KatieAnn’s baby shower is less than THREE. DAYS. AWAY. Yikes! My to-do list is getting shorter, but we’re still rushing to get everything accomplished before 2pm, Saturday. One of my to-do’s was to come up with an activity. Thanks to Pinterest, I found a “wishes for baby” keepsake card idea. All of our guests will fill out one for KatieAnn, and then I’ll add them to one of her baby books after the shower! With a touch of Photoshop and a pretty font, I created my own notecards to match our shower theme. I thought they would be a sweet-little-something-to-do rather than the “smell the diaper game”. While I’m still brainstorming other ideas, I wanted to make it available to you before I forget. After the shower is over on Saturday, I’ll be getting ready for my high schooler’s exam week plus putting the finishing touches on the house. Yay! Enjoy!
Download your own baby shower keepsake cards here: And like always, it’s free for my IG/blogging/pinterest friends! 
Wishes for Baby Girl After mentioning my guest room wall art project on Instagram, I’ve gotten a lot of requests for a tutorial from my high school students and IG friends. Since then, I decided to make this project part of my spring curriculum in a few of my classes! Because of this, I made a curriculum tutorial…and just had to share it with you!
{FYI: I used Photoshop CS5 for this tutorial} If you don’t have Photoshop, compile a folder of the images that you would like to use and sweetly ask someone who has Photoshop to make this for you…this tutorial will take an experienced Photoshopper 5-10 minutes (with printing time) to complete.
This tutorial is for beginners. (and if you’re a beginner…hooray for trying this out!!) It should be pretty straight forward, but if you have any questions, comment below and I’ll try my best to answer! Enjoy!
Step 1: Pick out your Mom’s favorite hymn (or pick your own favorite song, hymn, page out of a book) scan it, and open it into Photoshop.
Step 2: Crop.
Step 3: Open the image you’ll place on top of the hymn. I googled “free vintage botanicals” and found a hi-res picture of this flower, saved it to my desktop and opened it in Photoshop. If you have old books with vintage illustrations, you can simply scan in the illustrations just as you did with the hymn. Other fun image ideas: horses, owls, flowers, vintage furniture.
Step 4: Right click the background layer and select “duplicate layer”. Press OK.
Step 5: While your background copy is highlighted blue, go to “Select” and choose “Color Range”.
Step 6: In color range, your curser will turn into an eye-dropper tool. Use the eyedropper tool to click the background on the actual picture (the green star represents the place that I clicked). This step tells Photoshop to select everything in the photo BESIDES the color you clicked on.
Step 7: Press OK. Once OK is pressed, you will see a selection around the the image.
Step 8: Press DELETE on your keyboard then turn off the “eyeball” next to the background layer. Your image will now be by itself on a transparent background (a gray and white checked background). If some of the background remains behind the image, use your eraser to clean it up.
Step 9 and 10: To deselect the image, press Command D on a Mac, Ctrl D on a PC. This step will take away the selection around the image. Press the “V” key to select the move tool, or just click on it in your tools panel. Click on the image and drag it up and over to the hymn. Do not let go of your image until it’s dragged directly over the hymn picture.
Step 11: After your image makes it on top of your hymn, it’s time to resize! Make sure your “Show transform controls” box is checked. Hold down shift and drag the corners of the image to resize. It may appear blurry when you resize it. Just press “Enter” after it’s resized to set the image, and the image will turn sharp again.
Step 12: This step is optional…I like to see through the image to make it look more vintage so I simply turned down the opacity between 80-85%.
Step 13: Print and frame! I haven’t framed my prints yet, but I’ll be sure to take pictures when I do!! I made a series of 6 prints, and will be framing them in two rows of three above the guest room bed. (P.S. I printed my photos on 8.5×11 matte photo paper from a Canon printer).
Step 14: Get creative!! To make it look more vintage, sponge dark tea on the paper! The possibilities are endless! 
