Beautiful Paper Wreath

I fell in love with the idea of creating a paper wreath, which really doesn't look like paper at all, when I found this wreath by Lisa over at The Red Thread blog. She made a gorgeous Christmas wreath but I decided to adapt it to a St.Valentine's theme. This is probably one of the most inexpensive wreaths anyone has ever made!

There is really not a lot to it...all you need is a little patience and a kid or two to help out. The back of my wreath is nothing more than corrugated cardboard from one of the popcorn boxes left over from boy scouts, but you can use any type of cardboard. The leaves are simply wrapping paper. The only other items you will need are...

Pencil
Scissors
Two bowls that are approximately 13 inches and 9 inches in diameter for this size wreath.
Card stock paper to create template for your leaves
Stapler
Some ribbon
A lot of patience, but it is worth it.

First, trace both your bowls...one inside of the other and then cut out your wreath. Using the above dimensions my wreath ended up 15 inches in diameter with each leaf being approximately 3 inches long. Create your leaf template on the card stock paper and cut it out. Then start cutting out the leaves for your wreath. For my wreath I cut about 70 leaves total.

Take your leaf and with the print side facing towards you, fold the bottom of the leaf so that the paper curls up. (I followed Lisa's idea of cutting off the base part of my leaf to form a straight line...it's much easier to fold in this way)

Holding the end of the leaf together, staple it to your cardboard. Repeat until the entire cardboard is covered. I threw in a second paper in a silver to add interest but you can add a third or forth print...or do the whole wreath in one print. But don't limit yourself to just wrapping paper, you could use crafting paper, scrapping paper, even newspaper to create your wreath.

Once you are all done stapeling the leaves onto the cardboard, take your ribbon and make a loop, something like a slip knot, and staple it to the cardboard. The wreath is light enough that it can be easily attached to whatever surface with regular tape. Here I used scotch tape to tape the ribbon down.

I think it came out right pretty adding the perfect touch to my St. Valentine's vignette below!

And as a special St. Valentine's Day treat...make sure you check out my awesome giveaway going on right now! It is an incredible tote bag from 31 Gifts and the rules to enter are super simple. To see details click here. The winner will be announced on Tuesday February 14th!

Happy St. Valentine's Day!!!

Love...

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$25 Tote Bag Giveaway from 31 Gifts and A New Way to Follow 21 Rosemary Lane

Good morning everyone and happy Monday!!!
I am so excited to be doing my very first giveaway...yeah! My dear friend Becky over at 31 Gifts is sponsoring this giveaway for my readers and she is offering a fabulous utility tote.

Take a look at this beauty...

Print: Black Parisian Pop

The tote's dimensions are

10.25 " H

15.5 " W

6.5 " D

and it is made of a durable laminate nylon with a webbed handle and seven inside pockets, two of which are mesh, to store all of your little goodies. I know it's a wee bit early but can I please say "perfect" for the beach!

 And if you are not gaga over the print of the tote in the above picture it will be available to the winner in these two additional prints...

Paparazzi Dot

 

Harvest Floral

As many of you may already be aware...Google Friends Connect is being discontinued as of March 1st for all platforms except Blogger, however there is strong rumor that GCF will go away in the not too disatant future for Blogger too. So I signed up to "Linky Followers", created by the man behind Linky Tools that many of you fellow bloggers use for your weekly link parties. Linky Followers is free and you don't have to have a blog to be a follower. Just click here to check out the Linky Followers site.

So with all that being said, let's get on with the giveaway!

How to Enter My Giveaway

Just take these two simple steps...c'est tres facile!!

1. Sign up as a Google and or Linky follower of 21 Rosemary Lane and leave a comment on this post letting me know you are now following.

2.  If you're already a Google Friends Connect follower of 21 Rosemary Lane, leave me a comment. If you sign up as a Linky Follower leave a comment too. (And then I will know to follow you back using the new Linky format)

For an extra chance to win email Becky at 31 Gifts telling her what you like about the tote bag  Click here for the link.

And that's it!!!

Oh yeah...and if you'd like yet one more chance to win, you can "Like" 21 Rosemary Lane on Facebook and leave a comment on this post!



 (I am so sorry to all of you outside of the U.S but this giveaway is limited to those living in the United States and are over 18 years of age.)

My giveaway starts today February 6th and will close on Sunday February 13th. The winner will be announced on St. Valentine's Day, Tuesday February 14th!

Good luck to all who enter!!!

As an added note...remember to keep this 31 Gifts customer special in mind for the month of February!!!



Linking up with the following...

"Altered Art" Picture Frames

Have you ever heard of Altered Art? I never had until I walked into this sweet little boutique in downtown Clinton last month and found that they were going to be offering classes in "Altered Art".

  From what I have gathered from the Internet, Altered Art seems to be a by product of the ever so popular scrap booking or scrapping craze. Supposedly this form of art extends all the way back to the middle ages and was extremely popular during the Victorian years for obvious reasons. Two of the most well-known Altered Art artists are Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

So what exactly is "Altered Art"? By definition it is different pieces of art combined together to create one totally new piece of art. However today most people would understand this expression to mean the alteration of ordinary, everyday objects into artistic pieces using, for example, rubber stamps, fabric, paper, paint and so on.

