Gratitude at TT . . . . . . .

The theme for this week over at Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday is "gratitude".

My husband has just finished harvesting our olives . . . .he's taken them to the olive press and we now have more than enough olive oil to last us a couple of years . . . .so I'm very grateful for that.

The best olives for oil are not the big plump ones . . .those are best for eating . .. but rather the small ones.  There are a lot of different varieties of trees but the majority of ours are the ones that produce the little olives for oil.

So here is my "gratitude" A photo of some small knobbly little olives . . .insignificant by themselves but when  accompanied by thousands more they become something really lovely . . . . .there's a metaphor there somewhere :-)

"Gratitude"

                                                                                                                                                     

                                     and this is the recipe:-

















Happy Tuesday everyone,
Love Teresa xx :-)

Still playing . . . . .:-)

Yes, another collage with digital  tape strips . . . .

"Greek Impressions"

                                                                                                                            (textures by French Kiss Textures and Kim Klassen)

Happy Monday everyone,
Teresa xx :-)

The remains of summer . . . .

I can't remember what these flowers were . . . all that's left now are the dried husks . . .but I thought they were pretty in their own right.
After I had worked on this I went back to the field to see if I could identify them . . but I couldn't even find them . . .so they're a mystery

Anyway here are "Fields of Gold"

                                                                                (texture by Leslie Nicole)

It's sunny but colder today but I think I can find a spot out of the wind for my morning latte


Have a wonderful Sunday everyone, Teresa xx :-)


P.S Hannah very kindly offered to identify this for me so . . .here is the unedited version

Thank you Hannah x

My new play things . . . . .

Leslie Nicole has a sale for a few days  . . . .30% off all the textures . .  . so . . .I bought these tape strips which I've used below.

I'm lovin' them  . . . . . .

Teresa xx :-)

I found this . . . .

This week at Pixel Dust Photo Art the idea is to look back on something we have produced but not really done anything with . . . .this photo is one of those.

I took it in the summer when I went for a day trip to the island of Kalymnos and when I saw it I was taken with how "old fashioned" everything looked . . . .so that was the feel I wanted to give to it.

"Anticipation"

                                                                   (Textures by Kim Klassen and Leslie Nicole)

Doesn't the summer feel a long way away now . . . . .lucky you in the Southern Hemisphere :-))

Hope your weekend is really enjoyable . . . wherever you are.
Love Teresa xx :-)

A load of old rope . . .

Well mooring lines actually . . . .
I was walking along by the harbour at Kefalos . . . . . .which I'm very happy to say is close to where I live . .
. .when I spotted the mooring lines of the little boats which are moored on the harbour beach. Some of the ropes were lying on the sand others were pulled tighter but I found the sight of them with their shadows really appealing.

I've used that photo for todays Texture Tuesday entry

"Ropes and Shadows"

This is the edit I did in Elements but I also ran it through RadLab . . .which I'm really impressed with.

We've got clouds today and maybe rain later but in the next couple of days I need to get out to pastures new with my camera . . .I get twitchy if I don't use my camera :-))

Looking forward to seeing your work.
Happy Tuesday, Teresa xx :-)

Natures finest . . . .

Open to debate I know but when you see a group of roses and smell their fragrance well . . . .

These are a sort of shrub rose that blooms really prolifically and is the most gorgeous pink but in this edit I wanted something paler and more ethereal so . . . .

"Old English Roses"

                                                                          (textures . . .I used three . . .are by Leslie Nicole)

It's a beautiful morning here and I've been out prowling around the garden in my pj's with my camera . . . .what a lovely start to the day . . .
Hope your week goes well.

Love Teresa xx :-)

A walk in the meadow

A spring photo for this Sunday which I hope finds you well. These flowers were on the bank at the edge of a field near to our house. Fortunately I didn't have to get low down to the ground to get this perspective . . . .I love it when there are no contortions involved in getting the shot I want . . . I once fell over backward whilst I was stooped down and got sort of wedged between two old  doorposts . . .I should point out it was a very narrow opening :-))

So . . . this is "meadow"

                                                                                                                         (texture by Leslie Nicole)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend . . . .I can hear a cup of coffee calling . . .
Love Teresa xx :-)

Playing today . . . .

I'm finding it's liberating moving outside of my comfort zone so I've been experimenting with different styles.
I put this image through RadLab and then used textures by Leslie Nicole.

I call it "a load of old rope"

Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Love Teresa xx :-)

Butterfly or should that be Flutterby . . . . .

These butterflies are very common over here  . . .I think they are called "painted lady" but I could well be wrong :-) The problem is  . . .as you all probably know . . .they love to move about but after lots of blurry shots I managed to get this one whilst it was reasonably still.

I've used textures by Leslie Nicole and have included my layers panel from Elements as some people have asked me how I use the textures.

I suppose one of the most important things in this image is that I changed the colour of the texture from shades of blue to shades of yellow. I often do this with a texture so that the colour of the texture harmonises with the colours in the image. This can be done beforehand ,like I did here,or during processing. If you do it during processing and have multiple layers of the same texture you can alter the colour on each individual layer and sometimes it's only a change on one layer that's needed. Leslie had a really good tutorial on her site which shows how to do this . . . .and honestly it's not difficult. Here's the link . . . . tutorial.

The second thing I did was to smooth out the texture because I particularly wanted a smooth look for this.