I’m seriously ready to start nesting. If the home loan goes through okay, we should be moving into our first home next week!!! But because I’ve got nursery on the brain and no physical room to nest in at this point, I wanted to continue planning. Over the years, I’ve found that too much planning is a good thing. (that’s what I’m telling myself at least!!) Tonight, I created a mood board on Olio. Of course, since this is a mood board, it’s supposed to convey the mood of the room, but not the room literally, or in its entirety. I didn’t display the rug, the exact crib, crib bedding, or changing table. And as much as I would like, I don’t think I’ll be placing fresh flowers in the nursery every week! But…that would be awesome.
So here it is! KatieAnn’s nursery mood board! As you can see, I’m all about soft pastels and florals. I can’t get enough! I wanted to keep everything light, fresh elegant without screaming, “I’M THE BABY…GOTTA LOVE ME!” (sorry I couldn’t help but make a cheesy Dinosaurs joke…wow, I’m showing my age!) I love mixing patterns, textures and colors, and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing in the actual nursery! I’m also excited about adding little touches like the dress form and rocking horse…I’m a details girl, and it’s the little things that make me happy (and hopefully KatieAnn too!).
If mood boards are also your cup of tea…you’ve gotta try OlioBoard. The best part is that it’s free! Yay!
After mentioning on Instagram last night that I’m teaching my Photo II students advanced Photoshop this week, I was asked by several budding photographers to share a few tips! Of course, the teacher in me was excited to hear that other guys and gals really wanted to learn too, so I just had to share!! The first two “handouts” are thanks to Chris Orwig through his Lynda.com tutorial that I’m head-over-heels for.
This next tip is for budding professional wedding/portrait photographers who may have a large group of pictures to edit at one time. I suggest using Photoshop Actions to batch edit photos. I batch edit based on light. For instance, if I have a group of reception photos with the same type of lighting, I’ll edit all of the pictures at the same time using actions. This saves a TON of time since I don’t have to individually edit each picture. Of course, I always go through to each picture and tweak as needed. I use Totally Rad Actions for my photos and manipulate their recipes to create my own spin on my photos. And, as with most photography software, these actions come with a price, but I have found that it is well worth the investment. However, if actions aren’t in your budget at this time, there are hundreds of free actions online. Just Google, “free Photoshop actions” and then look under the Google images for your favorite!
Picture credit: notesonawedding.com
I’ve been having honey cravings lately. Which got me thinking….
Honey place holder shower favors!!!
We’ve been trying to come up with a darling place holder idea for the table, and since I also wanted to make a little shower favor for each guest, I thought, why not combine it!? Our family and friends are flying and driving in from all over to be here for us, and I wanted to give them a little token of our appreciation for “beeing so sweet!” Plus, I love how much it ties in with the sweet garden party theme.
Of course, I need to price out all of the materials and make a few before I decide to make the entire batch of 50+ honey jars, but I’m excited to try it out.
I’m going to my local coop tomorrow to price the local honey, since the farmer’s market isn’t up and running yet. I’ve also got my eye on itty bitty jelly jars to put the honey in. I have scrap fabric to cover the jars, so all I need is just a bit of twine to tie it all together. Oh, and it wouldn’t be complete without a cute little nametag! So I’ll be designing those cuties this weekend too!
Another baby shower update, we just sent out our invites to be printed! We changed the shape slightly (the green background is not a part of the card; it’s just separating the white card from the white background!) We also changed the colors of a few things, and tweaked our registry page. Whew! It’s nice to check something else off the ol’ baby shower to-do list!
Yes, it’s true! I made my first newborn beanie yesterday! Woohoo!
Those who followed my blog and IG around Christmas time may have seen my crocheted boot toppers, and may have even bought a pair! And some of you may have made your own chunky scarf tutorial from watching my YouTube video! However…
…I have a confession to make: I don’t even know how to read a crochet pattern! (or at least I didn’t , until last night). A sweet lady in the Wal-Mart yarn isle told me how to make the boot toppers, so I had no need to read a pattern. As for my scarves, someone also taught me, in person, how to make those years ago…so again, no need for a pattern. (That’s why I referred to my chain links as “coffee beans” in my YouTube tutorial!)
