Dappled Air

Spring is slow in arriving in the Canadian Maritimes and there are only a few early spring flowers poking out of the ground where the snow has melted. A neighbour showed me with glee the tiny snowdrops that had already appeared. It took some maneuvering to get a closeup of those tiny flowers so low to the ground. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

Even though we still have snow on the ground and the snowstorms, but every so often there is a day when spring is in the air. February 25th was such a day and the crow was asleep in our blue spruce tree until I decided to take a picture. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

The first month of 2009 is over and we are still on a roller coaster ride, the weather, the economy and our emotions are all over the place. Then I watched this video by Esther Hicks , based on "the secret - the law of attraction" and realized that is has a balancing effect. If you don't want to watch the whole video every day when you are down, here are 2 a cue cards with the affirmations from the video. Making the cue cards, gave me the opportunity to use my experimental backgronds. I discovered that most official envelopes have a pattern on the inside and each one is different. So I sliced the enveloped open, stuck them in the scanner and then created square pictures of the scans.

This year the city allowed ice fishing on the lakes for the first time and there were many people taking advantage of it. One guy came with a truck that had this ball at the end of his antenna and I just had to take the picture. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

I love to create graphics with Wordle . I wanted to use Obama's inauguration speech and found the whole text at CNN online . First I added just different single paragraphs, the outcome was ok, but not what I was looking for. Then in the end I used the whole speech, changed the colors to blue and red and this is the result. Related articles by Zemanta Inauguration Speech Wordle shows tag cloud and key words used in Obama speech Facebook's Big Day: 1.5 Million Obama Wall Posts Praise Song by Elizabeth Alexander

Inspiration for my graphic creations can come from the strangest places. I do my daily exercises on the living room floor as the DVD player is in that room. After looking up at my textured ceiling for many months, I have discovered shapes in it. One looks like a heart and the other one like an alien figure. So I lay down on the floor and took a picture of the ceiling. Then I opened it the photo in Photoshop and started to bring out the figure I saw. Well, here is the design I came up with. I love including png icons for little things in my graphics and it adds to my geekiness. I don't even have twitter account, but I liked the blue bird and the Microsoft butterfly gives away that I am a Windows person. The plain ceiling picture is here .

I finally printed my own monitor calendar strip for 2009 even though I created them early in October, but just never got around to print one. I originally created the calendars in 2008 and the feedback was so positive that I just had to keep on repeating it. I really like to have the calendar attached to the frame of the monitor, it is very helpful. While I am on the subject of calendars. I also have the 2009 version of the popular dodecahedron calendar with different backgrounds. It is easy to make if you glue it in the right order. My CD case calendars were quite popular Christmas presents. I give them to my friends and family in the case the first year and then I can them send refills the next year. I created my version to be printed on double sided brochure paper (I get mine at Staples), this way there are not too many pages to cram into the case. All calendar templates are free and you can download them at the following pages: Computer Monitor Calendars Dodecahedron Calendar CD C...

I wish for peace on earth to all

It is Hanukkah and I wish everybody happy holidays regardlesss of which holiday you celebrate. Have a wonderful time with your family and friends.

I love fonts and pictures and icons. Recently I noticed that many icons come now as png files and they are really pretty. So, I have started to collect them as well as the regular ico files. This week I have been using some of those icons as pictures for my posts. They are small but at the same time are perfect to convey the idea of the post. The image to the right is an icon. I am curious if I am the only one who has started to use icons as pictures or if there are others like me. I would love to hear your answers and am looking forward to reading your comments. I also use the ico files with my still Windows XP computer to help me find the folders I am looking for faster. Right click on the icon you want to change Select properties -> customize -> change icon Now look through the default folder or browse to the folder where you have your downloaded icons save -> select your icon -> select OK The folder will now display the new icon Related articles Extract Resources From ...

I came across this lovely link at Wide Eyed Wonderfuls with a lovely pattern for a Christmas tree done in paper embroidery. It is simple but the result is quite stunning. I followed the pattern and made a card and promptly sent it on to Switzerland before taking a picture, I guess I was in a hurry. Then I had the idea of working with the design in Photoshop and created a background for the card from that one tree, print it out and then embroider it. I went through a few version and still don't know which one I like best. First I left the tree to be embroidered unprinted, then I printed it like the rest of the background and finally I reduced the saturation. Then the embroidery part also went through a few version. First I had no sequins, so I used glass seed beads. Then once I got some sequins I had to give that a try.

Yesterday I found a link from the Pink Paper Peppermints blog to this cool website called PhotoFunia. Be forwarned that you get lost at that site as it is just too much fun to play with the different options.

What do you do when you are computer geek and a crafter at the same time, and are looking for a unique pattern? You figure out a way to combine both. This is what I did this weekend. I have been collecting icons and then it hit me that they would be the ideal way to get unusual patterns. Most of them are already small and quite pixelated. I found this Firefox icon on the left here and that gave me the idea. It still had too many colors, but by putting a grid over the design and then coloring in the grid in Photoshop I got a workable pattern. The result is the beaded Firefox on the right. It is worked in my version of the square stitch. I add 2 beads at a time, go back one bead, go back through the second of the beads I added and repeat. It looks ok, but something is not quite right. It was supposed to be square, but it is not. So I measured the finished design. It is under 2 inches wide and it 3 inches tall and realized that the the width/length ratio was 1:1.39. Back to photoshop, I...

This morning I came across a cool online drawing site called: Myoats . I haven't really had the time to play around to much and explore all the different ways of using it. My first 2 designs remind me of my crop circle colorings. This is a reall neat site. There are some amazing designs. I haven't quite figured out how they did them. I call my first design on the right, the one on the blue background 'Medusa'. All the files can be downloaded and used as wallpaper and there is also the option of only downloading the center graphic itself as a transparent png file that can then be manipulated further. I call my second design, on the, left 'Flower of life'. Now I will have to play around in there some more later on to see what else I can come up with.

I just finished the 2009 computer monitor calendars . I find it very convenient to have a calendar right on the frame of my monitor. They were very popular last year and I have already gotten request for next year's calendar. So I decided it better get working on it. It took some time as I also had to create a version that starts the week with Monday and not Sunday like here in North America. I had gotten feedback about why the weeks starts with Sunday.

After 10 years with a website, I have taken the leap to becoming a blogger. My Marlies' Creative Universe website is a hodgepodge of all my interests and I regularly post new information on it, but I never really used it as a blog. Today, I decided that I could also benefit from having a blog, so that I can write about my interests and not just add a note when I have updated my site. Today my attention is drawn to the new crop circles that are showing up world wide. In England it was a slow start, but by June the pace has considerably picked up. World wide there have been a number of really cool crop circles and now the British one are following the same trend. I use the Crop Circle Connector Website to see when there are new crop circles. Looking through my harddrive I see that I have been drawn to crop circles for a long, long time and over the years have occasionally colored the black and white crop circle diagrams. Then last year it turned into a compulsion and this year is ...