Thursday, March 29, 2012

Quick & Inexpensive Baby Gift Wrap Idea...




So my sister is having a Baby Boy!  Her first boy after 2 girls!  I had a present to give to her for the new babe.  I had just a second the other day and thought wouldn't it be fun to put a twist on the look of the gift?  So I came up with a couple ideas!  First of all I love cute and different ways to do pennant flag banners and I thought why not use some simple Kraft style wrapping paper, then cut up some boy colored fabric including DENIM!  Denim just Screams BOY to me! Use some ric rac and make a fun banner?  So I did! I also had some burlap and threw that in there too! Wohoo! I cut the triangles, used some hot glue to tack down the fabric, then hot glued the ric rac across the top!  Easy and Fun!
I then thought... What would be a cute way to do the gift tag?  Again... DENIM!  I had an old pair of baby jeans and just cut the pocket off of them and hot glued it to the package!  I made a quick tag out of Kraft paper, stapled some ric rac on it and there was an instant pocket to stick the tag in!  


Just another fun way to give a gift!


Enjoy your Day!
With much Love and Gratitude!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Play Ball!

Baseball Season is in Full "Swing" around our house!  Our family is a Baseball family!  We LOVE it!  My husband Ryan was a pitcher for his High School team and so if you are a child that plays baseball in our home... Guess what?  You better be a pitcher!


    My husband has spent countless, countless hours through the years in the yard and on the ball field playing, teaching, coaching, coaching some more, and perfecting my boys on how to Pitch, catch, throw, Pitch some more and how to play the game of Baseball. That time they have spent with their dad and those one on one lessons are priceless! They have a good dad and they will remember all the lessons & tips he has taught them for the rest of their lives.


Our oldest son McKay or (Mac) as his buddies call him when he's playing ball is on the High School team this spring and has been pitching Varsity.  Kinda fun to watch it all.  Our second son Parker is on a competition team and will most likely pitch or play short stop.  I've been looking through old baseball pics I have shot through the years and thought it would be fun to share some.


Oh little man parker... seriously love the ears poking out of the hat!

McKay during T-Ball season...

Mac during Coach Pitch...
Parker sliding home during an All star Game...
 Parker covering 3rd...
I LOVE this shot of Madi at the Ballpark!  This Cotton Candy is half her size! 

I caught this slide of Parker once, thought it was kinda cool...
 Parker Pitching...
 Mac during one of his Competition games...
Mac pitching...

 Mac Pitching 2 years ago...

 A couple weeks ago, the Standard Examiner was at one of Mac's games taking photos. Mac was pitching and was covering home and trying to tag out this runner.... I thought this shot of him was kinda cool. (Mac is in Red).  Photo courtesy of Standard Examiner. 


Here is another shot of Mac pitching by FBL Photography

Well if you are wondering where our family is at this time of year,  just look at the Ball parks!

with much Love and Gratitude,


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Look what just came in the Mail!

 I have been wanting one of these for a while and finally decided to get one!  OHHHHH the POSSIBILITIES!!  I'm so excited to get using this and see what I can come up with!  I purchased mine through Vinylexpressions.com    They have them for a great price!   I'm off to discover all the fantastic things this sweet machine has in store!  Yippie!!

With much Love and Gratitude!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Simple & Fun Birthday...

With spring and summer coming...  Birthday season is in full bloom around our home.   Last August our little Ivy turned One! I did not have a blog at the time to share  her little party, but I did take some shots so I could share them with you now. We wanted to celebrate with her and have just a simple little get together with Family.  I thought it would be fun to have some cupcakes and candy for the family to enjoy.  I first started with the invites.
These were fun to do because they are not your typical invite...  I first did a photo shoot with Ives.  I love the photo I caught of her because she happened to move her finger just so to show the #1. Cute!  I also have a clipboard sprayed with Chalkboard paint that I wrote out {one}... Put her  in front of the old cabinet and got this shot of her.

I next did up the invite info on a fun digital shape and had a cute ticket from House of 3 Designs that I added a ( No.1 Ivy ) and printed them off.  I had her photos printed off also.
I also made up these flags...  If you look closely the background paper is not just book paper.  I actually typed up some fun things about Ivy and the day she was born and printed it off.  I then printed off a cute shape that I typed  you're invited on and put that on top of the paper. These served as the flags that went in the sacks for the invite...
So these were actually the invite, I know they look like party favors, but they are the invite.  I like to do the invites in more of a 3-D format if I can...  Inside the sacks I made up a yummy carmel treat and wrapped it in wax paper and then wrapped it in some colorful tissue and placed it in the sack. I took the flag which is glued to a kabob skewer and put it in the front of the sack,  & tied a bow with some colorful ribbon.  I next Stapled the party info shape onto the photo of Ivy along with the little ticket and paper clipped it to the front of the sacks.
 I also took some other fun shots of Ivy and made up some little "old time" looking tickets etc. with some little facts about her.  I re-sized her photos and tickets so they could be made into cupcake toppers.  I got some scraps of ribbon, cut out her photos and tickets that I had printed off and made her some fun cupcake toppers.
I made some fun cupcakes with colorful sprinkles and here is how they turned out!


