FaceTime and imessage are really useful tools for communicating. My kids have iPod Touch devices but I had always thought that they needed email addresses to use FaceTime.

If you are like me, the thought of setting up an email address for your 7 year old is scary. You know there will be the usual spam that you'll have to delete etc. And you wouldn't dream of allowing them a private communications channel that you didnt monitor.

Anyway for Gmail users I've got a solution that doesn't require a real email address.

In the iPods settings for FaceTime and iMessage add an email address in the following format:
Username+uniqueid@gmail.com

Username is your regular gmail username and uniqueid can be anything like +iPod or +kidname.

Gmail has this quirk that any time the + is used it ignores it and sends it to the main email address. You will receive an email apple asking you to verify. Go ahead.

Once done you simple add your kid to the contact book with the fake email address. Then open FaceTime or iMessage and use that contact.

Simple!

Now that we are back at school I'm making 3 school runs a day again!  It's hard to find things for "I" to do while we are waiting so we play with the various painted lines on the playground. I'm really not sure how you are supposed to play with a Tic Tac Toe board on the ground. Are you supposed to use stones or other markers? How would you remember which boxes you'd filled already? Instead we make up our own games.

Photo: D7000 & 24-70 2.8, collage made with Lightroom 3.

Sometimes it's just too hot here in Kelowna. We took a trip over to Kettle Valley's water park earlier in the week to cool off from the 31C heat.


The water park is a little known treasure for families. While not as big as City Park or Rutland's Ben Lee water parks, it is almost always deserted which makes keeping your eyes on three kids *so* much easier when there is only one parent around. It is also gated so your little ones can't disappear on you.

Photos: Nikon D7000 & 80-200 2.8.

I bet you were wondering what happened to the cupcakes! Well here's a peek...

Today night was movie night.  Unfortunately we were out of popcorn for tonight's showing of "The Incredibles". The kids persuaded me to bake cupcakes instead and despite J's 6-cavity situation (yes, really!) I went ahead.

Had a great day! Worked on an acrylic painting of Semiahmoo Bay that I'd been meaning to work on for a while.  Used a new support, a Gotrick wooden cradled panel.  Certainly different to work on but would use again as I find canvas a bit too springy.

Semiahmoo  Bliss ($200) - acrylic on cradled panel

Got a new toy for only $6 from Value Village!!! I'm very, very excited about it..... here's a clue :)



Yes it's a Polaroid camera, model Sun 600 LMS exactly as shown above. I don't know anything about these cameras but I remember them from the 80s. I remember a few years ago they discontinued the film but I believe they've started making it again due to a resurgence in popularity of these cameras.

Can't wait to play....

Check out this cute dress I made for little I (also known as child #3).  The dress is made of fabric and a Moda jelly roll (Botany).  Jelly rolls are fun to work with because they are already pre-cut and the colours are already picked out for you.  Even still, with 40 choices of fabric in a jelly roll I spent almost as much time picking the fabrics as making the dress!



Little I isn't very photogenic like her big sister.  However I did manage to get these cute shots of her once she put it on.

The pattern can be found here at Moda Bakeshop.

If you're wondering where I've been lately all I can say is "sick, sick, sick!". The problem with having 3 kids, including 1 that has been to daycare for the first time, is that they bring home everything! I mean every germ, virus and bacteria in a 15km radius :)

So far we've all had stomach flu, fevers, coughs and regular colds, even mom! For 6 solid weeks, arghhhh.... (cough, cough). Even now I've had a cough for 8 days straight.

Here's a picture to keep you going.

I've been watching and experimenting with Erin Cobb's clean color tutorial.  I deliberately took one of my quite terrible photos of baby I (underexposed, color cast as well as nasty baby skin) to see what I could do. I think the improvement is amazing, especially considering this is my first attempt at this. It took a pretty unusable photo and turned it into something I might actually print!

I'd love to hear your comments!!!

Here is a really interesting video from Tim Mantoani, photographer.  I had never heard of Tim until recently when someone on the dpreview forums suggested I watch his Blue Crane Digital Nikon Speedlights video.  The speedlight video was really informative and I went to his web site to look at his work and stumbled across his Behind the Photos project where he is taking photos of photographers standing behind their famous photo.

In this 1 1/2 hour presentation, Tim talks about his work and some of his projects including the Behind the Photos project.  Very inspirational.


Focus On Your Passion: Finding Yourself in Your Photography from PhotoShelter.com on Vimeo.

Inside each box you get a blank color chart that you fill out for your records so that when you run out of a color you can figure out what color it was by matching the tiny left over chip of pastel with the marks you made on the chart, that way you can reorder your fave colors.


And this is what you see inside once you open the box.  And Terry, if you're reading this, how about sending me your portrait set so I can post some pictures and rave about it on my blog?  That's what I was going to buy when it went on sale but then I found out about this new set and got it instead, the portrait set is still on my wish, wish, wish list.


My studio desk is now cleaned up and I'm getting ready to make a mark!

In it I keep my Terry Ludwigs (I *heart* these, I would be their spokesperson if they let me!) they are beautiful soft pastels but too small (and too gorgeous) to break, my Sennelier 100 Landscape set (these have been broken in half), my Rembrandts (general 30 and portrait 30 sets) broken, my prismacolor nupastels (30 set).  I have another 60 Terry Ludwigs (the Salamagundi set) that I haven't put in yet because I'm not sure I have room to put in all of them and I don't want to split the set.