Month: March 2011

Behind the Scenes: Unfocused Photos

Published by Sula H.

Who of us hasn’t experienced this: you take a photo, and at the time of shooting expect it to be a great shot. But as soon as you upload it onto your computer, you are in for major disappointment as you realize the imagine is “useless” – it’s out of focus. If you haven’t, I’ve had my fair share of moments like these in the past. Maybe it wasn’t even me who took the picture, but someone else who didn’t know how to handle my camera well. Whatever reason it was, many times when we realize a photo is ruined, it’s too late to go back and re-take the picture. But there is good news for all of us who do have those kinds of pictures sitting in our folders. We still can redeem them. Even though one major rule of photography is to make sure to take sharp, focused photos (the clearer the details the better), there is another rule that says, you can break any of those major rules and still have great …

Places to Go: World Park (Beijing)

Published by Sula H.

Located in the  far south of Beijing you can find the World Park (Shijie Gongyuan). It exhibits a fun collection of famous buildings and sights from all around the world – in miniature that is. When you go there you can visit Big Ben in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, enjoy the (outdated) skyline of New York, take a closer look at the Capitol and the White House than ever before, walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, follow the ancient trails of Incan culture, stop by the famed Opera House in Sydney, and enjoy Japanese architecture. You are invited to see the Great Wall, explore the royal palace in Thailand, marvel at the wonders of the Taj Mahal, and even Russia and the Kreml will be included in the trip around the world. You can visit the Holy City of Jerusalem, dive into ancient Egyptian culture, stop by the Acropolis in Greece as well as the Colosseum and the Vatican in Rome, and have you ever wanted to see the tower of Pisa with …

Freebie Friday: Birthday

Published by Sula H.

Yes! We finally got things fixed! At least as far as getting you the links for last Friday’s freebie template. I just tried it, and you should be able to download it now! So sorry, for putting you off for so long! Just go to last Friday’s post, and click on the image, it should work as it usually does now. Maintenance One thing to keep in mind though: we are still doing some website maintenance in the background (switching servers, which hasn’t been succesful, yet). So, if things seem unusual or within the next couple of days something doesn’t work – we are keeping an eye on it, and hopefully things will get sorted out, real soon. For now, I’m planning to continue my posting as usual! So, thanks for all of you who are taking the time to stop by!

Monday Highlight: Owl Tree Studios

Published by Sula H.

For those of you who have never heard of Owl Tree Studios before, I’d like to take a brief moment of introduction today. OTS started out purely as a digital scrapbooking club – you subscribe to them, pay a monthly fee and get a whole set of digital scrapbook products (similar to The Daily Digi). Recently, however, they’ve opened their store to just anyone who is interested in getting their products without subscribing to the club membership. They also added a couple more designers, and in the last week they opened their new gallery. It’s an open gallery that allows you to post any digital scrapbook layouts (provided you don’t link any products in the credits, except OTS products). Some of my most recent layouts using their products are:

Treasure Sunday: You Are My Sunshine

Published by Sula H.

I am fascinated! Found this gem in the galleries, and it definitely deserves some spotlighting here: “[sunshine]” by janyellemayara I am fascinated, especially because she dares to work with such bold, big patterns, letters, and elements, and still keeps a perfect balance between layout and photos. Her photo editing works beautifully with the color palette of this page, and aren’t those pictures adorable?

Maintenance

Published by Sula H.

mistyhilltops.com is currently going through some maintenance issues. Therefore, I won’t be posting much, until the process is completed. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause anyone of my readers, and hope to be back in business soon. Thanks for your patience, and keep checking back to make sure you don’t miss anything once all issues are solved.

Maintenance

Published by Sula H.

mistyhilltops.com is currently going through some maintenance issues. Therefore, I won’t be posting much, until the process is completed. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause anyone of my readers, and hope to be back in business soon. Thanks for your patience, and keep checking back to make sure you don’t miss anything once all issues are solved.

Saturday Feature: Dust Bunnies

Published by Sula H.

Spring is around the corner, and for many people in Germany that means it’s the time for the big spring-cleaning. I, on the other hand, gave up a long time ago, trying to compete against the dust bunnies that always seem to be so much faster than my ability to keep up with them – or should I say, get rid of them? It’s true. Where in Germany it takes two weeks for the dust to seriously collect on the furniture’s surfaces, here, all it takes is two days. I kid you not! It gets especially bad in the winter, and I was told that is because of all the coal being burned and the weather being so extremely dry. But even in the summer it can be just as frustrating. Especially for “balcony owners” such as me! One time, I cleaned up a glass table in the morning to sit outside and enjoy some morning sun. I left that table out all day, and when I went to take it in at night – …