.  Any takers out there? Karen of Random Reflections posted about two free classes at BPS, but they aren't calling to me.  Is anyone doing them?  Any reactions?
Any other ideas out there? I'm leaning towards just working on some of the regular challenges out there and maybe finishing up my "When I Grow Up" art journal that I started and never finished.
2. Any new apps out there? Tara Whitney recommends the ShakeItPhoto App for .99. Anyone bought it? I just bought an awesome (though expensive as apps go) app from painter and assemblage artist Michael DeMeng called "Shades of Alchemy." It contains all his awesome recipes for paint mixes (plus videos and cocktail recipes).  You can read about it in this blog post of his.  He's an amazing artist, and I love the idea of having these recipes on my ipad, at my finger tips!  The app cost $8.00 but the recipes and instructions are well worth it.  I would have spent 3x that for his most recent book in order to get the recipes, and I would not have received the awesome videos. They're very clear and really give you an idea of how to apply paint.  It's a lot like being in a class with Michael. Awesome! Plus, I've taken several classes from him and really love him as a person.  I'm happy to support his venture.   You can see some of my Michael DeMeng art in my post here or in this picture:

Anyway, I highly recommend it! Go on - be brave!
3. Time to shop for a new camera lens.  When I was at the state baseball tournament, I fell and broke my telephoto zoom lens.  I shoot with a Nikon. I'm considering this 70-300 lens with a f 4.5 for $600, although I'm lusting after this 70-200 lens with an aperture as wide as 2.8 for $2000.  If I hadn't broken my lens, then for Christmas I was looking to get a fixed 85 mm lens - either this f 1.8  lens for $500 or this f 1.4 lens for $1350.  I'm not really sure I can justify spending $1400-2000 on a lens.  Especially since I was also/alternately planning to upgrade my camera from a D50 to a D90 ($900) at Christmas.  So, any thoughts???  Also, anyone know what the story is with the Nikon DX line of cameras? Never quite figured that out.
Thanks for your advice!

4 People 12 Times (August edition)

So this is one of those cheesy photos that a vendor takes of the tourists and then rips them off by charging $20 for a package. But I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, especially since I didn't take my camera on the raft for fear of it getting wet. Plus, it serves as a perfectly serviceable photo for the 4 people 12 times series, which you can read more about in this post.  My family spent a wonderful, leisurely couple of hours floating down the Truckee River.  When asked if we went white water rafting, DH Paul replied no, it was river rafting.  When pushed as to the distinction, he said, "white water rafting is when you have to worry about staying in the boat. River rafting is where you worry about keeping the beer in the boat. All paper Club Scrap.

Brave Girls with Stickled Wings

My local mixed media group is having an altered book round robin.  The first book I received to work in had the theme "Adventures in Art" and was looking for examples of bold, brave, fearless art.  So, I made  a graffiti wall with some of my favorite brave art sayings, then placed four of my favorite stampotique brave girls in front and gave them stickled wings  and crowns. The scan really is much clearer if you click on the image to enlarge it!
This was inspired by this week's compendium of curiosities challenge to use distress stickles (I used scattered straw over vintage photo ink) and the current stampotique designs challenge to use wings.  Here's the quotes on the wall:
"She went out on a limb, had it break off behind her, and discovered she could fly."
"She realized that she was missing a great deal by being sensible."
"She colored her thoughts with only the brightest hues."
"She took the leap and built her wings on the way down."
"She was an artist and her life was her canvas."
"She woke up one day and threw away all of her excuses."
All quotes from the book She by Kobi Yamada.
Have you done anything brave lately - artistically or otherwise?

Haiku Winner & Shimelle Party Entries

Quiet Summer Night

A final haiku for you

Thanks for joining me

"Haiku in blogland" turned out to be a terrific success.  Thanks again to Tammy Lee for providing the inspiration in the first place.  Twelve wonderful bloggers participated, and you can see their entries here.  The participants were:
1. Helena   2. Becky   3.  Sian  4.  Tammy Lee  5. Denise   6.  Karen
7. Marie   8. Deb (England)  9.  Amy  10.  Jennifer  11.  Deb (Az.)  12.  Laurie

The random winner is 

#5 Denise!  Denise, email me with your address (rinda1961 at yahoo dot com), and I'll put a prize in the mail to you.  
And a second, domestic winner #4 Tammy Lee.  Tammy Lee, send me your address, and I'll drop a prize in the mail to you.

The picture above was taken in response to Shimelle's party prompt to take a picture of something around the house.  Since the deadline is fast approaching to enter the give-aways for her blog party, I'm attaching a variety of other entries.

Here's my entry for a photograph using a reflection.  I'm submitting this because I want to remember too take some other photos using the reflection from my ipad.  I think there's some cool portraits in that idea.

