Hello there! Hope everyone had a very nice and safe Memorial Day weekend. We were quite busy with parties and such, but had a great weekend overall.

I think the best part was making a new friend. Have you ever met someone and just taken to them immediately? To the point where you could have talked to them for hours? That happened to me at a party the other night. Now that I’m older, I find it harder to make friends, so this was a very nice surprise.

I had another lovely surprise when I looked through my photos just now. I’d forgotten about the rhododendron buds I shot earlier this spring. Here’s one au naturel….

And here’s one with some “soft focus”added.

OK, so I’ve been playing around with Photoshop Elements 8 for about a week now and am finally getting the hang of textures (I think!). Here’s a flower photo with Kim Klassen textures. I think it turned out pretty nicely….

Kim Klassen has a great blog where she offers instruction on textures and free downloads. I’ve learned a lot from her and am very grateful. If I ever get to the point where I can create my own textures, I will offer them for free too.

Thanks for stopping!