In the last several weeks I’ve been designing and making notecards. These are cards with a design on the cover and blank inside for the sender to write their notes in. I know, people send emails these days, but there is still value in sending someone a note written in one’s own hand. I know I don’t do so enough.

Notecards also make great gifts when inscribed with the person’s name. Last year when I went hunting for some notecards to send out notes of thanks to people who had helped and been supportive during dad’s illness and death I really couldn’t find any to my liking. I settled for a set more for expediency than because I liked them.

Over the last year or so I’ve also been doing more photography. Taking my camera along and capturing more of my world around me. Somehow, matching  some of those shots to sets of notecards seemed a good match. With a bit of digital playing, I’ve achieved some effects I’m comfortable reproducing for sale on notecards.

Today, I’m releasing a blog which I’ve separated off from Ides of May, called Notecards for You. Stay tuned for more sets to be released.

I have two cats, a thirteen year old half siamese tabby named Cookie and a seven month old part maine coon kitten named Dawn. Part of the siamese half that Cookie acquired is their penchant for being vocal. For several weeks, Cookie has been relatively quiet for her and more demanding of attention than is her norm.

Yesterday, the vocal side of Cookie (seen on the right) returned with avengence. Normally Cookie would take possession of my bed once I vacate it in the morning, burying herself into the covers and sleeping most of the day.

She was having no part of that yesterday, she spent the day ‘talking’ all over the house and baiting Dawn (seen on the left) to engage in scuffling with her. Of course that just broke Dawn’s heart. She loves a good scuffle and since she’s bigger than Cookie is, she can definitely hold her own. Read the rest of this entry »

I was into Whitby yesterday for lunch with a good friend. On the way back I decided to roll off the 401 and along the lakeshore from Newtonville east. It was a bright sunny day but rather chilly. I took my time along the road which is not heavily traveled as I was looking for photo subjects to aim my camera at. Sort of figured it was about time for me to stop using Dawn and Cookie as my main photo subjects and start finding a few others.

Near Port Hope I spotted the walkway over the railroad tracks. As I approached it just looked like a walkway jutting out into the space in front of me so it grabbed my attention. I pulled off the road so I could take a walk down towards it and soon discovered some other subjects to photograph. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a new digital camera and some software on my computer with which I can do some playing around with digital effects on photos I’ve shot. I’m pretty new at doing this so some of my efforts will likely be pretty lame.

Here’s a couple I’ve played with using, guess who, Dawn as the subject. As always, clicking on the thumb print will load an enlarged print. Read the rest of this entry »