Fresh Designs

a little of what I've been up to.

2011-11-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

I am so sorry for this poor neglected blog. I was hoping to roll out a new look and concept for this blog this summer, but it seems time is not on my side these days.

If only I didn't have so many things I wanted to do all the time.

I've been enjoying taking on more photography for friends and family. See here for more of that.

I've been busy with house projects... taking down a big rock wall, putting new stuff up, rearranging, redecorating, and revamping just about everything else (my office, guest bedroom, boys room, and living room).

Oh yeah, and I've been cooking and cleaning, running (hooray!), playing with my boys, and having fun with friends and church responsibilities.

Also, my husband and I have been working towards filling a little booth at a local craft boutique. He is selling his hand-crafted (wood-turned) oil viles and pens. I am selling custom prints. Here are some pictures:

If I can get time to be on my side for a little bit I am hoping to fill my etsy shop up with custom prints (to print at home, which means they will be cheap- yay!), and roll out a new website that combines my photography and design. If I keep on working towards it it will eventually all come together right?! Here's to progress!!!

happy fourth

2011-07-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

Hope you are all having a festive fourth:) We are having a pretty low-key holiday around here since we just got back from a fun weekend trip to Park City. These are some things I want to incorporate into next years festivities:

Does anybody do it up quite like the folks from hostess?

I love the simple and fun napkin rings!

Love the above pinwheels.

And I must try these adorable and delectable-looking cheesecake shots!

And no fourth for me is quite complete without sparklers! Wanna learn how to make cool photos with sparklers, or just take better photos of fireworks? I linked to something similar last year, but it's always good to have a refresher... click here for a great firework photo tutorial or here.

Wanna learn another fun photo trick? I followed this tutorial to create the below images from this last weekend! Try it!! It's easier than you think:)

a few things...

2011-06-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

Things are a brewing over here. My husband will most likely be quitting his second job and I am going to attempt to start my own photography and design business!! Over the next few months I plan to work on getting my photography and design portfolio posted to a new blog, combine this blog with my photography blog in a big redesign and hopefully will be posting regularly... really regularly, unless my business takes off soooo fast that I can't keep up with a blog. Ha! That probably won't happen. So... bare with me and I'll keep you posted. Thanks so much to all of you who check this blog occasionally and even better, SUBSCRIBE (bless you :) )!!

Here's a fun tip in the meantime. Are you a budding photographer? Or are you just getting into photography to take better pictures of loved ones? I have to tell you about the great deals I found this week so you can be on the lookout for similar deals in your area!! Tis' the season for garage-saling ;) I picked this up at a garage sale this last week for $45 (retail $150)!!

Then during a DI run I found this for $5!!! It's an old screen projector:)

I thought back to a product I had seen while browsing around like it here that was used for baby backgdrops, which retailed for $200!!

I love my $5 version!! It is COMPLETELY adjustable and collapses down so that it is oh-so-easy to transport.

I am still on the lookout now for a bigger background/backdrop stand for cheap somehow. I made one about two years ago out of PVC pipe, but I wasn't very happy with how it worked. It wasn't very strong and was a bit of a headache. Until then though I am excited about the above finds and have lots to learn about studio lighting:)

m.i.a.

2011-05-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

Did you all think I had dropped off the face of the planet? Truth be told, my husband got a second job and I have had very little free time as of late. The free time I do have is generally spent playing with my boys, spring cleaning, cooking, catching up on my google reader, tending to church related stuff, reading up on how to be a better mom, and the likes. I have found time to fit in some projects, but haven't found the motivation to blog about them as of yet.

Here are a few things though...

I took some senior pics the other week for a cute girl and posted them on my photo blog here:

I designed some announcements for a friend of mine who is adopting:

I made this quiet activity for my boys to play with at church:

It works great! I got the artwork here, printed it all out on magnetic printer paper, cut it out and stuck it all in one of these tins I got from Michael's using a 40% off coupon. I am thinking of making some more magnet sets- the possibilities are endless! Did you know that most kid movies and shows have awesome websites with free printable characters?! Check out this cool magnet set too!!! So much fun:)

I also thought of a cool way to use all those round little containers that come in the tins I bought:

(sorry for the not-so-hot photo above, but I didn't want to wait to post any longer)

I came up with this idea after my little boy came home from preschool with the letters of his name written on the tops of milk carton lids... I decided to make the whole alphabet and have plans to make numbers also. I simply printed out a well spaced alphabet on printable sticker paper, cut each letter out with a circle punch I had (3/4"), and stuck them onto the cute little containers. Uppercase on top of the clear lid, and lower case inside. We have had a lot of fun making up words with them! With numbers I plan to put numbers on top and the corresponding number of dots on the inside. What a fun learning tool for getting him ready for kindergarten, right?!