This is my entry for a book-related photograph.  DS Henry read The Kite Runner this summer for Advanced English, and he needs to do a "visual book report" about one of the themes in the book.  He made these kites out of plaster.  He's going to paint them, add some text and then mount them in clay.  It's nice to document this stage of the project.

I did some scrapbooking this weekend, too.  This layout illustrates scrapbooking with squares (see them in the bottom right hand corner).

And scrapbooking with my favorite supplies - Club Scrap, of course!  By the way, this is a sketch from the second to last day of the LYP,LYP class that I've been meaning to use forever.  Speaking of Club Scrap,

here's my entry for my workspace.  It's a stack of Club Scrap pizza boxes that I used to create this weekend.  I like how the shadows indicate the approach of evening. Thanks for all the inspiration, Shimelle!  

Daddy's Little Girl

I've been missing my dad a lot lately.  I don't think I realized that until I realized that much of my art recently has been about little girls and their fathers. I think that's one of the wonderful things of art - it helps me get in touch with my subconscious feelings.  
Anyway, I made this bunting shaped mini-album on Saturday while teaching a class on plaster journals.  The flags are made out of plaster.  The ones on top are painted with a variety of acrylic paints.  The pink flags on the bottom are sprayed with glimmer mists, and the flag in the middle is collaged with a variety of patterned papers and the painted over with ecru paint.  Each of the flags is decorated with a small dress (made using the confined collage technique) and a heart (either made out of plaster or out of confined collage).  I transcribed a poem called "Daddy's Little Angel" onto the flags.  You can click on the pictures to enlarge them and see the details.
I came up with this idea after seeing this post on Dina Wakley's blog in which she featured a canvas pennant banner album from Maya Road.  I'm submitting this project to the Gingersnap Creative blog for their acrylic paint supply challenge.  Also, the top four pages fit Shimelle's prompts for creating with hearts. The outside ones on the bottom row fit her prompt for creating with the color pink and the middle bottom flag meets the prompt for creating with more than four different patterned papers.
The winner of the "haiku in blogland" contest will be announced tomorrow! Thanks to everyone who played

Torso ATC's

Yes, you read that right! These are ATC's in the shape of a torso (or a bodice or dress form).  That's the theme this month over at Something Completely Different.  The prompt for week 1 was "bling" and the prompt for this week is "memories."  I've got a baby girl theme going so far with my bodice ATC's, and I'm really liking them.  I made these today, and they also respond to the Shimelle Crop Prompt for papercrafting with circles - love the little circles of gold.  If you haven't checked out Shimell'es crop this weekend, you definitely should.  There's tons of prompts & prizes.
Also, "Haiku in Blogland" continues! Read the challenge and check out comments for fabulous responses at this post.  You still have time to enter! 

Such a Boy (and almost last call for haiku/photo pairs)

Extreme Mountain Bikes

He found a new sport to love

He is such a boy!

We're vacationing this week in Lake Tahoe, California, a beautiful spot in the Sierra Mountains.  We're staying at the Northstar Ski Resort, which in the summer turns its ski runs into mountain bike runs.  The kids and I gave it a go yesterday, with decidedly mixed results.  I fell several times and had to conclude I was just not any good at it (nor did I enjoy it much).  Clara did fine but prefers other activities (like riding a regular bike along the river or, more precisely, swimming in the river). Henry, however, took to it like a fish to water. Or, more precisely, like a 15 year old boy to wild, crazy fun.

 And, a gentle reminder, it's almost last call for the haiku/photo pairing blog give away.  Simply pair a photograph with a haiku, post it to your blog and link it to the post you will find here.  Contest closes Sunday, California time, at 10:00 p.m. Come join the fun!


P.S. For those who asked, crawdads are also called crayfish or crawfish in the U.S. They are a crustacean that looks like a small lobster.  They're called yabby or koura in Australia. They are mostly extinct in Europe.

Buggy for Scraplings!

Okay, just when I thought I had heard of every possible stamping format (especially the small ones), the wonderful challenge blog Gingersnap Creative introduced me to "scraplings."  These lovely little bits of wonderfulness measure 1.5"x4.25" (once folded to form an itty, bitty card).  You can see the scraplings challenge at this post and find their fabulous tutorial here.  I also like this gallery of scraplings at splitcoast stampers here. Will you give scraplings a try?

Lake Tahoe Vacation

Childhood memories

catching crawdads at the Lake

life's simple pleasures

We're spending a week at Lake Tahoe for our summer vacation. On Sunday, we rented kayaks and paddled over to Crystal Bay in Nevada.  The bay is filled with fun boulder formations.  In addition to swimming and paddling fun, it's also a great place to fish for crawdads.  I love the picture at left because of the boulders, the sky and the natural expression of the kids.

I also really like the next photo of Henry because nature provides such an artistic frame, but he still looks very natural and unposed.

