Capturing Spring

Here on the Dutch/German border the temperature is gradually rising, the frost and snow have gone and the evenings are drawing out. For each of us the signs of reawakening life are different. For Wordsworth it was the sight of "a host of golden daffodils". For me it´s a pool of white snowdrops. This is snowdrop country and they´ve suddenly sprung up everywhere, in their hundreds in my garden and in their hundreds of thousands in the surrounding countryside. They lie in little puddles under trees among last year´s dead leaves and in large lakes in grassy fields and along the river bank and to me they´re the harbinger of my favourite season. For me summer here is too hot and humid, Autumn the sad dying back before the icy chill of Winter but Spring is a fresh green time of new beginnings and I wish I could capture and keep it.

(click for a larger view)

If you´d like the floral gold and glass frame I´ve used to capture my snowdrops, you´ll find it HERE

Creating A Cameo

This 1930s studio portrait of my aunt, as you can see from the original below, was in very bad condition when I got it and it took quite some time to restore.
This is what I´ve done so far. It still requires a little tweaking but it´s a lot better than it was. The easiest part was replacing the damaged border. I´ve made it white but may change it to a light sepia to reflect the age of the photo. If you´d like to try this easy technique, you´ll find a tutorial HERE

I think it looked even better after I´d faded out the edges and framed it to create my own cameo.

You´ll find the original cameo, which I´ve used in the blog header and which you can also see on the right, in Shabby Chic Rooms Part 2 where, if you´d like to create your own personal cameo, you´ll also find a link to the frame and even to a room to hang it in!