Anyway, those are just a few of the things that I have been up to. Hopefully more fun posts of fun summer ideas, and activities are on the way. We are hoping to get to some remodeling done in our home this summer too, so I will also try to share any tips I learn with you all:) TTFN!!

my button.

2011-02-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

Just a note to anyone who subscribes to, checks in on occasionally, or even links to this blog through theirs. First of all- THANK YOU!! Second of all- sorry that so many of you have been taken to a random shoe website lately. Because I was low on money and lazy I didn't renew my domain name and web-hosting account for the website I created awhile back. I still have my fresh designs blog (obviously I suppose:), but my website is no longer and someone else bought my domain name (darn it!!!). So if you have been directed to a shoe website by clicking on my fresh designs button, I apologize (and am so glad it isn't anything worse!).

I have updated my buttons now and if you happen to display a button of mine (again, THANK YOU!!!!!!), if you could update the html to read 'freshdesignsstudio.blogspot.com' rather than 'freshdesignsstudio.com' I would REALLY appreciate it. Or just do this- go to edit my button, erase what's there, and copy this:

Then click save and it should be fixed! So sorry for the hassle!!! I've learned my lesson on being lazy with domain names!! Hope this makes sense! Please let me know if you are still confused and/or need help updating buttons and I will get back to you asap. Thanks again!!!!

organizing 2011

2011-02-17T19:56:00.000-08:00

Remember this post on organizing jewelry? I'm guessing no, but I want to update it a little. We've moved from an apartment to our first home in the last year and I've found a better way to store my earrings and jewelry and thought I would share.

I store my earrings in this now and LOVE it:

The rest of my jewelry now goes in a standing mirror jewelry armoire. You can see a teeny bit of it in the picture below.

Another storage solution I came up with and love (I think I came up with it... maybe my sister gave me the idea... but I don't think I have seen it anywhere) is this one for some of my hair stuff:

The upper two pictures are mainly what I wanted to show you- just two old oatmeal containers store all my headbands (I have a lot I know). What a great way to store headbands etc. though, right?! You could make them a lot more visually appealing by modge-podging some pretty paper on them I'm sure, but I just never seem to get around to it. I'm not that motivated because nobody ever sees them really but me.

The lower two pictures I thought I would show you because that is where I store all my getting ready stuff and I get ready there each morning. We only have one bathroom in this little home of ours for now, so it comes in pretty handy. It's just a sofa table (hand-me-down) we painted, then put shoe storage shelves (garage sale find) underneath it for storage. I used fabric from curtains I got at a garage sale (10 for $10!!) and tailor-made them to cover up my stuff down there. I made side panels for the bottom too, but put them on after I took this picture.

Oh, and the mirror above it? I got it for $1 at a yard sale and painted it to match too:) I love me some good deals!!

Hope these have inspired you in some small way...

I hesitate to post house pics, because my house is never how I want it really, but I've decided recently to be proud of what I have done and be okay that it is all a works in progress. So expect to see more house pics and let me know what you think.

isn't he cute?!

2011-02-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

This was my first attempt at a glove-stuffed animal. I made a couple of mistakes but all in all I thought he turned out pretty cute!

I got the gloves on clearance for $2 and everything else I had around the house. I sewed his eyes with embroidery thread and I made his mane out of scrap felt. I realized in posting these pics that he still needs a tail. I think I will braid him a tail out of yarn and sew it on.

I also think he needs a little heart sewn on to his chest. Then I can give him to my 18 month old and see if he likes him enough to make more to add to my little glove-aminal family!

i know.

2011-01-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

I am not as attentive to this blog as I should be. But life... well you know. It just keeps on rolling and sometimes this blog suffers because of it. I am sorry for that. But I will try to make it up to you.

