good start to the year?

Ain't life fun? Just when you think things can't get any worse, something else happens.

First it was Wayne, with his sore back, then me with the wacked ribs, now its Cass with a gash on her side big enough to drive a truck through.

That's three now. Lets hope that's all there is now!

I went out this morning to put her mask on (for the sun) and saw a huge gash on her side with blood dripping from it.

Not nice.

I yelled for Wayne and we went up the top of the paddock to get her and brought her into the house yard. We washed the wound and yeah, it was beyond our capabilities to fix. Too deep and too big.

I called the horse vet clinic and they sent out one of their vets this afternoon. He did a great job stitching it up. I was unsure how he'd be able to hold such a gaping wound closed, but he did a double layer job - first stitching muscle and then skin.

I made myself as useful as possible. First I brought out my small grooming table so he could set up his tools. Then I lent him my clippers with a #40 blade to clip around the wound. And after he finished I cleaned her up.

Wayne says I'm a frustrated vet nurse. I've assisted with surgeries before, on my own animals when they were injured after hours (which is when every self respecting animal injures itself). There was a time when I considered being a vet ... I opted to go to Art School instead. 

Looking back now, being a vet would probably have been a much better career choice...

At the very least I'd have been able to support my animal habit. Oh well. Hindsight is 20-20 right?

My poor Cass. She's a bit accident prone, but this is rather bigger and badder than the usual cuts and scrapes horses tend to get. She'll be in isolation for a while till we know the stitches have done their job and she wont rip them open.

For those who are squeamish, I'm putting the before and after pics below. You just enjoy the pretty photo of my hydrangeas. 

I put them at the top of this post just for you.

If you have a weak stomach close the window now.

This is what the poor girl looked like after we washed out the wound.

And this is this afternoon after the vet closed her up.

Poor Cass...

z

blog facelift

Did you notice I've made some changes to the blog?

I've started to try to be more 'professional' with my blog. Firstly I started making my photos bigger (I thought they were big enough, but apparently bigger is better - sorry guys). Then I started watermarking my pics so that if by any chance, someone might want to actually PIN one of my photos on Pinterest, then someone else might see my photo and look at my blog...

Or wonder what the hell a 'Junk4Joy' is.

The other change I made is to the layout. Firstly I changed the colour of links. I thought I may have been a bit too subtle before.

That's me.

Subtle.

Just like my grandmother who could blow out your eardrums when she used her 'inside voice' in a car.

Lastly, I made the blog wider all over, so that the text part would fit the newer/bigger photo format.

So, what do you think? Do the longer lines make it harder to read? Or is it ok? Can you even see a difference?

I do like the bigger photos. I notice how much I dislike small photos on other blogs now.

Other than that, all is well. Back at work and back to coming home tired and not doing as much as I would like. Basically I just watch, get online and blob.

Yes, I do mean blob.

Except for tonight, when I'm blogging not blobbing.

That is till I hit Publish. Then its back to blobbing and watching tv for a while.

z

rusty rustic lamp - take two

What do you do when you have a desk lamp without a base? I bought an old desk lamp from a garage sale, you know, the kind you'd see everywhere in the 80s which clamped onto the side of the desk.

I saw it, thought "hey, I can fix that" and took it home. Wayne made a base for me and I did use it for a while, but really, that base was overkill. I got a hernia moving it.

So, when cleaning out the office for its makeover (see it here and here) oh-so-long ago, I took the lamp apart and started on the road to remaking it. 

The idea was to make it industrial looking to go with the industrial/rustic desk I had planned for Wayne.

I did finish the desk, he's been using it since before Christmas and I promise I WILL take photos as soon as he leaves the house long enough for me to clean up his office area...

Anyway, I was saying, I had the desk finished but the lamp was still in bits in the casita.

I went out there this afternoon on a whim and finished it.

Five minutes. That's all it took. Eight months and five minutes.

See, I'd run into a problem. I had this round rusty metal wheel thingy I'd picked up at a tip shop ages ago and I knew I wanted to make that the base. However, it had a pokey outey bit on the bottom so it wouldn't sit flat. And the other side of the wheel thingy was boring so I had to find a way to have the whole thing sit flat with the good side up.

I thought a block of wood was the way to go when I started working on it. I drilled a hole in the wood to poke through the long screw on the lamp. The screw thing was too long for the wood block so I cut it shorter using the angle grinder. I found that I'd stuffed up the block of wood cause I drilled it one width all the way through so there was nowhere for the nuts to hold on...

That's when I sat it in a corner and proceeded to ignore it.

Until today.

Today I went into the casita and thought "I must have something I can use as a base which will be easier to screw the lamp onto".

In fact there were a few things...

In the end I selected a small wooden bowl from my collection of wooden bowls (cause you never know when you'll need one). I drilled a hole in it where I guessed the middle was, just wide enough for the screw, then piled the lamp, the wheel thingy and the wooden bowl on top of one another and screwed them together using a couple of nuts.

Its pretty stable. The wheel thingy (yes, that is the technical term) is really heavy so won't overbalance.

Gotta love the green mossy patina... I didn't clean it. I just blew the worst of the dust off it. I also didn't seal it as the rust doesn't come off on your hands.

There was only one more thing I did to the lamp... It had a couple of scratches on the rim of the lamp so I painted it with black chalkboard paint. Now I can leave notes to Wayne on his lamp!

This is how it looks in the corner of the kitchen. One day I promise I'll take a photo of it in its new home on Wayne's new/old/industrial/rustic desk.

Not bad for an eight month five minute job, huh?

z

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oil painting the cheat way - photoshop filter

I've always been good at using Photoshop to manipulate images - notice my new banner? I created that using a photo I took of the old typewriter on the porch, type and 2 vintage poodle images.

I've always been able to play with pictures to create all kinds of things, from simple alterations like removing or adding a person, taking liberties with colours, or creating something entirely fictional. I enjoy doing it and, if I was to be completely honest, I also enjoyed the knowledge that not everyone can do that kind of stuff.

Then I found picmonkey and it was so easy to adjust colours and add effects, I kind of forgot about Photoshop for a while. All I did was resize, crop and add the occasional effect to images for a long time.

That is, till recently when I got Adobe CS6 on my laptop. Now I've started doing stuff with PS again and remembering why I loved it. Like the Christmas and New Year's cards. Those were quick and easy, removing type and creating backgrounds where I needed them... but doing something like the banner, that's way more fun.

I used to do a lot of that type of thing for websites, but I don't design websites for people any more. Here's one I designed for my poodle website years ago, using 4 separate images: a photograph of a drawing I'd done of my first standard poodle (Pagan), some pastels, a background and a photo I took of Pagan at a show.

But I digress. I was posting to share an amazing effect I found in Photoshop that I'd never known before. Its called Oil Paint and its under Filters.

Here are some pics I played with - the mist in the hills opposite our place on a hot rainy day. Before:

After:

I really love the way it interprets the trees. I want to paint like that!

Here's another one, a portrait of Montana, before:

After:

Ok, pretty good but definitely not its strong point.

It really comes into its own when you do something like this - the trellis in the yard with rusty chains, the birdhouse I made and an old lantern. Before:

After:

I love this one especially. Amazing isn't it? Like professional illustrations.

This one's great too - the old kid's bike near the trellis. Before:

And after:

I don't know whether to be thrilled or depressed about this discovery. I LOVE the effect. I love the pop arty colours and the swirliness of it. I love the curly leaves and way everything looks spot on perfect.

But I'm depressed too. Cause why would anyone need to paint any more when you can do this type of thing to your photos with a filter?

Sigh.

z