Glow in the Dark Halloween Nails!

So here is a fun idea I came up with a couple nights ago. :) 

While I was at Wally World looking at the costumes, I found some glow in the dark nail polish... only $2. I thought it would be fun. It also came with glow in the dark lipstick! LOL Silly but maybe I will come up with a creative use for it. :) Anywho...

Here is a way to add a more dramatic Halloween effect to the glow in the dark nails! :)

You will need:

Glow in the dark package from Walmart only $2 :)

Clear nail polish

And a sharpie.. I used he regular kind.. but a more fine point would be best!

These are my daughters messy hands... she was coloring with markers before I had this idea... and she had decided to color her finger nails with pink marker.. (since I dont let her use nail polish on her own!) Oye. :)

Anywho... start with a base coat of clean polish.

After that dries, use the sharpie to add your "spooky" Halloween designs!

Here I did some spider webs

I practiced making some bats before doing them on her nails...

It was a little tough with the fat sharpie, as I said.. fine point may be best!

I did a witch hat, Kiahs suggestion. :)

And here they are all together, spider webs, spiders, bat, witch hat. :) Im sure you all could think of other fun silhouettes to draw!

Now you add the glow in the dark nail polish!

Here are a few up close pics after the glow polish was applied...

I attempted to get a pic in the dark.. no luck. LOL But it does look pretty cool! :) Kiah was excited about it, and it was fun and easy to do. :)

Even though the nail polish does stay on well, it is easy to remove... you can peel it right off... After Kiah had a shower some was already peeling. But this would be fun to have your nails like this for a Halloween party, or for the kids as they are trick or treating! :) 

Im linking up to some great linky patries.. make sure you check them out too for other great ideas!!

Christmas Photo Shoot Special!!

Hello all! I have a special going on if youre local to Red Bluff, Redding, Anderson or Cottonwood California!! :)

These are just a few examples... please come check out my Facebook Page, and see More photo card examples here.

$25 Christmas Photo Shoot Special (Ends December 8th)
Includes:
-Up to an hour of Photo Shoot time
-Up to 10 studio style family, couple, and/or single(kids adults) shots
-Editing (black & White, Color Accent, Blemish Removal)
-Free Photo Card Layout of your Choice, that you can take and print anywhere. (Examples can be customized)

ALL on a Disc for you to keep, use and print

And while supplies last, the first few families to book sessions with me will receive an adorable snowman picture frame for free!! :)

Adorable Candy Corn Wreath {feature}

I did not make this... but I fully intend to very soon!! Last night I was at the grocery store and saw this on the womans day magazine cover!! I was instantly inspired, and knew I HAD to share this!! :) Isnt it completely adorable and so simple. I LOVE that. :)
I found the tutorial online (not that I really needed one.. it seems simple enough) But I wanted to make sure to link back to the original source. SO You can check it out HERE if you want. :) They also have another great artical on how to preserve your wreath,  pre and post making so be sure to check it out.
I'll mostly likely be linking this up... soooo Check out these linky par-tays. LOL

Dining Room Decor Part 2 {Wordle}

So Wordle seems to be all the rage these days! I happened upon this site a few months back and have had so much fun on it! You can create the coolest word art on it! And since then Ive noticed actually a lot of other bloggers who have posted on it. So Im not trying to beat a dead horse with this one. LOL But just wanted to share what I did with it! :)

I created my word art for my dining room. You can see part one here, where I created my Olive Garden Inspired wall art.

So first I created my wordle, using food and eating terms. And customized the colors to match my dining room. :) I saved the wordle I created.. so others could use it if they want.. you can get that  Here.

 

Then I printed it out on card stock paper. :)

I had an old black wood frame that I didnt use anymore, and decided it would be perfect to use again.. with a little work.

 

I used White acrylic paint and gave it 4 good coats.

After letting it dry about 5 minutes, I took it to the shop and borrowed some of my husbands sand paper. And just roughed it up a little. Giving it that shabby look, that Im really liking right now. :)

Then used clear acrylic sealer spray (gave it 2 coats of that).

 And hung it up... and thats it. Simple.. but I really love how it looks! Wordle is so fun!!

 Now to admire my lovely quick, easy and cheap work! LOL

I will most likely be linking up to these fab parties!! Check them out for loads of creative ideas!! :)

Pardon the Mess!!

Im so sorry for the mess around here.. when I first stared blogging.. I didnt realize you could upload pictures right from blogger... I always used photobucket to add my photos in.. and now the bandwidth had expired until the 2nd of october!! :( Soo in the mean time.. its gonna look a little messy and bare around here... well at least for all my previous posts! Im gonna be working on changing them out though, and using bloger to upload the pictures.. and will do that from now on also! Until its all fixed... Im do apologize for how bad it looks! Thanks for understanding!