Quite a few of you have asked me to post a tutorial on how to make the baby beanie. Unlike those other crocheted pretties, I used someone else’s tutorial to make this adorable little hat!
But, if you’re anything like me, this might be your first time attempting to read a pattern. That’s why I’ve included, not only the link to the pattern, but links to the same YouTube videos that I watched to make myself familiar with the different crochet directions that the pattern calls for. Good luck! I can’t wait to see your itty bitty newborn beanies!!
Link to the pattern I bought on Etsy: I bought it for $3.75 as opposed to the $35 I would have spent on the same exact pre-made one on etsy!
Firework Hat Pattern
How to make a crochet chain “ch”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtmOEzm_OXQ
How to yarn over “yo”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzB_Ss1jYM
How to single crochet “sc”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqhaQQajt0U
How to half double crochet “hdc”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxA2osb5Qfk
“2hdc”: means to do the half double crochet twice in one through one chain.
How to slip stitch “sl st”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJE1UTuUjxM
Good luck!
As I’ve been gathering DIY ideas for the baby shower, I stumbled across these cute tutorials and had to pass them along. This first tutorial is from Martha Stewart .
These dahlialike pom-poms appear to float in the air; in reality, they are hung from the ceiling with monofilament, imparting a cheerful radiance to any party.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Bend wire into a loop to fit around napkin, and twist end around loop to secure. Read more at Marthastewart.com: Tissue Paper Pom-Poms How-To – Martha Stewart CraftsThis second tutorial came from the blog, Bumpsmitten. (You’ll find the printable wheel template here).
We invited a few kids to the baby shower. The “kid’s table” is actually going to be adorable picnic blankets! Of course, I couldn’t just lay out a simple blanket and call it a day, so I’ve decided to create “interactive center pieces” for the kids to play with as they enjoy their picnic lunch! One of the center pieces is a basket full of handmade pinwheels adorning the colors of the shower. I loved the simplicity of this tutorial (I’ll definitely be using it!).
And there you have it! The pinwheel and pompom tutorials that we will be using for KatieAnn’s baby shower!
For KatieAnn’s sweet spring garden-themed baby shower, we wanted the invitations to prepare our guests for what’s to come at the party! This is the first draft of our invitations. I may change a few minor things before printing, but for the most part, here it is! Each invite will be printed on hard recycled cardstock to give it a more organic garden feel. (The green background is not a part of the invitation…I just put it there so that the invitation wouldn’t blend in with the white blog background.)
As much as I love over-the-top girly invitations, one wouldn’t have made sense for this party. When I’m invited to a baby shower as a guest, I read into the invitation for clues on what to wear, so I took that into account when making this invitation! I also wanted my guests to open the invitations and feel like they were receiving a sweet little treat! Almost like they’re opening up a treasured ticket to the party (you know, like how Harry felt when he received his invitation to Hogwarts!) 
Even though this party is in honor of our sweet KatieAnn, I want each guest to feel truly special and treasured, even before they get to the party. I don’t want to make my guests feel like I’ve just purchased a pack of 100 generic invitations and sent it to everyone I ever knew just because I wanted a lot of people to bring presents. This invitation is truly special to me and I’m proud to send it out to our special guests!
It’s Monday! Besides getting back to my amazing students (I’m currently teaching them about HDR photography, and we’re having a blast!), I have a mile-long after-school to-do list that I’m eager to get started on.
Today’s focus is about all things baby shower.
But first, I have to show you this adorable little comic that one of my students made for another class regarding her interpretation of our non-profit, OWIP! (OWIP.org) Yes!…that cute little teacher is me! I told her that if this was a project for my class, she would get an A for sure! ;D
The picture below is the future site of our baby shower. Now…keep in mind that by the time May 19th rolls around, we expect the trees to be filled in and pretty, and the grass a little greener. (If it rains, our plan B is in the barn!)
Can you see the potential? (Normally I would tell you to close your eyes as I describe this pretty scene…but I wouldn’t advise that if you’re reading this post….)
