Wake Up Juliet: We are GO for Launch!

That is correct...I expect this to be my last post on Life as a Gardell! She's been good to me, but I need more room to stretch and more places to store my various interests.

I apologize for being lax in posting, but I've been saving up all these goodies to use on the new site. She's still a little bare at the moment, but soon I'll be adding:

• Home Tour (the good, the bad and the ugly)
• A New Arrival (shh...you'll have to wait and see)
• This week's entry for I Heart Faces (It's Beach week!)
• Shots from the photo shoot with my sister and her boyfriend
• Shots of the 5 Guys from Enter the Haggis
• Tips from professional photographers that you can use in your everyday shots
• Finished gift for my cousin's new baby
• and much, much more!

At the moment we're still working out an RSS feed, so follow me on Twitter (WakeUpJuliet) and I'll be sure to let you know all the updates.

And now (drum roll please...), presenting: Wake Up Juliet!

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Everyone has a band they love, a band that they'll drop everything (ok, almost everything) to go see them when they come to town.

Enter the Haggis is that band for Sean and I. Our relationship with them follows our own relationship. We first saw them at the Maine Highland Games our first summer together. Over the following years, we saw them countless more times, and it became a family event, with my mom, dad, and sister often attending with us.

The guys in the band even helped Sean propose to me. We went into NYC to see them at the Knitting Factory, and they called him up on stage to pop the question. We tried to repay the favor by having them to our rehearsal day barbecue.

So they're a bit like family to us. And when family is hurt, you want to help however possible. This past weekend, Brian (fiddle and guitar player/vocalist) lost his fiddle, and all signs point to it being stolen. He's had the fiddle for 15 years. It's been his companion as he built his career and joined the band. While you can never replace that sentiment, he'll need to replace the fiddle. He's set up a fiddle fund in response to the overwhelming offers his fans made to assist him. If you can spare a little to help him, you'd be supporting some of the hardest working musicians I've ever met. Find out more here: Enter the Haggis Fiddle Fund.

I'm a winner!

Holy Crap!

Thank you to Life with Kaishon for alerting me to this fact :) Sean and I were on our way out to the Glasgowlands Highland Festival when my Blackberry beeped. I had a couple emails alerting me to comments on my blog. I was incredibly flattered by them (thank you!) and was reading them out loud. Sean looked at me (ok, more glanced at me, cause he was driving, and full on staring at me would have been unsafe) and said "you won?". I had checked earlier that morning and the winners hadn't been announced, but the thought was too good to be true. I had to find out. Thank God for Blackberry Internet Browser!

Sure enough, there my photo was, 3rd place in the Sports in Motion category! I went into full on giddy celebration mode, called my mom, babbled incoherently, hung up, then continued babbling to Sean. I still can't believe it.

So thank you for your comments, thank you to Rog of EPLove, who was the judge this week, and thank you to Amy and Angie of I Heart Faces for creating these challenges to encourage photographers of all skill levels. I feel blessed and incredibly flattered that I can post this button:

Photo Frames Class: Day 1

I'm taking advantage of the free Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects class on Jessica Sprague's website. The first day discusses PNG files (a format that supports transparency), and you can see my project below. I took this photo of my sister on our vacation this past week (yeah, you noticed the lack of posting?). We went up to my grandmother's house in Maine, and on one of the nice days, we walked out to the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. I got it in my head that it would make for a great angled shot if my family went up on the balcony and I sat (or lay, like I did) on the rocks below.


Luckily I did get some great shots, otherwise the strange looks and my family's embarrassment at being associated with me would have been for naught. Above is my project for the day, complete with frame and fun words. And to prove my successful lay on the ground theory (for all of you thinking this was a fluke), see some of the other photos below.


I'll fill you all in with more vacation details later, but it's kinda late now. I need my beauty sleep!

I Heart Faces - Pets

I'm very excited to show off one of my favorite subjects, my rescue fur baby, London. He's a beautiful boy, part Siamese, part Himalayan, and all goofball. Here I caught his beautiful blue eyes and perfect pink nose as he was watching TV with us.

Check out all the other furry, feathery and scaly entries at www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com!

I Heart Faces - Sports in Action

I hope you all enjoyed my SCA/medieval photos before, because I've got more (and besides, baseball is so 21st century). My sport submission is from a heavy list tournament we witnessed this past weekend. It was called the "Tournament of Whimsy", and participants drew their weapon choices from a bag. Many options were quite comical, including the one this poor soul drew. "Sloth" meant he had to face his opponent while seated. I love the face he is making behind his mask, it shows such concentration and determination.


If you enjoy this face, head to www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com to see the other entries!

The Building of a Website Chapter 2: Brain Hurricanes

I apologize things have been erratic here. I feel like I'm in limbo between this blog and the new site. Hopefully it will be up and running this week so we can press forward! A lot of my energy has been spent brainstorming ideas for posts so that when the site is up I'll have a lot to start with.

It's all very exciting so I'm sharing it with you, and would love feedback and reader requests!

There will be multiple sections for easy and organized browsing:

• Diary
• Home & Garden
• Photography
• Crafting
• Entertaining
• Travel

I'll break it down with some of my brainstorms neatly categorized:

Diary

• personal musings and adventures
• week-long experiments: I've always loved articles where the author has tried something for a week or so and documented their experiences (example here). Ideally I'd love reader suggestions!

Home & Garden

• Tour La Casa Gardell
• DIY Home & Garden projects
• Budget friendly updates and decor
• Product reviews (first attempt here)
• My attempts at turning my stubborn thumb green
• Mood boards
• Real Room Makeovers

Photography

• Photo Finish Fridays: Taking a photo and showing some finishes in PhotoShop
• Professional Tips: featuring a guest photographer who will offer a tip to improve your everyday photos, complete with demo by yours truly
• I Heart Faces entries (of course)

Crafting

• Projects in knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and anything else I find interesting
• Guest blogging by my cousin, the card making queen. She'll offer tutorials of some of her best work.
• Crafty charity shoutouts

Entertaining

• Party idea boards
• Real party recaps
• Party friendly recipes
• Interviews with the Bride: follow my best friend, Diana, as she gets ready for her October wedding

Travel

• Travel tips
• Packing for a week in _______: give mix and match outfits to pack for a week
• Travel in style tips
• Guest Blogger: My sister, Caitlin, will update during her year abroad in Scotland, where she will be completing grad school
• Real travel plans: Sean and my plans to visit Caitlin for her graduation next July

This is where YOU come in:

Tell me what you like/don't like/want to see added to the brainstorm.