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Friday, April 20, 2012

I Heart Faces | Fix-it-Friday #140

Another Friday, another Fix-it-Friday over at I Heart Faces!  Fix-it-Friday is a great way to practice your photo editing skills.  The staff at I Heart Faces posts one photo each Friday that you are able to download a full resolution image copy of, then you can have fun trying out your editing skills...and then you can post your edited version in the topic thread where others can comment/critique your skills and you can see how others have edited as well.  You will have to join the I Heart Faces community in order to participate, because the Fix-it-Friday links and discussions are held in the forums, but it's completely free to join.

This week's beautiful photo is by Karey Miller Photography.  And here is the original along with my cropped  and edited version.
  

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Auggie's 4th birthday

I can't believe my sweet nephew is turning four!  Oh how the time flies!!  A couple months ago, I "pinned" the cutest construction cake on Pinterest.  My sister-in-law saw it and thought it would be cute for my nephews birthday, so I made it!  The party was yesterday at the restaurant & bowling alley inside The Bass Pro Shop, what fun!!

For the cake, I made my families favorite "Black Midnight" cake and the traditional icing that goes with that recipe.  I added milk chocolate rocks as the border, with a few added to the top.  I then decorated with a few Caterpillar brand toys, digging a chunk out of the cake to make it look like the backhoe was digging up a project!  I also added a few street signs, caution cone and a barrel from a fun package of add-ons that my sister-in-law picked up.  I think it came out cute, and my nephew seemed to LOVE it (which is the most important part!).  Please excuse the awful cell phone photos of the cake!



And here are a few photos from the party!




Friday, April 13, 2012

I used to love participating in the I Heart Faces Fix-it-Friday sessions, I haven't participated in a long time, so today I thought I'd jump back in the fun!  It's fun to see how other photographers edit photos, so many different perspectives and ideas!  I'm posting my edit here, but if you'd like to see what all the buzz is about, head over to I Heart Faces.


Fix-it-Friday #139: Photo copyright Angie Arthur Photography



Saturday, April 7, 2012

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, friends!!  My niece, Shelby, stayed overnight last night so this morning we made "nest" cookies for Easter.  I bought Cadbury Mini Eggs to use as the eggs in the nests, I thought they looked so cute.  Shelby loved it!!

Please excuse the poor quality cellphone pictures!


I got the recipe off of Allrecipes.com, but I'll share it here because I made a slight variation (adding peanut butter) to give it a little more flavor.  I hardly ever make a recipe "as printed" - lol!

Nest Cookies
2 cups mini marshmallows
1/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp. peanut butter
4 cups Chow Mein noodles
Cadbury mini eggs 

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt together the marshmallows and butter; stirring constantly.  Once melted, add peanut butter (may want to use slightly less than 2 Tbsp); stir until thoroughly melted. Remove from heat and add the chow mein noodles, stirring quickly to coat.

I used my hands to take out balls of the mixture and quickly form into nests, placing them on wax paper that has been lightly sprayed with non-stick spray.  While still warm and gooey, add the Cadbury mini eggs so that they will stick (and stay) well in the nests.  Once cooled, we put them into cupcake liners that we stretched open so the nests would fit.





Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sharpie Tie-Dye T-shirts

Recently on Pinterest, I came across something that I thought was pretty cool that I instantly thought my niece and nephew would love.  So, a couple weeks ago we invited Shelby over to spent the night and squeeze in some "craft time"...she loves to do crafts, which makes me happy because I love it too!



You need:
Sharpie markers
Rubbing alcohol
Small dish for the alcohol
Plastic cups
Liquid dropper (medicine dropper)
Rubber bands
T-shirts


Other helpful items:
Paper towels
Wax paper






To contain some of the "mess", I took the lid off of one of my large plastic tubs and put it on the table, we also put a small cookie sheet covered with wax paper inside the t-shirt to keep the colors from bleeding through to the backside of the shirt.


You place the plastic cups inside the shirt and stretch the fabric tight across the top of each cup and secure with a rubber band.  For the pink shirt, we placed and secured each cup and then Shelby used the markers to draw whatever she wants within the shape of the cup.  For the white shirt, we laid the shirt flat with a wax paper covered cookie sheet inside and drew the designs on the shirt, then added and secured the cups once we had our design planned out.

 

Now, the fun begins!  You use the medicine dropper to "drop" rubbing alcohol onto the areas that are stretched over the cups.  As the rubbing alcohol hits the drawing, the colors will start to bleed which mimics a tie-dye effect.  You will want to be careful which colors you put next to each other on the shirt because when some colors bleed together they may turn into a brown color (this happened in one spot on the white shirt).















As the rubbing alcohol dries, you can begin to remove the rubber bands and cups, either to re-position and being adding alcohol in new spots or to remove entirely if the area is mostly dry.  Our shirts came out pretty cool and Shelby had a great time!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of Shelby wearing one of her shirts, but here is a photo of the finished product as it was still drying a bit.














Going off of advice I saw on other websites, we did a heat treatment to both t-shirts to help keep the colors from bleeding when washed with other laundry.  You can do the heat treatment by either putting the completed shirt in a hot dryer (we did this on the anti-bacterial setting, which is really hot!) or by ironing the shirts with a very hot iron, preferably with an old towel between the iron and the shirt (so you are ironing on the surface of the towel).


I have already promised my nephew that we'll make shirts for him soon.  I just need to find a time that works when he can come over for an afternoon of "crafts" and baking!  I can't wait!!!