…I see a long farmhouse table in the middle of the grass-covered road concealed in white table cloths surrounded by adorable mix-matched wooden farm chairs. The bright spring center pieces will bring life to the long white table, while cute little painted furniture and decorations frame the area that will become the site of the shower and festivities. The trees have volunteered to hold lights and pompoms, and the side of the barn will adorn something pretty as the backdrop to the long table. The tractor-worn road will be lined with either ball jars filled with flowers or something equally as pretty to lead guests to the site of the celebration. A wagon will be cleaned and decorated to place our pot luck dinner food. This type of meal is one of my favorite traditions of our yearly family reunions so I wanted to incorporate that special detail into the party. It doesn’t matter how much I try to make the food amazing….it will never compare to the amazing food my family will share when they bring their own dish!
I have to say, I think (hope) the decorations will be the easy part. The hardest part about all of this is finalizing the guest list. I dread this task. Because Jeff and I will be busy moving, I have asked my families if it would be possible to work together create one big shower. By doing this, it makes planning, expenses and schedules a lot lighter on everyone, but like a wedding, things could get really big, really fast.
After visiting the farm this weekend, I counted all of the wooden chairs available to us, and we cannot exceed 35 guests.
That may seem like a lot, but the other catch to this shower is that it is a male/female celebration. This was very important to me because (not only is Jeff half of the reason we’re gathering to celebrate) but because my Dad and Papaw are such a HUGE part of my life. I couldn’t imagine taking part in this celebration without them.
Plus, Jeff and I are very close to a few couples who we get together with often. We’re so much in each other’s lives that it just seems wrong to leave the guys at home why the ladies celebrate this important time in our lives!
Because of the importance of having our special gentlemen at the party, the guest list suddenly doubled, which isn’t a bad thing, but it makes seating a little more valuable.
So that’s where we’re at in the planning process. Laura (my sister) is responsible for my family’s guest list, Lorinda (Jeff’s mom) is responsible for his family’s guest list, and I am responsible for the friend’s guest list. Let’s hope finalizing the guest list is as painless as possible!
As always, I’ll keep you updated on the progress when it happens!
It may be because I’m hungry at the present moment, or it may be because I’m pregnant (or a combination of both), but these mommy food blogs have caught my attention!
Those of you who know me know that I’m not gourmet chef, not by a long shot. Jeff and I get together with an amazing group of couples every week or so, and everyone brings a side dish while whoever is hosting that week makes the main course. The women in our group are AMAZING cooks. They’ve made some of the best southern cooking (my mouth is watering just thinking about the meals that they’ve prepared!). I, on the other hand, am infamous for bringing pretzels and drinks as side dishes, and for the main meal…one time after work, I was so exhusted (and unprepared to make a gigantic dinner) that I opted for McDonalds “buy in bulk” chicken nuggets. Oh yes…that’s me. And I’m thankful that my friends still love me. Oh yeah, and I’m also known for falling asleep on their couches if everyone stays together past 10pm…but that’s a story for another day.
With everything going on in my life at the current moment, making gourmet meals has not been a priority. Teaching high schoolers, teaching an online photography class, teaching photography downtown, and packing to move has kept me pretty busy to say the least. Jeff and I usually make extra of the meals we prepare on the weekend and eat on them throughout the week. BUT, as a mom I know that’s not going to cut it, and making healthy well-balanced meals for KatieAnn is a top priority. That’s why I’ve been paying closer attention to food blogs, especially blogs made by moms. I love having another busy mom recommend tried and true healthy meals that I can prepare around my schedule (and on a budget).
Below, I’ve listed a few blogs I’m starting to follow for inspiration and recipes. If you know any awesome cooking sites, please feel free to share too!
http://thegourmandmom.com/ The Gourmand Mom
http://smittenkitchen.com/ The Smitten Kitchen
http://thepioneerwoman.com/ The Pioneer Woman
http://foodformyfamily.com/ Food for my Family
Groups
