Crafts and Hobbies
By: Maria Gracia
Scrapbooking is a wonderful hobby! Besides being relaxing and fun, it also allows you to be creative and to spend quality time with your family and friends. Plus, it results in a storybook of lifelong memories.
When you have flowers you want to dry there are a few different ways you can go about it. Here are three different easy ways to go about preserving your flowers. One tip is if the flowers you are wanting to dry are being cut from your own garden you will want to wait to cut them after there is no dew and since they will continue to bloom after they are cut try to preserve flowers that are not yet in full bloom.
By: Lori Higgins and joann.com
Designed by Lori Higgins. Inspired by watercolor paintings, this birdhouse will be a nice addition to country-influenced decor. The finished house measures 9 x 4 x 4-1/2 . Materials needed: wood birdhouse, 10 colors acrylic paints, gesso, 2 dragonflies and printed instruction sheet.
By: Rachel Paxton
Easter is a great time to capture family photographs for scrapbooking. Even if you don't scrapbook, planning your picture taking ahead of time ensures you won't miss any of these great family memories. No family traditions? Then this is a great time to start!
By: Robin Reckard
Kid's can enjoy the fun of making these inexpensive and wonderfully smelling sachets, and as an added benefit they can give them as gifts for holidays and other occasions. You can easily make them into a car freshener as well.
By: Merle O'Brien - recipes4learning.com
To make your journal jar you need a quart canning jar with lid and ring, a small piece of cloth, some raffia and the following material. The idea is to cut the question in strips and place them in the jar. Put the material under the ring on top of the jar, and tie raffia around the neck of the jar with the card Recipe for: my Life History. Give journal jar as a gift.
By: Merle O'Brien - recipes4learning.com
Making balloon plants is a wonderful activity! You can also use them to give as gifts, or to make at parties. Kids love making them and you will enjoy watching your new plant grow :)
By: Brenda Hyde
Article includes simple recipe instructions for making paper mache from water, newspaper, and flour.
By: Colleen Moulding
10 easy ways to improve your family photographs.
By: Alternative Pond & Gardens Mart -Brigitte Burc
Learn how to create an indoor pond. It is fast, fun, and easy.
By: Rachel Paxton
I'm new to scrapbooking, and I still can't believe all the possibilities there are for scrapbook layouts.
When I first began I pulled out and organized a lot of my daughter's childhood photos. Also collecting dust on my closet shelf was a box of other family keepsakes I'd kept throughout the years.
By: David H. Hessell
It always comes down to one image. I've been doing this for more than twenty years, thirty if you count the trips I took when I had no idea how to use a camera. Thirty years of travel photography and of all the photographs I take on any given trip, it always comes down to one favorite image. The image that captures the essence of the adventure, the journey, the experience. One trip, one image.
By: David Hessell
I am always looking for an excuse to take pictures. Truth is, it doesn't need to be much - a nice sunny morning, a foggy evening, a new filter, the way the light hits the wall in the living room, whatever. Starting the new year out with a new camera just makes it all that much easier for me to drop everything and plan a few minutes getting away from it all and learn what this new toy is all about.
By: David Hessell
As photographers, we solve problems. A good photographer is always asking questions and answering them as fast as be can press the shutter. In fact, whenever possible, most of the questions are answered before the camera is even brought up to the eye.
By: David Hessell
One aspect of photography that is often overlooked, even by photographers, is the role that emotion plays in the final product. In fact, what is the final product? Is the final outcome of a photograph the image itself or the emotion it evokes? What drives people to make images? What is the purpose of any given image?
Emotion can not be overlooked. I teach photography at the junior college level and find this one of the most difficult aspects of photography to convey to my students. It is much easier to ask, and answer, questions dealing with the technical aspects of image making: What kind of film do you use? What f-stop did you use? Which camera did you use? Students ask these questions over and over again. Other photographers ask these questions as well, and just as often. Funny thing - editors seldom (I hate to say "never") ask these questions. No, I have never been asked what camera system I use? What aperture? What tripod? Truth is, it does not matter. The "final product" is what they are interested in, not how I got it, or whether or not it was a mistake.
By: David Hessell
A photographer shares his insight of photography and what it means to him.
By: Michlle Graham
Every little girl should have one - but with the price of dolls houses now even cheap plastic ones can break the bank. Why not give your children a dolls house that won`t cost much. These craft ideas are fun for all.
By: Jan Anderson
Follow these instructions to create the safest, funkiest and most innovative Jack O'Lanterns this Halloween. You don't need to be an expert and it is an enjoyable activity that can involve all of the family.
By: David Hessell
For me, photography is more than recording light on film. No, that is only one small part of photography. I love getting out there and doing what I enjoy doing. At the same time, being a photographer is what gets me out there in the first place. It is a vicious cycle. One passion drives another until they actually become one.
Let me explain. I love to travel. I like to travel by motorcycle. I enjoy photography That pretty much sums up what I like to do when I have the chance to it. The best part is that, as a teacher, I do have time to combine my passions and get out there and do all three things at once.
By: Rachel Paxton
Here is a fun idea. The Christmas tree is easy to do and your photos are the presents. Try this layout on your next Christmas scrapbook.