To display her cupcakes for her party I thought it would be fun to find some "old things" I had to put her cupcakes and goodies on...

I made her a fun little cake and love how the flag banner turned out on it.  It is made out of felt and I had some cute blue sequins, so I glued them to some skewers to decorate her cake. Made her a little tissue paper fan found some cute paper flowers and decorated the cake!
One of my most favorite parts of the party display was the candy center.  To give a little History about it, My Grandpa Barlow passed away a few years ago. He was a wonderful wonderful man!  My mom and her sisters invited us to find some items we might want from Grandpa's house.  I went out in his shop and found the COOLEST thing EVER!  He had this old file drawer system that my mom said was a part of a desk at one time.  In his shop he used it to house bolts, screws, nails, etc.  I knew I had to have it.  I actually use it in my Laundry room now for decoration and for little odds and ends.  Anyways, I used it for a little old time candy store!  I printed off some labels so they looked like an old typewriter was used to type them and put them in the front of the drawers with the candy.  I think it turned out kinda cute!  On top I also put some more cupcakes!
 Here are some shots of the different candies close up!  Eeeeek!  I know soooo cute!!!!
This is how the Birthday table looked all together...
And of course, our guest of honor enjoying her Birthday Cupcake!
It was such a fun evening to enjoy with our little Ivy that we just adore!

In some up coming posts, I'll share with you a fun party I did for our Madalyn!  So fun!!


With much Love and Gratitude,

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Ava's Pictures Tutorial

I shot these photos of Aves because I made this skirt for her, If you want to see that tutorial, its in one of my earlier posts, titled... A-Line Skirt Tutorial.

As I stated before... I love photography.  Am I a pro?  No!  Do I have a lot to learn... Yes!  But I do enjoy it as a hobby.  I shoot Nikon!  I have a Nikon D200.  It's my baby. I use a 50mm Nikkor lens that has a very low aperture of 1.4.  I love the camera because it has the control dials on the outside of the camera, giving you ultimate control of your shot.  You can spin the dials fast to adjust to your photos surroundings.  You can adjust the shutter speed and the the Aperture, ISO and the White Balance all within seconds.  If you have little ones you are shooting, that makes a ton of difference because those little ones move Fast!!

The circumstances I shot these of Ava were actually PERFECT!  It was a partly cloudy day and I shot them at around 3:00 p.m.  There was a fresh coat of snow on the ground and it was beautiful.  I shoot at these awesome sheds close to my home and they were a perfect backdrop for this shot.  I made sure the sun was not in her eyes, just enough to light up the side of her face and not shadow her. Set my aperture pretty low, like 1.6 just enough to blur out the background and help the reflection of the snow to light up her face.    I think my shutter speed was high enough to adjust to the light probably around 2500 and my ISO was not too high due to the brightness of the snow.  Probably around 250- 350.

These next 2 shots I LOVE because they are just so simple and captured... They were shot about the same settings as the above picture.

 I think this one is my FAVORITE because there is just enough sunlight on her and a great sunburst in the upper right hand corner of the  shot to make it POP!   LOVE  LOVE it!  I love the smile on her face and how she just looks content!

I thought this one was cute just because she's walking down the road and looking at her footprints in the snow...


And this one is just sweet, I told her to kinda tilt her head and push her hip to the side and I love the way she's so focused on doing that and looks like a little model.  :)

  I have some other fun shots I will share with you too!  Stay tuned!  One of which is when we had Aves, oh my!  One of my most favorite shots ever!!

Have a great Day!
With much love and gratitude,

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Simply Sewn Cards


I had a minute this morning, so I made some fun little note cards!!


I purchased some blank note cards from Target the other day...  I thought it would be fun to dress them up a little.  I just love pennant flag banners and I had some fabric scraps that matched the cards, so why not make up some fun notes!


I first took my blank cards...
I typed up some sayings in  photoshop, I wanted them to have a very simple look so I just a simple typewriter font, figured out where the cards would print off the sayings at on the cards and sent them through the printer...
I thought some sayings that we all use a lot are thank you, thinking of you, and happy birthday!


I then took some scraps of fabric and cut them about an inch in width...
  I next cut the fabric strips into triangles...
I next took the triangles and rotated them every other color and secured them to the front of the card with some glue dots...
 Once I had them all secured, i just ran a simple stitch across the top of the triangles to make it look like a banner...

That's really all there is to it and now I have some fun and simple cards to send out to family and friends!





Kinda fun and sassy!
Have a super day!


With much Love & Gratitude,
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