Free Photo Editing

I love photos, and I love all the different editing that you can do with them, unfortunately once again my limited computer ability limits what I can do. I found this wonderful FREE site call picmonkey, that allows you to edit photos with all kinds of tools, with ease!  Come on if I can figure it out anyone can!

http://www.picmonkey.com/

I did this one of Boogie, the head is a little messed up but you get the idea!

Then I messed with one of my pics of Monkey

and finally an engagement photo!

Looks like I have a lot of playing to do!!!

Well I am going to try a button

Save the Dates.....save some money :)

I love the idea of a Save the Date ( I refuse to use the initials it says STD...really for a wedding ha ha) Jerm and I are having a Summer wedding and I was afraid that many people would be going on family vacations and such.  I sent these out MONTHS ago but I wanted to post my DIY Save the Dates, I have NO experience with making cards, unless you count the countless ones I made with my preschool students?  I wanted them to look pretty and well thought out, but not professional, I want everyone to know this is a DIY wedding, so things wont be perfect, but they will be original and ours!

Supplies:

• Blank Cards with Envelopes, bought mine on sale at Michael's....closest Hobby Lobby is in Louisville :(
• Photo corners (clear)
• pack of magnetic sheets, got mine at Wal Mart for under a dollar a pack, I bought two but only needed one.
• rubber stamps of your choice ( I got these at Michael's also....on sale!) Clear stamps would have worked better, but they weren't on sale and I couldn't find any that I really liked!

• Stamp ink in your choice of colors, Our wedding colors are black, white and Tiffany blue, but Tiffany blue is a trademarked color so I just buy the color that is closest to it, unfortunately it is different names for different companies, but I have my trusty swatch of fabric that I carry with me!)

Optional:

I have this X-acto paper cutter, but you can just use scissors if you don't have one, or I bought mine for like $10 a long time ago from Wal Mart, it works well and I use it for a lot of things!

Save the Date:

 My friend Emily took some really beautiful engagement photos for us, then she used photo shop and created this save the date card for us, ( I wrote down what I wanted it to say) put it on a jump drive, and I took it down to Wal Mart and made as many copies as I needed! Thank you Emily!!

Making the Save the Dates:

I used my Xacto to cut the magnetic sheets into the size that I wanted, I realized that a medium sized magnet in the middle of the card would hold it just fine.

The magnetic sheets have an adhesive side to them so you just simply peel back the paper and stick it to them :)

I then stamped the card on the front side, at first I was really picky about how much ink was on it, and that it matched up perfectly, but I kinda like how the ink was lighter in some areas, still obsessed with how they lined up though!
*When stamping I used a blank piece of paper under my cards so no excess ink would get on my work table!

I then slipped the clear photo corners on each corner of the Save the Date, and just simply placed it where I wanted it to go.  I guess you could put the clear photo corners down then slip the Save the Date in them, but I thought that way gave too much room for error!

Using only a part of one of the rubber stamps I stamped the corners of the front of each envelope, this was actually very easy to get just right and soon I was flying though them.

After stamping all of the envelope's front sides, I then repeated the process on the back of each envelope ( I wanted to allow them time to dry so no ink smeared, I moved from oldest stamped to newest) I also added that beautiful detailed key stamp to the center of each envelope, the keys play another part in our wedding (tale to come later) This one is crooked, I had extras, so I didn't send this one, its a good idea to allow for some mistakes and make a few extras!

There you go the finished product! They may not be perfect or identical but it's not like people will be showing them to each other to compare them.......right?  Plus they are homemade and are perfect for me in design sweet, simple and classy.  Well at least I think so :)

A big thanks goes out to Emily for creating the beautiful Save the Date, Cheryl for all your design input and help, and Shawnna for helping me stamp and put all these Save the Dates together!!!!

Oh and by the way, after total costs, each Save the Date cost me about $0.38....I love saving money!! I might have been able to get them made cheaper somewhere else, but I am in love with these things and so proud of them!!

Sanders Springs

Our family is big on nature, we love to be outdoors and like taking walks, hiking, swimming, playing in the yard ect..  A friend of mine ( Ms Emily) loves to take photos, she had recently bought a new camera and needed test subjects.....she gets to practice with her camera, we get to be outside on a beautiful day, and I ended up with some fantastic shots of my family. (Babydoll was at her mom's house that day so there are none of her...darn it)

How many people does it take to put a baby carrier on Jerm?

I refuse to wear these things, and since Jerm said he would Cheryl thought it would be funny to buy us an extremely girly and PINK one!

The boys playing in the water:

Love how Bubby's feet are not touching the ground in this picture!!

 Such cute little baby piggy's (toes)

Jerm almost hit Boogie with a tree when he turned too quickly and too close to the tree!

love this silly picture

My baby boy, looks so sweet.

My favorite picture of Boogie and I.

Pretty Baby!

Jerm hates to take pictures, but I think he looks great in this one!

Vacation Time!!

July 2011 Jerm and I went to Cumberland Falls KY, oh my it was one of the best vacations I have been on!  We went hiking, swimming, site seeing, and just spent three days and two nights together alone....no children!!!! Of course we had to find baby sitters for all those lil ones, four baby sitters for four kiddos! LOL

We stayed at the Cumberland Inn, it is ran by the local college and many of the students work there, great prices, super comfy rooms, indoor pool, and hot tub!

Oh did I mention that the hotel had a free taxidermy museum?  I know it sounds weird but it was actually pretty interesting!

It also had a cross museum, with a very large collection of crosses and other religious items, this was free also, the local college that runs the hotel is a Christian College.

The hotel lobby was beautiful and they offered free breakfast, real breakfast not that cold cereal and bagels stuff.

