All the leaves are brown. And the sky is gray.

I can hear the wind through the thick stone walls of this house tonight. The trees on the property are almost completely bare, with the exception of a few brown leaves that still cling to the branches.

After dinner tonight, I was going through photographs and came across an old favorite of mine. It’s just a wine bottle stopper, but it is a photogenic one, is it not? Then I found another bottle stopper in the files and before I could say ‘Martin Ray Chardonnay’, a theme was brewing.

So, for what it’s worth, here’s my paltry selection of wine bottle stoppers.

I bought the one pictured above at the gift shop at Barboursville Vineyards in Virginia. It was made from a drawer pull.

I loved the colors.

This is the monkey stopper that recently broke. I wasn’t terribly upset, although I love those little amber jewels on Mr. Monkey.

This is the one I reach for all the time. It’s not glass, although it looks that way. I bought it at The Village Craftsmen, a gift shop on Ocracoke Island, NC. The owner of the shop is Phillip Howard and he’s descended from Blackbeard’s quartermaster, or so it goes.

After uploading the selection of wine bottle stoppers into this post, I remembered that a couple of people had asked me to show before and after pictures. I’ve done this in the past but it’s been a long time since I’ve posted about it.

To those who aren’t into digital photography and photoshop, I apologize for the following offering.

This is simply a picture of an old sundial that my husband found on the property somewhere. I’m using it here because it’s simple.

I opened the photo in Photoshop (I use version CS2) and duplicated the picture. (Never work on an original, but you knew that). Then I ran an action that I purchased from Florabella yesterday called Vintage Summer. I reduced the opacity to 78% by using the opacity slider on the layers palette at the bottom right of the screen.

An ‘action’ is a combination of many different steps, and is performed by the touch of a button. There are free actions offered at Pioneer Woman’s site, and you can also search for free actions to download. The free ones I have are PW’s two sets, a few from Totally Rad Actions, and several from Michelle Black. You can google them all, if interested. There is also a cornucopia to be found on Coffee Shop, a blog I visit often.

The original photo is on the left. There was bird poop that had dried to a lovely crust, so I cloned it out and used the patch tool on the big spot. I like the version on the right because it doesn’t have that dull gunmetal color. It’s now got a fine antique finish, with a hint of sunshine.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Shall we meet here again tomorrow, my friends?