That being said, I have an announcement to make. I suppose it isn't that big of a deal, but I have decided to make 2011 my year of sewing! And I plan to share what I do on here. I've got house projects to sew and I've got toys to make (I've decided next year 70% of my boys toys will be homemade- 100% of their toys from ME and I figure Santa can do what he wants for the other 30%).

Here are some of the toys that I hope to create this year:

Lots of sock and glove stuffed animals kinda like these from here.

-play dough like this.

-felt story board stories like this.

-a boy doll like using this pattern.

-felt food like this.

-feed the monster toss game kind of like this.

-felt fishing set like this.

-house or farm pack and go set like this.

-dress up clothes, pajamas, robe, hooded towel, quilt... the list goes ON... we'll see what I can get to:)

As far as other projects go, I have pillows to sew, cushions to recover, clothes to alter. Stay tuned! (And please be patient- I will try to put other fun seasonal and holiday info, projects, recipes, and anything else I find interesting on here to share also:) )

stocking stuffers, etc.

2010-12-17T20:08:00.000-08:00

I love stockings! I am usually the first one up every Christmas. Even to this day I wake up before my kids and can't wait for them to wake up. When I was younger I would always wake up another one of my sisters and we would proceed to sneak out into the living room, take out everything in our stocking, then try to put it all back ever so carefully so there was no sign of mischief. My mom was a good stocking stuffer too. She put such special and fun things in them and I have always looked forward to opening my stocking as much as I did any present. So, I have tried to follow in her tradition of putting similar things in my kids stockings. Hopefully they will like the ones I make for them as much as I always liked mine.

Image and stocking can be found here.

These, to me, are some things that a good stocking might entail:

I love me a good new toothbrush. Mints. Gum. CANDY (must include one candy cane for traditions sake). An orange- it's tradition! For me the holy grail of oranges is a nice satsuma orange. Books (personalized ones are especially fun for Christmas so you can tell your kids Santa made it especially for them). Dvds. Jewelry. Socks. Hair Stuff. Fun art supplies. Magazines. And Gift Cards.

You could tailor the stuff on the above list for any gender and for any age. The important thing with stocking stuffers is to have fun and keep the person you are buying for in mind. I generally like to leave buying stocking stuffers for last as kind of a last minute shopping detail to look forward to, but some things are fun to buy in advance, especially if you need to special order it.

Here are a couple more ideas:

Marta has some stocking stuffers great ideas.

And I absolutely loved the stocking stuffer ideas from Restoration Hardware this year!!

What do you like in your stockings?

Also, does your family pile up in the car to see Christmas lights every year like mine does? How about sprucing that tradition up a little? A friend emailed me this week with this adorable idea from this blog. I am going to have to do something like that this year to jazz up our annual "Christmas Lights Drive." Will be purchasing these for next year!

teacher gift

2010-12-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

I realize I promised I would share stocking stuffer ideas next, but I just finished a teacher gift craft so I thought I would share. I made it with stuff I had around the house and it was pretty fast and easy.

Here is the finished product:

To make it I used these that I bought at a craft store a couple of years ago.

I bought them because they were so cheap and I could think of a ton of ways to use them.

Then I whipped up some quick and cute teacher designs for them to make them into a jewelry set using this digital scrapbooking kit (I made the card using the kit too).

Then I had my husband drill some tiny holes into the top of them.

Next I glued the little designs I had printed and cut out on using diamond glaze and put a glaze finish on them. You could probably also just modge podge them.

After that it was just a matter of putting some jump rings in them and putting them on a necklace and earring set I had in my stash of beading stuff. Easy fast and cute!! My kind of project:)

I also included this for fun:

Hope my little guy's teacher likes them, and I hope you find these ideas useful:)

holiday cheer

2010-12-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

Two more weeks until Christmas! I planned on doing lots more gift guides, but am feeling a little uninspired in that department. I do have a few other things for you though- here are some things to (hopefully) inspire you for these last couple of weeks leading up to the big day!!

CJane's Chup shared some great ideas on gift ideas for your man today!

Here are lots of gift ideas I posted last year: Catch all gift guide 2009.

West Elm has the best free downloads for gift tags, dinner parties and the likes here.

Click here for wrapping inspiration.

Click here for neighbor gift inspiration.

Want another idea for a fun neighbor/friend gift? Copy some of your favorite recipes onto these cute and free recipe cards from Shabby princess.

Click here and here for my favorite holiday treat recipes. No holidays are complete without them for me!!

