Shell Bead Bracelet

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Sorry I've been gone for a bit.  My daughter has been sick this past week and I also went and attended a photo workshop on flash.  If you would like to see the pictures I took while at the "Flash Camp" visit my photo blog.
 

I got some shell beads off of ebay for cheep.  The only bummer is they take about a month to get to you since they are coming from China or something and it's free shipping, but hey....I'll take em :)  I added the beads onto elastic jewelry thread.  I learned a trick to keep the elastic thread from coming untied and that is to tie it tight and then put a drop of super glue on the knot.  It's worked wonders!  The package came with 8 beads, but I only needed 7 to fit my wrist....so now I have an extra bead to use - yay!  I'm going to apologize ahead of time for the pictures.  My brother has my good lens and the one that I was using really wasn't good for this purpose.  Hopefully you can get the general idea of what it looks like.

Dress to Skirt

Pin It My younger sister gave me a bunch of clothes that she doesn't wear anymore.  I love "hand-me-ups" especially now that I'm a poor married person without any cute clothes.  One of the dresses she gave me wasn't really something I would wear, but I liked the fabric.  So I decided to make it a skirt instead.  This was honestly SO easy!  Here's what I did:

This is the dress before I cut it up.

 I cut the top part of the dress off and was left with what looked like a skirt.

 I simply folded down the top edge and sewed a few rows with elastic thread to get the finished product.  SO easy!  The bottom was already finished since it was the bottom of the dress so I only had to worry about the top.  Now I have a fun summer skirt! 

Dried Orange Art

Pin It A while ago I mentioned that I had seen a tutorial on how to dry oranges on Delia Creates well I finally used mine!  I put my dried oranges in a few picture frames and hung them above the window in my kitchen.  The two small picture frames could be bigger, but I got them for 10 cents each at Walmart....so I'm not complaining!  The larger frame was also from Walmart and was $3.  Here's the finished product.

To dry your oranges, cut them into the same you want.  Cut them about 1/4" thick.  Lay them on a cookie sheet lined with foil and bake at 250 degrees for about 5-6 hours.  Depending on the thickness of your oranges, it may take longer.  After a couple hours flip over the oranges.  You may want to flip them back over after another few hours.

To make these, I simply cut out some cream paper to fit the frames and then hot glue the dried oranges onto the paper.  Really easy!

My Giveaway Winners

Pin It Thanks to all of those people that helped me in the JarvieDigital's JAG competition.  I won and it's all thanks to you!!!  Here are the winner's of my prizes:


The owl goes to:

 kristinann who said... So I liked his facebook page and added him to our blog list and am following your blog!

The bracelet goes to:

Emilee said... I added Scott's blog to my awesome blog list at http://emilee-reynolds.blogspot.com/

The necklace goes to:

Tamera who said... I also facebooked about your giveaway. :) 

Polymer Clay Shapes for Necklaces

Pin It Remember a few posts ago when I made a faux metal heart necklace?  Well I got more clay and made some other shapes.  I haven't made them into necklaces yet, but here are the pendants/beads.

You should definitely try this out.  It's a ton of fun to sculpt things out of clay.  The one difficult thing I have fun into is trying to not get fingerprints on the shapes.  I've gotten a bit better with it, but I'm still not totally there.

Happy Mother's Day

Pin It Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, etc. and even to the future mothers.  I can honestly say that motherhood is one of the very best things that has ever happened to me.  It has brought so much joy to my life.  Mother's day is a day that I can reflect on how much I love my little girl and how good she has been for me, not the other way around.

I know several people out there haven't yet had the opportunity to be a Mother - some not by their own choice. But know that Heavenly Father has a divine plan for you to be a Mother and that it is a very important role.  Many people in the world try to make motherhood out to be a bad or weak thing, but the Lord thinks otherwise.  Let's celebrate our divine nature and be the best mothers we can!

Happy Mother's Day!

Scott's Family Photo Tips

Pin It Are you sick of hearing about JarvieDigital yet??? WELL TOO BAD! Cause there is still much to be said - and that's a good thing - For you, for me and for Scott :) On his blog, Scott has several different topics that he's covered. I truly believe that even if you aren't a photographer, that you can learn soooo much from Scott's blogs. Whether you take pictures professionally, or for fun, there are several tips that will help you out :) The topic that I think that you can probably relate to the most is taking pictures of a family and/or children.

Scott did a few posts titled "How I Shoot Children" - don't worry he's using a camera, not a gun ha. These posts can help ANYONE! Some of the topics he focuses on are:

Being an observant photographer and another great tip: People don't always have to look at the camera!

Both of these tips are important to remember. I can't tell you how many times I've been focusing on trying to get one picture and when I look over my shoulder, I see and even better one taking place. Some of my favorite moments are with the family, children, couples etc. are not posing for the camera, but are being themselves. Those pictures often end up being people's favorites because it shows the real them.

Taking the right picture for the right personality

I love the picture below. You can tell this little guy has so much personality and this picture captures it perfectly. When you get a person comfortable, their real personality shows - and THAT'S that you want to portray in your pictures.

Listening to peoples ideas

Listen and going with others' ideas - like this little kid wanting to show off a stick.While a person's idea may not be perfect, you can run with it and make it a great concept. Never shut down someones idea - some of my favorite shots that I have taken were actually based off of my clients ideas. If you don't like the original idea....take the shot and then change it up a bit. Try different versions of the concept.

Picking your battles

Here he tried to get them to hug....and the girls were sitting a bit too far apart to to a normal hug and thus he ended up with this shot - which I think is soooo cute! This is often hard as a parent when you are paying for a photographer and your kids aren't cooperating, BUT if you remember one of the precious tips was that the subjects don't always have to look at the camera for a picture to be great. I took pictures of an extremely camera shy boy and I ended up getting some great pictures of him just running and jumping around. They showed off his personality and I was able to capture some great smiles.

Since most of you have a little family of your own, I thought you would most enjoy reading his posts about family pictures (which include the How I Shoot Children posts that I just talked about). Enjoy!



Chips & Salsa Cookies

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I saw this tutorial on Sugar Belle's Blog and if I wasn't going to be out of town tomorrow, I absolutely would have made these.  I mean, seriously, how cute is this idea?  A great way to celebrate Cinco De Mayo in my opinion.  I guess I'll have to wait to make them until next year.

Why Should You Add JarvieDigital to Your Bloglist?

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Why should you add Scott's blog to your blog list?  Well other than the obvious reason - helping me win the JAG competition, the other reason and perhaps the better one is because he shares some great tips about photography and posts some great pictures.  I find many of his posts helpful to my photography.  Even if you are not a photographer, which I'm guessing is most of you, do you or will you ever want to take pictures of your family, kids, etc?  I'm going to go ahead and you all answered yes.....and if you didn't....Well maybe someday you will be a client to a photographer and he has tips for you too :)  Here's the link to the client tip blogs: http://jarviestudios.com/blog/category/info/tips-for-clients/

Some of the great concepts of JarvieDigital pictures is how to get good pictures that are unique and showcase the people's emotions in the pictures. 

I honestly think that there is at LEAST one of the 500 blog posts he has done that will help you in the future, whether it's your own photography or others, he has information on his blog for everyone!  PLUS you get to look at some of the amazing pictures he takes - win, win!

If you are interested in putting his blog on your bloglist, PLEASE check out my GIVEAWAY.  I mean if you're already going to be doing it, you might as well have a chance to win a prize right????