A Little Blur or Even a Lot

I've been working on some images for this month's assignment of Blur.  There are so many ways to include blur in an image, and I think just about any subject can be taken in a way that will make it more interesting by blurring some of the elements.  A moving subject looks great by panning with it and blurring the background whether it is a vehicle or a bird or a person running, etc.  A slow shutter speed can be used to blur just the part of a subject that is moving the fastest such as wings or legs or blades on a windmill.  A longer exposure will make moving water very interesting too, in a waterfall or rain or waves at the beach.  I love shallow depth of field for isolating a subject from the background.  The Lensbaby lens will distort and blur elements around a specific focused area.   Then there is the option of shooting abstract blurs where nothing is in focus like I tried last spring shooting wildflowers from a moving car and getting bands of blurred colors.  Sounds great, right?  Maybe it is the perfectionist in me but I have not been super happy with most of the images I have tried to shoot and specifically incorporate blur in lately.  Sigh.  I had some great ideas but not many chances to execute them.  The flowers above were shot with the Lensbaby lens and I was very happy that for once I actually got the part of the subject I wanted in sharp focus while blurring the rest.  I think I had to use a +4 closeup filter on the front of the Lensbaby Composer.  Many people (yes I am talking about you Jen!) would want to see all of the flowers and the vase and the stems in sharp focus, but not me.