Hope these ideas help!

*Next up: Favorite stocking stuffer ideas.

what a girl wants

2010-12-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

So this is more of a "what I want" list than a gift guide. What can I say, a girls gotta dream, and I may be a little on the selfish side.

1. Frye boots 2. Lucky bag 3. Trapper hat 4. Final Cut Express 5. Cowl neck scarf 6. Bamboo Craft Pen Tablet 7. Geek Glasses

*More holiday and gift ideas on the way.

cool toys I want... um, for my kids

2010-11-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

Shopping for toys is so much fun. Sometimes I think I am worse than my kids when it comes to having a case of the 'gimmes.' I fall in love with so many toys I want them to have. I am done Christmas shopping for my little guys, but because I love shopping (and more importantly love toy shopping) I couldn't help myself from looking a little more. SO, I thought I would share some of the great things I found that I wish I had looked into before my Christmas budget had been spent:)

1. Deluxe Wooden Construction Kit

2. Schylling Silver Metal Race Car Speedster

3. Eggspressions

4. Build It Construction Set

5. Creative Peg Puzzle

6. Magneatos

7. Jungle Marble Maze

8. Plan Toys Doll House and Accessories

9. Construction Plate & Utensils

10. Stormy Seas Balancing Game

More gift guides to come:)

pummmpkin

2010-11-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

I may be obsessed. It seems these days I cannot get enough of pumpkin baked goods. The funny thing is that I am not a big fan of the ever-so-popular (especially this time of year) pumpkin pie. I don't really dislike pumpkin pie, I just would prefer a lot of other pies over pumpkin.

So when I came across pumpkin chocolate chip bread a few years ago I was a little surprised with just how much I loved it. I craved it. Last year my love for pumpkin became official when I had a pumpkin chocolate chip bar with cream cheese frosting. I knew I had to find me some good pumpkin recipes to try to replicate these delectable treats in my own home.

As my thanksgiving treat to you, I am sharing my favorite pumpkin recipes. I hesitated to at first because I didn't want to look like a copycat of one of my hero's Dana, as she has had a great line-up of pumpkin recipes to share recently. But she hasn't shared two of my favorite yet, so without further ado... enjoy!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

2 C. sugar
2 C. canned pumpkin (A regular sized can of pumpkin is just under 2C. and works just fine)
1/2 C. canola oil
1/2 C. vanilla pudding
4 eggs
3 C. all purpose flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 C. semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, stirring just until moist. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spoon batter into 2 (8 x 4-inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on a wire rack, and remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

*Recipe adapted from here.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon*
1/2 teaspoon ginger*
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves*
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg*
1 1/2 - 2 C. semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine first four ingredients in a large bowl. Using a wire whisk, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices; add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Fold chocolate chips in. Pour into greased and floured jelly roll pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool.

* May substitute all these ingredients with 1 tablespoon and 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 cups powdered sugar

Beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract, gradually add powdered sugar. Frost cooled cake. Cut into bars.

*Recipe adapted from here.
*Image borrowed from here.

halloween dinner

2010-10-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

We had a halloween dinner last Saturday. The plan was to carve pumpkins after dinner, but the kids were having so much playing on their own and all the adults were too tired to assist in much pumpkin carving, so we made it a two night event- Saturday and Monday.

Saturday we had chili, smoked pork roast, roasted hot dogs, pasta salad, green salad, apples dipped in caramel, doughnuts, sugar cookies and homemade root beer. Mmm, mmm. Monday we had left overs. It was great fall fun! Here are some pictures:

The invite:

Homemade root beer made from dry ice is so perfect for Halloween:)

The decor (gotta love the Dollar Store):

After all of the festivities I had to toast all of those pumpkin seeds of course. I tried the following yummy recipe and have been enjoying snacking on these a little too much!

1. Heat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Place washed seeds on cookie sheets and cook for up to an hour until all seeds are dry.
3. Coat in the following mixture:

For every 2 cups of seeds melt 2 Tbsp butter, 2 Tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.

4. Bake for another 10 or so minutes.

Click here to see more of the picturesque scenery and weather I was able to enjoy in the last week. I think fall is becoming my favorite season for sure.

halloween: my plans

2010-09-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

I think my love of Halloween stems from my love of candy. I also love to dream up costume ideas, decor ideas, and party ideas.