I added a haiku to remind you all about the photo/haiku challenge I wrote about in this post.  You still have several days to enter. I hope you'll play along.

stick, string, bacon, weight

fisherman hunting for food

man's oldest instinct

Crackle Paint Tags

This week's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge at Studio L3 features crackle paint distress.  I made two tags using this technique.  "Art Horizon 2010" started with white (picket fence) crackle paint, and I also used rock candy on the blue stamped bit.  "Nature's Beauty" started with orange crackle paint, and I also used a Tim Holtz mini-mask on the background.  I'm definitely partial to one of them, but before I tell you which one, I'm curious about whether you have a favorite.
Both of the tags also reflect on my 2010 word of the year - Horizon.  The Art Horizon tag has two quotes: "A person can grow only as much as his horizon allows." (John Powell) and "You must learn, day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon." (Ethel Barrymore). I think Ethel has the right attitude!
On the back of Nature's Beauty tag, I have this Horizon quote: "October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen.  It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once more in sight." Hal Bowland. I'm hoping this thought will help guide me into fall and out of summer more easily.
Once August is over, the year is three-fourths of the way passed.  Have you thought about your "word of the year" lately?

Nor Cal Junior Guard Games (photos to scrap)

On your mark, get set

So fast, so strong, so happy

You are all winners*

Last Thursday, I spent the day at Santa Cruz beach with my DD Clara, watching her participate in the Northern California Junior Guard Games.  It's an action-packed, fun-filled day in which 1,000 kids participate in a variety of competitions like the paddle board relay:

That's my girl in the blue suit with the yellow board.  They paddle out on these rescue boards, around two buoys and then hand the board off to the next team member. The HMB 12/13 year old girls came in 8th.  She also participated in water flags:

Think musical chairs, but with tennis balls tossed into the ocean.  About 25 girls line up, face down in the sand, and then about 15 tennis balls are thrown into the water.  When the horn sounds, the girls jump up and go try to retrieve a ball.  Those who get a ball get to keep going; those who don't are out.


She also participated in the "rescue relay" (below). The first victim swims out to a buoy and waits for the start of the race.  At the sound of the horn, the first rescuer swims out with a "ring" to the victim, attaches them to the ring and they both swim in.  Then, the second victim swims out to the buoy and signals the second rescuer who paddles out on a rescue board, retrieves the victim and they both paddle in on the board.  Clara's usually the second victim because she's such a strong swimmer.  When I see them do this relay, I can't help but be impressed by my girl!

There's also a good, old-fashioned obstacle course relay, beach life guard style of course!

And, finally, something called the "Run, Swim, Run," which involves running a lap, swimming to a buoy and back, running a short lap, doing another buoy swim and finally one more lap:

Clara finished in the top 20 out of about 100 girls in her age group.  I love that girl.  She is so awesome!
*What's up with the haiku?  Check out this post for details.

Class Review: Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages

It's a scrapbooking class. No wait, it's a photography class.  No, I mean it's a series of sketches. No, it's a photoshop class.  Maybe it's a series of e-books.  Actually it's all of those!!!  
I just finished Shimelle's class "Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages," and I give it an enthusiastic A+! 
The four week class had six prompts each week: three photography prompts; two scrapbooking prompts (which included sketches but also covered design theory and story-telling ideas); and one digital enhancement/photoshop type prompt.  I tended to ignore the last prompt of the week because I don't do that sort of thing, but I still feel like I easily got my money's worth out of this very inexpensive class (16 pounds, but I signed up with the early bird discount and paid about $20 U.S., I think). In addition, there were three free "workbooks" given out at the end of the class - one on technical photography tips; one with a month's worth of sketches; and one with photoshop ideas.  As in all of Shimelle's classes, there was an easily accessible forum and a nice community feel.  Shimmelle monitored the forum, answered questions and participated actively in the class.  One thing I liked about this class was the size of it - it was not too big (like Journal Your Christmas has become). There was something for everybody in this class, and all the "somethings" were very well done - interesting and unique enough so that just about everyone could walk away with some new lessons learned (and maybe some old ideas refreshed).
I completed the above layout in the class.  The photos were taken with the idea of using the floor as a tripod and the sketch came from the "month of sketches" workbook.  Not a typical layout for me, but I love it!
So, if you took the class, I'd love to hear what you thought of it.

Simple Summer Joy: a blog give-away

My blog friend Tammy Lee of The Blogging Bradleys has a way of pairing beautiful photos with haiku, like in this post.  Here's my homage to Tammy:

Clara and her friends

Flying so high in the air

Simple summer joy

I'd love to see what you do with this concept. So, I'm sponsoring a blog give-away.  Between now and next Sunday, August 22 at 10:00 p.m. California time, post a picture to your blog with an accompanying haiku, leave a comment on this post with a link to your post, and I'll enter your name into a random drawing.  A haiku, if you don't know, is a three line poem.  The first line has five  syllables; the second line has seven syllables and the third line has five syllables.  Have fun!