Hello! Winter normally arrives around Anzac Day in the Canberra region, and this year was accurate to the day! It's been pretty cold ever since...we've reinstated our winter wardrobes, bought new dog rugs (for the older and smaller ones) and the cats have become veerry cuddly.
We have a new addition this month- a little female Jack Russell cross called Jade has joined our zoo. Jade was found with a piece of rusty wire (about 10 cm long) through her bottom eyelid and taken to our local vet surgery. Miraculously, there was no damage to Jade’s eye, but our friend Natalie, who’s a vet nurse there, knew Jade was in need of a new ‘forever home’ so she came to live with us. As you’ll see in the 'Best Friends' and ‘Woof Woof' layouts in Creature Features below, Jade & our other Jack Russell, Jill have formed a firm friendship. The pictures were taken on a ‘family’ trip to the beach last month and I now have some understanding what the parents of toddlers go through…boy are these two hard to keep track of when they’re together.
Anyway, moving right along. Have a look at some of our new products and layout ideas below, and our our May specials on Jolees Boutique stickers.
Happy scrapping!
Alison
New to Creative Creatures...
Check out the May paper and sticker additions at Creative Creatures. This month they're mainly for dogs, cats and horses (or cowboys/cowgirls), but so very cute designs, like the pets all over paper (2nd from right above).
Click here to see the new items. |
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10% off Jolees Boutique dimensional stickers This month we're discounting the gorgeous Jolees Boutique dimensional Dog Breed and Title Waves stickers by 10%!
The Title Wave stickers make great page titles, or at least, a great feature on your layout.
See Sale items here! |  |
Creature Features
Some of the pet layouts we've created in the last month.
1. Best friends (left above) is of Jade & Jill as they get to know each other. We used the appropriately titled 'Best Friends' paper (Item #26) from Creative Creatures range, offcuts of bright cardstock and coordinating ribbon (hint: lincraft sells plain coloured ribbon for 97c for a 6m roll). We cheated a little: we cut some pawprints out of the original paper to continue the prints across the page, then covered the holes with cardstock. Unless you turn the layout over, you'd never know!
2. Dressage (centre above): This layout is on Galloping Horses paper (#335) and utilises the great ScrapFX wordlet 'Dressage' (#206). We stamped the colour onto it, then covered it with glitter paint. A simple but effective way to lift a layout!
3. Woof Woof (right above): My friend Laurie came around for a 'scrapping night' and created this gorgeous layout of Jade & Jill playing on the beach. Laurie used puppy paws paper (#254) and the ScrapFX Dog Wordlet pack (#210).
Click here to visit the Creative Creatures store. |
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New favourite web-toy!  I have discovered a new favourite web toy - Your Fonts. Check it out, you can create your very own font with your handwriting or other design tools if you’re really creative! On the right is a sample of what my handwriting looks like…
This site has been popular with scrapbookers who, like me, have avoided journaling on their layouts because they don’t trust their handwriting. It adds a personal touch, but at the same time stays neat & tidy. Best of all, it’s free and you can do as many fonts as you like. Just follow the simple instructions on the site and you can have your own font - literally within minutes! (But you will need a scanner).
click here for create your own font! |
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How to photograph pets - part 2  This is the second part of the article 'How to photograph your pets'.
4. Get On Their Level
Get down on your pets level where you can look upon them eye to eye. Images taken by a photographer standing up and looking down on their level not only leave you too far away from your subject but they also mean the shots end up having a very ‘human perspective’. Getting down on your pets level means you enter their world and get a glimpse of what life looks like from their angle - you’ll be impressed by the results as they are more personal and have a real element of intimacy.
5. Mix Up Your Framing
Pets, like human subjects’ look different from different angles and framing them in a variety of ways can bring out different perspectives to your shots. In your photo shoot take some tightly cropped facial shots (even focussing right in on single features like eyes, noses, ears, whiskers etc) but also make sure you take three quarter body shots as well as full body shots. In this way you end up with a series of shots that give viewers of your photos a full perspective on who your pet is.
6. Lighting
Light makes any photograph what it is and when it comes to pets it’s especially important. In general I wouldn’t recommend using a flash as they tend to distract pets and in some cases will even frighten them. The other issue with flashes is that they can create spooky red-eye problems with some animals (in the same way they do with humans). Natural light is a much better option than using a flash and so where possible outside photo shoots tend to work best (or at least in a well lit window inside). The only exception I would give for using a flash is when your pet has very dark (or black) fur as it tends to absorb light and a flash can add detail. With dark fury pets you might want to slightly over expose your images for this same reason. Alternatively with white pets you run the risk of over exposing shots so try to find a location out of direct sunlight and definitely avoid a flash.
7. Include People
One of the best things you can do to add context to a shot is to include the special people in the life of your pet in the image. Shots with the owner or other family members interacting with your pet can make the images incredibly special for years to come. You might like to try posed shots but sometimes it’s the candid shots of owner and pet at play (or snoozing together in front of a fire) that really capture the character of the pet and evoke emotion.
One more part to come next month!
Article used with permission - Digital Photography School |
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For fun... We have permission from lolcats to feature one of their funny pictures in each of our newsletters. This one caught my fancy this month.
With thanks to icanhascheezburger ! |  |
That's all for this month, but keep your eyes peeled for the June edition of our newsletter. In memory of two of my most special friends, we're doing a memorial edition. We're getting in some new products for the layouts of the very special 'fur friends' that we have loved and lost.
Until next month, happy scrapping!
Alison and Ida |