This is what I am planning for this year:

Costumes-

My eldest will be Pinnochio. He has recently developed a fascination with the character and his story and I am taking full advantage as I love Pinnochio! My baby boy will be Cleo the fish (I know Cleo is a girl, but oh well). And I will be figaro the cat (because being a cat is officially the easiest adult costume out there and I was lucky it fit our 'theme'). I told my husband he could be Geppetto or the Blue Fairy and he opted for neither as he does every year.

I am pretty stoked about how the costumes are turning out. This is what I have so far.

Cleo, the fish:

I am so proud of this little costume. It certainly is not perfect, but I love it anyway. I came up with it after researching all the little fish costumes I could find online. My favorite was this one from Martha, but I didn't trust myself to be able to sew those scales so perfectly and I knew my baby was now too mobile to put up with the bunting type costume anymore so I dreamt this little number up:) The best part is it cost me about $5!!!

Pinnochio:

This costume was fairly simple as well. I was lucky to get a yellow polo on clearance, then headed off to my local Joannes to pick up the felt for the hat, the feather, the buttons, and cheap fabric for the shorts and bow. This probably cost me between $10-15. I used a pajama bottom pattern I had for the shorts and just put the elastic in the back. I love making costumes (when they turn out). They are usually cheaper, look better and of better quality than costumes from the store!!

For my Figaro costume I am just going to wear all black and put on some ears, a tail, and a little nose and whiskers via a little face paint.

I will be getting my Halloween decorations out this weekend. I meant to last weekend, but such is life. I am hoping to make this craft with my four year old to add to our decorations this year.

And next week we are planning to have a small party here too. Basically just a yummy dinner and pumpkin carving with a few other families and some decorations. I will share those details on here soon:)

Photoshop Tips

2010-09-19T19:24:00.001-07:00

Photoshop Tips
Disclaimer: In no way am I a photoshop pro. I am just in love with the program and don't know what I would do without it. Once you realize the power that lies within photoshop you will never want to live without it and wish you had time to photoshop all of your photos. Having said that- this is what I do know about this amazing program (which remember, isn't much comparatively with all that photoshop can do, but that is good news for you because it means it will be easy for you to learn :) )

Personally, I like color photos (although I do love sepia tone and black and white too) the best. I like my photos to look close to what the natural eyes sees but better. And I like the colors to *pop*. These are the tools I generally use to try to achieve that. I will try and demonstrate these techniques with this picture.
First I check my levels.
Before:
After:
It's probably hard to tell much of a difference in this picture, but this simple step has saved many pictures I have taken in the past. What you want to do with the levels feature is move the right hand arrow left until it hits the black part of the histogram, the left arrow right, and depending on the photo mess with the middle arrow and see if you want to move it to the left or right. I could go into more detail about what this feature is and what it does exactly, but I am going to keep this tutorial as simple as possible. You can click on this link to learn more.

Then I see what curves can do. I generally use it to make my brights a bit brighter and my darks a bit darker.
Before:
After:
Again, click here to get more in depth info.

Then, depending on the photo and where I want to go with it I play with selective color, or color balance, or photo filters, or hue/saturation, or brightness/contrast. I usually only use one of these tools- it just usually depends on the photo. I used selective color in this photo and probably use it most of all of the previously mentioned photos.

In this photo I just thought all of the darks needed to be darker so I selected black and moved the black slider as far up as it could go and liked the effect.
Before:
After:

A lot of pictures I take indoors that have a yellow hue to them I will use a cooling photo filter or the color balance feature to try to fix it. As far as hue/saturation goes, I usually only pop the saturation a few notches when I think the colors just need a little pop and don't want to take the time to go into the selective color and manually pop certain colors. Same with the brightness contrast feature- I just see if I can up the contrast a little without compromising the quality of the photo too much if the curves feature hasn't given me enough contrast.

Now for the fine tuning:

For the eyes you can use the burn and dodge tool to brighten them up.
In the above photo I lightened the eyes a little bit to make them pop. Then I decided that I wanted to get rid of some of the skin blemishes on my oldest sons chin and make the darks a little darker using the selective color again and this time moving the slider up on the black in the neutrals palette.
For blemishes or skin discoloration you can also use the stamp tool, the healing brush tool, or you can try to airbrush some color on top of the skin playing with the transparency to keep the photo looking real. There are tons of other great tutorials out there on perfecting skin in photoshop. I use a couple of other methods- but these are the main and basic things I do. Here is the final before and after so you can see how far we've come with these simple steps.

