Picnik

I have been wanting to share the love of Picnik for awhile now. Picnik is a lovely little online photo editing website. It's free to use the basic features, or, you can sign up and pay a ridiculously low fee to gain access to the advanced features (wrinkle remover being one of them.) It is extremely user friendly and does a wonderful job enhancing my photos. I eventually plan on purchasing Photoshop Elements (come on Costco, please put it on sale again soon!), but in the meantime, this works well enough to tide me over.

Here is an example of what I have done using Picnik:

Before. (A pile of completed tags ordered for Mother's Day.)
After.

Trust me, pictures of your kids will turn out even better! Try it!

A Pretty Poppy

I think my "I can make that myself" phase began a year or so ago when a couple of us girls got together to make hair bows for our daughters. We sat in a living room and made bows till our fingers hurt. It was so fun. Prior to that experience, I had enjoyed sewing and quilting. But the bows...well that just brought out a whole new crafty side to me. Since then I have transformed into an aspiring crafter. I don't feel like I can truly call myself a real crafter since I don't actually complete many of the crafts I endeavor to begin. But I love to be inspired, and when I actually have the time, I love to create things.

The other night while watching the remaining few minutes of the Suns game, (be still my heart, I love the Suns (READ: STEVE NASH) so much, I threw together this ridiculously easy poppy pretty. (If you remember, around here we refer to hair accessories as 'pretties', coined by Ms. Lynsee herself.) I loved it, and wore it the next day, when I happened to be going to lunch with a bunch of mothers. One actually liked it so much that I took it out of my hair and gave it to her. So, this afternoon while my house is insanely messy, but also insanely quiet, I made another one, this time complete with a tutorial. Enjoy!

Materials:
A scrap of red felt
Black thread
Needle
Little black beads
A clip or headband (or both!)

Step one: Cut out three slightly imperfect circles, each one smaller than the other.
Step two: Layer them.

Step three: Sew on some little black beads. However many you choose. I doubled my thread and sewed each bead three times. (I have a little terror, I mean, toddler. Good thing she's a little sweet pea.)

Step four: Cut out a little tab to sew on the back over the not so pretty stuff.
Step five: Sew on.

Step six: Squish, to give some character.
Step seven: Slide on over a clip or headband.
5-10 minutes later, you are all set with a fun and cute accessory! {Tutorials posted for personal use only, not for resale. Thank you.}

Yum!

I've discovered a wonderful website!  Let me tell you that I will be ordering some of this soon!  I think it is the coolest thing EVER!  Okay, not ever, but it's pretty cool.  If you go to Mix my granola  you can pick and choose each and every ingredient that goes into your granola.  The possibilities are endless.  Let me just share...cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, pineapple, strawberries, kiwi, cherries, mango, goji berries.  I'm salivating!  That's not even the end.  You then get to choose what nuts you would like and seeds.  They also offer chocolate!  They mix up your request and ship it off to you!  One more plus...everything is organic.  Oh man, I can't wait to bite into a bit of this!

So many giveaways!

A bunch of our super crafty and creative friends are hosting giveaways right now. They are all pretty amazing, so we wanted to spread the word so no one misses out!

Shannon of Shannon Makes Stuff is giving away a $60 gift certificate to CSN stores, an online shopping mall with over 200 shops!

Tricia of BabyNightNightBoutique is giving away some really cute hand made clothing for women and children.

Becky Higgins, the scrap booking goddess, is hosting a photography giveaway lasting the entire month. Every day photographers from around the world are giving away a free session to a family local to their area. It's HUGE!

GO CHECK IT OUT!

Woo hoo!

We were featured yesterday on One Pretty Thing!

How exciting for us!

Thanks, Shannon for submitting our stuff!

Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!

If you can't guess from Heidi and my posts, we are definitely in the PARTY mode!  Why, you may ask?   I want to throw a party so I can try out all of the beautiful decor things I have spotted while blog surfing.  One of my favorite inspirations is this Lemon Leaf Garland from O Happy Day.  Nothing brings on the nostalgia of summer like fresh lemons!  Now, let me admit, I'm not thinking of summer days in Arizona, but of summer days with cool summer nights.  Where, exactly, does that happen?  Let me know!  Do you know what also reminds me of summer?  Limes.  Do you think I could throw a few limes in the mix?

Balloon Canopy

I stumbled upon this awhile ago while blog surfing. I can't imagine anything more unique and pretty. Guess it's time to plan another party!

{Created by landscape architect and designer Gustafson Porter using helium balloons and some shade cloths.}