We need to go back sometime during the Fall or Winter I mean check out that Fireplace, so cozy!

We traveled to a couple places during the three days we were there.  Luckily a friend of mine is a teacher and has taken kids on a field trip to this area.  She had a whole list of places to go, some we did, and some we will have to go back and see.

Cumberland Falls National Park:

We actually got lost hiking...on a TRAIL! ha ha

We visited Levi Jackson State Park, there were a couple things to see there, and it was a very interesting step back into time.  Jerm and I both love history and we received a couple history lessons here, and we were out in nature at the same time, perfect!

McHargue's Mill:

(building is a reproduction, but all the working mill pieces are original and date back to 1773, they grind corn mill there still today)

Defeated Camp Burial Ground:

Original Pioneer Homes and other buildings were turned into a self guided museum tour, that took you back in time.

We are living in Kentucky, so there was no way that we could pass up visiting the very first KFC ever!

Hey look it's a sign!

Some KFC memorabilia:

Wish these prices were for today:

On the day that we were going home we planned on visiting Cumberland Gap State Park in the morning then making the drive home that afternoon. (Only a 3 hour drive)  Unfortunately, that was the day that it decided to rain, so Cumberland Gap was cut a little short.

Cumberland Gap, you drive through the mountain in an underground tunnel:

We enjoyed our vacation so much I think that we might go back there for the Honeymoon this year, it was very relaxing and the one on one time we were able to have was amazing!  Oh by the way the day that we got to Cumberland Ky Jeremy asked and I said......

YES!!!!!

Why am I up at 3am.....

So when I was a kid I loved the movie Pocahontas, you know the Disney version with the cute little humming bird, and adorable, loveable raccoon named Meeko.  Well, racoon's are not adorable or loveable outside of Disney!!! We have a raccoon that is destroying the house, just to get inside the house.  One of my cats already suffered injuries due to fighting this animal off!  Every time we close up an opening it finds a new one.  I know that they breed quickly, I need to find a solution fast to prevent this animal, or animals from getting in my house! Animal control, and the Wildlife people won't do anything about it, and I doubt that an exterminator relocating it will solve the problem due to just more coming back.  Jerm walked into the living room one night to find it sitting there on the floor so he proceeded to take apart my broom, attach a kitchen knife to the end of it with Gorilla tape, and believe that he could spear the animal. I do have to say that seeing Jerm go all cave man was quite entertaining but I knew that it wouldn't solve the issue!  I don't want to kill it, just prevent it from getting into my house!!!

Poor Baby Kitty:

Jerm's Anniversary Gift

Here is a little anniversary gift that I made Jeremy (Jerm) for our two year anniversary.  I got the idea off Pinterest of course, but I can't remember where now, so if this was yours let me know and I will give you the credit for the idea!!

All you need is Glue, (craft glue or paper glue seems to work fine), Scissors, a small hand held Hole Punch, some kind of Paper, (I used some leftover scrapbook paper that I had on hand and bought a few pieces to get the exact look that I was going for), Scrabble Pieces, Binder Rings and a Deck of playing cards.

I then listed on a piece of paper 52 reasons that I love Jerm, things that make me think about him, and the important memories and dates of our relationship...a little harder than I thought it would be.  I then traced around a playing card to get the size of paper that I needed.  I proceeded to cut all that scrapbook paper to size and glued it on the playing cards front and back. ( BTW I used the Joker cards that come with every deck to make the front and back covers)  Then I just punched two holes along the left side of each card, ( I did this by eye, if you want you can measure to be more exact but all the kids were home and he was at work, so I didn't have that kind of time on my hands) I used the scrap pieces of all that cut scrapbook paper to number and write my 52 reasons ect.  I wanted them to alternate reasons, things that remind me of him and special memories so I organized all them before I committed to gluing them down on the covered playing cards.

After arranging all the playing cards in order, I then simply slipped the back cover onto the binder rings, then went backwards from 52-1.  I took the front cover glued a little definition that I liked on it, glued our initials on the corner (scrabble pieces) and then attached it to the binder rings too.

Front Cover:

Back Cover:

If I would have had this blog when I made this little book I probably would have taken more pictures to show the process, but I can only hope that my directions didn't confuse anyone.  Jerm really liked the little book, homemade and heartfelt gifts are very popular in this family.  He even confessed to looking through it from time to time just as a reminder!

The Chair that was free...but was hard to look at!

A couple of years ago my mom gave me a glider rocking chair, the stool to the chair was missing but hey free is free!!!  I wanted to use the chair for Boogie's nursery, but there was no way that it would look good in there as it was.

So I painted the chair white to match all the other baby furniture, there are spots on the underside of the chair that I didn't quite get painted very well, but meh who will see it?

Then I had to recover those cushions, Boogie's room was done in teal and chocolate brown.  I also had some leftover fabric from making her crib bedding so tada, new cushions that match her room perfectly, and who doesn't love a great polka dot fabric!!!!

I am really pleased with the way that it turned out, there are imperfections on the chair but I don't think Boogie minds, plus free chair, extra fabric, and a perfectly matching chair for the nursery, how could it get any better than that?

Hmm let's see how this goes

Well, no one can say that I haven't tried.  I am not great with computers, I have those basics down I know that my computer is a gateway (not a black one) and that we have Windows 7 (not aluminum ones..long story) but anything advanced and well......you get the point.  I have ran across so many blogs out there, some helpful, some inspirational, some educational, and some well not my style.  I decided that I am going to give it a shot, so hopefully I can share ideas, crafts, my not so little, little families antics, and well anything else I can cram on here.  So here we go enjoy the ride...oh and any helpful hints or pointers are extremely welcome at this moment because I honestly don't think I know what I am getting into!