The key with photoshop is to play, play, play and research when you get stuck. There are TONS of great tutorials online (most of them are better than this one too) for anything you are looking to do. This is just my attempt at a tutorial... because I said I would:) Hope it helps!!

partaaay!!

2010-09-09T07:07:00.001-07:00

I know it isn't officially fall yet, but it is sure starting to feel like it around here. The frigid air in the morning, the toasty temps in the afternoon, and all the pitter pattering of the little feet on their way to school every day. My little one officially started preschool this year and is loving it already!

I am looking forward to the leaves changing colors, wearing warm sweaters, going on walks and hearing the leaves crunch underneath my feet, and fall comfort food... mmm mmm. The older I get, the more I like fall. Summer has always had my heart in the past. This summer both crawled and flew by. I started the summer with so many fun plans and ideas. A lot of them got swallowed up by tending to regular household mommy duties unfortunately. Summer went out with a bang for me though with my trip to Oregon to see my family. We partied and partied some more.

I love a good party. I love thinking them up and carrying them out. And I always learn a lot. Here is what I learned from the last two parties I threw.

Horse Birthday Party:

1. Never expect things to go exactly as planned. The cake didn't turn out at all how I had envisioned it in my head, but at least it tasted good. And the balloons I insisted on having there flew away after knocking over a few cupcakes and root beers over:( Ah well.

2. Plan age appropriate games and keep things loose and fun. We had about 15 kids ranging in ages from 18 months to 9 years old. I decided to go with three simple games: barrel racing, pin the tail on the horse, and a big water fight. It felt like just the right amount of games and everyone had fun I think. The little ones didn't like the water fight so much, but they enjoyed watching the older ones get a little crazy with it.

3. Party favors are so worth the little money they cost. Make sure to plan far enough in advance to be able to order fun things online that go with your theme. There are so many options online. In my bags I included miniature horses, candy, bandanas, fake mustaches, and bandana printed snap bracelets and pencils. The horses were a hit with the little ones and the mustaches, bandanas, and snap bracelets were a hit with everyone.

Baby Shower:

1. Always invite a friend to throw it with you. It is just more fun to have another person to dream up ideas with, carry them out, and review how it went. Plus it is just more pressure and not as fun to do it all on your own. I did the invitations, decorations and dessert. And my buddy did the amazing food.
2. Make sure to plan the shower for the mom. Sounds obvious, but I think it is really important to get her involved a little and figure out what she really wants. We had this shower after her baby arrived because she was on bed-rest the last couple of months before she had the baby, we planned it when she had family coming into town, and we didn't have games because she doesn't like them. It was a fun relaxing evening and we are always looking for excuses to have fun girl get togethers:)

cupcake topper tutorial

2010-07-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Whew! This summer is flying by. I have been busy with weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, visitors, regular summer fun, still settling into our house and we just had a new sprinkler system installed for our yard- yay!

Amidst settling into our house I have been crafting, which I plan to share in several tutorials. I know I promised a photoshop tutorial and it is on the way, but I am still figuring out how best to share those tips with you.

First craft tutorial: Cupcake Toppers.

I did the above cupcake toppers for the aforementioned wedding reception.

I also made some for my son's birthday party and plan to do more soon for a baby shower I am throwing.

This is how I did mine:

I had some left over circle labels from when I ordered them for my etsy jewelry shop. Through their website you can download a template of any of their labels that you order in any format you need. I downloaded it in pdf form, then imported it to illustrator where I designed my labels.

After you have designed them, just print them out. The tricky part here is getting the stickers to print out so that the designs are directly in the middle of the sticker. I actually gave up after a few prints and settled with good enough so that I didn't waste ink. Guess I'm not as much of a perfectionist as a realist. Ah well:) *You can also print these out on regular paper or 8.5x11 sticker paper, get a circle craft cutter to fit around your designs and cut and paste them in the next step.

Here is a pdf of the ones I used for my sons party:
Happy Trails
ivegotspurs

I found a scalloped circle paper cutter at my local Hobby Lobby that was just big enough to show a little when placed in between my stickers. Got it home and started punching away on the paper I had chosen to accent my sticker designs.

