photostory friday: on being girls

tara's miss 14 flew over from australia to stay with us for 9 days during the school holidays

(which are sadly drawing to a close)

the holidays included easter, where i finally got around to installing some 'actions' in photoshop

you can see some of my handiwork ...

for much of the holiday, these 14 year old girls did pretty much what 14 year old girls the world over do

braided hair

imagined what it might be like to be blind...

took bubble baths

read teen magazines

facebooked

took photos of each other

read thoughtful hand-written notes to/from each other

texted

played board games

...and jenga too

they were just kids

long may it last

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday and the millionaire

oh where to start with what's going on in this photograph!

firstly, i wanted to capture some sunlight on miss 21's hair, as over easter i became obsessed with photoshop actions and textures.  i got the sunlight ok, but there's really not much else to be done with this shot!

then there's tara's miss 14; visiting from australia to spend time with her BFF (MY miss 14)
having not seen an ipad before, she quickly became enamoured and spent many an hour playing 'who wants to be a millionaire', solitaire and zombie booth!

then there's miss 21 and miss 13 holding $2700 in large bills.

that would be because miss 19 had just sold her motorbike on trade me, and the dude who bought it, insisted on paying cash - on the weekend!  'i guess we'll just have to put it under the mattress until monday' i said to mr scrappy!

then there's the bowl of cheerios balanced precariously on our leather sofa.

why do kids do that???

one of life's great mysteries i guess.....


PS: fun trivia from new zealand for your WW:  that's Lord Rutherford of Nelson on the $100 note.  he's a kiwi (of course!) - ya know, that guy that SPLIT THE ATOM, won a nobel prize in chemistry in 1921 - THAT guy.

    

photostory friday and the actions

on my to-do list, along with:
'buy zumba shoes''take the girls to get their passport photos taken' 
and
'buy bananas' (on a day where everything is shut!)
was
'teach yourself how to use full photoshop'
today i finally got around to having a play with some actions from the coffeeshop blog
that rita sure is a clever girl!
as much as i wanted to do the whole step-by-step to see how it's done, my clever design student daughter showed me how to download the action set and load them into photoshop.
if you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that i've been a slave to PSE and was all set to make the switch to CS4 in the new year, when mr scrappy installed APERTURE on our mac.
aperture has quite the range of photo editing tools, so i've been using them, but now that i've discovered these actions and i know how to load them into CS4 - well, a whole new world has opened up for me!
so without further ado, here's what i've been doing this good friday

sunkissed colour tint and lens flare action (without the lens flare)

johnna's tea party action

i think i'm hooked!
feel free to suggest any other freebie actions i might like!!!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

photostory friday: where limes collide

so here's how i came to make my VERY FIRST cheesecake

tara made this cheesecake and  told me about it via email and it sounded just DIVINE!

then friends of ours gave me a giant bag of limes

so what's a girl to do?

make her very first cheesecake.  EVER!!!

easy peasy biscuit base that gets cooked first

miss 14 juicing the limes

large quantities of cream cheese and sour cream

yummy to lick!

cheesecake mixture on top of base - cooked on low heat for 50 mins

candying the limes

sugaring the limes

sugaring the limes MACRO style!

hmmmmm - then when you leave the house, your husband (who has had NO part of the process up until this point) - takes the cheesecake out of the oven and pops the spring form pan and this giant crack [in the universe] appears!!!

grrrrrrrrr

but i couldn't be mad, coz when i came home, miss 14 says to me

"mum!  i didn't stuff it up!!!"

(she was in charge of the 50-minute cooking bit)

so when life gives you cracked cheesecake

you make a smiley face

KEY LIME PIE

BASE

150g digestive biccies finely crushed (graham crackers)

2 tablespoons sugar

50g butter, melted

FILLING

570g cream cheese (not low fat), softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup sour cream (not low fat)

3 tablespoons plain flour

3 large eggs

3/4 cup lime juice

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

CANDIED LIME

1 cup water

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

3-4 limes , thinly sliced

La Method

Preheat oven to 190 degrees (C)

Combine bisc crumbs and sugar, stir in butter. Pat mixture evenly onto the bottom and 1cm up the side of a buttered 25cm springform tin. Bake the base in the centre of the oven for 8 mins. Transfer pan to a rack and set aside to cool.

Beat together the cream cheese and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the sour cream and flour, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the lime juice and vanilla, beat until smooth. Pour the filling over the base and bake for 15 mins, then reduce the temperature to 120 degrees and bake for 50-55 minutes or until the centre is BARELY set. Allow to cool on a rack, then refrigerate overnight, covered.

For the candied lime, place the water and one cup of the sugar in a pan. Boil until the sugar dissolves. Add the lime slices and simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile place the rest of the sugar on a flat tray.

Remove the limes from the heat , strain and dry on absorbent paper. Cool slightly then place one at a time on the tray of sugar to coat. Place around the edge of the cheesecake in an overlapping manner and serve.

...and here's a measurements converter for anyone who needs it!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

wordful wednesday: third time's the charm

i bet you all went 'awwwwwwwwwwwwwww' when you saw this photo

you did.  didn't you?

i would too.  i love my girls

i don't know where the last 22 years went, but they're still my babies, AND my young ladies - all rolled into one.

this photo was taken on my birthday - almost 3 weeks ago

of course not ALL the photos that were taken turned out so well.....

that's miss 22 (on my right) pinching me in the side just as the photo's being taken)

and i have NO idea what's happening behind me in this one!!!

yep - the 3rd time was the charm