New Look at Winnie and Tulula's

Yes, I know. It's ALL a new look at Winnie and Tulula's. As they say, "NOT your mother's antique mall."

But this is extra, EXTRA new! As in since the Grand Opening new. Mindy and I went to Winnie and Tulula's on Saturday to bring in some new goodies and do a reset. While we were there, we got a peek at Daphne Nicole's little slice of heaven...



Pretty nice, huh? She apparently just moved in last week. Does she have a blog? I don't know. I would link to her if I could. But I know nothing about her other than what you see. A great look for sure! If you know more, you can fill us in with your comments. Oh, by the way, click on any image to see it bigger.



That is all. Just had to share! Exciting, huh? Winnie and Tulula's is a happening place! If you haven't been, you don't know what you're missing!

f-stop Friday - entangled

I often discover compositions during photo processing that I didn't notice or fully appreciate during shooting. This was photographed as a candid portrait. I later cropped it to become something very different.



Whether it happens before the shutter button is pressed or during processing, part of the joy of photography is making the viewer see what you see.

Remembering Dad

The words below the picture are from the last Father's Day card I ever gave my dad. He passed away less than a month later. This is my fifth Father's Day without him. Yet he is always with me. Because these words describe not only his character, but the man I strive to be. I am blessed by his example. Thanks, Dad.



I WANT TO FOLLOW
IN THE FOOTSTEPS
OF MY DAD

I want to treat people
with kindness, to be giving
and to put others first...

I want to be strong in the face
of difficult circumstances,
to allow my trust in God to
keep my heart at peace...

I want to be loving and gentle,
to make the world a better place
by letting Jesus shine through
the things I do.

Thank you, Dad,
for showing me how to live
out my faith day to day,
and for giving me a
wonderful path to follow -
it's a gift I'll appreciate
all of my life.

With Love
On Father's Day

You're a wonderful dad.
I love you.
David

f-stop Friday - Say "Ahhhh"

Say "Ahhhh", originally uploaded by Snakelover61.

Well, it's Friday again, but I don't have any new pictures that you haven't already seen. So I decided I'd dig back into the past a bit. Almost exactly one year ago, in fact. Flickr has a thing they call "interestingness" whereby all the uploaded pictures are ranked by some top secret scoring system that takes into consideration such things as number of views, number of people who list the photo as their favorite, most searched for, etc.

Anyway, you've already seen my most interesting photo according to Flickr.

Today's featured photo is my second "most interesting," a close up of a Texas Horned Lizard. I shot this with my 100mm macro lens at f/5.6. As you can see, it has a shallow depth of field that really makes his facial features "pop."

This makes me so happy, I could almost squirt blood out of my eyes.

Hope you enjoy it too. Have a terrific weekend!

It Was GRAND!

The grand opening at Winnie and Tulula's was... well... grand!

You know, I think I'll just leave the reporting of this wonderful event to Mindy.



She has a way with words. She tells me I have a way with pictures. If that's so, I'll just let my girlfriend and my lens do the talking.









The above photos are just a small sampling of the many pictures I took. And they are actually somewhat atypical. Because most of the pictures that I took at the grand opening were not of the stuff, but of the PEOPLE. You know... the shopping, the talking, the laughing.

If you would like to view a chronological slide show of the pictures from my camera, click here. Or if you're not big on slide shows, you can visit my Flickr set. Either way, I think you'll agree... it really was GRAND!

f-stop Friday - Bag of Apples

Bag of Apples, originally uploaded by Snakelover61.

I'm calling this "f-stop friday." What is f-stop friday? It's where I get to throw a photograph at you for no apparent reason. By Friday, I can't always use my words anyway. This way, I don't take up a lot of your valuable time. Just come by, take a quick look at my picture, then go have a fabulous weekend.

This is a bag of apples courtesy of Judy Hill's home show yesterday.

Go ahead... take a bite!

Re-gifting... Mostly

Isn't this photo amazing? Remind you of anyone? I love it!

I was fortunate to win some prizes in the Bucks for Bella Raffle hosted by the Junk Sistas. One of the prizes arrived today. As I'm sure you can imagine, I was feeling crazy good with anticipation as I opened the box.



It's a box of baby themed shabby treasures from Mary at Vintage Patina. The contents are just wonderful! An extraordinarily tasteful gift! Mary packaged it so perfectly that I hated to mess anything up by unpacking it too much to take more pictures. But there are several layers of precious goodies in here.



My own children are teenagers and (hopefully) it will be a while before they start having babies of their own. So I've decided that this box of baby themed goodies sans one item will be re-gifted to Bella's grandma at the Winnie and Tulula's grand opening this Saturday.

And what is this one item I'm holding back for myself? The tag with the picture of the little girl. (It's nestled in the left side of the box in the last photo and the first photo is a close up of it.) I don't think Debbie will mind too much if I just keep this one little momento.

There is something just so captivating about this photo that I can't stop looking at it. Maybe it's the big eyes that remind me of my love, Mindy. Maybe it's the sweet innocent expression. Or the light. Whatever it is, as Mindy says...

"It speaks to me."

Spreading the News!

Unless you've been stranded on an uncharted island, you probably already know about the Grand Opening of Winnie and Tulula's on Saturday, June 13th.

But being the supportive boyfriend that I am, I just want to do my part in spreading the wonderful news!



I will be there with my love, Mindy, taking pictures and generally trying to make myself useful. Hope to see you there!