Then just assemble them. Place a sticker on each side of the scallop-cut circle paper and insert toothpic. Voila! Easy, versatile, and oh-so-cute!!

chocolate eclairs

2010-07-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

These are one of my all-time favorite desserts. They are oh-so-good!!

Cream Puffs

If you are having company I would maybe double this. The filling recipe to follow could probably fill 3 of these batches and the frosting would cover 2-3 of these batches. I like to make a batch of cream puffs day sometimes when I make all this, then fill them with left over filling and frost them, because they are so good fresh.

1 C. water

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 C. butter

1 1/4 twice-sifted flour

3 eggs

1. Heat water, salt and butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until butter is completely melted and water begins to boil. Add flour all at once, beating constantly until thickened and smooth.

2. Place dough in mixing bowl (kitchen-aid or bosch preferably). Add eggs one at a time, beating until smooth after each addition. Dough should be soft and be able to hold a form, but not runny.

3. Place dough in ziplock bag and cut a corner off, leaving a hole of about 2-3 inches to pipe out 3-5 inch logs. Place a few inches apart on greased cookie sheets.

4. Bake @400 degrees for about 30 minutes.

See more pictures and slightly different recipe here.

Filling

small box of cook and serve vanilla Pudding

1 Tbsp. butter

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 quart whipping cream (with sugar to taste)

1. In saucepan mix vanilla pudding according to directions. Melt butter in mixture while hot.

2. Transfer pudding to mixing bowl (again, preferable a kitchenaid or bosch) and begin to mix mixture and cool it down. Add vanilla. Once mixture is cool enough to not cook the egg when added in, add egg:)

2. In a separate bowl whip whipping cream until thick and holds forms well (add sugar to taste as you are whipping it).

3. Fold whipping cream mixture into vanilla pudding mixture.

Inserting filling into cream puffs

Either slice puff pastry in half and spoon filling in the middle, or pipe filling into the center through a whole (pastries will be very light, airy and have plenty of storage room in center for filling : d )

Frosting

You can use your favorite chocolate frosting recipe. I used this one:

1/2 C. butter

1/3 C. cocoa powder

1/4 C. evaporated milk

Box Powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1. Melt butter (on stovetop or in microwave), then stir in cocoa powder. Transfer mixture to mixing bowl if it is not already in one.

2. Stir or mix in evaporated milk. Then mix in powdered sugar. Add vanilla. Feel free to add more or less of any of the listed ingredients. This is a very forgiving and easy recipe that can easily be adjusted to your liking.

Pipe or Spread onto tops of eclairs and ENJOY!!!

happy fourth

2010-07-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

Hope you all have a great Independence Day!

Image and craft how-to here.

For the fourth we will be enjoying some smoked BBQ pork, pasta salad, green salad, and chocolate eclairs. Mmm, mmm. Recipe and pictures to come.

Here is a link to a great photo tip for fun with sparklers and cameras. We used it last year and I can't wait to try it again.

(Above: I made my husband be do this- he hates photos:) )

digital scrapbooking

2010-06-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

Have you joined in on digital scrapbooking yet? Have you wanted to learn about it, but don't know where to begin??

Here are some of my favorite sites to help you start your journey:

1. thedailydigi.com I love their site and their blog. They are one of the best FREE resources out there when it comes to filling in the blanks on learning how to digi-scrap and where to go to get started. They are always featuring different designers and have tons of great tutorials to help you learn the ins and out of digital design (not to mention they have a great store too).

2. jessicasprague.com Jessica's site is great too. So easy to navigate, so much useful and helpful information, awesome classes, and great products. Click here for a list of classes she offers. I took two of her photo editing classes and thought they were a great value!! Right now she is offering a FREE computer tricks for cards class.

3. Ali Edwards There is no denying this girl has mad skills. I love her style and have no idea how she manages to do all she does. But she is pure inspiration!!

Those are my top three sites for information and resources.

Now, when it comes to scrapping style, I want to be Jaime Choi from three paper peonies.

Her work speaks to me and I want all of my scrapbooks to look like just like hers. Lucky for me she sells templates and quickpages. Did I mention she has lots of great freebies as well? I am in the middle of trying to figure out how to be original and more like her at the same time:)

Another site I really like for digital scrapbooking materials is Digital Design Essentials. I really like their designs and they always have some sort of good deal going on.

