Imps, Fairies, and Friendly Spirits
During the day my kitchen looks like an ordinary place —
(doing a mouse-over will make the pictures more vivid)
Just an ordinary kitchen shelf – come china, some cookbooks, some linens, some silver..
…some strategically located chocolate chips…
–but at night, I hear strange noises, and the next morning, things are out of place…
“Here’s the one I’m looking for, Upton’s Standard Operas.”
“Tonight we’ll open it to Cendrillon.”
“It feels so good to stretch!”
“Good evening, ladies. Tonight’s refreshments are on the upper shelf.”
“What do you mean, you don’t think I need any more refreshments!”
“Come on up! There’s plenty for everyone!”
“Chocolate and opera for EVERYBODY!”
For the 1 Day 1 World Project, we are up to the hour of 3:00 – 4:00 am. Not much happens around here at that hour – fortunately Jude got me thinking in new directions with her ghost story. I have always loved those old cartoons where the kitchen products come alive in the depths of the night and cause a little mischief, so I decided to create my own.
I was also inspired by Cindy Hickok’s fabulous Café de Musée, a thread-painted grouping of beloved figures from art.
My friendly spirits came from an old book about opera, and a Dover Book clip art book called Trades and Occupations. I learned all kinds of new PhotoShop tricks from the book How To Cheat in PhotoShop Elements 12 by David Asch.
I had so much fun doing this! I just hope I remember all the techniques I learned, the next chance I get to play around with photos.
Wow!!! That is so cool!!!! And spooky!!!!! LOL!
I would rather blame “spirits” for the missing chocolate than admit there might be a certain weaver/quilter wandering through the kitchen in the dark of night…:)
Lol!!! That’s your story and you may stick to it!!!! Ha!
This is delightful. I even looked up the opera and found it’s based on Cinderella and is by Massenet. So, your post was a teachable moment, as well. Now if only I would have a teachable moment on photo editing software.
I found that David Asch book to be very helpful. However I got it in e-book form and the charts that show the keyboard shortcuts were too tiny to read, so it would have been better as an actual book. But I have been meaning to take the time to get better at photo editing for years, so I’m glad this gave me the motivation to learn more.
How delightful! I love stories about the little people. When my children were young there were little people who lived at our house, too, tho I never saw them. Some days when I was very tired after work, I would take a nap. When I woke up dinner was made or perhaps some cleaning was done, etc. I was always told it was the little people that did it.
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I love your creativity!
Yeah, who knew that that 3 to 4 a.m. thing would spur creativity? I was so busy thinking about this and reading about how to do it, that I didn’t even know about the Super Moon that you went out and took pictures of, until I read your post!
Those turned out amazing- what a fun idea!
Thank you, I really really had fun! They may pop up again some time! 🙂
That looks very cool!
Thanks – it’s a fun way to be creative without making anything that requires money or storage space! 🙂
This is the coolest thing ever! I can only imagine the fun you had (and the hours you spent!) on this post–so creative and delightful!
Wow – too cool…love your imagination in this post! I have some “fairies here that raid my chocolate chips too and hey, it’s not even a full moon!!
Yes, I wish I had some of those industrious elves that help shoemakers and Santa, instead of these chocoholic fairies! 🙂
Well I am SO glad that I spurred you one to create this little beauty! Wow! I cannot begin to understand how you did these images, but it is seriously amazing. If only I could have created photos like this for my ghost story. You are one very clever and talented lady 😀
Jude xx
I don’t know how much photo editing you know, but it was pretty much just cutting each figure from their background, applying a “skew” filter to twist them, and then setting them to be transparent instead of opaque. Time-consuming but not difficult. And it was fun!
I am so glad you inspired me too!
I shall have to play!
What a delight! Whimsical! Thanks for a few minutes of enchantment. John
Thanks, always glad to give you a smile! I had a lot of fun working on it.
I love this post – well done! 🙂 Photoshop is so much fun to play with – particularly once you’ve got the hang of layers! When I first had the program I sort of kept it at a virtual-arm’s length for a year or two before I plucked up courage to learn it, til then I worked just with one layer, no blending modes and didn’t have a clue what a layer mask was!
I mostly use Photoshop just to crop and improve the lighting — I use its other features just enough to have to look up how to do the steps, and then I forget everything I have learned by the next time I go back! 🙂
Oh, I know that one… I still forget things even after more than a decade of using the program. I have a folder on my computer called ‘Tips’ and, these days, whenever I discover a new technique I type it into notepad and save it to that folder. 🙂