Playing with PicMonkey

Don't get me wrong, I'm still not happy about them taking my Picnik away. It's amazing how dependent you can become on a photo editor.

It suddenly went poof however although I had this tiny, silly hope until the very end when I clicked my bookmark and it told me "Oops. Something went wrong." Oh yes, it did.

Can't help it, though. So I moved over to PicMonkey and started playing with it, happy to see familiar features from Picnik. I just hope they'll give me my collages soon. I already miss them.

I have to be honest. The daguerrotype is pretty cool. It turned my golden, white, blue and black flower goddess (which you can find in my Zibbet shop here now) into this ... looks like fun, doesn't it?

Just imagine an archeologist bringing this picture home from one of his digs ;-)

Quote of the week

I don't know if this movie came back to my mind because I just had a talk with Buster (our bunny) or because of the mood I'm in or because I can't find sleep right now.

Don't be disappointed if this is not a laugh today.

 

Black Rabbit of Death: All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you ... digger, listener, runner. Prince with the swift warren. Be cunning and your people will never be destroyed.

That's a picture that I'd like to loom one of these days.

Watership Down, UK, 1978

Warning: If you cry easily or have a problem with gruesome scenes, even if it's an animation picture, this movie is not for you.

Time out

You wonder where I am? To be honest I wonder a bit myself. Things beyond my control are going on, and as you could tell I didn't feel much like posting and will probably not be around that much in the near future.

The good thing is that there are things still within my control, like the beads. There are a few finished pieces and a few WIPs.

Wanna see? Enjoy (although you'll have to deal with some bad sneak peek pics).

The Beader - if you take a close look and are a little familiar with seed beads, you might be able to see that this pattern was made after a close-up shot of seed beads.

 

Who knows who that will be? Actually he's finished already, but I'm waiting for a clasp order to get the cuff finished all the way. Little hint - there will be a companion eventually.

No sneak peek pic because this cuff was actually listed (oh miracle!). It's gone already, though.

Blue gingham. I struggled a lot with this cuff because the dark blue beads decided they ain't no friends o' mine. Thank you for nothing, silver lined matte cobalt blue. As you can see I didn't let them beat me!

 

Look!

Look! This is Jane. She is wearing her favorite red dress.

Look! There is Jane's cat. It's a girl cat. Her name is Blacky. Blacky likes to play with her cat toys.

So does Esme. Look! This is Esme's favorite toy these days, a knobbly, yellow ball, going thunk, thunk, thunk on the wooden floor ... early in the morning, late at night. For months this ball was as uninteresting as the organic cat kibbles I dared to offer the lady, but suddenly it turned up again. It falls down the stairs and gets carried back up.

As soon as I try to take a picture of the fascinating dribbling games I get to witness however, this is what I get instead ... a face with no expression whatsoever and a lonely ball wondering what it did wrong to suddenly be ignored.

"What? Ball? What ball?"

"That's not mine. I have never seen it in my life."

Not for long, though ... (no joke, of about 30 pictures I shot into the darkness this was the only one showing her with her paw actually touching the ball)

And if you want to know what else I am doing beside drawing stick girls and their cats and watching Esme playing with her ball (and listening!), here you go.

I'm taking beads and put them in wire knit tubes. They are not knobbly, but just that addictive (and some of them are already listed, here for example) ;-)

Quote of the week

One New Year's Eve tradition in my family in the old days was to watch the movie which is so friendly to donate today's quote. It may be my blurry memory, but I feel it was on TV every year.

I still enjoy it today. It is ... well, mad ;-)

Imagine you and a few other people you have never seen before witness a fatal car accident, but before the driver dies, he tells you he hid a large amount of money years back and he wants all of you to have it instead of the authorities. Fishy, huh? Tempting, too? 350,000 $ are not exactly petty cash today and they weren't back in the 60s, that's for sure.

So a group of greedy people is setting out to find the money ... with hilarious side effects and with a frustrated policeman soon to be retired on their heels.

One of my favorite scenes is when they try to decide how to split the money, not an easy decision as you can guess. A big problem is the one guy's mother-in-law who is more than determined to get her share.

Benjy Benjamin: Hey, what are you trying to do, lady, trying to split us up, so it becomes every man for himself?

Ding Bell (towards Mrs Marcus, the mother-in-law): And every woman for himself?

Mrs. Marcus: One more funny remark from you, buster ...

Benjy Benjamin: Let's get out of here.

J. Russell Finch (the son-in-law): Please don't argue anymore. You heard everybody's ...

Benjy Benjamin: Look! We figured it 17 different ways. And every time we figured, it was no good. Because, no matter how we figured it, somebody didn't like the way we figured it. So now there's only way to figure it, and that is every man - including the old bag - for himself!

Ding Bell: So good luck and may the best man win!

Benjy Benjamin: Right! Except you, lady. May you just ... drop dead!

Lennie Pike: All right, all right. We all agree on that.

And the hunt begins ...

It's a mad mad mad mad world, USA, 1963

Quote of the week

The other day I sat at the computer and played an online game. Suddenly I felt an overwhelming urge to be in Scotland. To be frank that was a weird feeling because I had absolutely no idea what triggered this. I only have been to Scotland once and yes, I do want to go there again, and also yes, I still believe I will see Nessie one day, but why would I be overcome by that feeling at 9.30 in the evening while trying to clean a little magic town of spider webs to relax my mind?

Actually the answer is easy. It was the background music of the game. When thinking about it I had hummed along all the time. I had tried to whistle along with the flute, but Esme gave me one of her glares to remind me how much she hates whistlers (about the same glare Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory gave Leonard when he tried to whistle). So what was it about that music that made me long for Sco...... ooooooh! Suddenly I knew. It reminded me of another song.

This one. Enjoy.

Local Hero, UK, 1983

P.S. I really, really want to go to Scotland now.

P.P.S. Yes, I know that is not a "real" quote. Who cares?

P.P.P.S. I'm not that much of a Mark Knopfler fan, but I do love his music in Local Hero and The Princess Bride. Hm.