Although I never took the class the boutique was offering, I decided to give it a whirl on some inexpensive picture frames purchased from Walmart.

To begin I covered two of them with printed paper and one with plain old pink tissue. I then used ribbon, rick-rack, felt buttons and some other sweet items I found in the scrap booking section of the store to decorate my frames. And applied loads of Mod Podge!!! I chose the pink and floral printed paper so to keep with the St. Valentine's Day theme, but you can make it look anyway you want. If you'd prefer more of a contemporary look you could choose solid or geometrical printed paper.

The basics of what you will need...

This technique takes a little practice but once I have it down I think the possibilities are positively endless!

That's me with Gracie 4 years ago !!!

This is such a wonderful way to express your creative side, and it's a great project for kids to do. Depending on ages you may want to first apply the paper or fabric covering, and then let the kiddies go wild decorating them!

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Photography Tip Thursday #2

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Hi Everyone...
 and welcome to my second Photography Tip Thursday. Today I will be talking about digital camera basics.

First off you need to know the following...

Make sure you have the proper memory card for your camera. You can check your camera's manual for compatible memory cards. Also know where the card slips into your camera and how to put in and remove the card properly. Make sure your camera is off when you put in and remove the card as static from an "on" camera can damage your card. Store your card in a memory card case to protect it from damage.

Also make sure you have a freshly charged battery for your camera. Digital cameras will not work without a battery. Also know where the symbol is on your camera so you know how much charge is still left in the battery. (Check your camera's manual) Nothing is more frustrating than to loose power during the middle of your shoot.

Now your digital camera has three basic functions...

1. View Finder

2. Focus

3. Exposure modes

The View Finder

Most digital camera's these days have LCD screens and people have a tendency to use them as view finders. While this is good for framing shots and allowing more creativity when taking your photos...you must also remember that they are battery killers. So if you choose to use the LCD screen use it wisely.

Instead you can use the SLR (single lens reflux) or the traditional way of viewing your photo's subject. Although is is not a convenient as the LCD screen, you can take all the time you need in lining up you shots.

The Focus

You have the choice here to use an automatic focus or manual focus. Find the setting on your camera which allows you to switch back and forth from a manual setting to automatic. When you are in manual you need to use the focus ring located at the farthest part of your lens. Focusing a shot using your own eye is the best guarantee of a picture which is in focus. 

The 3 Exposure Modes

Remember the old film cameras? Remember having to select the film with the proper speed for what you were shooting? Well you still need to do this when you are using a manual setting on your digital camera. This is called the ISO (International Standards Organization) and this determines how sensitive the image sensor is to light. Typical settings for the ISO are 100, 200,400 and 800. My camera is a Cannon Eos Rebel T3i and has the additional ISO settings of 1600, 3200 and 6400. The general rule of how the ISO settings work is the same as when we had to choose film speed back in the olden days. The lower the number the less sensitivity to light...the higher the number the more sensitivity. For example you can use an ISO of 100 or 200 when you are shooting outside on a bright sunny day. An ISO of 400 or 800 is what you need to use in a cloudy day or in the evening time. At night time you should use an ISO of 1600. Image quality is better with a lower ISO so try to choose the lower setting whenever possible.

The next mode is aperture. Simply stated it is the size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken. When you press the shutter release button of your camera, a hole opens up allowing your camera's image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture regulates the amount of light which reaches the lens. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light. Aperture settings are measured in F-stops. The tough thing to keep in mind is here is that there is an inverse relationship of the size of the opening to the number of the F-stop. So an F-stop of 2 is the largest possible opening and a F-stop of 22 is the smallest opening. As far as composition regarding F-stops...using the smaller aperture will result in a good or sharp depth of field. (Depth of field is how much of your photo will be in focus). If you are shooting a landscape, you may want the whole picture to be clear and sharp so you would use a smaller aperture. Using a larger aperture will create a shallow depth of field.  Sometimes you want to blur out the background to emphasize your subject. in this case you would use a larger aperture. The best way to wrap your brain around aperture is to get your camera out and do some experimenting. Find a spot where you’ve got items close to you as well as far away and take a series of shots with different aperture settings from the smallest setting to the largest.

Shallow depth of field

Good or sharp depth of field.

Shutter speed is the last mode I will talk about today. Basically it it the amount of time a shutter is open. When considering what shutter speed to use, you will need to think if there is any motion involved in the image you are trying to capture. If your subject is moving then you will need to decide if you want to freeze the movement or if you want to allow some blurring to occur. Shutter speed is measured in a second or fractions there of. The larger the denominator the faster the shutter speed.

1/1000 s

1/500 s

1/250 s

1/125 s

1/60 s

1/30 s

1/15 s

1/8 s

1/4 s

1/2 s

1 s

So if you want to freeze the movement like in the photo of the surfer below, then you will need a faster shutter speed.

photo by konaboy

If you want the motion to be blurred you will need to use a slower shutter speed. When using a setting slower than 1/60th of a second to blur the movement, you will need to use a tripod. 

photo by flamed

Most importantly, changing any one of the exposure modes will impact the other two. This means that you always need to have the the 2nd and 3rd modes in the back of your mind.

Now go out and play with your cameras. That is actually my homework assignment for this week. The more you play with exposure settings the more comfortable you will become working with your camera. 

Have a great week!

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