Friday finds...

...with Kim Klassen

I am so excited to share my find with you this week~not just because it's right up my alley AND it was on sale but now there's a story behind it. 

Those are the best finds-the ones that have a personal story attached.

Kim Stevens...

...hold on to your hat for this one...

I was shopping at Pier 1 yesterday looking for unique decorations for a Mother's Day BBQ we're throwing Sunday. I found this beautiful butterfly wind chime.

I'm a sucker for metals and blown glass. The cashiers were saying how they love butterflies...and...well? I'm thinkin' this was my invitation to tell them my connection to the Monarchs & raising them. Like a proud mama, I pulled out my phone, showed them my pictures as I was answering their questions. There was a sweet elderly woman that heard our conversation & asked if she might look at the photos too. Proudly, I showed her the difference between the male & female and as the cashier was wrapping my wind chime the sweet woman said she'd like to share a story with me If I'd care to listen.

"Of course" I said. The story goes like this:

This woman's father collected butterflies that she didn't know about. After he passed, the siblings were cleaning out his house and found his collection. But by then, most of his prized butterflies had pretty much disintegrated. His wishes for his ashes to be thrown out at sea for some reason could not be honored so this woman took a ferry out to Catalina Island and placed her father's urn up on a hill facing the ocean & the casino.

Upon one of her visits, she placed a painting she'd done of a monarch beside the urn.

On a separate visit, her son and daughter-in-law went to visit this man's resting place and had snapped photos of a butterfly that was flitting about and landing on the urn. When the woman's son had told her about the butterfly she had asked what kind it was.

It was a Monarch.
Mysteriously, the Monarch never appeared in any of the photos the son had taken.

I choked back tears and got the chills. 

She had told this beautiful story to a complete stranger who took the time to listen. It almost seemed cathartic for her to share it. We exchanged pleasantries and I thanked her, finished my transaction and left the store with this feeling I can't even put into words.

Never underestimate the power of a butterfly...

...or strangers.

Happy (find your bliss) snapping!

xo

Kelly

Hi

Shop my Etsy

App happy...

...Wednesday

Hi!

So happy you popped in on this fun new meme that Barb over at keepingwiththetimes hosts.

It's funny, I started with one idea and it kept evolving to something so 180 of what I was going to do-but having an open mind to explore new possibilities is like opening an unexpected present.

For today-

I ran this photo through VSCOcam's LEGACY filter to give it a sort of flat vintage-y feel. VSCO is tricky to me-not every photo can just willy-nilly be used with it. The app adds a very distinct feel to your photos. If you follow them on IG-you'll know what I'm talking about. People are posting some really amazing photos using VASCOcam & I'd love play with it more.

Next, I added one of my favorite quotes using PHONTO. I love this text app. You can cut and paste words from another site, in your choice of...well...I was going to count the fonts...well it got late-but trust me...there is a plethora of fonts from A-Z sure to please you. A recent upgrade added filters to play around with. You can manage the size, the tilt, and the colors of the font-both the background and the actual font with sliders. It's user friendly too.

The last app I used was CLEAR WATERMARK

I was really good at marking my photos then I got busy, lazy and stopped and I really should protect my work. The app takes some getting use to but once mastered-it's really quick & easy & worth looking into. 

On a side note-I always use my i-phone's home camera and not the app's camera when shooting

 unless it's another type of camera app.

I also had to run this photo through Florabella's Honey Haze (which is NOT an app. but should be!) to tone down some of the pink after uploading & viewing the photo. 

Hope this helps and introduces you to something you haven't heard of or have heard of and not quite sure about. 

Not sure if you want to play yet? Just pop over to Barb's with me and check out what other peeps are using.

Happy (app) snapping!

xo

Kelly

shop my Etsy

"App" Happy...

...Wednesday

I'm joining Barb over at Keeping with the times for a new linky meme. 

Today I'm going to share a photo I posted over on IG as part of a month long challenge I took with the  #Waterlogue app, which I adore. 

Frankie was making Moussaka for dinner Monday night & had 3 beautiful eggplants which

 I quickly snagged and snapped a few pics before he cut into them.

 The original i-phone photo above is really nothing special~I cleaned the image up in PicTapGo by brightening up the shadows a bit and then added crispity to sharpen the image so that much of the lines would be better defined when I "painted" it. 

Once I run an image through Waterlogue-I don't like to edit the final image. 

They are pretty perfect as is.

Here...

...is the final image.

I used "Color Bloom" with the #8 brush size, normal light, and no border.

I adore how it came out.

I used the Lo-Mob app and the "superslide" frame for this image-

Lo-Mob is a great app to put a vintage spin on your images...and who doesn't love a little vintage?!

Ok...I'm off to go visit and get inspired from other app users...care to join me?

Happy (app) snapping!

xo

Kelly