Want more? Here are some other places I frequent from time to time:

shabby princess

two peas in a bucket

house of 3

shabby miss jenn designs

digi scrap addicts

o scraps

sunshine studio scraps

the digi chick

donna downey

designer digitals

The digital scrapbooking world you will find can quickly overwhelm you because it really has exploded. My advice? Find your style, stick to it, let it evolve, and keep it simple. Don't get too busy trying to download every free thing you can find out there, you will get lost in a virtual abyss. Just have fun.

Here is a layout I did for a special book for my grandma a few years back. I did all of the pages for my family, but haven't had time to do much since:(

Now that I am up to date on photos with my recent photobook order, I plan to get back into it.

I'm sure I have missed some great resources out there. Care to share any of your favorites??

Next up: Photoshop Tips.

on printing photos

2010-06-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

Remember this post? I am guessing you don't, but a BIG thanks to those who commented because I have taken your advice. I am happy to report I am (pretty much) up to date with my photos being printed out (besides the ones I have taken in the last month).

I went ahead and used Shutterfly. I ordered a variety of types of books so that I could get a feel for what each was like. In retrospect I wish I would have stuck with my gut instincts and stuck with the all black hard-bound for all of my pics, but it was an education and now I know what I want for the future.

Shutterfly was running a promotion for 50% off of their photobooks for Father's Day, and because I was a new member I got 75 free prints. So I got all 5 books and 75 free prints for about $100- a steal in my opinion.

I was really happy with how many options Shutterfly had, how fast they uploaded my pictures, and how easy it was to put a book together.

What I've decided for the future- photobooks are the way to go!! I think I want to go ahead and just do thick 12 x 12's (I decided I would much rather pay for extra pages than have a bunch of little books) and stick with basic black. I will order them whenever they are having a good promotion (I am thinking I only want about 2 big ones each year) and I will back up all my files on cd's for my kids. In the future I would like to order soft-cover books for my kids when money isn't so tight. I am so happy about finding this solution and feel a little relieved even!

I think the smaller soft-cover books are going to be my new go-to grandparent gifts!

Another cool thing about Shutterfly is you can do digital scrapbooking, upload your pages to their website and just have them all printed out for you in book form. I think I may have to do that in the future too. Do you digital scrapbook? I hope to do a post about that soon. Stay tuned:)

photography

2010-06-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

I love photography. I've taken a class here and there, and try to read up on how to take better photos whenever I get the chance, but have so much to learn and want a few pieces of equipment (right now I really want this and this) to help me out a bit.

But another favorite way of mine to 'educate' myself on how to take better photos is to subscribe to blogs of photographers I admire. Seeing the world through their eyes helps me envision what is possible with a camera and think out of the box more often.

One of my favorites (not to mention local and I kinda know her... a friend of a friend type thing) is Captured by Mikki. I was inspired recently by some engagements she just shot and wanted to share. Love the colors and the chemistry between these too.

Click here to see more from this session.

members only

2010-06-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

What do you think of the new (I think) trend of the shopping websites where you become a member to get exclusive discounts on designer clothes, toys, housewares, etc.? I am a member of four now and while I think it is bad for the amount of time I spend online as well as my "case of the gimmes"/bank account, I must admit I enjoy looking at what sales they are offering.

These are the ones I am a member of:

Gilt Group

Haute Look

The Mini Social

Zulily

(In case you haven't heard of these and want to join- the membership is free.)

Not that I need to join any more, but do you have any that you are a member of and enjoy looking at? I am wondering how big of a trend this is, if it is a trend at all.

In other somewhat related news, I finally bit the bullet and paid for a yearly membership to America's Test Kitchen online.

They are another guilty pleasure of mine. I hesitated to do it for a long time because of how many recipe books, magazines, and just personal recipes I already have. But I have had so much success and so many rave reviews with the recipes I have tried from them. Plus my husband has somewhat of a picky palate and his mom is an amazing cook- and with ATK I always impress them:)

I am always tempted to buy every magazine and cookbook they come out with so I figured the fiscally wise thing to do was to stop buying the magazines and books and become a member of their website. Becoming a member gives you full access to all of their recipes, tips, tv segments that walk you through how to cook many of their recipes, and easy to print, read and follow recipes as well as grocery lists. I think I am going to love it.