14 Weeks to Beautiful Photos with Kensie M

I have been interested in photography for a long time.  Back in high school I took a photography class but much of the information I learned about F-stops and shutter speeds went in one ear and out the other since all I had to work with was a point and shoot.  (But the dark room sure was a lot of fun!)  

Almost 2 years ago my wonderful husband surprised me with my first big girl camera.  I can tell a difference with my pictures--but I know that I can do so much more if I would take the time to learn!  One of my goals this year is to do a photography challenge to help my photography skills.  

Enter my good friend, Kensie.  Kensie is an amazing photographer--she's actually amazing at pretty much everything that she does.  She took our family pictures a few years back and I just love them.

Starting next Monday, June 2, she is hosting a blog series called 14 Weeks to Beautiful Photos. 

Each week she will feature a guest photographer that will blog about a new topic.  There will be challenges and giveaways as well.  I am so excited to be following along and working on the challenges.  And did I mention it's all FREE?  Yea!

So go check it out and spread the word!

Family History Wall

A few years ago the seedling of an idea began to grow in my mind.  I wanted to create a space in our home featuring our family history.  After years of planning and collecting--and altering plans because of moves--my plans are coming to life.  It's not in its final form by any means.  I still would like to collect pictures to add--but it's a start.

Here are some of the items I've hung so far:

Engagement photos of my parents and my in-laws

Four generation photo of me when I was a baby

Handkerchief which belonged to my great grandma

 

Teething ring that belonged to my husband's uncle who died as a child

State of Oklahoma (where we lived for 9 years)-- I bought the shape and cut it with my Silhouette

 

Watercolor map of our town in North Carolina--done on this great site

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

Scripture--Joshua 24:15

Picture of an LDS temple

Family Tree (cut from my Silhouette)

Copy of a list of family goals written by my grandparents years ago-- 4 things we will do daily, weekly, monthly and yearly

4 blank frames . . . which I will eventually add silhouettes of my boys (using this method)

I love how this all came together and I am excited to add to it--hopefully some wedding/engagement photos of our grandparents.  Because we believe that families can be linked together forever I want my boys to know where they came from.  This is just one small step I've made to share that with them.  

What do you do to share your family history with your children and others?

 

How to Make a Fabric Quiet Book Cover

Want to make a fabric cover for your quiet book?  I gave some brief instructions a few years ago how I made this cover but with all the extra quiet book pages I've sewn over the past few years I needed a few more covers, and why not make them all matching while I'm at it?  Something simple and sturdy to keep all my pages contained.

This is what I came up with:

I used quilted fabric to make my covers nice and thick and added two big chunky buttons just for fun.

All the pages are held together inside using three 1" binder rings looped through buttons holes in the cover.

The back has a nice big zippered pocket to hold any loose pieces.

I love to see my quiet book pages all neatly bound together sitting on the shelf.

Ready and waiting for little hands to come and play.

Want to make your own fabric quiet book cover?  Follow the directions below:

This cover is measured to fit my 7" x 8.5" quiet book pages.  Feel free to adjust the sizing to fit your own page dimensions.

Cut a 10.5" x 42" piece of fabric.  Fold in half.  Using a fabric pencil or marker, mark your fabric as indicated below.

Unfold fabric and cut along the 5 inch line marked along with a little "V" snip on each end.  This is where your zipper will go.  Fold the fabric toward the back creating a 5/8" opening.  Press flat with your iron.

Lay a 7" zipper on the wrong side of fabric over zipper opening, pull tab facing down.  Pin zipper and sew around opening to secure zipper in place.  Yeah!  You have the zipper done.  The hardest part is over.

Place a quiet book page on top of  the cover and center it over the 1.25" area.  Use a fabric pencil or marker to mark where the holes are onto your cover.

Using the place holding marks in the above step, place six 5/8" marks as shown below.

Using the button hole setting on your sewing machine create six button holes where your 5/8" marks are.  Carefully snip open button holes once done.

Unzip the zipper (this is important) and fold the quiet book cover in half.  Pin raw edges and sew at 1/4" (don't sew along the fold.)

Clip corners (be careful to not clip too close to the stitching).  This will help the corner lay better.

Now turn your cover right-side-out  through the zipper opening.

Use and iron to press your cover flat.  Stitch along your three marked lines from top to bottom.

Add a velcro closure to book cover and flap.

Sew buttons onto flap.

Insert quiet book pages into book by looping 1" binder rings through the button holes and quiet book pages.

Lovely little quiet books all done!

$3 Silhouette Art

Some of you may remember this sweet silhouette art I made for my daughters bedroom several years ago.  They haven't hung on the wall for the last three years since we moved into our new house but baby girl #2 is on her way the beginning of June and I just had to reuse them in the nursery.  To be honest I am completely in love with these silhouettes and am glad for an excuses to have them on the wall again.

I just love the combination of pink, white, and gray together.

And since we'll have two girls in the house now it was the perfect reason to hang up this picture Jeanine gave to me when we were girls.  I love it and have kept it all these years.  It says, "I loved you too much to just be your friend -- So God let me be your sister."

I've had so much fun putting this room together.  It's simple without too much fluff.   It might sound strange but, while I love to decorate, I have this fear of too much "stuff" so I keep things really simple.

I still can't believe that I found these beautiful little frames at the dollar store.  You never know what treasures that place is going to have.

See my original post on making these silhouette's here.

Baptism Dress

It's been an exciting time at our house.  My daughter just had her eighth birthday.  In our church when you turn eight you can choose to be baptized.  She's worked diligently over the last year to prepare herself for baptism and has looked forward to it. (Learn more about LDS baptism here.)

I wanted to make her a special white dress for her special day.  We went to the fabric store several months ago to look at fabric and patterns.  I had a lot of requirements for this dress. I wanted to make something simple but beautiful.  I wanted my daughter to love it and be something that fit her style.  I also wanted a pattern that wasn't overly complicated because I had a lot on my plate at the time.  It's kind of silly but I fretted and worried about making this dress way too much.  After a long period of deciding and then re-deciding I finally settled on McCall's pattern M5795.  I used this same pattern to make my daughter a flower girl dress for my sister wedding a few years ago.   It's rare that I use the same pattern twice but I love it when I do.  After I've made a dress once I have a better idea of how it all comes together and looks in the end and so the second time I can confidently make changes to the dress to make it look how I want.  This time around I re-drew the sleeve pattern to make it more of a cap sleeve, removed the darts in the bodice, and took some of the fullness out of the skirt.  I also added two inches of satin to the hem.

I wanted to take some pictures of my daughter in her dress to have as a keepsake.  We've had a record breaking winter so even in April it was chilly and the trees were bare.  She braved the cold though and we got a few pictures outside.

You can get a better idea of the whole dress here with the satin along the bottom.  The freshwater pearls she got from her grandpa added a nice touch to the overall look too.

Anyone who knows my daughter knows how much she loves her hair in a pony tail.  She won't let anyone but her immediate family see her with her hair down.  This was the first time I curled her hair with a curing iron.  After completing the first curl her mouth hung open in awe and I had no problem convincing her to wear her hair down after that.  Sure made me smile!

I can't believe how big my little girl has gotten!  I just love these sweet pictures.