Holiday Greetings... Cardinal Collage and Poinsettia Images!

This will most likely be my last post for 2011 since I'm expecting family tomorrow and will be visiting over the next few days with them. On Christmas Eve, I will be cooking dinner for them, myself, friends and cousins who live locally. For your viewing pleasure during the holiday season, here are a couple of Poinsettia images and a collage of cardinals... my favorites in winter! Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and a healthy, happy new year.(wrote this on Dec 22nd, had difficulty posting but here it is finally... I'm sharing this on Macro Monday (Jan 2, 2012) over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!)

Close-up of a miniature Poinsettia taken with iPhone camera, sharpened and cropped with PerfectPhoto, run through AutoPainter with Aquarell effect. Photo and paint layers blended in Iris with 35% opacity for the paint layer.

Image taken with Nikon D7000 and Nikon 105mm macro lens at ISO 250, f/3.5, 1/60 sec. Sharpened using Topaz In Focus plug-in in Photoshop... AMAZING! Text added in Photoshop.

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal on snowy winter days. (Some of you have seen these before but I just love Cardinals in winter so here they are again, freshly put together as a collage in Picnik.)

Flower duets... rainy day macro workshop at Green Spring Gardens... 2011!

Once again posting a collage because I'm in a bit of overwhelm with MANY images I'd love to share with you. This collection of macro images are all part of the result of the macro workshop I attended on May 14, 2011 under the guidance of Blue Ridge Workshops staff. Clockwise from the top left (click any link to view the large size of that image), Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, Columbine, Crucifer* and Spanish Lavender, Lavendula stoechas. I don't know the species of phlox or columbine but both were lovely after the rain stopped.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos; come join the fun.

If you visited last week and I haven't returned the visit, please know that I will do so... lost internet service at the end of the week last week and was then out of town for a couple of days. I do appreciate each and every comment and will be stopping by over the next few days to see what I've been missing on your blogs. :-)

*Dutchbaby pointed out that my "Phlox" was most likely a Crucifer (a flower with which I'm unfamiliar) since Phlox has 5 petals and the flowers in the lower right corner of the collage have only four petals.

Backyard Birds... frequent visitors to the feeders... Spring, 2011

To view larger images of the birds pictured here, just follow the link for each. Clockwise, from the upper left corner: a female House Sparrow (Passer domesticus); a male House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus); a male Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula); and a female Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis).

I'm sharing this today at World Bird Wednesday... stop by to view other bird images and add your own.

Regulars might have noted from earlier posts that I've been having work done at my house (creating chaos) and also have been having computer problems... so I'm a bit behind at returning visits. The computer problem has been solved... the work at the house continues to create chaos! I'll be stopping by eventually to return visits and thank you for yours!

Greetings of the Season... Winter, 2010

Here's hoping everyone has a joyous holiday season ... whatever holiday you celebrate! This is my first experiment at creating a photo collage. (next experiment will be to figure out how to make "live links" to allow you, if you are so inclined, to click any one of the images in the collage to show a "full size" of it in a new window)

With thanks to Ginnie of In Soul for the hint to use Picnik to create photo collages. :-)