HOW TO: Create A Custom Pumpkin Carving Template

How fun would it be to have pumpkin carvings of your kids, yourself, or your favorite celebs! :) I thought it would be really fun to have my kids faces carved into pumpkins this year, so I figured out a way to create my own custom template! It was actually super easy, so I decided I should share the info so you too can create your own custom pumpkin carving template. Creating the template will be easy.. As for actually carving the pumpkin, well thats another story! It definitely does take some patience and dedication. ;)

Alright, lets get on with the tutorial. You will need some kind of photo editing software. I will be showing you how to do this using Paint.Net, because its free and anyone can download it (just google it)! :) However, if you have and are familiar with another kind of editing software, I am sure you can use that as well!

So here is what you will need to do: Bring in any photo or picture of your choice. Not all photos will work as easy, so you may have to try a few different pictures to get it how you want. :) I chose this one of my son, Bruce, because its a pretty clear shot of his face.

I then cropped it to a close up of his face, since that is all I want to show on the pumpkin. If your photo is already a close crop of the face, you wont need to do this. But if you are picking one face from a group photo, then of course this step will be necessary.

Next, go to the 'Adjustments' tab at the top and scroll down to 'Brightness/Contrast', and click on it.

The Brightness/Contrast box will pop up. From there you will want to bring the contrast all the way to 100. You may or may not want to up the brightness too. For this picture I didn't feel I needed to change the brightness at all. However you can just play around with it, until it looks best to you. Keeping in mind, the black parts of the photo will be what you are cutting out from your pumpkin!

After you have adjusted the brightness/contrast, your photo should be completely black and white and look something like this:

Now you will want to take the 'paint brush' and select the color white. You will want to white out ('paint' over) all the extra black parts of the photos that you don't want or need. Basically leaving your photo with only the face and hair:

You now have your template! Now this is IMPORTANT!! Make sure that when you save your template, you click 'SAVE AS' - this saves the photo as a completely new creation, so you don't ruin the original picture!! You also want to be sure to save it as a .jpg so it will print.

LASTLY, you will Print it out! And now you have a custom photo to use as a template for your pumpkin. Remember, the black parts will be what you carve out.

For those who have never used a template before here are some helpful instructions:

• Prepare your pumpkin by:
  • Cut a hole in the top for the lid.  Make sure you angle the saw inwards so your lid sits on top of the pumpkin and doesn’t just fall through
  • Scoop out the seeds and strings with a spoon
  • Scrape some of the flesh from the inside so your pumpkin is about an inch thick all the way around (or at least wherever you’ll be carving). 
• Print out the pattern.     
• Trim off excess paper
• Tape or use pins to affix the pattern to the pumpkin.
• If your pumpkin is quite lumpy, dip the paper in water or vegetable oil (the oil will make printer ink run less, but makes the project quite slippery). 
  • Smooth the pattern onto the pumpkin, affix with pins or masking tape and let the paper dry. 
  • You can also make small cuts in the paper where it bunches so it lies flat on the pumpkin.  Add pins or tape to hold
• Poke holes through the pattern with a nail, push pin or pumpkin poker.  Make the holes about 1/8^th inch apart (or even closer for more complicated patterns).  This step can take quite awhile so be patient.  Just place the pumpkin in your lap and work away at it.
• Remove the paper from the pumpkin.
• Rub flour all over the part where you poked the holes so you can see them better.
• Push a nail through the pumpkin skin where you want to start carving. 
  • Turn and push until it’s all the way into the pumpkin, then remove. 
  • Repeat anywhere you're going to need to start carving (eyes, nose, etc). 
  • You want to do all the pushing before you start carving because it take some pressure (once you start carving, the pumpkin becomes weaker and applying pressure may cause it to break)
• Using your nail hole as a starting point, cut the design with your serrated knife or saw. 
  • start somewhere in the center of the design to keep from putting too much pressure on areas already carved
  • Use a sawing motion to cut out your design, using very light pressure… take your time and allow the sawing to do the work rather than applying pressure and forcing it.
• When making curves, just slightly turn the saw.  When making sharp corners, remove the saw and re-insert it at an angle.
• To remove pieces, push them out from the inside.  For larger pieces, you may want to cut them into smaller bits and remove them in sections.

Want to see how my custom pumpkins turned out? Check out the finished pumpkins HERE!! Plus, step by step tips! :)

If you happen to try this out, please do share the results with me! Leave a link in the comments or share your photo with me on facebook, twitter or Instagram. I think it would be so much fun to feature your photos on my blog! So share away, I am excited to see what custom creations you come up with!

Much Love & Hugs,

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Olive Garden Inspired Dining Room Decor

We bought our house about a year ago now, and Im just now getting around to decorating the dining room! Its been so bare and boring for all this time! And I have had ideas for the decor for a long time. But making sure I had enough time and the right items is what had kept me putting it off! But its finally done.. and Im going to be showing it off one project at a time. :)

Here is Part 1 of Dining room decor!

I was inspired by Olive Garden! Yes.. every time I go there, I just love the look of the platters and plates on the wall.
A little back story:
I found and fell in love with a table cloth I found at walmart one day (many months back), I had to buy it.. the colors were perfect and so bright and I loved the pattern. When I went back a few days later, I saw they had matching plates and platters and trays all in the same patten! Well I just had to but them! LOL And I knew instantly these were the plates I wanted for the decor.