Anyway here's the image . . . . . . "dining al-fresco"

           

                     

                                 . . . . .and here's the layers panel





















If anyone wants to ask me any questions about this I'm more than happy to help . . .if I can . . .but not right now as I'm off to bed :-)
Love Teresa xx :-)

Texture Tuesday . . .

I was looking through some photos I had taken whilst on the neighbouring island of Nisyros and decide to use one of these for this weeks project over at  Texture Tuesday

Here it is . . . .a narrow street in the village of Nikia.. The textures created an aged appearance that I really liked .  . .. .normally I go for the bright and vibrant . .  . ..but this relates back to the age of the place in a way that seemed to fit.

This is the workflow . . .and I've even progressed a little further . . .no more of my spidery scrawl  . . :-)

The weather is set to improve today and I really hope so . . .two days stuck inside and I'm going a little stir crazy :-))
Happy Tuesday everyone.
Love Teresa xx :-)

A little bit of grunge . . .

I was down on the beach the other day and for some reason nobody had collected these umbrellas . . . .  Over here when the season finishes at the end of October, there aren't any more tourist flights until the middle of April so . . . . all of the people who have the beach concessions stow away their equipment until the following year. Maybe the person who owns these had decided to keep them for personal use while the weather was still good.
I saw them because there's a lovely cafe, right on the beach, where hubby and I had enjoyed a leisurely capuccino.

I've been trying out lots of different effects with the RadLab software I've got on trial  and using different textures so here's my "little bit of grunge" . . .

                                                                                                                    (textures by Kim Klassen)

It's still raining here :-( but tomorrow should see a change.
Happy Monday,
Love Teresa xx :-)

A winter Sunday . . . .

Well . .  after the lovely spell of calm, warm weather today we have winter . . . .windy, rainy and cold. The picture below is one I took of a summer storm but I've worked on it to give it a more wintery feel and it kind of sums up today.

                                                                                                                           (texture by Kim Klassen)

Hope your Sunday is warm and cosy . . . .  like mine is now I'm snug inside . . .
Love Teresa xx :-)

Little heather bells . . . . . .

The morning sun was shining through the patch of heather the other morning  . . . .and  this is the result . . .

                                                                                                             (texture by Leslie Nicole)

I'm going to post this over at Bonnie's for Photo Art Friday and I'm looking forward to seeing what you've all been up to.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone,
Love Teresa  xx :-)

It's 2 time at TT . . . .

2 is the theme for this week over at Texture Tuesday  .

I've been taking lots of pics of the leaves on the Apricot tree which are beautiful this year. This one was actually taken a few days before the one in the previous post but this one fitted the theme

I've discovered that I can actually write as well as capture a screen shot with my liitle "snip it" tool so I can include more meaningful screen shots of the layers panel. Hopefully I'll be able to write myself soon and sack the spider :-).

As usual, I'm looking forward to seeing what you've all produced.
Happy Tuesday everyone,
Teresa xx :-)                                                                                    


                                                                                                

Autumn glory . . . . .

The leaves on one of our apricot trees have turned the most amazing colour this autumn.

Here are three of them :-)

                                                                                                                                      (texture by Kim Klassen)

Happy Monday everyone,
Love Teresa xx :-)

Hannah has asked me for some more info on pp so here it is.

Here's the original

I ran the image through the Redfield Fractalius filter to get the effect  I wanted.

Then on to the texture which is KK chamomile (well spotted Hannah)

And that was it . . . .please excuse the spider scrawl above :-) xx

summer sensation

I keep harking back to summer . . . .even though I often complained about the heat . . . . .and despite the fact that the sky is blue at the moment. . . . .very strange !!

Anyway here's one of the amazing zinnias that were grown at my friends cafe

                                                                                                                                           (textures by Leslie Nicole and Kim Klassen)


Enjoy your weekend everyone,
Love Teresa xx :-)

If it's raining . . . . . . . . or not

A friend of mine who is in the UK at the moment told me it was raining . . . .so this is for all of you who may be suffering inclement weather . . . .a taste of warmer times :-)

                   
                                                                                                          (texture by Leslie Nicole )
Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Love Teresa xx :-)

Tulip time . . . . . .

Well, the bulbs are in anyway . . . .

My husband bought some new bulbs which I supplemented with a pack of anemone bulbs from the supermarket. He planted the main lot but I said I could do the anemones . . . wrong . . . .I mistook his instructions and now we'll have to wait and see if they come up . . . .and I watch all of the gardening programmes!!

His comment was to stick to photographing the flowers :-)

This is one of last years little stars . . . . .

                                                                                                      (Texture is by Leslie Nicole)

Enjoy your Wednesday,
Love Teresa xx :-)

Pods . . . . but you won't grow a beanstalk from these . . .

These pods make lovely whooshing noises as the are blown together in the breeze and are the seed pods from the albitzia tree. I'll post a photo of the flowers later because you may call it my another name in your part of the world.

So,  this is my TEXTURE TUESDAY entry this week.

I used the textures "and then some" and "serious magic"







These are the flowers strutting their stuff this summer.

Pretty aren't they.

Hope everyone's week has started well . . . .we're having a lovely spell of Autumn weather . . . . sunshine but not hot . . . . .just perfect for getting out and about . . . of course that's why I've been on the computer for most of the time  !!

 Love Teresa xx:-)