Create-Celebrate-Explore

BlogHer iPhoneography Session

The iPhoneography panel at the BlogHer conference consisted of:

• Elan Morgan
• Stephanie Clabrese Roberts
• Stacy Jill Calvert

I am fascinated by iPhoneography, so this session really appealed to me and I came away with some fabulous tips, and new apps to try. 

Apps I now want to try:

• Noise Master
• Photo Toaster
• Cameramatic
• Iris Photo Suite

One other app that intrigued me is Easy Release which is perfect if you are taking photos of people and want to make sure it is okay to publish their photos.  Just don't be all sleazy about it.  Sometimes though you just see the perfect shot and want to take it, but of course don't want to use that shot without permission.

For even more great iPhone apps that the ladies love, take a look at the iPhoneography Pinterest board they created. 

Other things I now want to look into as well:

• Find the perfect app with a timer function for taking photographs with myself in them.
• Set up a Posterous account to feed all of my iPhone photographs into.
• Play around with Viddy and get over my fear of taking videos.

For more tips read the entire live blog of the iPhoneography session.

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My favorite apps at the moment, that I've been using consistently for a while now, are Snapseed, ScratchCam, VSCO Cam, Camera+ and of course Instagram which is what I feed all of my photographs through to send to various social media sites.

I also just recently purchased iPhone Photography: The Visual Guide.  I'm looking forward to learning even more.

I hope this gave you lots of tips for your own iPhoneography journey.

Making Bracelets with HandCrafting Justice

While in New York this past week I attended an event, Getting Gorgeous.  One of the amazing organizations there was HandCrafting Justice.   If you haven't heard of them, you really need to visit their site.

We made bracelets from beads that were handmade using recycled materials.

This is my bracelet.

About the beads:  Alay Kapwa (which means to 'help your neighbor') products are made from recycled chip bags, juice bags, telephone books, and magazines.  Artisans collect the materials, and then, in Fair Trade workshops turn them into purses and jewelry.

And just look at the beautiful colors of the beads we could use.

They have many, MANY beautiful items you can purchase as gifts, for yourself, or your home in their on-line store.  I hope you will take a look.  It's never to early to start shopping for gifts for the holiday season.

Simplicious Dish: Beef Polska Kielbasa Kabobs

Do you remember last year when BlogHer was in San Diego and I attended a fantastic food photography and styling workshop hosted by Hillshire Farm?  Well, once again Hillshire Farm are sponsors of the BlogHer conference (being held in New York) and have asked me to create a 'simplicious dish' using one of their smoked sausage varieties.  Chefs on site at BlogHer will be preparing my dish (and those of other bloggers), and displaying them as vanity plates at the Hillshire Farm booth (#1005) to give you a ideas for not only preparing smoked sausage dishes at home, but also as inspiration for you to create your own dish with the chefs at the booth.

So although chefs at the Hillshire Farm booth will not be preparing these kabobs on site, they will be preparing a slightly different version of this dish for the booth which will be more along the lines of the veggies, and polska kielbasa on rice, I really wanted to show you yet another way to serve this dish at home.  It's a very simple, quick to make dish that is not only perfect for appetizers, but you could make full-size kabobs (as opposed to the mini versions I made) and serve with rice for dinner.  I also did not need my husband to grill these outdoors, I was able to grill 10 at a time on my small indoor counter-top grill.

Beef Polska Kielbasa Kabobs

makes approximately 15 mini kabobs

Ingredients:

• 1 Hillshire Farm Beef Polska Kielbasa
• 1 package of whole mushrooms
• 1 punnet of roma tomatoes
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 tbs balsamic vinaigrette
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Turn the indoor grill onto medium-high and pre-heat.

Combine the olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, minced garlic, and thyme in a small bowl and set aside. 

Next, prepare the rest of your ingredients - slice the beef polska kielbasa, chop the stems off the mushrooms and spinach, and prepare the onion and green pepper into bite-sized pieces.

Thread the ingredients onto small skewers and using a basting brush sweep a little of the balsamic vinaigrette mixture onto each kabob.  Turn that side down onto the grill and add the vinaigrette mixture to the other side.  Grill the kabobs for around 12-15 minutes, turning frequently, you will want to be able to smell those mushrooms and see the grill marks.

Once grilled add one last sweep of vinaigrette mixture over the top of each and serve.

Visit the Simplicious Dishes by Hillshire Farm booth (#1005) during the conference and get creative with the chefs to make your own savory dish using a combination of fresh ingredients, herbs, and smoked sausage.

Don't forget to take the No Kid Hungry Pledge while you are there and Hillshire Farm will donate $5 to Share our Strength for every pledge taken.

 

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Hillshire Farm.