I also knew that I wanted to use them as picture frames, rather than just have them plain on the wall. Which still would have been nice.. but hey, Im a photographer.. any chance to put up more pictures of my beautiful "subjects" was gonna make me a happy mama! :)

Here is what I did:

I printed the pictures for my plates.. my 3 gorgeous kiddies, and on of me and the hubs, full photo paper sheet.
I used card stock paper.. put it under the plates and traced around the bottom to create a template, to use when cutting the pictures! Rather than have a sloppy pen mess on my pictures.. its on the card stock paper, and then I can actually see where I wanted to cut my pictures. :)
I used a paint brush to brush Mod Podge on the center of the plate.. then carefully layed a picture onto it. Smoothed it out, and made sure there were no air bubbles!

Then I used the paint brush again to seal the pictures with mod podge.

It dries nice and clear! Here is my 7 year old daughter Kiah (not like Kia the car, but sounds like K-eye-uh) People always seem to ask, in person, so if anyone in blogland was wondering also.. there ya go. :)

My 4 year old son Bruce Jr

And the baby! :) My 17 month old son, Zander.

After they were nice and dry, I simply used a hot glue gun to glue ribbon to the back, to hang them by.

I enlisted the help of the hubs, for precision hanging. :) hehe

Here he is with me. I used the platter for our picture.

And again.. all together. On the main wall of our dining room. :) It may not seem like much, but it really made the dining room stand out. Looks a lot better in person. And I love seeing those smiling faces!! :)

I will be linking up to all these wonderful linky parties!!

Felt Tooth Pillow

He is just the cutest little guy, If I do say so myself! :)

The idea to make this little guy just popped into my head out of the blue earlier today, and I just had to sit and create him!!
Not only is he in a cute little tooth shape, he also holds teeth for your child, who has recently lost a tooth! Instead of putting the tooth under their pillow.. where there is a chance of it getting moved or lost.. or waking the child while trying to find said tooth! LOL instead you can put the tooth in a little pocket on this tooth pillow set on the night stand, or anywhere convenient!
Here is a little tutorial I put together for you. Im very pleased with how it turned out.. this being my first time making him!

Supplies needed:
2 sheets of felt (white)
Some black felt
and either red or pink felt (i used pink...but it looks red in the pictures)
Quilters batting
needle & thick thread
scissors
Glue Gun
And a pattern template.

I scanned the pattern I drew so you can feel free to save and print out (here), if you would like to make your own tooth pillow. Or you can just draw your own tooth! :)

I decided that having a template pattern would be better than drawing the tooth directly on the felt.. I didnt want any pen or marker lines showing!
So Cut out the template and stick it to the felt somehow. (I used sticky dots) but you can also use pins. Then cut the felt to match the pattern. I cut both at the same time.

After you have both your tooth shapes cut out, you will want to cut these following shapes:
WHITE FELT:
-A pocket (on my template)
-Two very small circles
BLACK FELT:
-Two oval Shapes for the eyes
-one smile shape
PINK OR RED FELT
-Two Circles

Then use them to arrange the face. :) You can create the face how ever you wish, but when I thought about a cute little face.. one stuck in my mind. I was inspired by this photograph of a popcorn bowl! How cute right!! So this is how I did the face:

Next thing is to use the hot glue gun, to glue the white spots on the eyes..

Then Glue the cheeks down (use the glue sparingly and mainly in the center, leaving the edges glue free), Then glue the smile down. I decided I wanted to glue them for extra staying power.. but had to have the fun stitch look!

So after its glued.. I stitched around the cheeks.. how cute do they look! :)

I did the same this with the eyes, though you cant really see the black on black.. But I did it anyways for the quality of it! :)

Here you can see the back. I also like to add a dab of hot glue to the tied ends of the thread to make sure they stick real well and dont pull lose.

Next, take the second tooth cut out, and flip it over. You will sew the pocket to the back. :)

Figure out the placement.. I decided just to put it in the center:

Then stitched around it.

It doesnt have to be perfect, I think sometimes when its a little messy it adds character. :)

And the back side:

Now that you have both front and back of the pillow complete.. its time to move on to the stuffing.

I used quilters batting.. and I used 2 layers.. so the pillow is pretty thin. But You can add as much stuffing as you want for the look and feel you desire.

Again I used the template to cut it out.. then I cut around the border again to make is smaller than the actual size of the felt. That way when I stitched around.. I wouldnt have to worry about it sticking out!

Then I started a cute little stitch around the edges. :) I know I could have used white thread so it didnt show.. but I chose to use black because I thought a cute little outline would look more kid friendly, fun, and cartoonish.

Im glad I did that, because I really like the way it was looking! Here it is half way there!

And completely done!

I wanted to just keep taking pictures of the little guy.. he is sooo cute!! :)

And my kids fell in love with him... Im going to have to buy more supplies to make him some brothers and sisters! hehe

Over all I am totally thrilled with how this turned out, from just an idea that came to my mind,on my first attempt making him!

I want to give him a name.. any suggestions?? :) Let me know!!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.. and if you make your own, then please come back and share!!!
I'll be linking up to these wonderful parties!!
♥Maria